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Sharon D Clarke’s performance of the showstopping musical number “Lot’s Wife” in the second act of Caroline, Or Change will almost certainly be among the Broadway highlights weighed in the minds of Tony Award voters when they cast their ballots for Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Musical. The number, and the performance, are harrowing: Clarke’s character Caroline, the Black maid in an early 1960s Southern White Jewish household, has reached a breaking point of sorts, her years of struggle and loss erupting in one exchange of words with the young Jewish boy she’s all but raised, and the words of hate and cruelty that emerge from deep recesses of characters that had long shared real moments of connection and affection have shaken Caroline to her core.

The exchange in the musical – written by Jean Tsori and Tony Kushner, directed by...

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“It’s the gift that keeps on giving,” reveals Sharon D Clarke of “Caroline, or Change.” The British theater veteran made her Broadway debut in the title role of the recent revival of the Tony Kushner and Jeanine Tesori musical. The actress starred in a production of the show in Chichester, only to see her reprise the character in Hampstead, the West End, and finally on Broadway. The New York mounting at Roundabout Theater earned Clarke her first Tony Award nomination. “I’m living my best life, absolutely,” beams the actress. Watch the exclusive video interview above.

Clarke never dreamt she would be able to spend such a long time with the character across multiple productions and a nearly 2-year Broadway shutdown. But that time offered her the opportunity to test out new approaches to her performance. “Being able to live with a character for that time and being able to get under their skin…...

“Although the wait was horrendous… I feel like our show ended up being more prevalent and necessary than ever,” says Samantha Williams of her experience with the Roundabout Theatre Company’s revival of “Caroline, or Change.” The actress portrayed Emmie Thibodeaux in the first ever Broadway revival of the Jeanine Tesori and Tony Kushner musical. The show was supposed to debut in the spring of 2020, but the global pandemic forced a year and half pause on the work. That time in quarantine allowed Williams to relate present-day events to the 1963 setting of the musical. Watch the exclusive video interview above.

“I thought it was going to be like a two week break,” admits Williams, echoing a familiar thought to most of us working in the theater industry. But as the weeks turned to months, the country was thrown into conversations around racial equity following the murder of George Floyd. Suddenly,...

The RuPaul’s Drag Race franchise has yet another twist in store for queens and fans. On Wednesday, Paramount+ revealed that RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars Season 7 will be unlike previous iterations, with previous Drag Race winners returning to snatch the crown once again. Instead of bringing back queens who sashayed away without the grand prize in their Drag Race proper seasons, RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars will see a cast of all former winners compete for the title of “Queen of All Queen”s and a cash prize of 200,000. RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars will begin streaming on Paramount+ on May 20.

The eight winning queens set to return to the Drag Race stage are Season 12’s Jaida Essence Hall, Season 5’s Jinkx Monsoon, All Stars 4 winners Monét X Change and Trinity The Tuck, Season 3’s Raja, All Stars Season 5’s Shea Coulée, Drag Race UK’s The Vivienne and Season 11’s Yvie Oddly.

By this time next year, it’s possible that Beanie Feldstein could be three-quarters of the way to completing her Egot.

Last year Feldstein starred as Monica Lewinsky on the FX anthology series, “Impeachment: American Crime Story.” Portraying the intern whose affair with President Bill Clinton led to the titular disciplinary process puts her right in the middle of the upcoming Emmy race for Best Movie/Limited Actress. But getting the nomination will be no easy task in an immensely crowded field as she’s currently in 14th place in our Emmy odds.

See‘Take Me Out’ reviews: ‘Provocative’ revival poised to hit home run at Tony Awards

Among the many other notable names looking to get nominated are Margaret Qualley (“Maid”), Amanda Seyfried (“The Dropout”), Claire Foy (“A Very British Scandal”), Jessica Chastain (“Scenes from a Marriage”), Lily James (“Pam and Tommy”), Renee Zellweger (“The Thing About Pam”), the...

It is not an unusual occurrence to see audiences rise up to their feet in appreciative applause at the end of a Broadway show. But something rarer is occurring nightly at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre, where the new musical “Paradise Square” just debuted. Audiences are leaping to their feet for star Joaquina Kalukango for her powerful eleven o’clock number, well before the company gathers for the final curtain call. This type of response is a surefire sign that an actor is about to go far in the Tony Awards race.

The song in question is titled “Let it Burn.” To describe it fully would spoil the outcome of this epic musical, but the number serves as an emotional breaking point for Kalukango’s Nelly O’Brien. Throughout the story, Nelly witnesses her harmonious neighborhood fracture along race lines, she suffers tremendous loss, and must make impossible choices when it...

“It’s a pleasure that we have so many to choose from!” exclaims David Buchanan of the 13 new musicals and musical revivals competing for the 2022 Tony Awards. After the pandemic decimated Broadway and resulted in only a handful of eligible tuners at the last ceremony, it’s a joy to be able to discuss a genuinely competitive lineup of musicals from the 2021-2022 Broadway season. David and I sat down six weeks before nominations are announced – on May 3 – to dish which productions, actors, and creatives will make the cut. Watch the full video above.

David and I are both in agreement that “Six” and “A Strange Loop” are leaders of the pack when it comes to the Best Musical race. The former casts the six wives of Henry VIII as pop divas while the later is a transfer of an Off-Broadway smash about a black, gay writer trying to navigate the theater world.

Cue the music and light the lights! After the pandemic forced the previous Tony Awards broadcast to shift to the fall, the 75th Annual Tony Awards will return to the telecast’s normal June airing period. The 2022 Tony Awards will once again return to Radio City Music Hall in New York City on Sunday, June 12, in a four-hour television and streaming event that will be broadcast live coast to coast for the first time.

See Looking ahead to the spring season on Broadway and the Tony Awards

Borrowing a page from last year’s split presentation, this year’s fanfare will be broadcast across both Paramount+ and CBS. Exclusive content will begin streaming on Paramount+ from 7:00 pm – 8:00 pm Et, followed by the three-hour presentation of the American Theatre Wing’s 75th Annual Tony Awards from 8:00-11:00 Pm Et. The ceremony will broadcast live on the east and west coasts CBS network,...

The critically lauded hit Off Broadway musical Kimberly Akimbo will transfer to Broadway in the fall, producers announced today.

Previews will begin Oct. 12 at a Shubert Theater to be announced, with an opening date set for Nov. 10.

Making the move to Broadway will be the cast from last fall’s Off Broadway world premiere production at the Atlantic Theater, including Victoria Clark as Kimberly, Justin Cooley (in his Broadway debut), Steven Boyer, Alli Mauzey, Bonnie Milligan, Olivia Elease Hardy, Fernell Hogan, Michael Iskander and Nina White.

Kimberly Akimbo features book and lyrics by David Lindsay-Abaire (the Pulitzer Prize-winning Rabbit Hole) and music by Tony Award-winner Jeanine Tesori, based on Lindsay-Abaire’s play of the same name. Jessica Stone directs, with Danny Mefford choreographing. Producers are David Stone, Atlantic Theatre Company, James L. Nederlander, Lachanze, John Gore, Patrick Catullo and Aaron Glick.

The official synopsis: Kim...

Iddo Goldberg has portrayed engineer Bennett Knox on TNT's juggernaut post-apocalyptic drama-on-rails Snowpiercer from the moment it pulled away from the station, and it's been a helluva journey for Melanie's main man.

In many ways, Ben is a known quantity -- he's proven himself consistently steadfast, dependable, and supportive but grounded in reality -- while remaining a bit of an enigma in terms of his innermost thoughts and motivations.

Via Zoom, Goldberg lets TV Fanatic in on some details of Ben's past, present, and future, as he sees them.

For fans of Snowpiercer who have watched from the beginning, Ben comes part and parcel with the train. He's always been in the engine or wherever his skills have been needed.

He and Javi (Roberto Urbina) kept Melanie's secret that Wilford never boarded when the train departed. Melanie depended on him as both a professional and personal partner.

On Snowpiercer...

It has been eight years since Hugh Jackman notoriously hopped his way into Radio City Music Hall to host the 68th Tony Awards and even longer since he won a Tony himself. But at long last, Jackman has returned to Broadway in a revival of the Americana classic “The Music Man” starring Professor Harold Hill. In this mounting, which opened at the Winter Garden Theatre on Feb. 10, Sutton Foster joins him as Marian Paroo.

This fourth production of the Meredith Willson musical on Broadway is directed by four-time Tony Award winner Jerry Zaks, who also helmed the lavish and adored remounting of “Hello, Dolly!” a few years ago. Zaks has assembled an impressive ensemble for his production, including Tony winners Shuler Hensley, Jayne Houdyshell, Jefferson Mays, and Marie Mullen, plus Tony-winning creatives Warren Carlyle, Santo Loquasto, and Brian MacDevitt.

See ‘Mj The Musical’ reviews: Myles Frost ‘mesmerizing’ as Michael Jackson,...

Bhebhe leads EFM’s efforts to give underrepresented groups a passageway into film.

The topic of diversity and inclusion is at the heart of the European Film Market’s online industry sessions this year, which run under the umbrella banner of ‘Shaping Change’.

Themba Bhebhe, who heads up diversity and inclusion for the EFM, has pulled together a series of in-depth discussions, podcasts and special initiatives tackling issues such as the inequalities between the global north and south countries in filmmaking as well as the exclusion of underrepresented groups in the film business.

Bhebhe, who is from the UK, took...

The Guild of Music Supervisors today unveiled the nominees for its 12th annual award ceremony, celebrating outstanding achievement in the craft of Music Supervision in film, television, games, documentaries, advertising, and trailers, with such notable songwriters and performers as Beyoncé, Jay-Z, Kid Cudi, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Eddie Vedder, Anderson .Paak, Bruno Mars, H.E.R. and Demi Lovato making the cut.

Beyoncé was among those recognized for the Oscar-nominated King Richard song “Be Alive,” with Jay-Z, Kid Cudi, filmmaker Jeymes Samuel and music supervisor Michelle Silverman noted for the song “Guns Go Bang” from The Harder They Fall, and Miranda cited for his Oscar-nominated Encanto song “Dos Oruguitas.” Vedder was nominated alongside Glen Hansard, his performer daughter Olivia and music supervisor Tracy McKnight for the Flag Day tune “My Father’s Daughter,” with Anderson .Paak and Bruno Mars among those sharing a nom for the Shang-Chi song “Fire In the Sky.” H.E.

Nominees for the 12th annual Guild of Music Supervisors (Gms) Awards have been revealed, recognizing the craft of music supervision in film, television, games, advertising and trailers.

Among the film nominees for the 2022 edition of the Gms Awards are “Encanto,” “The Eyes of Tammy Faye” and “Being the Ricardos,” each of which also scored Oscar nominations this week. Television shows that scored nods include “The White Lotus,” “Blindspotting” and “Lovecraft Country.”

Songwriters, artists and music supervisors will be recognized together for the category of best song written and/or recorded for film.

As previously announced, Diane Warren will receive the organization’s prestigious Icon Award, and Mitchell Leib will receive the Legacy Award honoring those music supervisors who have excelled within the craft of music supervision.

The 12th annual ceremony will take place virtually on Sunday, March 20.

Film

Best Music Supervision for Film Budgeted Over $25 Million

Mary Ramos – “Being the Ricardos...

Collective earned an Oscar nomination last year for documenting the work of brave investigative reporters in Romania. This year, one of the feature documentaries in contention for Oscar recognition focuses on another group of crusading journalists — the staff of Khabar Lahariya, India’s only newspaper run entirely by women.

Writing With Fire, directed by Rintu Thomas and Sushmit Ghosh, explores the enormous obstacles Khabar Lahariya has faced to stay in business and hold the powerful accountable. The staff of women faces constant sexism, from officials and ordinary people they interview, and in many cases, from within their own families.

Khabar Lahariya was founded by Dalit women, members of the lowest caste within India – another reason the odds were stacked against the newspaper. But as the film notes, the women did not give up – “Instead, they stirred a revolution.”

In a statement provided exclusively to Deadline, the directors explained the origins of their documentary.