Blonde Ambitions

For the first item in this week's From Screen to Stage, I'll channel big screen - to stage - to small screen star Elle Woods:

- "Ohmygod, you guys! It's only, like, one week until Legally Blonde - The Musical makes its TV debut on, like, MTV! The totally fab Broadway Blog thinks it's, like, an awesome idea, and check out all the pics and chat, like, live from the pink carpet!"

(Whew, that was exhausting ... how does Laura Bell Bundy do it every night?)

UPDATE: Ohmygod, they've postponed it! According to QueerSighted.com, Legally Blonde - The Musical won't air on MTV until Saturday October 13! A quick check of the MTV website confirms this -- so unfair! So, like, here's a montage of clips from the show to tide you over until then.

- New York movie musical fans take note: the "lost" Porgy and Bess movie (starring Sidney Poitier and Dorothy Dandridge) will be screened next week at the Ziegfeld Theatre. And this will be the rare original road show print, with overture, intermission music and exit music ... could a long-in-demand DVD be far behind?

- Speaking of older film favorites not on DVD, the movie version of The Ritz (starring original Broadway cast members Rita Moreno, Jack Weston, Jerry Stiller and F. Murray Abraham) will finally be released in January. This comes on the heels of the current revival starring Kevin Chamberlin and Rosie Perez. Meanwhile, Playbill.com's own Seth Rudetsky recounts his opening night trials and tribulations in his latest column.

- As Chicago celebrates its tenth year in London, could Tori Spelling and hubby Dean McDermott be Broadway's next Roxie and Billy?

- There are worse things Rizzo herself, Jenny Powers, could do then give fans a video backstage tour of Grease. In related news, Playbill News wonders "where are the You're the One That I Want stars now?", including Derek Keeling (smoldering up A Tale of Two Cities), Ashley Spencer (Hairspray's current Amber) and Kate Rockwell (Phantom's latest Christine).

- On the gay icons front: Rosie love Billy, Harvey has his Catered Affair and Ian rakes it in as King Lear. Plus: a "lost" Noel Coward play is found.

- Happy Days are here again - live and onstage. By the cast breakdown, it appears as if the new tuner is based on that episode where Fonzie and his newly reunited love Pinky Tuscadero take on the Malachi Brothers. Hey, at least it isn't the shark one.

- As I mentioned last week, West Side Story is turning 50 this year, and yet another album of its legendary score will be released to commemorate the occasion. But, unlike the previously mentioned (and already panned) compilation album, this will be a new recording, featuring opera singers in the lead roles. Uh, didn't they already try thatonce?

You can pre-order the West Side Story: 50th Anniversary Recordingfrom Amazon.com, available September 25, by clicking here.

- Are you itching to see the Cry-Baby musical? Well, here's our first look at the cast. Hey look, Harriet Harris!

- Those Dirty Rotten Scoundrels are going back on tour.

- Speaking of tours, Broadway World TV interviews The Color Purple tour star Jeannette Bayardelle.

- First, he was the King of Siam, now he's the Prince of Darkness. Ladies and gentlemen: Lorenzo Lamas is Dracula.

- "Why do you wear that stupid bunny suit?" Donnie Darko hits the stage.

- Sally Ann Howes, who you'll recall was Truly Scrumptious in every way in the classic movie Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, is now Mrs. Higgins in the acclaimed My Fair Lady tour.

- It will be a White Christmas in Toronto this holiday season.

- Über-producer Cameron Mackintosh will bring several musical theater classics to Chinese audiences, including the French Les Miserables, the Swedish Mamma Mia! and the British Mary Poppins.

- And finally: Mark your calendars for next year's Tony Awards.

Links via BroadwayMouth.blogspot.com, Broadway.com, Playbill.com, QueerSighted.com, YouTube.com, BroadwayWorld.com, MSNBC.msn.com and IHT.com.

Oh, Mamma Mia!

This week's From Screen to Stage kicks off with two of the biggest mothers to hit Broadway:

- Yes, that is the first look at Meryl Streep in the upcoming movie version of Mamma Mia! As for the other "mamma" pictured? It is none other then Michael Ball as Edna Turnblad in the long-awaited London production of Hairspray.

Speaking of Hairspray, the tuner just celebrated its fifth anniversary on the Great White Way, and current Corny Collins Lance Bass will host the annual "Broadway on Broadway" concert in Times Square.

- After Variety chipped in with its two-cents, the sharks (namely, the New York Post) started circling Disney's The Little Mermaid.

- Elsewhere on the road to New York, Young Frankenstein gets some love from the Seattle Gay News prior to closing its pre-Broadway run.

- In tour news, Chicago ends its long trek as The Wedding Singer begins theirs; and legendary movie muse Marni Nixon joins My Fair Lady.

- Broadway.com shines the spotlight on three recent hits: Legally Blonde, The Lion King and Monty Python's Spamalot.

- Can't make it to New York to see Cheyenne Jackson and Kerry Butler in Xanadu? BroadwayWorld.com has an exclusive video preview just for you.

- Start that clock: Dolly Parton herself says the 9 to 5 musical will hit Broadway in 2009.

- Harvey Fierstein talks all about his Catered Affair.

- Everyone's favorite 70's sitcom neighbor Valerie Harper stars in the movie adaptation of Golda's Balcony.

- All About My Mother premieres in London, while the American musical Chaplin finds new life elsewhere in England. Plus: is it rumor or real -- a Harry Potter musical to fly onto the West End?

- In the works: stage musical versions of The Three Musketeers, Mask (the Cher movie, not the Jim Carrey one), To Kill a Mockingbird and The Grapes of Wrath, which is actually an opera.

- And finally: The latest incarnation of Forbidden Broadway (the twenty-fifth!), subtitled Rude Awakening, is now up and running, complete with spoofs of Grey Gardens, Mary Poppins, Legally Blonde and (easy target) Grease: You're The One That We Want.

Links via USAToday.com, MichaelBall.co.uk, Playbill.com, Variety.com, NYPost.com, SGN.org, Broadway.com, BroadwayWorld.com, SundayMirror.co.uk and Imdb.com.

Monthly Wallpaper - September 2007: Great Movie Musicals

This month's movie collage/calendar wallpaper is devoted to the "Great Movie Musicals". All the biggies are here, from Singin' in the Rain to West Side Story to The Wizard of Oz to Grease to Beauty and the Beast. Personal favorites include Julie Andrews as Mary Poppins, Barbra Streisand as Hello, Dolly! and Madonna as Evita. Recent hits like Chicago, Moulin Rouge! and Hairspray are there, along with greats of yesterday like The Band Wagon, Cabaret and The King and I.

Just click on the picture above to enlarge it to its 1024 x 768 size, then right click your mouse and select "Set as Background", and you're done! If you want, you can also save it to your computer and set it up from there, or modify the size in your own photo-editing program if needed.

Enjoy!

Still Waiting for That Close-Up

This week's column takes a look at the latest projects to travel From Screen to Stage and back again.

- A movie version of Andrew Lloyd Webber's Sunset Boulevard musical was promised to us some time back, and now the project has resurfaced. Names attached to play Norma Desmond are the usual suspects: Glenn Close, Meryl Streep and Barbra Streisand (thankfully, Liza appears to be out of the running). Close, who won the Tony for her performance in the role on Broadway, has her hopes up that it will eventually be made ... with her in the lead.

- The Seattle pre-Broadway run of Mel Brooks' Young Frankenstein has opened. Playbill.com has interviews with co-star Sutton Foster and co-librettist Thomas Meehan.

- Dr. Seuss' How The Grinch Stole Christmas! – The Musical will return to the New York stage just in time for (naturally) the holiday season.

- Mary Poppins herself, Ashley Brown, answers all your questions at Broadway.com.

- Good news for all you fans of "children's theater for 40-year-old gay men": Xanadu will tour, and may even head to London.

- In related news, The Wedding Singer is gearing up for their own tour, while Christian Slater prepares for the West End debut of Swimming With Sharks.

- Chazz Palminteri is readying his one-man show A Bronx Tale (which he directed and starred in as a film) for a limited Broadway run.

- Can you believe it? Soon there will be two musicals on the Great White Way based on John Waters movies: Hairspray and the upcoming Cry-Baby.

- Former Hairsprayer Harvey Fierstein will star in A Catered Affair, based on the Paddy Chayevsky teleplay that was turned into a movie starring Bette Davis (though not in the same role as Harvey).

- And rounding up the Hairspray-related news, that movie's producers, Craig Zadan and Neil Meron, are returning to television with a new version of Peter Pan. And yes, the little boy who never grew up will again be played by a woman (no, not Harvey ... although he would make a great Captain Hook).

- In the works, as in workshops: musicals based on To Die For, Shrek and Saved!

- If your the kind to get your kicks from those old "women in prison" B-movies, then Slammer! is the musical for you.

- And finally: Grease is not only the word in New York, but also in London. If all that T-bird/Pink Lady action is too much for you though, then maybe what you need is a little Lube.

Links via Playbill.com, MoviesBlog.MTV.com, Broadway.com, Advocate.com and QueerSighted.com.

My Top 100 ... For Now

To give you a taste for my tastes in movies, I have listed the 100 films that I voted for in the American Film Institute's most recent poll. You can find it in the sidebar under the heading "My Ballot: AFI's 100 Years ... 100 Movies - 10th Anniversary Edition".

As is my prerogative, this list is certainly subject to change. For example, in the six months since I voted I have seen Elia Kazan's A Face in the Crowd, an awesome movie that certainly would be included if I were making the list today. Oh well, at least they will be re-polling members once more in another ten years.

For the record, 64 of my choices made the final cut, announced about a month ago. They are indicated on the chronological list in the sidebar with a *, and the links will take you to their respective IMDB pages.

What is most fun about these things (for me anyway) is figuring out the statistics of it all. You know, the most this or the least that. I have compiled facts and figures for each of the AFI lists, which will appear in this section eventually. To give you an idea of what I am talking about, here is some interesting data for the 100 movies on my ballot:

• The oldest film is Harold Lloyd's Safety Last; the newest is Brokeback Mountain.
• The most represented decade is the 1950's, with 18 films.
• The most represented year is (naturally) 1939, with 5 films.
• There are 3 silents on the list (I know, I need to see more).
• Dramas account for 45 entries, the most represented genre. Musicals, one of my favorite genres (go figure), comes in second with 17.
• Steven Spielberg is the most represented director (5 times), followed by Alfred Hitchcock (4 times).
• The actors who appear the most are Humphrey Bogart, Dustin Hoffman and James Stewart, with 4 films each, while the actresses are Faye Dunaway (purely coincidental) and Judy Garland, with 3 films each.
• The Godfather Part II is the only sequel (isn't that always the case?).
• There are 6 animated films, 7 if you count Mary Poppins.
• There are only 4 films with overt gay themes: Midnight Cowboy, Cabaret, Dog Day Afternoon and Brokeback. This is a case where foreign fare does infinitely better.
• 24 films were Oscar-winning Best Pictures. 43 more were nominated for that prize as well. (For the record, Safety Last was released prior to the Academy's existence.)
• The film with the longest title is The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (49 letters, symbols and spaces); the shortest is Jaws (4 letters).
• 37 1/4 * films are in glorious black and white.

* This figure includes the Kansas sections of The Wizard of Oz.

UPDATE: The list has been removed from the sidebar and can now be found in the comments section below.

Links via Imdb.com and AFI.com.

Blame Julie Andrews

If you ever wondered why you are gay, the guys over at FAGAT Guide have the answer for you in a hilarious continuing feature on the effects that certain movies, TV shows and other pop culture artifacts may have had on our formative childhood psyches.

Some (The Neverending Story) may not be as obvious as others (Masters of the Universe, duh), but by the end of each entry, they nail what it is exactly about, say, the shower scenes in School Ties that may have done the deed. Oh, wait, that's not the best example ...

Any way, I'd have to say that it was Julie Andrews who made me do it, although probably more because of Mary Poppins then The Sound of Music. Sure, Maria got the Captain, but Mary could fly.

Links via FAGAT.blogspot.com and YouTube.com.