Issue #218: October 1, 2008

• You may know him as “Mr. Big” from Sex and the City but for me Chris Noth will always be associated with the best years of the Law and Order series. Still a New Yorker, Noth will take to the Off-Broadway stage in November in the world premiere of Beau Willimon’s Farragut North.

• Christine Lahti has been signed to star in the Off-Broadway premiere of A Body of Water, which opens on October 3.

• Lots of buzz with the opening of both Billy Elliot and Shrek: The Musical this fall. Billy Elliot, based on the movie, opens at the Imperial theater on November 13 and the big green monster opens just in time for the holidays on December 14 at the Broadway theater.

• On the more serious side there are two London imports currently on Broadway. The revival of Equus starring Daniel Radcliffe aka Harry Potter is currently at the Broadhurst Theater. Kristen Scott Thomas and Peter Sarsgaard top the bill of the revival of The Seagull at the Walter Kerr Theater.

• Stage and screen veteran Alan Rickman sits in the director’s chair of Creditors currently playing at the Donmar Warehouse.

• As all the tributes pour in for legendary actor Paul Newman, it was his contribution to the stage that gets lost in all the film credits. Newman, who died on Friday, September 26, began his storied career when at his college in Ohio before heading to Yale to continue his stage studies. In 1952 he made his Broadway debut in William Inge’s Picnic. It was in this production that ran for 14 months that he met the love of his life, Joanne Woodward. Although his storied career is littered with Oscar worthy performances, after he retired from film he returned to the stage in 2002 in the role as the Stage Manager in the revival of Thornton Wilder’s Our Town for which he won a Tony nomination. He continued to support his wife Joanne, currently the artistic director of the Westport Playhouse, where Newman was scheduled to direct an upcoming play this season. Actors of his pedigree are few and far between…he will be missed on the stage, screen as well as a great philanthropist.