Issue #230: August 1, 2009

• With overwhelming audience and critical success at Stratford, Ontario the production of The Importance of Being Ernest looks like a visit to Broadway with headliner Brian Bedford may be in the cards sometime in the not too distant future.

• It didn’t take Grey’s Anatomy star T.R. Knight long to find a new gig.  He will be starring in the revival of Parade at L.A.’s Mark Taper Forum in October.

• There is an interesting musical currently doing the regional theatre circuit called Ella.  Yes it is based on the life of the incomparable Ella Fitzgerald…and has been playing to big numbers all around the U.S.  No Broadway date is in the offing just yet, however the producers are talking about taking the production to Canada and Europe. 

• Dancap, the Toronto producer, has secured the rights to the little Off-Broadway musical The Toxic Avenger.  Based on the 1984 horror film, this stage version will open in Toronto on Hallowe'en at the 998 seat Music Hall.

• The 2009-10 Mirvish season in Toronto has been revised…it looks as though Legally Blonde the Musical will replace Priscilla Queen of the Desert.  Reason being that Priscilla is having such a good run in London they have extended, however it will still make its way to Toronto next season.

• You may be familiar with Karl Malden from the 70s television show Streets of San Francisco or the twenty-one years as the American Express spokesman, however Malden did enjoy a stellar stage career as well.  Passing away at the ripe old age of 97 on July 1, Malden played Blanche DuBois’s suitor in A Streetcar Named Desire on Broadway…and reprised that role for the film, winning an Academy Award for best supporting actor.  Malden came to the attention of Broadway audiences when he made his debut in Golden Boy in the late 1930s where a young director Elia Kazan met the actor.  It was in 1947 that Kazan cast Malden in A Streetcar Named Desire.  Other stage appearances consisted of Key Largo, Winged Victory, Arthur Miller’s All My Sons, The Desperate Hours and The Egghead.