Issue #232: November 1, 2009

• It looks as if the mega talent of Hugh Jackman and Daniel Craig can’t overcome inferior material.  When As Steady Rain opened recently the critics praised the two stars but had little positive input for the play.

• Another starlet is making her way to Broadway for her debut.  Look for Scarlett Johansson to star in a revival of Arthur Miller’s A View from the Bridge in a limited 14 week run at the Cort Theatre beginning December 28.  Opposite Johansson will be Broadway vet and CSI alum Liev Schreiber.  I remember the last revival of this play back in 1998 when it won a Tony Award for best revival of a play and starred Anthony LaPaglia (Without a Trace).

• Two Broadway heavy weights head to Toronto for six performances.  Patti LuPone and Mandy Patinkin will take to the stage of the Royal Alexandra Theatre on February 9 for the first together since they starred in Evita in 1979.

• When Lord Lloyd Webber opens his latest musical Love Never Dies, the sequel to Phantom of the Opera, in the lead roll is Canadian Ramin Karimloo. The 31-year old who grew up in Ontario is currently playing the Phantom in the London production….but was hand picked by Webber to star in the sequel, which opens in March 2010.

• Geoffrey Rush is heading home to Australia where he will star in the down under production of The Drowsy Chaperone.  The Oscar and Tony award-winning actor will pull up a seat as the role of Man in Chair when it opens in January in Melbourne.

• Did you know that the late writer, Larry Gelbart, best know as the award-winning writer on the television series MASH, and wrote films Tootsie and Oh, God!  also won a Tony Award?  He picked up his Tony for A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, which continues to be revived on stages all around the world.  Gelbart died on September 11 at the age of 81.