Greg Evans Associate Latest Celebrity News & Gossip

Greg Evans Associate Editor/Broadway CriticJapanese actress Sei Ashina was found dead in her Tokyo apartment Monday. Her agency and Tokyo police confirmed to Japanese media that she died by suicide.

Greg Evans Associate Editor/Broadway CriticAl Kasha, the Academy Award-winning composer who, along with songwriting partner Joel Hirschhorn, won Oscars for the soft rock disaster movie classics “The Morning After” and “We May Never Love Like This Again,” died Tuesday in Los Angeles. He was 83.His death was announced by spokesperson Deborah Radel.

Greg Evans Associate Editor/Broadway CriticEXCLUSIVE: Broadway’s Tony- and Grammy-nominated couple Andy Karl and Orfeh have acquired the rights to Eric Bernat’s 2016 mystery novel The Dancer.

Greg Evans Associate Editor/Broadway CriticA COVID-19 vaccine would likely not be an immediate, complete solution to Broadway’s woes, suggests Dr. Anthony Fauci, who noted in an interview this week that it could take a year of reliable vaccine usage before theatergoers could safely attend shows without masks.Fauci issued the warning during a 30-minute Instagram Live chat with actress Jennifer Garner.

Greg Evans Associate Editor/Broadway CriticStevie Lee, a pro wrestler who went by the name “Puppet The Psycho Dwarf” and appeared in the film Jackass 3D and TV shows American Horror Story: Freak Show and Spike TV’s 2010 reality series Half-Pint Brawlers, died unexpectedly at his home Wednesday. He was 54.Details of the death were not disclosed on the Go Fund Me page that announced his passing.

Greg Evans Associate Editor/Broadway CriticWith Broadway theaters and other stages shuttered by the coronavirus pandemic, the Pulitzer Prize board has amended its rules of drama prize eligibility to include online productions and shows that were postponed or canceled due to the COVID shutdown.“The spread of the COVID virus has closed theaters but has in no way dampened the creativity of the nation’s playwrights,” said Pulitzer co-chairs Stephen Engelberg and Aminda Marqués Gonzalez in a joint

Greg Evans Associate Editor/Broadway CriticGeorge Lazenby, whose sole turn as James Bond in 1969’s On Her Majesty’s Secret Service was blessed with the casting of costar Diana Rigg, dispelled those ancient tales of an on-set feud today, writing, ” Much was made of our supposed differences but that was the Press looking for a news story.”Rigg, who died this morning at the age of 82, played the doomed Contessa Teresa di Vicenzo in the Peter R.

Greg Evans Associate Editor/Broadway CriticRefresh for updates Diana Rigg is being remembered today by coworkers and colleagues as a “blazingly talented” actress who conquered television, film and the stage.The Game of Thrones and The Avengers actress died today at age 82.“Dame Diana Rigg,” tweeted Thrones costar Nikolaj Coster-Waldau. “She always raised the bar with her incredible talent, intelligence and wit.

Greg Evans Associate Editor/Broadway CriticBen Brantley, the influential New York Times theater critic, will leave the job next month. “This pandemic pause in the great, energizing party that is the theater seemed to me like a good moment to slip out the door,” Brantley said in a statement.News of Brantley’s departure was announced on Twitter by the newspaper’s theater reporter, Michael Paulson.Brantley joined the Times as its second-string theater critic in 1993, taking the chief critic job

Greg Evans Associate Editor/Broadway CriticNew York’s Greenwich Village Halloween Parade, considered the largest participatory event in the country with 50,000 costumed revelers typically marching up Sixth Avenue, has been canceled due to concerns over COVID-19, parade organizers said today.The locally televised parade was to have featured Pose actor Billy Porter as grand marshal, with a theme of “Big Love.”An official announcement, including details about a substitute special event, will arrive

Greg Evans Associate Editor/Broadway CriticEXCLUSIVE With a roster of Broadway actors from such recent or on-pause productions as Waitress, Hadestown, The Play That Goes Wrong and Moulin Rouge!, a new musical inspired by A Christmas Carol and other works of Charles Dickens will make its streaming debut before Christmas utilizing technology to combine socially distanced performances.Estella Scrooge, with a book and direction by Tony Award winner John Caird (Les Misérables, Nicholas Nickelby) and

Greg Evans Associate Editor/Broadway CriticThe Muscular Dystrophy Association will relaunch its signature event – the Jerry Lewis MDA Telethon – with Kevin Hart joining as host, the MDA announce today.Renamed the MDA Kevin Hart Kids Telethon – and with a significantly shorter running time than the all-night endurance tests that were a Labor Day tradition from the 1960s to 2010, the two-hour streaming event will air globally on Saturday October 24 at 8 pm ET, with streaming partners to be

Greg Evans Associate Editor/Broadway CriticThe View was back for Season 24 today, and co-host Meghan McCain wasted no time stirring up the Hot Topics table. While saying she believes the incendiary charges made against Donald Trump in Jeffrey Goldberg’s Atlantic piece last week, she’d have liked a “heads up” from the publication about insults Trump was said to have made about her father, the late Sen.

Greg Evans Associate Editor/Broadway CriticVeteran Broadway general manager Nathan Gehan is opening his own New York City general management firm, ShowTown Theatricals, with a roster of clients including the international musical production of Notre Dame de Paris at Lincoln Center in 2022, the Old Vic’s A Christmas Carol (Broadway, National Tour), American Prophet (Arena Stage), Anne of Green Gables (Goodspeed Musicals) and planned productions of Romy & Michele The Musical, Room, Syncing Ink and

Greg Evans Associate Editor/Broadway CriticCalifornia fire officials have sourced the ongoing 7,000-acre El Dorado Fire burning near Oak Glen in San Bernardino County to a “smoke generating pyrotechnic device” at a gender reveal party Saturday morning in Yucaipa’s El Dorado Ranch Park.“The fire spread from the park to the north on to Yucaipa Ridge that separates Mountain Home Village and Forest Falls from the City of Yucaipa,” said the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or

Greg Evans Associate Editor/Broadway CriticMike Sexton, longtime TV commentator for the World Poker Tour, died Sunday of prostate cancer at the age of 72.His death was announced by his fellow Poker Hall of Fame member Linda Johnson, who tweeted the news last night.“Mike Sexton passed away peacefully at home earlier today surrounded by family members,” said Johnson, who was authorized last week by Sexton to publicly reveal his cancer battle.

Greg Evans Associate Editor/Broadway CriticThe Pentagon is reportedly ordering the shut down of the venerable military newspaper Stars and Stripes, with President Donald Trump seeking total defunding of the 159-year-old independent publication, according to a report in USA Today.USA Today contributor Kathy Kiely cited a recent Pentagon memo that ordered the Stars and Stripes publisher to present a plan by Sept.

Greg Evans Associate Editor/Broadway CriticFilmmaker and Baltimore’s favorite son John Waters has never had a movie of his shown at the New York Film Festival, but his non-film contribution to this year’s fest might just outshine some of the actual entrants: The Hairspray creator designed the official poster for the 58th annual event.

Greg Evans Associate Editor/Broadway CriticShowtime will premiere its original documentary Kingdom of Silence about the 2018 murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi on October 2 – the two-year anniversary of Khashoggi’s death.Directed by Emmy-winning Documenting Hate filmmaker Rick Rowley and exec-produced by Alex Gibney in collaboration with Lawrence Wright, Kingdom of Silence examines the relationship between the U.S.

Greg Evans Associate Editor/Broadway CriticChicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre has indefinitely postponed its world premiere stage adaptation of the 2005 George Clooney-co-written film Good Night, and Good Luck, a project that had generated considerable interest on Broadway.Steppenwolf announced yesterday that due to the coronavirus pandemic, the theater company’s 2020-21 season will consist largely of streaming, virtual productions.

Greg Evans Associate Editor/Broadway CriticTimothy Graphenreed, a longtime musical and dance arranger who composed two numbers for the beloved Broadway musical The Wiz, died March 1 at New York’s Mt. Sinai Hospital.

Greg Evans Associate Editor/Broadway CriticThe recently formed Costume Industry Coalition has launched a pandemic emergency relief campaign for New York City’s pattern makers, cutters, stitchers, tailors, milliners, hand finishers and other artisans who have seen their incomes vanish since the onset of COVID-19.The Coalition, which includes members from more than 50 New York City-area costume businesses and artisans from stage, dance, television, film, opera, cruise ships, and concerts, has set

Greg Evans Associate Editor/Broadway CriticIn a 1984 promotional video for the Talking Heads concert film Stop Making Sense, David Byrne appeared as both himself and a variety of interviewers, including men of color.

Greg Evans Associate Editor/Broadway CriticEXCLUSIVE: T. Murph, the actor-comedian who’ll have a starring role in Hulu’s Woke when the series debuts Sept.

Greg Evans Associate Editor/Broadway CriticProducer Ryan Murphy drew the curtain back on the cast of Netflix’s The Prom, sharing a first-look photo of the “icon-packed” group on Instagram.See the entire photo below.“Meet the incredible icon-packed cast of Netflix’s The Prom,” wrote Murphy, who directs. “A group of true troopers who buckled up and finished shooting during COVID so we could give everybody an inspirational aspirational story that we all need right now.

Greg Evans Associate Editor/Broadway CriticMarcus Smythe, an actor who played the romantic lead on three popular soaps in the 1970s and ’80s, died following a three-year battle with brain cancer on Aug. 20 at this home in La Crescenta, Calif.

Greg Evans Associate Editor/Broadway CriticCaesar Cordova, a character actor whose long association with Al Pacino included appearances in Scarface and Carlito’s Way, died Aug. 26 of natural causes in Atlantic City.

Greg Evans Associate Editor/Broadway CriticEXCLUSIVE: Jason Sherwood, an Emmy Award-winning production designer for Fox’s Rent: Live in 2019 and the youngest person to design the set for the Academy Awards, has signed with CAA.Sherwood’s set design for the 2020 Academy Awards was Emmy-nominated for Outstanding Production Design for a Variety Special.

Greg Evans Associate Editor/Broadway CriticEighteen Broadway productions will be eligible for this year’s Tony Awards competition, an awards committee announced today.The number was confirmed, along with several routine nominee determinations, in the final meeting of the The Tony Awards Administration Committee to decide eligibility for the recently announced all-digital 74th Annual Tony Awards.A date and platform have not been announced.Among the decisions announced today, David Alan Grier will

Greg Evans Associate Editor/Broadway CriticCathy Smith, the onetime girlfriend of singer-songwriter Gordon Lightfoot who might have been best remembered for inspiring the hit song “Sundown” had she not met up with John Belushi at the Chateau Marmont on March 5, 1982, died Aug. 18 at the age of 73.Her death was reported by Canada’s The Globe and Mail.

Greg Evans Associate Editor/Broadway CriticStephen Colbert didn’t watch a minute of last night’s Republican National Convention, and feels all the better for it.“I know by not watching the RNC I didn’t do my job tonight,” the host of CBS’ The Late Show said in an intense monologue last night (watch it above).

Greg Evans Associate Editor/Broadway Critic“Anthony! Anthony!,” the mother shouted from the second floor of a Boston North End tenement apartment building overlooking an urban alley, her voice seeming to carry over numerous city blocks as 12-year-old Anthony runs home for his favorite Prince-brand spaghetti dinner.The image from the long-running television commercial (watch it below) will be familiar to any regular TV watcher of the late 1960 and ’70s, as will the look of happiness on the boy’s

Greg Evans Associate Editor/Broadway CriticThe Off Broadway run of Drew Droege’s well-received solo show Happy Birthday Doug was cut short by the COVID-19 shutdown, but a specially-filmed quarantine performance, produced by Michael Urie, is set to make its streaming debut.Happy Birthday Doug, directed at the Soho Playhouse by Tom DeTrinis and directed for film and edited by Jim Hansen, will premiere on streaming service BroadwayHD September 24.Written and performed by Droege, Happy Birthday Doug

Greg Evans Associate Editor/Broadway CriticIn a lawsuit that offers a glimpse of COVID-19’s economic threat to the Broadway industry, Jujamcyn Theaters, owner of five major Broadway venues, is suing its insurance companies after the insurers offered to pay a mere $250,000 of what Jujamcyn claims should be “tens of millions of dollars” in losses due to the coronavirus shutdown.Jujamcyn, which owns the theaters housing hits Hadestown, The Book of Mormon, Moulin Rouge and Mean Girls (and, until its

Greg Evans Associate Editor/Broadway CriticLive comedy, or dead? Sides were drawn this week in the debate over the future of stand-up, with a longtime Manhattan comedy club co-owner pretty much writing an obituary for New York City and its cultural nightlife, which in turn got him called “a putz” by Jerry Seinfeld.And while traditional comedy venues won’t be taking reservations anytime soon – Caroline’s owner Caroline Hirsh told Deadline that comedy clubs like hers will likely take their cues

Greg Evans Associate Editor/Broadway CriticEXCLUSIVE: Broadway and TV writers, actors and directors Wesley Taylor and Alex Wyse have signed with ICM for literary representation across all media.Taylor is best known for performances in Broadway’s Spongebob Squarepants musical and Rock of Ages and, on TV, Smash and The Good Wife.