Greg Evans Associate Latest Celebrity News & Gossip

Greg Evans Associate Editor/Broadway CriticAndrew Lloyd Webber has told the Trump Campaign to scrub his “Memory,” joining a growing list of musical artists, from Neil Young to the Rolling Stones, who object to the playing of their songs at Trump rallies.“Excellent news!!,” tweeted actress Betty Buckley, who played the “Memory”-singing role of Grizabella in the original 1982 Broadway production of Cats.

Greg Evans Associate Editor/Broadway CriticA coalition of BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and people of color) theater workers has released a detailed, 29-page set of demands and strategies to combat racism in the Broadway theater, recommendations that dive deep into the foundational structure of the industry.The coalition, known as We See You, White American Theater, calls for what would be a massive shift in employment demographics in which BIPOC workers would make up “the majority of writers,

Greg Evans Associate Editor/Broadway CriticElla Travolta, the daughter of John Travolta and the late Kelly Preston shared a tribute to her mother today, writing that she has “never met anyone as courageous, strong, beautiful and loving” as Preston, who died yesterday of breast cancer.Ella posted on Instagram today:I have never met anyone as courageous, strong, beautiful and loving as you.

Greg Evans Associate Editor/Broadway CriticThe USC School of Cinematic Arts will remove an exhibit devoted to actor John Wayne, a USC student and football player in the 1920s, after months of insistence from students denouncing the Hollywood star’s on-the-record racism and the portrayal of Indigenous Americans in many of his films.The removal was announced today by Evan Hughes, the school’s Assistant Dean of Diversity & Inclusion.“Conversations about systemic racism in our cultural institutions

Greg Evans Associate Editor/Broadway CriticRichard Gladstein, longtime exec producer on Quentin Tarantino films and two-time Best Picture Oscar nominee, has been appointed executive director of Brooklyn College’s Barry R. Feirstein Graduate School of Cinema.Located at Steiner Studios in Brooklyn’s Navy Yard, the Feirstein School was established in 2015 and is considered the nation’s only film school operating on a working studio lot.

Greg Evans Associate Editor/Broadway CriticWoke, the Hulu comedy based on the life and work of artist Keith Knight and starring Lamorne Morris, will premiere on Sept. 9, with all eight episodes available then.Morris (New Girl) stars as Keef, an African-American cartoonist on the verge of mainstream success.

Greg Evans Associate Editor/Broadway CriticActors’ Equity Association says Walt Disney World has “locked out” its union members as a way of retaliating against Equity’s demand for coronavirus testing as a condition for returning to work.Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida, is set to begin a phased reopening this Saturday, July 11.

Greg Evans Associate Editor/Broadway CriticPhoebe Robinson, co-creator and co-host of the 2 Dope Queens podcast that was made into eight HBO specials and author of the bestselling You Can’t Touch My Hair, is partnering with her publisher Plume to launch a new imprint.The imprint, Tiny Reparations Books, will publishing literary fiction and nonfiction as well as essay collections that highlight and amplify what Plume promises will be “unique and diverse voices.” Plume also announced the purchase

Greg Evans Associate Editor/Broadway CriticThe Obie Awards, Off Broadway’s most prestigious honor, has rescheduled its prerecorded 65th annual award ceremony for July 14 on YouTube. The original premiere date of June 4 was scratched amid nationwide upheaval following the police killing of George Floyd.The Obies, presented by the American Theatre Wing and awards founder The Village Voice, will be hosted by comedian, actor and writer Cole Escola (Difficult People, Mozart in the Jungle).

Greg Evans Associate Editor/Broadway CriticAn HBO November special honoring this year’s Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductees will replaced the annual spring induction ceremony due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Hall’s Foundation announced today.The program, set for Nov.

Greg Evans Associate Editor/Broadway CriticReady Player Two, novelist Ernest Cline’s sequel to his Ready Player One, will be published by Penguin Random House imprint Ballantine Books on Nov. 24 in North America, the publishing house announced today.International publication dates will be announced in coming months.Cline adapted his debut novel into the Warner Bros.’ Steven Spielberg-directed film Ready Player One.

Greg Evans Associate Editor/Broadway CriticKanye West disavowed his old pal Donald Trump, slams Joe Biden, reveals his bout with COVID-19 and, in keeping with his anti-vaxxer stance, calls a potential coronavirus vaccine “the mark of the beast” in a new interview with Forbes.And, no, his recent announcement to run for President in 2020 was not a publicity stunt, and that he’s even decided that his running mate will be Wyoming preacher Michelle Tidball.

Greg Evans Associate Editor/Broadway CriticNan A. Talese, President, Publisher and Editorial Director of her eponymous Doubleday imprint, will retire at the end of the year, bringing an end to one of publishing’s most celebrated careers that also included stints at Random House, Simon & Schuster and Houghton Mifflin.Since starting her Nan A.

Greg Evans Associate Editor/Broadway CriticCNN host Don Lemon and Brooklyn Nine-Nine‘s Terry Crews debated – passionately, not, as some reports suggest, angrily – the goals and accomplishments of the Blacks Lives Matter movement, with Lemon taking issue over Crews’ suggestion that BLM leaders should be more focused on violent crime within Black communities.“The Black Lives Matter movement was started because it was about police brutality,” Lemon said.

Greg Evans Associate Editor/Broadway CriticWe certainly don’t need another reason to wish the coronavirus gone and Broadway back in business, but here’s one anyway: Ben Platt wants to return to the stage. “Hankering,” is the word he uses.

Greg Evans Associate Editor/Broadway CriticDana Canedy, the administrator of the Pulitzer Prizes and a winner of the prestigious award during her long tenure at The New York Times, has been named publisher of the Simon & Schuster imprint.As a successor to Jonathan Karp, who took over as Simon & Schuster president and CEO following the heart attack death in May of Carolyn Reidy, Canedy becomes the first Black publisher in the company’s history.“I am confident that as our new publisher, Dana can

Greg Evans Associate Editor/Broadway CriticFifteen-year-old Claudia Conway, daughter of Kellyanne Conway and conservative anti-Trumper George Conway, might have just made the holiday weekend a bit tense in the family home: After dad George tweeted to journalists to “desist” from communication with his minor children, the newly outspoken Claudia (or her Twitter account, anyway) responded, ‘you’re just mad that i’m finally getting my voice heard.”Then her kicker: “sorry your marriage failed.”The

Greg Evans Associate Editor/Broadway CriticWriters Guild of America leaders have endorsed the union’s tentative deal negotiated this week with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers.

Greg Evans Associate Editor/Broadway CriticStage actor and writer Sidney DuPont (Beautiful: The Carole King Musical, Trevor: The Musical) has gathered a group of Broadway and Off Broadway performers to launch “The Walkout Project,” a movement to urge the exclusive patronage of Black-owned businesses on July 4.DuPont and a large ensemble that includes Hamilton’s Tamar Greene and Jared Dixon have recorded the new song and music video “Walkout,” dropping tomorrow on the holiday.Watch a trailer

Greg Evans Associate Editor/Broadway CriticJust days after Actors’ Equity Association urged members not to take jobs with Florida’s Walt Disney World until the resort agrees to provide COVID-19 testing, the amusement park reports that “tens of thousands of cast members” are preparing to return for the phased opening that begins July 11.On the official Disney Parks Blog today, Laurel Slater, Manager of Communications, Walt Disney World Public Affairs, writes, “With just eight days until we reopen

Greg Evans Associate Editor/Broadway CriticThe 2021 SAG Awards will take place on March 14, a month and a half later than expected due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The 27th annual awards show had been set for Jan.

Greg Evans Associate Editor/Broadway CriticGhislaine Maxwell, the British confidante of the late financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, has been arrested by the FBI, NBC News is reporting. The arrest involves Maxwell’s charges stemming from an investigation by New York federal prosecutors into Epstein’s alleged sexual abuse of girls and young women.Epstein was arrested a year ago almost to the day – July 5, 2019 – on sex-trafficking and conspiracy charges.

Greg Evans Associate Editor/Broadway CriticEXCLUSIVE: The executive committee of Actors’ Equity Association has unanimously rejected Walt Disney World’s reopening safety plan for workers because the proposal does not include coronavirus testing for the park’s performers.In an email to its members, Equity writes, “Disney knows that testing makes for a safer work place.

Greg Evans Associate Editor/Broadway CriticEXCLUSIVE: Producer Scott Rudin will bring actor Dustin Hoffman to Broadway in a 2021 staging of Our Town, to be directed by Bartlett Sher (To Kill A Mockingbird).Hoffman will play the role of the Stage Manager in the classic Thornton Wilder play, sources close to the production say.The production will be Hoffman’s first Broadway role since his Tony Award-nominated performance of Shylock in 1989’s The Merchant of Venice.

Greg Evans Associate Editor/Broadway CriticEXCLUSIVE: As the much-anticipated Hamilton film debuts on Disney+ Friday and Hulu’s We Are Freestyle Love Supreme gets a July 17 premiere date, actor Christopher Jackson has signed with CAA, Deadline has learned exclusively.Jackson stars in director Thomas Kail’s Hamilton as George Washington, the character he originated in the Broadway production of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s hit musical.

Greg Evans Associate Editor/Broadway CriticCarl Reiner, the comedian, writer and director whose contributions to the development of television comedy are rivaled by few others, died last night of natural causes at his home in Beverly Hills.

Greg Evans Associate Editor/Broadway CriticScrubs creator Bill Lawrence said today he’ll consider returning the three recently pulled episodes containing blackface to Hulu but only after the offending scenes have been edited out.Lawrence said on a podcast today, “Twitter is like, ‘Why did you pull the whole episodes?’ Why didn’t you just edit those moments out and put them back on?’ And I said to one person, ‘It’s a pandemic.

Greg Evans Associate Editor/Broadway CriticWith thousands of out-of-work theater professionals likely to become ineligible for their union insurance over the next six months as the COVID-19 pandemic shutdown continues, The Actors Fund is launching a campaign to enhance its health insurance counseling and enrollment support services.A lead gift of $1 million from Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS will launch The Actors Fund’s “Every Artist Insured” campaign.

Greg Evans Associate Editor/Broadway CriticAs expected, Broadway will remain dark through 2020, with the Broadway League announcing today that theater owners will refund or exchange all tickets purchased for productions through Jan. 3, 2021.“The Broadway experience can be deeply personal but it is also, crucially, communal,” said Chairman of the Board of The Broadway League Thomas Schumacher.

Greg Evans Associate Editor/Broadway CriticLinda Cristal, the Argentine-born actress who played Victoria Cannon, wife of Leif Erickson’s stoic, heroic rancher Big John Cannon on NBC’s popular 1967-71 Western The High Chaparral, died in her sleep at her Beverly Hills home Saturday.

Greg Evans Associate Editor/Broadway CriticRefresh for updates Tamara Braun of General Hospital and Bryton James of The Young and the Restless won the Daytime Emmy Awards for outstanding supporting actress and supporting actor in a drama series tonight, with both speaking out for racial justice in their acceptance speeches.The best soaps, game shows and TV’s onscreen legal minds will be going for the gold tonight on the 47th Annual Daytime Emmy Awards, kicking off at 8 pm ET/PT on CBS.

Greg Evans Associate Editor/Broadway CriticAmazon Prime Video’s superhero satire The Boys will premiere the first three episodes of its second season Friday, September 4, the streamer announced today, with new episodes available each Friday until the season finale on Oct.

Greg Evans Associate Editor/Broadway CriticThe Broadway revival of the Tony Kushner-Jeanine Tesori musical Caroline, or Change and the New York premiere of Noah Haidle’s Birthday Candles starring Debra Messing are the latest productions to announce postponements until 2021, and they’ll be joined on the Roundabout Theatre Company line-up with the Broadway debut of Alice Childress’ 1955 play Trouble in Mind, to directed by Charles Randolph-Wright.The postponements – plans to open both Caroline, Or

Greg Evans Associate Editor/Broadway CriticThe Broadway revival of American Buffalo, orignally set to star Laurence Fishburne, Sam Rockwell and Darren Criss, and the Steppenwolf production of Tracy Letts’ The Minutes are targeting Spring 2021 openings, though producers say the development of a coronavirus vaccine is “essential” to the plans.Both productions had been scheduled to open during Spring 2020 prior to Broadway’s coronavirus shutdown in March.

Greg Evans Associate Editor/Broadway CriticActors’ Equity Association is calling on Walt Disney World in Florida to follow California’s Disneyland in postponing its reopening due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, and to strengthen safety protocols with regular testing, the union said today.Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida, currently is planning a phase reopening beginning July 11.“If Disneyland has postponed, it is unclear how Walt Disney World can responsibly move toward reopening when

Greg Evans Associate Editor/Broadway CriticMarlo Thomas will join Stars In The House creators and hosts Seth Rudetsky and James Wesley Friday on their YouTube series to celebrate the actress’ groundbreaking 1970s TV special Free To Be…You and Me. The Stars In The House episode will also feature a new version of the Free To Be..