'Real World' Star Danny Roberts Reflects on Life After 'New Orleans' and Getting Closure (Exclusive)

Michael Appler Three or four times a year, something special happens in New York City: A rare opportunity—and precious luxury in theater these days—to pay $35 for the hottest ticket in town (if you can get one). The bill is “Encores!,” New York City Center’s yearly programming of musical theater.Once an obscure incubator to resurrect little known or passed-over productions—the current Broadway revival of “Chicago,” which has run for 25 years, began as an “Encores!” show in 1996— New York City Center’s two-week only productions are now a staple of New York theater, sought after for their pared-down musicals packed with big stars.On Wednesday evening, “Encores!” opened its final show for the 2021-2022 season: Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s “Into The Woods,” directed by Lear deBessonet and starring Neil Patrick Harris, Sara Bareilles, Heather Headley, Denée Benton and Gavin Creel.“When they call you, you come,” Headley, who stars as the Witch, told Variety after the opening performance on Wednesday.

his band’s website on Friday that “due to a positive Covid case in the Willie Nelson Family Band” two upcoming shows scheduled to happen May 6 and May 7 would be postponed and that Nelson’s Sunday performance at Jazz Fest would be cancelled.Nelson was slated to close the Gentilly Stage — the same stage where his son Lukas Nelson is performing earlier in the day with his band the Promise of the Real. No replacement for the elder Nelson has yet been announced.The news comes after Melissa Etheridge announced Thursday that she would not be able to perform Saturday at Jazz Fest due to “COVID hitting my crew.” Mavis Staples will perform during that time period instead.“Oh my heart hurts not to be there.

She was fired by Lord Alan Sugar on this year's series of The Apprentice. But Amy Anzel was on winning form as she showed off her gym-honed figure at MediaCity in Salford.

Red Hot Chili Peppers have paid tribute to Foo Fighters’ Taylor Hawkins during their headline set at New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival – watch footage below.The ‘Unlimited Love’ group stepped in to replace Foo Fighters at the event following the tragic death of their drummer Hawkins on March 25. Dave Grohl and co.

Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith has said that the band will “celebrate” the life of Taylor Hawkins during their upcoming show at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival.The ‘Unlimited Love’ group stepped in to replace Foo Fighters at the event following the tragic death of their drummer Hawkins on March 25. Dave Grohl and co.

NEW ORLEANS -- Once silenced by the pandemic, the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival opens Friday for the first time in three years — a long awaited 2022 revival that holds echoes of 2006 when the annual celebration of music and culture went on even after Hurricane Katrina.The two-weekend production draws tens of thousands to the city's Fair Grounds Race Course, where as many as 80 musical acts perform daily on more than a dozen stages, complemented by art and craft exhibits and an array of booths featuring foods from Louisiana and beyond.Lionel Richie and Death Cab for Cutie are among Friday's draws. The Who headlines Saturday; the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Sunday.

Adam B. Vary Senior Entertainment WriterWhen Kelley Wolf was first approached about reuniting with the cast of MTV’s “The Real World: New Orleans,” she was, she says, “extraordinarily skeptical.” While Wolf has remained somewhat of a public person as the wife of actor Scott Wolf — they met in 2002, two years after “New Orleans” first aired, and married in 2004 — she was deeply unsure she wanted to step back fully into the spotlight.“You know, we are middle aged people,” she says.

Marc Malkin Senior Film Awards, Events & Lifestyle EditorSearchlight Pictures’ queer romantic comedy “Fire Island” will have its world premiere on June 2 during NewFest’s NewFest Pride series.“We are thrilled to kick off our annual Pride month event with the world premiere of Andrew Ahn’s ‘Fire Island,’” NewFest executive director David Hatkoff said in statement on Thursday morning. “This joyful film captures the sexy, romantic, celebratory energy of the iconic NY gay enclave, and we can’t wait to celebrate with the film’s cast and creative team with a blow-out, prideful event in the heart of NYC.”Set in Fire Island, New York’s popular gay getaway Pines neighborhood and inspired by Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice,” the film stars Joel Kim Booster and Bowen Yang as best friends who are determined to have the ultimate summer adventure.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music CriticThe last time there were as many trombones in a movie as there are in “Take Me to the River: New Orleans,” Harold Hill was probably leading a parade. The ongoing vitalization of the Crescent City’s music culture really is like something out of a horn salesman’s fever dream, with younger generations readily taking up New Orleans’ traditional second-line culture in a way that can only make the aging elders of other regional music scenes green with envy.

Jensen Ackles is sharing some scary news about his friend and longtime co-star Jared Padalecki.While speaking at Creation Entertainment’s Official Conventions — a fan event held in  East Brunswick, New Jersey, on Sunday — Ackles explained why he was at the event without his on-screen brother and fellow demon hunter.«I miss my buddy… [he] sends his love. I spoke with him yesterday.

Adam B. Vary Senior Entertainment WriterThere are few alumni of MTV’s “The Real World” who have had as lasting a legacy as Danny Roberts.

, season 9 of MTV’s long-running reality TV franchise. At the time, she was a wide-eyed 21-year-old Brigham Young University student exploring life outside of Utah as the first Mormon on the series.

long-running reality TV franchise,, has reunited after 22 years to continue the social experiment of finding out “what happens when people stop being polite and start getting real.” On the third installment of, David “Tokyo” Broom, Melissa Beck, Jamie Murray, Danny Roberts, Matt Smith, Julie Stoffer and Kelley Wolf all have moved back into the same Big Easy house -- but in the premiere, it quickly became clear that this group has a lot of unfinished business to deal with. While speaking to ET’s Lauren Zima, Roberts and Beck break down the explosive drama with Stoffer that led to a falling out between the housemates. “I don’t think we meant to disconnect from each other, but it just naturally happened.

Familiar faces in familiar places. After the success of The Real World Homecoming‘s New York and Los Angeles editions, the show is returning for a third season — and this time the original New Orleans cast is coming back.

Daniel D'Addario Chief TV CriticTo some subset of the audience of the 2000 reality show “The Real World: New Orleans,” Danny Roberts was the biggest celebrity on TV.Roberts was the gay cast member on a TV franchise that placed a premium on frankness, openness, and unpracticed charm. The first episode of Roberts’ season saw him gradually and haltingly coming out to the six housemates producers had arranged for him to live with for months, at one point announcing he was gay in French so as to avoid doing so in English.

Rio Hackford, an actor whose credits include The Mandalorian, Swingers and Treme who also owned a popular club in New Orleans and was Taylor Hackford’s son, has died. He was 51.

MTV’s  --  and  -- reunited for on Paramount+, the franchise is bringing the roommates from season 9’s back together for the latest installment of the renewed social experiment where they’ll get a second chance to stop being polite and start getting real. Ahead of what looks to be the most dramatic season yet, roommate Kelley Wolf opens up to ET’s Rachel Smith about the “meta” experience of moving back into the same house in the Big Easy, where the cast made history as the most watched season yet in 2000, and relived memories from 22 years prior. “We would sit around in the room and they would show a clip -- and it’s meta,” Wolf says of “watching yourself being filmed” and then having to reflect on those moments as a group, which also included David “Tokyo” Broom, Melissa Beck, Jamie Murray, Danny Roberts, Matt Smith and Julie Stoffer. “It was really interesting. I mean, the first time that I did the show, I didn’t have a ton of knowledge because I was too busy in the woods, thinking about Matt, apparently,” Wolf quips.

EXCLUSIVE: Actor-producer Laura Marano, who most recently starred in and produced the Netflix romantic comedy, The Royal Treatment, has signed with Verve for representation.