‘The Minutes’ Review: New Broadway Comedy is a Cunning, Sensational Indictment of American Democracy

Kelly Ripa put her gym-honed body front and centre to celebrate Cinco De Mayo on Thursday.The Live with Kelly and Ryan host threw it back to some sun-drenched vacations in which she dazzled in stylish swimwear. MORE: Kelly Ripa reunites with son Joaquin - but she's not impressed!Kelly posed with her husband, Mark Consuelos, who looked equally as toned, and she beamed in the snapshots posted on Instagram stories. WATCH: Kelly Ripa's phenomenal workout revealed In the first, Kelly wore a low-cut one-piece adorned with palm trees and in the second she donned a bright, orange string bikini and posed by a pool with a sea view.While the photos were throwbacks, it's likely that Kelly and Mark celebrated the Mexican holiday in style. MORE: Kelly Ripa shares rare family photo – and fans can't get over one thingMORE: Kelly Ripa shares adorable baby pictures for special occasionThe couple recently had a big celebration of their own when they rang in their 26th wedding anniversary.

Peter Debruge Chief Film CriticCinema is such a costly medium that directors have little chance to experiment between features. It’s not like music or painting — relatively low-cost art forms whose practitioners can try new techniques in the secret obscurity of their studios until their bold ideas are ready to be shared with the world in polished form.

Neil Patrick Harris is single and ready to mingle in his latest series.

Diamond Sports Group has made a call to the bullpen.

EXCLUSIVE: Film Constellation has boarded sales on debut feature Blue Jean, an identity drama set during Margaret Thatcher’s tenure as UK Prime Minister.

Gordon Cox Theater EditorDebra Messing has only been in the Broadway play “Birthday Candles” since March, but in some ways, she feels more deeply connected to her character Ernestine than she felt to the leading role she played for more than a decade in NBC’s long-running hit “Will & Grace.”Listen to this week’s “Stagecraft” podcast below:“I lived with Grace 11 years, and already my experience of Ernestine is far more satisfying than Grace,” Messing revealed on the new episode of “Stagecraft,” Variety’s theater podcast. That satisfaction is due in part to the the demands of the role in “Birthday Candles,” which requires Ernestine to age 90 years onstage — from 17 to 107 — over the course of the show’s 90-minute run time.

Owen Gleiberman Chief Film CriticRemember how you learned in school about “man’s inhumanity to man”? If the director Gaspar Noé has a theme, it’s “the humanity of inhumanity.” Noé’s shock psychodramas confront subjects like murder, sexual assault, and what happens when a roomful of flex dancers go out of their gourds on LSD. As a filmmaker, he’s drawn to extremes — to the sensational and the depraved, the sordid and the evil.

Marilyn Stasio Theater CriticI am woman, hear me roar — with laughter, at “POTUS: or, Behind Every Great Dumbass Are Seven Women Trying to Keep Him Alive,” playwright Selina Fillinger’s delicious feminist farce about the all-female staff that keeps the country out of war and other sticky situations while babysitting the dullard who holds the highest office in our beleaguered land. Playing characters largely unknown to the public within the world of the play are actors Lilli Cooper, Lea DeLaria, Rachel Dratch, Julianne Hough, Suzy Nakamura, Julie White and Vanessa Williams.

Frank Rizzo Sometimes being nice has its rewards.Take Buddy Young Jr., the bitter, self-centered, self-destructive comedian from the 1992 flop film “Mr. Saturday Night,” which Billy Crystal starred in, directed and co-wrote based on one of his ’80s sketch creations.

If CBS comedy series How We Roll is renewed for a second season, it will return without executive producer David Hollander. Production on the Pete Holmes sitcom’s freshman season has been completed but if the series gets renewed for Season2, Hollander won’t be involved, the network and How We Roll producer CBS Studios said in a response to an inquiry by Deadline.

LaToya Ferguson Motherhood — specifically early motherhood — is hell. It’s a concept that’s been depicted plenty of times in film and television over the decades, yet it still manages to be a topic rife with material for more. HBO’s new horror-comedy “The Baby” is the latest offering into that particular canon.

Marilyn Stasio Theater CriticIn the theatrical annals of wild and wicked stage plays, there are black comedies, blacker comedies, and blacker-than-the-dead-of-night comedies like “Hangmen.“  Prolific playwright Martin McDonagh hasn’t written all of them, to be sure; but he’s created some of the best of this deadly lot, including “The Beauty Queen of Leenane,” “The Cripple of Inishmaan” and “The Pillowman,” not to mention such beautifully bleak films as “Seven Psychopaths,” “In Bruges” and “Three Billboards Outside of Ebbing, Missouri.”Still, there is something special about “Hangmen,” which, were it a song, would be the perfect little ditty to play as you were cutting your wrists. Happily (if such a word would apply to any of his work), this Broadway production is a deadly beauty, flawlessly cast and directed in the mordant style of an executioner’s song by Matthew Dunster.

“Candyman” director Nia DaCosta has found her next film and has been set to direct an adaptation of Ta-Nehisi Coates’ book “The Water Dancer” for MGM. Coates adapted the script based on his #1 New York Times Bestselling Novel of the same name. The film adaptation is being produced by Maceo-Lyn, Brad Pitt’s Plan B and Oprah Winfrey’s Harpo Films.

Tracy Letts’ The Minutes would be one of the most thrilling new plays on Broadway this season even if recent real-life events hadn’t made it seem as uncanny as it is funny and, ultimately, disarming. The Minutes – there are a brisk 90 of them in all – begins as one thing and ends up quite another, and every step along the way is so finely rendered that we’re too busy savoring the moment to see what’s waiting just ahead.

For Colored Girls, Ntozake Shange’s brilliant work isn’t even just a play, but rather a series of monologues that also incorporate music and dance.The show is a modern-seeming musical of sorts, and it’s impressive that it still feels fresh and timely, as it was originally performed in New York in 1976. The title features seven women who have all faced adversity due to sexism and racism, and while everyone should see it, the event is not running very long, just for 20 weeks.A post shared by for colored girls – Broadway (@forcoloredgirlsbroadway) LGBTQ audiences have a lot of reasons to go see Take Me Out.

It is a story steeped in action and intrigue, but is it true?

A former “American Idol” contestant is out with a new song.