I'm not a trekkie, I swear...

But for some reason, I'm excited about Zachary Quinto playing Spock! He's a really great, interesting actor. Above is a pic of him on set, via cinematical. Is anyone else weirdly psyched about this?

An Affront to Moxie's Childhood

Elizabeth Hasselbeck had a baby today, and named it Taylor Thomas Hasselbeck. Obviously, my next thought was, "as in JONATHAN Taylor Thomas??!!!??!" The brilliant, amazing ladies at Jezebel picked up the story, and a quick look at the reactions in the comments was enough to suck me into a shame spiral about my tween heartthrob of choice.

I mean did you even KNOW that JTT is vehemently anti-choice?!? He gives speeches at anti-choice events, and actually did the voice-over of a fetus in a pro-life campaign. In my tween years, I thought he was crunchy! He's a vegetarian, for christsake! What the fuck is going on here!? Did Hasselbeck name the baby after JTT because she, too, is anti-choice, anti-Roe V. Wade, anti-stem cell research, anti-not being an asshole? BTW here is JTT's fan site, if you're into that sort of thing.

Okay, I feel dirty all over. Enough of that.

Sunday To Do

Watch Spalding Gray's Swimming to Cambodia.

It had been floating around my netflix queue since I saw Spalding Gray: Stories Left to Tell, and I'm so glad I finally got around to watching it. The man is absolutely spellbinding, and his stories are hilarious, startling, frightening, fascinating... he's just amazing. In a way, he reminds me of a dark, philosophical Larry David - which is just another way of saying he reminds me of my dad. I find myself looking for quotes to put into this blog post to try and make you understand, but you really just need to sit down and watch this thing.

It's fucking gold. Check it out.

MTC cancels Lonergan's The Starry Messenger

Here's something that slipped under my radar during all the strike(s) hubbub: MTC has cancelled it's upcoming production of Kenneth Lonergan's new play The Starry Messenger. Matthew Broderick was slated to star in the play off-broadway, and there was a lot of buzz around the show, as one of the highlights of MTC's season.

Manhattan Theatre Club's only expanation was, "Scheduling conflicts make it impossible to proceed in the allotted time slot," which means exactly nothing. Indeed, the production is still listed on the company's website, a full day after the announcement. I'm sure their subscribers will be thrilled to hear about the cancellation, and wonder what in the world would have stopped them from proceeding with the production. Casting was in progress, with some pretty great people lined up to star alongside Broderick. I wonder if it's something personal going on with Broderick or Lonergan, who was also set to direct the play.

Shoot! I was looking forward to this.

Stagehands Strike - what lies beneath?

The Stagehands began their strike today, closing down most of Broadway. I have to admit, I'm often a little befuddled by strikes. I get that people are upset that they can't see The Grinch as planned, and the whole industry is going to suffer economically from it (well, unless you're Young Frankenstein or the stamp play). But looking at this and the WGA strike, it seems like the public often experiences the effects of a strike usually without much understanding of why it's really happening.

I find myself wondering, "what's really being argued about here?" According to Playbill.com, the union hasn't released an official statement, but fliers are circulating that read, "We truly regret that there is no show. . . Broadway is a billion dollar a year industry and has never been more profitable than now. Cuts in our jobs and wages will never result in a cut in ticket prices to benefit the public, but only an increase in the profits for producers. Unlike the producers, we are not fighting for our second or third homes: we are fighting to keep the one that we have."

Meanwhile, the League released a statement that uses vague accusations of the union being irresponsible and unfeeling towards the industry and the impact of the strike, but the only thing they actually say about why this is happening is this: "Our goal is simple: To pay for workers we need and for work that is actually performed."

I think it's an interesting, unfortunate situation where the industry and the public are all involved in the repercussions of the strike, but it seems like people aren't really talking about the negotiations, or what the strike is really about. And it can be interesting to delve into the gossip about what's being negotiated (or not being negotiated), but that can get sticky pretty fast. Theatreforte posted about how dismaying it is to see CNN wondering "What were the stagehands thinking... going on strike during such a busy time of year for the Great White Way?"

Anybody out there in the thick of it? Care to shed some light?

Recent Casting Developments

Jeanne Tripplehorn is going to play Jackie O in the upcoming Grey Gardens film. I'm still nowhere near over the casting of Drew Barrymore as Little Edie, but I freakin love Jeanne Tripplehorn, and look forward to seeing her in this. Beyond the fact that she so strikingly resembles Jackie O, my favorite part of her performances in Big Love is how she manages to remain composed and poised even when she's totally losing it, which seems like it would translate well to playing a first lady. Hey, remember when she was in The Firm opposite Tom Cruise, and she almost went all the way with sleazy Gene Hackman? Good times.

Winona Ryder is playing Spock's mom in the Star Trek movies that they're apparently still making. [Insert joke about Ryder's career here.] Heroes star Zachary Quinto will play Spock. Wait, don't those two only look about 5-7 years different in age?

And Mayor Bloomberg recently shot a cameo in the Sex and the City movie. Huh. Remember when Ed Koch was in the SATC fashion show episode? More good times.

Young Frankenwhatever

Young Frankenstein hasn't even opened yet and I'm freaking sick and tired of it. And now channel 7 is reporting that the fucking EMPIRE STATE BUILDING will be lit in purple, yellow, and green in celebration of tonight's opening. Yes, that's right - the color of vomit. Ewwww.

Please let it be a bad dream... Jessica Alba on Broadway?

According to Michael Riedel, Jessica Alba is being courted for a Broadway revival of Speed The Plow. It's Reidel, so who knows if there's any truth there, but the mere suggestion is horrifying. In fact, I just threw up in my mouth a little. Oh, the humanity!

Strikey Time

Hey, did you hear? The writers are on strike. Reruns are about to plague the airwaves, Jay Leno is bringing everybody doughnuts, the producers of Big Brother are salivating for those easy-win ratings, and suddenly every agent in New York is calling up theaters, trying to get some kind of work for their clients, even if its a play.

To shed a little light on how the rest of the country is taking the news, here's an article from the MetroWest Daily News of Massachusattes. Gems: "Kristen Titus of Waltham would be bummed if the strike threw a kink into her TV time routine - she records "Grey's Anatomy" and "Heroes" every week. "It'd be upset - those are my shows I like to watch.' "

And Gothamist checked out Seth Meyers on the picket line, who said, "TV is completely changing, the way people are watching is completely changing, and we just want some structure in place to make sure the union is treated fairly. I hope this ends as soon as possible; I’d be more than happy to do SNL this Saturday."

I think Tina Fey hit the nail on the head. From The Hollywood Reporter: "NBC is breaking away from iTunes," she said, gesturing to the company's headquarters up the street. "They know what they're doing with new media." Tru dat, Tina, tru dat.

"This is Danny Tanner reminding *you* that disco will never die!"

Ouch - only day 5 of NaBloPoMo, and I'm hitting a day when it's tough to post. Today was a very busy Monday, including the lengthy Artios Awards (for casting) this evening, which I'll post about in the next few days. Suffice it to say, it takes several drinks to sustain a jovial tone over the course of the evening. And if you don't take advantage of the free drinks, you'll be left sober at the end of the night with nothing but a gift bag filled with a Susan Lucci dermabrasion kit and backissues of Variety.

Highlights of the evening include Bob Saget's analysis of his current role as The Drowsy Chaperone's Man In Chair - produced by Bob Boyett, who also produced a little tv show called Full House. According to Saget, both shows feature him playing characters who wear cardigan sweaters and are ambiguously gay. More later on this, and other escapades in castingland.

P.S. The title of this post is an actual quote from Full House, taken from imdb's entertaining "memorable quotes" feature.

The Prigs are Awesometown

May I please direct your attention to The Prigs, the least pretentious, most funnest ever band in New York? I finally caught them on Halloween at Rockwood Music Hall, and can tell you firsthand that they put on an awesome show. Go see them sometime at Rockwood, and if you don't jump up and down with feverish delight, I'll personally refund the price of admission. (Okay admission is free, but I seriously guarantee you'll have a blast, if not several blasts.)

Here is their myspace page, where you can listen to songs with lyrics like "It's party time with an evil magic genie bartender".

Isherwood says there are no stage actresses who could play Eliza Doolittle.

In tomorrow's Arts & Leisure section, Charles Isherwood discusses his enjoyment of Roundabout's current staging of Pygmalion. He describes Claire Danes, "making her adventurous, her admirable first foray onto Broadway," and goes on to say "I'm hard put to name a single New York stage actress who could handily pull it off, with the possible exception of the up-and-coming Lily Rabe." Yeah Lily Rabe would be good, but, wait - what?

I'm so tired of Isherwood acting like just because he can't come up with ideas of his own, that means that something just doesn't exsist. He recently did it about playwrights, basically saying that there are no young playwrights concerned with politics. Which is obviously hogwash. And there are totally a bunch of actresses who could play Eliza Doolittle! Just because he can't think of any doesn't mean they don't exist.

Here's my hypothetical casting list, with a little help from the theater think tank over at All That Chat. I'm not saying every one of them could "handliy pull it off" as Isherwood says, but there are OPTIONS, people.


-Yes, Lily Rabe would probably be pretty great.
-Lynn Collins, duh.
-Lauren Ambrose
-Bryce Dallas Howard
-Paige Howard - pictured above. Did anyone see Mary Rose? I think she'd be remarkable.
-Aya Cash
-Samantha Soule
-Lisa Joyce - would fucking rock.
-Alison Pill - please Alison, just do something different already.
-Amy Rutberg
-Maggie Siff
-Wynn Everett
-Celia Keenan Bolger
-Elizabeth Moss
-Kerry Butler
-Maria Dizzia
-Zoe Kazan (think outside the box! She would be awesome!)

And there have to be more! Post them in the comments if you have more ideas.

(Thanks to Jesse21 of All That Chat!)

Does Disney think large flying objects are more interesting than good performances?

Is it me, or does Disney design its productions in a way that ends up swallowing the actors whole? These pictures of The Little Mermaid look like the actors are getting eaten up by the set, and I felt the same way about Mary Poppins. Everything was so supercalifragi-ridiculous that I could barely connect with the actors over the general din of the production values. Like the message is "Hey, Ashley Brown can sing real pretty, BUT LOOK AT THIS HUGE UMBRELLA!!!" It feels so disrespectful to the whole performance aspect of live theater. How is Sierra Boggess supposed to command the attention of the 1,000 people in the audience when there's a GIGANTIC SHIP passing over her head? It's like the whole audience is at Disney World, riding the Pirates of the Carribean ride, and tucked away in back of all the fake puppet pirates is Johnny Depp giving an actual live performance.

Speaking of supercalifragelisticexpial-atrocious, these costumes look like the aquatic version of that number in Mary Poppins.



Whatever. Bixby is right - no matter what, it will still probably make bijillions, because it's got "that song". Sing it with me now: "I wanna be where the people are. Ask 'em my questions and get some aaanswers! What's a fire, and why does it - what's the word - buuuuuurn???"

I fucking love Roseanne

I love how straight-up she is. She seems totally bananas, but the stuff coming out of her mouth makes more sense than a lot of the more "reasonable" sources! From her blog, which is fantastic:

Don't Legalize It???

Hilary does not want to decriminalize marijuana and neither does obama... They should both be locked up for that outdated crap! You know they both smoke it.

I just love a woman who says what she means. Her and Arianna Huffington are my favorite guests on Bill Mahr. No tap dancing or tiptoeing in Roseanne World.

NaBloPoMo, Yo!

Hey, y'all - today is the first day of NaBloPoMo! That stands for National Blog Posting Month, where participants are challenged to blog every day, all month long. I have to admit to some trepidation as I set out on this task, and fear I may be subjecting you to some more-zany-than-usual whimsy. You know, as opposed to my usual beautifully constructed, well-thought-out posts.

Other participants include Jaime of Surplus, and 87 people who blog about knitting.