William Shatner had every reason to live down to the worst things people said about him and his career. Instead, Shatner embraced his image and keeps having the last laugh.

The “Star Trek” legend and “T.J. Hooker” star hit a pretty rough patch a while back. He was getting older, and his curious way with a line reading left him open … for … mockery.

Instead, he went to work. And, at 80, he’s not close to slowing down. Shatner’s next gig takes him to Broadway and then, later in 2012, across the country.

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Ed. Note: Please welcome Douglas Miller to Big Hollywood and encourage him to return. — JN

In Homer’s Odyssey, Odysseus is lashed to the mast so that he can hear for himself the Siren’s song, which lures men to their deaths on the rocks. I had to be lashed to my chair to watch the 65th Tony awards and, as I feared, despite the ginned up hoopla, Broadway is on the rocks! 

The Broadway Musical is America’s gift to the world. In its Golden Age – the 1940s to the early 1960s – the creation of the Musical was raised to a fine art; from Oklahoma to My Fair Lady, the Musical reached its zenith. But then the Sixties took hold, along with its Progressive agenda, and the downward spiral began. The always prescient Ayn Rand foresaw the enshrining of mediocrity as a means to control the hearts and minds of the public in the person of arts critic Ellsworth Monkton Toohey, who aimed to create a society that would be “an average drawn upon zeroes.” This is Broadway today: the sum total of zeroes. 

Since the onset of the Obama regime, the Great White Way has become the Great White-Guilt Way, with racism redux and the red nail polished talons of the GLAAD-iators bared reflexively at the imagined ignorant and the homophobic. J’accuse! Come to the theatre and pay $195 to feel bad about being an American. When John Kander was asked about the relevance of his latest musical, The Scottsboro Boys, a minstrel-style retelling of the 1931 trial of nine teenaged blacks accused falsely of rape, he snapped, “Of course it’s relevant. America is still a racist country!” He said this despite the fact that America had just voted in a black president. 

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Fans of a certain costumed web-slinger have been dismayed by a string of recent developments which have threatened to bury the crime-fighter’s sterling reputation under a mountain of kitsch and banality.

First, there was the departure of director Sam Raimi and his crew from the lucrative Spider-Man movie franchise. Raimi had helmed three episodes of the block-buster series that has earned an estimated $1 billion worldwide. And despite what many fans felt was a lack-luster third movie, there was never any doubt that Raimi – a Spider-Man fan from way back – perfectly translated to film the heart of the Spider-Man universe, which was always the character of Peter Parker and his relationships with the women in his life, especially Aunt May and long-time love Mary Jane.

Despite his spectacular success, however, Sony studios didn’t trust Raimi to make his movies the way he wanted, and reportedly made life so miserable for him that he walked. Instantly, the studio announced that they would be rebooting the franchise with a new director and crew, sending Peter Parker back to high school and re-casting the story with trendy young actors and promising (sigh) that the new Spidey will be delivered in 3D.

Great.

This lamentable focus on youth and style over story and character is not limited to Spider-Man, of course. Raimi’s first two Spidey films may have been shot in 2D, but the characters were so well written and acted that the story felt 3D. But never mind. Like everything else, the new Spidey must be targeted to teens and tweens, who don’t know from story and couldn’t care less about plot (witness the Twilight abominations). (more…)

This week Barabra Streisand emerged from her self -imposed seclusion to grace Larry King and his viewers with her presence on the TV host’s penultimate broadcast.  As the Los Angeles Times put it, the “interview” resembled more of an infomercial for the product that is Barbra Streisand.

In segment after segment Barbra talked about Barbra.  Barbra talked about Obama.  Barbra talked about Barbra.  Barbra talked about Clinton.  And Barbra talked about Barbra.

Larry King dutifully congratulated her on all of her observations.

Here’s one my favorite moments:  When Larry King asked her about the first two years of Barack Obama’s Presidency she laments that President Obama did not use his “executive powers” to unilaterally repeal DADT.  Then, pricelessly, without any sense of self awareness she goes on to praise President Bill Clinton as one of our greatest Presidents.  It would have been at this moment that an actual journalist would have pointed out to Ms. Streisand that President Clinton was the “great” President that instituted the DADT policy that she now wants President Obama to unconstitutionally and unilaterally revoke.  Instead, Mr. King appeared to sit back and admire the beautiful lighting that Ms. Streisand probably supervised prior to the tape rolling.

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As I watched my favorite morning news show today, an item came up which caused me to execute a perfect Danny Thomas “spit-take.”  Today is the publication date for President Obama’s new children’s book billed as “a moving tribute to thirteen groundbreaking Americans and the ideals that have shaped our nation.”   The content of the book didn’t cause my reaction, nor was it that what Obama would describe as the “ideals that have shaped our nation,” would probably be unrecognizable to our founding fathers.  The publication of the President’s book made me angry but it had nothing to do with the President’s progressive politics and everything to do with the title of his book; Of Thee I Sing.

There is only one true Of Thee I Sing, a musical that first appeared on Broadway almost seventy years ago and (in my humble opinion) is one of the most biting political satires ever written. In fact, Of Thee I Sing was the first successful American musical with a consistently satiric tone.  The writers and the cast were unsure of what the public’s reception would be, prompting one of the writers of the book, George S. Kaufman, to quip “Satire is what closes on Saturday night.”

Written at the beginning of the great depression, Of Thee I Sing lampoons a political system too tied up in personalities and silly little issues to fix the country’s economy. The creative team behind the musical was a Broadway All-Star team.  The book was written by George S. Kaufman (You Can’t Take it With You) and Morrie Ryskind. The team’s previous collaboration was Animal Crackers, a Broadway musical written for the Marx Brothers (Ryskind went on to write many of the Marx Brothers movies). Music and lyrics were written by George and Ira Gershwin.  George Gershwin was perhaps America’s greatest composer, writing everything from musicals, to opera, to classical music and ballet.   Ira Gershwin is one of the American musical’s greatest lyricists, who wrote for both stage and screen (including the original A Star is Born).

Of Thee I Sing was the first musical ever to win the Pulitzer Prize for drama. Unfortunately though the score is an essential part of the play, George Gershwin was was not recognized by the Pulitzer committee.

The play tells the story of presidential candidate John P. Wintergreen,” he’s the man the people choose, loves the Irish and the Jews.” For Vice President the choice is Alexander Throttlebottom, who throughout the play keeps trying to get into meetings and rallies, but gets thrown out because no one knows who he is.

Thanks to political bosses Louis Lippman and Francis X. Gilhooley, newspaper magnate Matthew Arnold Fulton, Senators Carver Jones and Robert E. Lyons – Wintergreen’s chosen platform was the politically safe “love platform.”  The party bosses also decide that Wintergreen should get married, so they hold a beauty pageant to select a bride for him. The winner is the sultry southern belle Diana Deveraux. (more…)

Join us here at Big Hollywood tonight as we live-blog the west coast feed of the Tony Awards from 8:00 PM – 11:00 PM Pacific Time. Broadway’s brightest lights will shine on the stage of Radio City Music Hall as host Sean Hayes moves the evening along with grace.

For the final two hours of the show, we will also have live, streaming audio of “The Stage Right Show” with live callers, running commentary, by yours truly and a slew of surprise call-in guests (many of whom are your favorite Big Hollywood contributors).

Join us here at Big Hollywood, sign in to the live-blog chat room, and join the interactive, multi-media, Broadway fun! We liveblog using ScribbleLive.com, so if you haven’t already, head over there and create a profile–don’t forget to upload an avatar!

And, don’t worry, if you come late, the usher will seat you at an appropriate break in the performance.

On April 14, 1978, the industry trade daily The Hollywood Reporter carried a tiny blurb on an event of outsized historical significance. During the upcoming Los Angeles Film Exposition (today known as The Los Angeles International Film Festival), personnel from New York’s Modern Museum of Art were to visit the west coast and present a ten-picture selection of rarities from its vast archive of cinematic treasures.

Their keystone attraction was Broken Blossoms (1919), a then sixty-year-old silent film. The Museum, as it happened, possessed the only “original tinted nitrate print” known to still exist in the world. This precious and brittle jewel would be projected at the Exposition for the last time, before being tucked away into temperature and humidity controlled storage (from then on, future screenings would use copies of the original). For its last hurrah, this ancient print would be accompanied by a full, live orchestra, like in the old days. And to cement the evening as a particularly notable occasion, the movie’s eighty-four-year-old star, Lillian Gish, “would be presented following the screening.” (more…)

The first thing you need to know about “Race,” the new play by David Mamet currently running at the Barrymore Theatre on Broadway, is that it isn’t really about race.  Well, not entirely about race.

The setting is a conference room of a law firm.  Henry Brown (David Alan Grier) and his white partner Jack Lawson (James Spader) are interviewing a prospective client (Richard Thomas).  The client, a wealthy white man, is standing trial for the rape of a black woman.

Two expert attorneys interviewing a prospective client is the perfect device for Mamet to not only inform the audience of the facts at hand and the idiosyncratic personalities of the characters we will spend the next hour and a half of our lives with, but it also serves as a perfect showcase for the playwright’s legendary use of dialogue, timing, over-lapping speech patterns and no-holds-barred language.  For a Mamet addict, this is heroin.

It is a chance to watch a conversation that anyone outside that room was never meant to hear.  And the language the characters use reflect the comfortable and brazen style reminiscent of Glengarry Glen Ross and Speed-the-Plow, the unique vernacular often referred to as “Mamet-Speak.” (more…)

The same country that brought us Leni Riefenstahl is now set to deliver Hope: The Obama Musical.  I’m serious, they are really doing this.  The musical is set to open in Frankfurt on Jan. 17th and, in all fairness, it would be wrong for me to give any kind of opinion on the quality of this show before John Nolte flies me out to Germany to see it (John?  I’m waiting…hello?  Is this thing on?) [Ed. Note: Absolutely! Just bring back all your receipts and, uhm, I'll get to them when I can.]

Luckily, the press office for this soon-to-be classic has assembled a slick little YouTube video highlighting all of the big moments of the show.  Believe it or not, this video is meant to inspire you to buy a ticket.

Great, terrific, perfect…  um…  a couple things. (more…)

It has been almost one year since I began writing here at the Big Blogs of Breitbart.com.  When it all began, I was motivated by the events that brought down Sacramento Music Theatre executive Scott Eckern.  Ironically, his story, which inspired this new avocation also served as a real-life lesson in the new political world we inhabit.  You see, Mr. Eckern was forced to resign his position because it was discovered that he donated money to the anti-same sex marriage Prop. 8 campaign.  Knowing that, I would have been a fool to put my name on the things I’ve written here.  So, “Stage Right” was born.

Since then, I have been fortunate enough to have free-reign on all things theatre at Big Hollywood (gently guided by the collective wisdom of Andrew Breitbart and John Nolte) and I’ve had a fantastic time writing about the industry, about the non-profit world… even about my favorite shows.  But now, things have changed just a bit.

It started with Patrick Courrielche’s now famous expose’ on the NEA Conference Call.  Just like the Scott Eckern story, what bothered me most at the time was the media and especially the left-leaning theatre writers’ attack on Patrick.   Instead of showing any level of skepticism over the appropriateness of staff members of the NEA and the White House coordinating discussions with artists about how they can help move the President’s agenda by creating works of art in favor of specific issues, Patrick was attacked and libeled for the sin of telling the truth and bringing the subject to light.

Next came the media’s reaction to James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles’ blockbuster series of videos exposing the corruption at ACORN offices from sea to shining sea.  Again, the venom and outrage is directed at the messenger while the message gets rationalized and obfuscated.  This story raised my ire to such a degree that I began posting at Big Government. (more…)

Back in February, my Big Hollywood colleague and super-funny-dude Tim Slagle wrote a series of posts on the Broadway musical “Avenue Q”.  The show was going through a mini-crisis/publicity stunt because one of the big punch lines to the song “For Now” was no longer valid:

A song called “For Now” has the puppets reassure each other that most things in life are temporary, like hair and sex. Until recently, one of those temporary things was “George Bush.” Knowing that Obama was to be shortly inaugurated, the producers and writers were perplexed for a replacement. I know it should be obvious to everyone else, but Broadway producers don’t think like you and I. So they threw a contest to decide a better verse.

Two weeks later, Slagle followed up with the big announcement of the new lyric: (more…)

Last night, David “I’m No Longer a Brain-Dead Liberal” Mamet’s “Oleanna” opened on Broadway.  The production (a transfer from Los Angeles’ Mark Taper Forum) stars Bill Pullman and Julia Stiles.  As discussed on these pages Friday, this play was originally produced off-Broadway 18 years ago and is now receiving its first, official Broadway production. “Oleanna” and the upcoming “Race” are two opportunities for Mr. Mamet’s work to be evaluated by the heavily-left-leaning theatre critics.

The play received quite positive reviews.  Here are some interesting things I read in the reviews…

In Elysa Gardner’s positive review in USA Today, she refers to the contrasting times in which the play is now produced versus the original production:

When David Mamet’s Oleanna premiered in 1992, it was widely perceived as a response to the confirmation hearings for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, in which Thomas was accused of sexual harassment by former assistant Anita Hill.  It has been 18 years since that real-life drama played out. But as the very different controversy now surrounding David Letterman reminds us, the debate over what constitutes an abuse of power between a male authority figure and a female subordinate isn’t going away. (more…)

“I took the liberal view for many decades, but I believe I have changed my mind.” – David Mamet

As I discussed in my very first post here at Big Hollywood, many in the theatre world were surprised to read David Mamet’s amazing article, “Why I am No Longer A Brain-Dead Liberal” in the Village Voice.  In my post, I used the play “Oleanna” as an example of a conservative lean that I recognized in Mamet’s work when it premiered off-Broadway in 1992.  I concluded with a couple of questions: (more…)

I’m not sad today. I’m not melancholy. I’m not remembering the first time I saw a sunset reflected off the west-facing side of the towers.  Today doesn’t elicit any of those feelings in me.

This day makes me pissed off.

And I’m not just pissed at the terrorists.  I’m pissed at the panty-waist theatre community I am a member of.

Case in point:  ”One of the first plays about Muslim life in the United States debuts in a time and place fraught with symbolism: Sept. 11th, in New York City.”

The two-act play which the playwright likens to a Muslim-American “Death of a Salesman” opens tonight at the Nuyorkian Poets Cafe, about 2 miles from ground zero. (more…)

I bet that headline got your attention!  But, as you’ll see a little later in this post, the scene in question is not really a “rape” at all.  But that didn’t keep the NY Daily News from running this headline yesterday:

‘Bye Bye Birdie’ revival on Broadway drops scene for ‘gang rape’ concern

“Just a copy editor trying to get attention by over-exaggerating a story,” you think?  That’s what I thought, too.  But here is the story with Gina Gershon’s quote: (more…)

Summer is the slow time on Broadway as theatre pros recover from their Tony Award hang-overs and try to rush out to the Island for a few days of R & R before the new season begins.  This year it seems there are a few plays aiming for early fall openings hoping to ride a crest of popularity into the always-lucrative holiday season.

Just as last season brought a record number of plays as well as stellar gross sales (despite doom-sayers in the industry) this season already looks locked and loaded with a huge number of shows scheduled to open between October 1st and the first week of May (the traditional Tony nomination cut-off).  So to help the readers of Big Hollywood plan their trip to the Great White Way (we can still say that, can’t we?), I submit the top 10 things to look for from the center/right perspective:

10.  ”Superior Donuts” – A transfer from Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre (one of my personal favorite regional houses in America), the play stars “Spinal Tap”’s Michael McKean as an aging hippie who owns a donut shop in a largely black neighborhood and Jon Michael Hill (do all young Broadway actors HAVE to go by three names now?) as a 21-year-old from the neighborhood who talks his way into a job at the shop.  From the New York Times review:  ”In one of the play’s most amusing exchanges Franco challenges Arthur to name 10 black poets. Arthur names a few, then stands dumb, a look of deep concentration on his face. “It’s like watching George Bush on ‘Jeopardy!’ ” Franco cracks.” (more…)

The New York Post ran a story this weekend with a very encouraging headline: RIGHT TURN ON B’WAY? Michael Riedel’s article revolves around two new plays that are being shopped around for a home.  One is a one-man play about Ronald Reagan.

“Reagan” is a one-man play that doesn’t portray the 40th president as a fascist. It’s by Lionel Chetwynd, whose scripts for television and film include “The Hanoi Hilton,” “Color of Justice,” “Kissinger and Nixon” and “DC 9/11: Time of Crisis.” ….  Chetwynd declined to comment on “Reagan,” except to say with a laugh, “It will change lives and the course of history.” A copy of an early script portrays Reagan as thoughtful, determined, sly (when necessary) and winning. Talking to the audience from the main room of his California ranch, Reagan explains his journey from FDR Democrat to conservative Republican. Along the way, he offers a spirited defense of conservative principles. At least three top directors have passed on the play because, says a source, “They can’t stand Ronald Reagan.”

The other play cited is “Girls in Trouble (Formerly Three Abortions)” by Jonathan Reynolds.

In “Girls in Trouble,” Reynolds presents a balanced view of pro-lifers while taking some swipes at the NPR crowd. The play ends with a harrowing confrontation between two women — one pro-life, the other pro-choice — that’s not for the squeamish. “Thus far, its claim to fame is that it’s been turned down by all the theaters in New York,” Reynolds says of his play. “It was commissioned by the Long Wharf, but they wouldn’t put it on. There was a theater in the suburbs of Washington, DC, that said they wanted to present the ‘other side’ of the abortion debate. But when they read it, they said it would “infuriate our audience.” Oskar Eustis, the head of the Public Theater, told Reynolds that his staff “didn’t go for it,” but that he would take a look at it himself.

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Back in January you couldn’t watch any entertainment “news” show or read any Arts & Culture section of a newspaper without seeing something about the death of Broadway.  There were so many shows closing all at once that the imminent death of our industry was whined about not just from spineless actors, but from producers as well.  It was so pervasive that Saturday Night Live utilized Neil Patrick Harris’ musical theatre ability to present a skit starring the characters of popular Broadway shows having a meeting at Sardi’s to try to save the industry.

Somewhere, out in the wilderness, on the pages of Big Hollywood, there was a lone voice of reason.  A pragmatic and practical man laying out the facts for you, the ever-interested and conservative reader.  That man, one Stage Right, was shrewd enough to label the producers as “panty-waste industry folk” and explained that their propensity to panic and pull the emergency brake is partly attributed to their liberal tendencies.

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The life story of a Black star in a White world, a man who arguably was the world’s greatest entertainer, will not be coming to a theater near you anytime soon. If ever.

During a recent interview on my radio program “The Andrea Shea King Show”, Hollywood conservative Burt Boyar, longtime friend and biographer of the late great Sammy Davis, Jr., said he’s concerned that the true story about the talented entertainer who fought and broke through racial barriers will never be seen on the silver screen. Two years ago, Boyar had negotiated a deal to sell his two biographies to filmmakers who were all set to tell the story on celluloid.

Reflection: Sammy Davis Jr. snaps a photo of himself and Jerry Lewis posing in the reflection of a mirror.

What entanglements are keeping the former member of the Rat Pack’s compelling life from being made into a movie?  A life studded with Tinseltown’s glittering constellation of stars whose orbits intersected his?   Luminaries like Sinatra, Peter Lawford, Joey Bishop, Dean Martin, Tony Curtis, Jerry Lewis, Liz and Burton, Paul Newman, Berle, Bacall, Bennett, Damone… when Hollywood was at its most glamorous?

Who is Burt Boyar? And why does he care?

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