More than once, we bloggers have lamented, or at least pondered, the phenomenon of musicals being made into movies and vice versa. Hairspray has seemed like the weirdest possible example, going as it did from campy film to cheerful stage musical to downright-ecstatic-and-still-campy movie musical. And then there's the film version of Mamma Mia!, which could be terrible, Meryl Streep notwithstanding. But yesterday, I saw some even crazier movie-to-musical-to-movie casting news.

Here it is: Drew Barrymore has been cast as Edie Bouvier Beale in HBO's adaptation of the bizarro documentary-turned-musical Grey Gardens.

Jessica Lange will play Edith Ewing Bouvier Beale (the mother of Barrymore's character).

If you haven't seen the documentary or the Broadway musical, here's the usual summation: A mother and daughter — who just happen to be Jackie Kennedy's aunt and cousin — let their lives and their house go to ruin, invoking the ire of the local authorities and the shame of their famous family. A better way to summarize it is to tell you that Jenny Schecter once professed her deep love for the documentary. … continue reading

Sometimes when TV series kill off characters, I’m sad not because I’ll miss the character, but because I’ll miss seeing the actor. That’s how I felt when Susan Grey died on Grey’s Anatomy. Susan was alternately endearing and annoying, but killing Mare Winningham? I don’t blame Thatcher — I wanted to slap somebody, too.

The news that Winningham will guest star on Boston Legal this season cheered me up a little. The two-time Emmy winner is slated to play Patrice Kelly, a grieving mother who kills her daughter’s murderer and asks Alan Shore (James Spader) to defend her. Maybe that will keep her around for at least few episodes. Winningham’s role, by the way, is the latest of several notable casting announcements from Boston Legal, including the addition of Gail O’ Grady, John Larroquette and (trumpet fanfare) Saffron Burrows in recurring roles.

I probably shouldn’t worry about seeing Winningham. She’s been on screen consistently since her debut in 1976 on The Gong Show — she didn’t get gonged — and IMDb lists 74 TV and movie roles. At least one is a classic.

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I didn’t realize, though, that Winningham is also a talented musician.

Bollywood star Shilpa Shetty is having a big year.

U.K. audiences may know her best from Celebrity Big Brother; audiences elsewhere might also remember her from that, what with complaints about racist comments directed toward her in the Big Brother house. Shetty went on to win the series. Here's that moment: … continue reading

Shh, don’t tell scribegrrrl, but Tina Fey isn't the only woman on 30 Rock. And this season, that woman — Jane Krakowski — will be hard to miss.

Krakowski, in an interview with TV Guide, reports that her 30 Rock character, Jenna Maroney, returns to “The Girlie Show” 40 pounds heavier as a result of spending the summer doing “Mystic Pizza: The Musical.” Seems she had to eat four slices of pizza on stage during each performance, so she packed on the pounds. But, in the kind of twist we’ve come to expect from 30 Rock, that, um, development does not subject Jenna to the usual fat jokes we’d hear in lesser shows. In fact, Krakowski says, the weight gain is, well, a plus.

“It’s hard to explain but she becomes quite famous for being one of those ‘bigger girls’ on TV and being proud of her curves, and because of that she becomes happier, her self-confidence goes up and she ends up losing a lot of the weight naturally — which is detrimental to her career!”

Judging by this screen cap from last season, I think Jenna could use a few pounds. Where’s her stomach?

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You know how the conversations get started. You're cavorting with your friends when someone decides to take things in a direction that's a bit less lighthearted and a bit more thought-provoking. A game of 20 questions goes from silly to sincere in the blink of an eye. When the tone shifts, I like to bring up the subject of women I'd like to meet. I think it's enlightening to know who my friends would like to sit down with for coffee and a bit of chit-chat if they could choose any woman, living or dead, for their own little game of 20 questions.

My problem with such questions is that I would have a tough time narrowing it down to just one. I love women who break barriers or defy odds. I adore women who tell it like it is without apology. My standard choice has generally been Maya Angelou.

Much as I like that choice, I decided the other day that I needed to expand my horizons, branch out to new territory, find another bright, witty woman I don't know with whom to have a little sit-down. After scouring the net for likely candidates — in a completely non-stalkerish way — I learned something important. I don't know enough women. What I mean is, there are amazing women out there, in all kinds of places, and I had never heard of them before. And that's just wrong. So I wanted to let you in on some of the amazing women I discovered.

First, you should know what got me started down this road in the first place. There's a little slide-show article over at msn.com called "10 amazing women you've never heard of" (thanks Mo!). It's an outstanding list of smart, beautiful women including Nobel prize winners, doctors, teachers, and the first plus-sized super-model, Emme Aronson. It includes women like Safiye Amjan, an Afghan woman who defied the Taliban to continue educating girls in her homeland. It includes women like Waris Dirie, a Somalian woman who has led the crusade to end female genital mutilation after suffering the atrocity of it herself. It includes women like Kelly Perkins, a heart transplant recipient who climbs mountains both literal and figurative. It's a list you should definitely check out.

It's also a list that leaves a lot of room for additions. Here are five women who would be on my list. I'd love to engage any of them in a little coffee talk. … continue reading

I've been a Martha Plimpton fan for as long as I can remember. Ever since she played a tomboy in The River Rat (1984), I've just felt, well, fond of her. With a resume that includes The Goonies, The Mosquito Coast and Running on Empty — plus a whole lotta theater, including the much celebrated (and much lamented) The Coast of Utopia — she's worked steadily and seriously since her (and my) teens. But I'm getting ahead of myself: How could you not love her in The Goonies?

And here she is in 2001 at the Goonies cast reunion:

Some people really do improve with age. But Plimpton's move from screen to stage has resulted in significantly less publicity than she got back in the '80s, so I was glad to see her profiled in the Aug. 1–7 issue of Time Out New York. … continue reading

My big regret of the summer Broadway season is that I did not see Xanadu when I had the opportunity to get cheap tickets. It wasn't because I didn't want to see it; it was simply bad timing. Now it's the surprise hit of the summer, selling almost 90 percent of the seats and breaking box office records at the Helen Hayes Theatre. A 2008 tour has just been planned and talks are in place to bring the show to London. So I'm not getting cheap tickets anytime soon.

I'm not entirely certain whether to be happy or sad about the show's success. As I've blogged previously, I want Broadway shows to be good. And, as a general rule, Broadway musical versions of '70s and '80s music-influenced movies are not good. I saw both Footloose and Urban Cowboy and will follow my mother's advice to remain quiet if I do not have anything nice to say. And Saturday Night Fever was reputed to be a train wreck. But Xanadu was so wonderfully bad that its sheer campiness gives it more potential.

The New York Times review opens with the question, "Can a musical be simultaneously indefensible and irresistible?" and then answers, "Why, yes it can." I guess that sums it up pretty well. It's a show that probably shouldn't exist but, given that it does, it redeems itself by being a great deal of fun.

Let's revisit the movie for a moment. … continue reading

There is no way to reference Celia Cruz without superlatives; la Reina de la Salsa — the Queen of Salsa — was incredibly, indisputably larger than life.

Now that life, including a fifty-year career that spanned days of winning cakes in Havana radio contests to days of winning lifetime achievement awards, is the subject of an off-Broadway production. Celia: A Musical Journey opens at New World Stages in New York City on Sept. 12. The show is directed by Jaime Azpilicueta and stars another Cuban singer, Xiomara Laugart, formerly of New York–based Latin funk band Yerba Buena. … continue reading

Without Veronica Mars this fall, TV will undoubtedly be a quieter, less mysterious place. Or at least, it will be missing the skills — not to mention sassy good looks — of Kristen Bell.

Earlier this week, rumor had it that Bell might find a place on Lost (which might have been enough to convince me to watch this next season). Sadly, it wasn't meant to be. But apparently for good cause: It's possible that Bell may head back to Broadway.

Yep, I said head back. Or am I the only one who didn't know that Bell studied musical theater and even played opposite Laura Linney and Liam Neeson in the The Crucible (2002)? Granted, my fan appreciation of Kristen Bell and Veronica Mars was limited to enjoying the show on a weekly basis. It never approached that obsession resulting in the ability to recite episode history and guest star bios I've come to associate with Joss Whedon projects. But still, this seems like something I should have known, especially after this Emmy performance (hi, Alyson Hannigan!): … continue reading

It tentatively appears that the Sunset Boulevard powers-that-be agree with AfterEllen.com readers. Fifty-five percent of those of you who expressed an opinion chose Glenn Close as the lead — as opposed to 27 percent who wanted Meryl Streep and 18 percent who chose Barbara Streisand. According to the MTV movies blog and IMDb.com, Glenn Close will play the lead in the movie — when it's eventually filmed.

The poky speed of the project is the thrust of the MTV post. Close is reputed to be frustrated that it's taking so long for the project to move. "'It's going very slowly,' sighed Glenn Close." She sighed. That kills me. However, she's optimistic that the success of Chicago and Hairspray will bode well for this project. Notably, she did not mention the last Andrew Lloyd Webber movie musical, Phantom of the Opera, which was not such a big hit.

Thanks to all of you who expressed your opinion. Of the Close-voters, I think notl33t put it best:"I'm all for Glenn Close. I think the sheer manic qualities of her Cruella De Vil are enough of a testament to her abilities to be believably crazy on screen."

Stay home tomorrow, or at least set your TiVo: The Sci Fi Channel is doing an all-day Firefly marathon, starting at 8:00 a.m. (do space cowboys even wake up that early?).

Meanwhile, Jackie Hoffman stops by Late Night With Conan O'Brien tonight. You might know Jackie as the piqued, pregnant friend in Kissing Jessica Stein. Or maybe you caught her side-splitting performance in the original Broadway run of Hairspray. Or maybe you've seen one of her uproarious cabaret shows, complete with Shamu impressions. Here she is with the costar of her recent show Jackie With a Z — yes, that's a uterus, if you couldn't tell.

If her name doesn't ring a bell, you're missing a lot. Hoffman is a rubber-faced, risk-it-all madwoman. She's currently one of the "biggest laugh getters" (the other is Mary Testa) in Xanadu, the stage version of the 1980 Olivia Newton-John movie. … continue reading

If it were your job to choose Glenn Close, Meryl Streep or Barbra Streisand to star in your movie, you might be the luckiest person on earth.

But you would also be faced with an obscenely difficult decision. According to London's Daily Telegraph, Andrew Lloyd Webber is considering each of these award-winning actresses for the role of Norma Desmond in the movie of his musical of the movie Sunset Blvd. (Trying to describe that makes me think of Julie Andrews in the movie Victor/Victoria: "I'm a woman, pretending to be a man, pretending to be a woman.")

The role will be a challenge for any of the three. Norma Desmond is utterly and completely owned by the original star, Gloria Swanson.

The original movie is so iconic and heavily quoted, it can almost seem like a parody of itself. The musical remake — especially as conceived by Andrew Lloyd Webber — may not be great. But whoever is cast gets to deliver the line,"All right, Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my close-up."

So let's play casting director for a moment and consider each option: … continue reading

When I read the article announcing that Kelly Osbourne would be taking over the role of Matron "Mama" Morton in the West End production of Chicago, I rested my head on my desk and wept quietly.

Actually, first I read the name as Kelly Clarkson (and have not been able to get that out of my head!), reread the article and thought, "Argh! I hate stunt casting!"

Now, I know the arguments in favor of stunt casting. It increases box office and exposes more people to theater (or theatre, in the West End). The standards for musicals are lower in London than in New York (although the standards for plays are higher), and this particular production is notorious for its stunt casting. Ashlee Simpson has already played Roxie! So should I really be upset that a reality show star with little or no training is taking over a great role for which she's 20 years too young? … continue reading

Have you heard? Huh? Have you? Beyonce ... Disney ... Sir Elton ... Aida… OK, I’m all tapped out. I don’t have any more clues! So let me just tell you. It's being reported that Beyonce Knowles (as opposed to the various other Beyonces out there) is in talks with Disney to potentially star in the possible big-budget film adaptation of Sir Elton John’s Tony Award–winning Broadway musical that was based on Verdi’s opera Aida.

Did you get all that? Because after I wrote Beyonce, I sort of got confused about the rest of it, myself. Anyway, back to the important part:

I’m not ashamed to admit that if I were to watch Beyonce read the phone book in pig Latin, I'd find myself smiling and thoroughly entertained. Heck, I’d even sit through Beyonce singing the real arias from Verdi’s Aida. So learning of the possibility of her actually singing some of the gems from the musical has my pulse at jogging rate — you know, if I actually did jog. … continue reading

On Monday, various luminaries attended the premiere of Hairspray in L.A., including the always brilliant Queen Latifah. Latifah plays Motormouth Maybelle, and she was still wearing her character's dazzling blonde hair at the premiere:

Holy platinum pate! And holy, uh, other stuff. Here are some more photos of the Queen at the premiere: … continue reading