Gillian Reagan

Insurrectionists in the Screen Actors Guild! It seems a group of Hollywood actors are uniting against the guild leadership in an attempt to pry the reins from the current leadership.

Calling themselves Unite for Strength, they've launched a campaign and nominated 31 candidates to head up the governing board that is making contract negotiations with major Hollywood studios, according to Reuters.

The emergence of a serious challenge to SAG's ruling coalition, a Hollywood-based group of moderates known as Membership First, likely means that the 3 1/2-week-old standoff between the union and studios will drag on for at least two more months.

Candidates running on the Unite for Strength slate include two stars from TV's "Grey's Anatomy" spinoff "Private Practice" -- Kate Walsh and Amy Brenneman -- as well as Doug Savant from "Desperate Housewives" and "Chicago Hope" veteran Adam Arkin.  read more »

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Are musical movies the new It thing to franchise? Hairspray might kick off the trend (along with High School Musical) now that John Waters has signed on to write a treatment for a sequel to the 2007 movie version of the Broadway hit.

"I never thought of musicals as franchises, but it certainly worked with High School Musical, and the idea of working with that cast again, and creating new material and music, is a dream come true," director-choreographer Adam Shankman told Daily Variety. "John (Waters) has such an original and extraordinary voice; we all can’t wait to see what he has come up with.  read more »

Cue that creepy theme song. Leonardo DiCaprio's production company and Warner Bros. are quietly seeking treatments and script ideas based on the show for feature development.

In the 1983 Twilight Zone, Warners made a four-segment film, with each segment based on an original episode in the series. Each mini-movie was made by a different director -- Joe Dante, John Landis, George Miller and Steven Spielberg. Mr. DiCaprio and his cohorts don't plan on making another episodic movie, but rather hope to build one continuing story line based on one or more episodes, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

The companies plan on making big bucks off the rerun watchers:

Warners owns rights to the Rod Serling-penned episodes, which account for the bulk of its 1959-64 run.  read more »

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Gotta question for the hippest Japanese novelist (and memoirist) around? Log in to Time magazine's Web site, where you can ask Haruki Murakami a question and possibly read the answer in a subsequent interview. Be careful what you ask for. Your question will be posted underneath the submission form after you enter it, along with your name and location.

So what does America want to know about Mr. Murakami? Here are some gems:

Posted by Kwok Sing in Amsterdam:

In stories like ‘Slow Boat to China’ or in your novel ‘wind up bird’, you are cautiously tackling the problematic relationship between Japan and China which of course is shaped by the historical events in the 20th century.  read more »

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Robin and the 7 Hoods, a new musical comedy, will swing onto Broadway in 2010. The musical, written by Sammy Cahn and James Van Heusen ("My Kind of Town," "Come Fly With Me") will adapt the 1964 Robin and the 7 Hoods for the stage, highlighting the "sexy" 60s, "where James Bond reigned supreme, martinis flowed freely, and Sinatra and Martin ruled the night," according to the press release.

Producer Bruce Charet said in a statement, “The intersection of the sexual revolution and the Camelot years will come to life every night on our stage. That moment in time, which personifies 'cool' is at the heart of our show and, thankfully, we have the wonderful songs by Cahn and Van Heusen which so eloquently express all that make that period unique.”

Here is the full press release.  read more »

Russia is getting its own Office! BBC licensed the original British format to the country so they can adapt story lines and characters to its own cultural work-a-day malaise. The original series has been sold to more than 70 countries. Seventy! Ricky Gervais must be rich!

“Russia is an important territory for us,” Ben Donald, BBC Worldwide’s head of sales, told Variety.

How do you say "That's what she said" in Russian?

Sweet Transvestite! MTV is planning to remake the Meatloaf-and-Tim-Curry-helmed classic The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Goths everywhere are horrified at the thought.

According to Variety, the two-hour remake will use the 1975 version's original screenplay by Jim Sharman and Richard O'Brien but some new music may be added. Who will they hire to write new music for it? Please god don't let it be Avril Lavigne.

Director and casting haven't been decided yet but a producer said he'd like to see the movie premiere a year from this coming Halloween.

Our favorite Ma, Estelle Getty of the Golden Girls, passed away yesterday from a progressive brain disease. We've been keeping track of various homages to the "tart-tongued" Sophia on the original GG. Lifetime announced today that they will honor her with a 10-episode marathon of Ms. Getty's most memorable performances on Golden Girls starting at noon on Friday. Set your DVR. Or you can check out some golden YouTube picks over at The House Next Door blog (link via Art Fag City).

Here's more from other publications:

"When she auditioned, Getty was appearing in Hollywood as the carping Jewish mother in Harvey Fierstein's 'Torch Song Trilogy.' In her early 60s, she flunked her Golden Girls test twice because she didn't look old enough. "I could understand that," she told an interviewer a year after the show debuted. "I walk fast, I move fast, I talk fast." She came prepared for the third audition, wearing dowdy clothes and telling the makeup artist, "To you this is just a job. To me it's my entire career down the toilet unless you make me look 80." The artist did, Getty got the job and won two Emmys" [Associated Press obit]  read more »

OMFG! The CW is bringing Gossip Girl back to the internet so you can enjoy endless hours watching pretty people sort out their problems while at work or at the local coffee shop with free wi-fi. You're welcome, xoxo!

TV Week reports:  read more »

Tony Award nominee Gavin Creel and American Idol finalist Diana DeGarmo will star in Godspell, the first Broadway revival of the musical in 30 years, opening at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre on Oct. 23.

Mr. Creel got Tony nods for his performances in 2002's Jimmy Smith and this year's best musical, Thoroughly Modern Millie. He'll play Jesus. Ms. Degarmo, who will star as Uzo Aduba, was in the 2004 season of American Idol and her debut single "Dreams" hit No. 1 on the hot singles chart. This will be her second Broadway performance: she was Penny Pingleton in Hairspray.

Also cast: Andrew Arrington, Sara Chase, Celisse Henderson, Joshua Henry (In the Heights) as "Judas," Morgan James, David Josefsberg (Altar Boyz), Telly Leung (Rent), Kyle Post (Rent), Dana Steingold, Maria Thayer (Forgetting Sarah Marshall) and Daniel Torres (Pirate Queen), according to BroadwayWorld.com.

Lots of entertainment blogs (including us) and respected news sources have been buzzing about Amy Poehler being cast in an Office spin-off. Looks like we goofed. Amy Poehler is ditching SNL to star in a new NBC comedy that will air alongside The Office, and will be produced by Greg Daniels, the creator of America's version of The Office. But, it's not actually the Office spin-off that NBC has been gabbing about since their announcement in April.

All of this Office spin-off business has us dizzy!

Ms. Poehler's show will be "stylistically" like The Office (sorta faux-documentary like), but you won't necessarily see Ms.  read more »

This just in from the WTF desk: Bill Murray is planning on parachuting out of a plane at the Chicago Air and Water Show on Aug. 15.

Why the skydive? The Chicago-area native wants to do it for the Illinois USO, which aids ailing veterans, according to the Chicago Tribune.

The whole event seems a little circus-like, but also sort of awesome. Mr. Murray's jump will begin at about 3 p.m., right after Florence Henderson (you know, Carol Brady?) sings the national anthem. Gary Sinise's band is also scheduled to play.

Bombs away Bill!

Jay Leno got all Andy Kaufman at a press conference yesterday, showing up in a bald cap and a pasted-on goatee as a fake reporter. He asked when the host will say his final monologue on the Tonight Show and be replaced by Conan O'Brien. Co-chairman Marc Graboff then announced that Mr. Leno's last night would be on May 29, 2009. Mr. O'Brien will take over starting June 1.

But what will Mr. Leno do afer the Tonight Show? The New York Times as more:  read more »

Bailey Hanks is the new blonde bombshell starring as Elle Woods on Broadway. The announcement was made last night on MTV's show Legally Blonde The Musical: The Search for Elle Woods. She'll make her Broadway debut at the Palace Theater on July 23 at 8 p.m.

Ms. Hanks, was "So Much Better" than the nine other contestants who wore blown-out blonde wigs and lots of pink in the battle to succeed Tony nominee Laura Bell Bundy as Elle Woods. Three other finalists will be cast in the show, including first runner-up Autumn Hurlbert, who will be Ms. Hanks' understudy.

Here's more from Playbill:

Bailey Hanks, a Nashville, TN native, is a musical theatre student at Coastal Carolina University.  read more »

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Brett Ratner, director of the Rush Hour trilogy, X-Men: The Last Stand and the new New York, I Love You, was the guest editor of this month's issue of Heeb magazine. Mr. Ratner decided to take his buddy Roman Polanski to the site of his mother's murder over half a century ago: Auschwitz. Mr. Polanski was guest photographer for other articles in the Heeb issue, but for this feature, Mr. Ratner got behind the camera. The pictures are here.

In a recent interview with The Onion's A.V. Club, Mr. Ratner explains his friendship with Mr. Polanski, who called him after he saw Rush Hour to praise the young director:

Roman became my friend.  read more »

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New York Magazine's Vulture blog put together this little video of the street scene outside Shea Stadium for last week's "epic" Billy Joel concerts. Witness a lot of inebriated Long Islanders opining about their "white man's jesus," including self-titled "New Age" fans (fratty brodudes) and moms who rocked their son to sleep with the Piano Man's songs.

In their show review, they called Mr. Joel, "the city’s unabashedly cheesy and unexpectedly profound musical ambassador."

“Thank you, Shea Stadium,” he said, according to Jada Yuan, waving good-bye with a tear in his eye. “Don’t take shit from anybody.”

All the old Rent fogies are coming out of the Hollywood woodwork before the musical closes on Sept. 7. Gwen Stewart, who created several roles for the original Rent in the mid-90s, will play those characters again in tonight's performance (July 21). Ms. Stewart, who introduced the solo vocals on the theme track from the show "Seasons of Love," has since had bit parts on TV show including Notes From the Underbelly, Related, Law & Order, Charmed, All My Children, Moesha, 24, Strong Medicine, and The Guardian, according to BroadwayWorld.com.  read more »

The Television Critics Association awards took place on Saturday night in Beverly Hills and one show, predictably, came out on top: AMC's Mad Men.

The TCA awards usually offer a little preview of what to expect from the Emmy's. Mad Men has 16 nominations for that awards show. On Saturday night, the association gave AMC's first nominated show program of the year as well as honors for new program and drama, according to Variety.

Mad Men follows the larger-than-life ad men of the alluring golden age of advertising: "three-martini (sometimes four- or five-) lunches, smoking in the offices, lots of extramarital affairs. (Of course, it was an alluring world largely for men; women were almost entirely confined to the typing pool and the beds of their bosses)," wrote Doree Shafrir for the Observer.

A show that was snubbed by the Emmy's, The Wire, received the Heritage Award, which recognizes a longstanding program that has had a lasting cultural or social impact. David Simon did his song and dance about awards and how newspapers often compromise ethics standards to receive them. But then he joked: “I was completely wrong. It is all about the awards.”

He went on to say that if not for critics’ support, HBO might’ve canceled the series after the third and fourth season.

Here is a full list of TCA's winners, courtesy of the association's website:  read more »

Rob Marshall's musical Nine is about to get Fergalicious (or maybe Glamorous?) Black Eyed Peas alum Fergie is in negotiations to sing in the Weinstein-produced movie-musical. If she accepts, the first-time actress will get hot and heavy with Hollywood heavyweight Daniel Day-Lewis as Saraghina, a woman who seduces Mr. Day-Lewis' character (Guido) into the world of sex, according to Variety.

The musical's plot is based on a play by Italian writer Mario Fratti and was inspired by Federico Fellini's 1963, Oscar-winning film 8½. Mr. Day-Lewis's character, a film director, will review the women he has loved and lost after his most successful film leaves him drained for new ideas and his 40th birthday approaches. Marion Cottilard, Penelope Cruz, Kate Hudson, Nicole Kidman, Sophia Loren and Judi Dench are set to play the ladies in Guido's life.

The movie will begin filming in October in the U.K.

Lorne Michaels told reporters Sunday that he plans to premiere Jimmy Fallon as the new host of Late Night on the internet. He plans five or six months of webcasts prior to the 2009 debut of Mr. Fallon's version of the show, according to TV Week.

The Observer interviewed Mr. Michaels about preparing Mr. Fallon for the dubious taks of replacing Conan O'Brien last May:  read more »

Showtime gave the greenlight to their new comedy Nurse Jackie, starring Sopranos First Lady Edie Falco. They're also giving the First Lady of MILFs, Mary-Louise Parker, two more seasons of Weeds.

Ms. Falco's series will begin production in New York in the fall. Episodes will air in the spring or early summer 2009, according to Variety. She'll star as a New York City nurse working in an "urban" hospital and juggling her personal life.

"Nothing is more thrilling for us than bringing Edie Falco to Showtime in this unique, quirky, touching comedy/drama," said Showtime's President of Entertainment, Robert Greenblatt at a press conference Friday.  read more »

Harvey Weinstein is trying to squash rumors about The Weinstein Company's financial troubles in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter:

Weinstein said he's "bullish" about the company's current prospects.

Was that "bullish" or "bullsh.."?

"We're well financed, and every one of these new productions has been budgeted out."

He is referring to projects like Project Runway, and Quentin Tarantino's Inglorious Bastards. The Weinstein Co. recently made a new pay channel deal with Showtime and will soon be distributing all of their own films. Genius and Blockbuster are providing home video distribution and, yesterday, they made an exclusive deals with international TV casters like Sky Italia.  read more »

The Screen Actors Guild and the big studios continue their cat fight over contract deals through letters and statements.

The Screen Actors Guild sent out a memo yesterday outlining exactly why they rejected the Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers' final contract offer, citing stinginess in pay and union jurisdiction for online productions.

Doug Allen, the guild's executive director, wrote in a letter to S.A.G. members that the offer would allow nonunion actors into "almost all new media productions for the foreseeable future," according to the Associated Press. He also claimed the offer left out residual fees paid to actors for content that is made specifically for the internet.  read more »

Producers announced that 9 To 5: The Musical is coming to Broadway next spring, with previews starting March 24 at the Marriot Marquis Theatre. We so wish that Dolly Parton was actually going to be on stage for this one, but Megan Hilty will play her role from the 1980 film. We're booking tickets for opening night (April 23) so we can spot the country star in the audience.

Ms. Parton was at a Times Square studio yesterday to announce the big news. "It's the most fun I've ever had as a songwriter," she announced to reporters at the press conference. Ms. Parton wrote the music, with 20 new songs, for the musical. "I feel like Minnie Pearl! I'm just so glaaaad to be here."  read more »

HBO's critical hit miniseries John Adams made out big at the Emmy announcement this morning with 23 nominations. Twenty-three! God bless America! Although HBO was also recognized for Entourage and Curb Your Enthusiasm, The Wire, the series that has us wired, was totally snubbed!

AMC's Mad Men, where ad men still had their mojo, garnered 16 noms at the top of the drama series category. That's the first time a basic cable program has topped that list. NBC’s "defending comedy champ," 30 Rock, was the most-recognized series overall, with 17 Emmy bids, according to Variety. The winners will be announced Sept.  read more »

Variety is reporting that Amy Poehler is in "final negotiations" to join the new Office spin-off show. Ms. Poehler will leave a glaring hole in the SNL line-up, but, after seven years, it's just about time for her to move on.  read more »

Eric Fiore, a mustachioed 26-year-old video editor, was lounging on the sidewalk on North Ninth Street in Williamsburg on a recent sunny Saturday afternoon, munching a slice of Vinnie’s pizza (the vegan veggie kind, extra spicy, with a dash of special hot sauce that he keeps in his messenger bag). Out of the many mustache monikers (face foliage, cookie duster, flavor saver, soup strainer, nose neighbor, mouth brow), Mr. Fiore likes to call his the “lip tickler.” “Because it’s hilarious, all the time,” he said. “It makes people laugh every time they see me.”

Mr. Fiore wore black cut-offs, a mustard-yellow T-shirt and a block of dark brown facial hair over his lip that would make him appear rather walruslike if he wasn’t so rail thin.  read more »

Vice chairman of Sotheby's George Wachter and software executive Aso O. Tavitian will serve on the Frick Collection's board of trustees, according to the New York Sun.

They report:

Mr. Tavitian was the co-founder and chief executive officer of Syncsort Inc., a company that makes data management software. He has also been a longtime supporter of the Frick, having joined the Director's Circle in 2006, and maintains a personal art collection that includes old master paintings, Renaissance sculpture, 18th-century English furniture, and Persian rugs.

Mr. Wachter has been an active supporter of the Frick for 10 years. He became a member of the Council of The Frick Collection in 2004 and is currently serving as the council's chairman. Mr. Wachter began working for Sotheby's in 1973 and is now the co-chairman of Old Master Paintings Worldwide.

Okay, so it's not exactly Napoleon Dynamite II. But Jon Heder's next comedy Loudermilk will cater to the same crowd and feature Mr. Heder as a similar "oddball" character. Only this time the loveable loser will somehow get superpowers through chemical contamination. Kinda like when Alex Mack got stuck in that green goo and then she was able to morph into liquid and zap people?

Anyway, Jon and his brothers Dan and Doug are producing the movie but needed the pitch (sent by Chris Bowman) to be scripted. They recently announced that Craig Zobel, the co-writer and director of Best Film at the 2007 Gotham Awards, Great World of Sound.  read more »

Prepare to see lots of Weinstein movies on Showtime soon. Starting with its 2009 release schedule, including Nine with Daniel Day-Lewis and Quentin Tarantino's Inglorious Bastards "spaghetti western," the pay channel has signed an exclusive seven-year theatrical-movie-output deal with the Weinsteins. (By the way, Brad Pitt and Mr. Tarantino are allegedly meeting in France today to discuss a Bastards collaboration).

Showtime is thumbing their noses at Paramount Pictures, MGM and Lionsgate, which are canceling their output deal with the pay channel and starting their own separate TV network, set to kick off late in 2009.

Variety reports:

"This deal reinforces a strategy that will give us a diverse slate of films to go with our original series," said Matt Blank, chairman and CEO of Showtime Networks.  read more »

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It's the 20th anniversary David Mamet’s Speed-The-Plow and the Belasco Theatre will start the birthday celebrations on Oct. 3. with director Neil Pepe (who recently helmed Ethan Coen’s Almost an Evening) and stars Jeremy Piven as greedy producer Charlie Fox hugging it out with The Homecoming's Raul Esparza as Bobby Gould, according to BroadwayWorld.com.

The play is a scathing portrait of the film industry and the people who are willing to sell their souls for sex, fame and fortune--a timely revival with the Screen Actors Guild and studio negotiations still in the works. Speaking of unfinished business, producers have yet to cast is the role of Karen that Madonna originated on Broadway in the 1988 production.

An Australian writing duo are dropping Angels onto Broadway during the 2008-9 season. They wrote a new musical based on John Milton's poem Paradise Lost and will stage the work, Angels, in a Louisiana theater starting Aug. 29 before bringing it to New York. According to the press release, an aeronautical engineer, Ken Lai, composed the score and an architect, Marcus Cheong, co-wrote the book and lyrics with Mr. Lai. The musical recounts an ancient war between the angels and Lucifer's fallen minions, told through the eyes of Sera, the angel of light.

The musical will feature lots of flying angels and aerial choreography tricks, which is perhaps the only way you can keep a theater audience awake during a rendition of Paradise Lost.  read more »

HBO's taking on the $46 million herbal weight loss industry with a new pilot, Fat Sells. The network just greenlit the Forest Whitaker-produced show, which will follow a fat cat in the industry whose life begins to unravel once the FDA begins investigating the company's claims, according to Variety.

The magazine also reports that the show will be written by Gren Wells, an executive producer of NBC's hit weight loss show The Biggest Loser.  read more »

It was an elementary decision, dear readers! Robert Downey Jr. has been chosen to trade the gigantic steel suit from Iron Man for a tweed coat in director Guy Ritchie's version of Sherlock Holmes. It probably helped the hiring process that Mr. Downey Jr.'s wife Susan is on the production team (she's credited for getting the bad boy back on the acting track), as well as Joel Silver. Filming is set to begin in October.

Variety reports that Mr. Downey Jr. will go head-to-head with... Borat! Another Sherlock Holmes movie produced by Judd Apatow is in the works with Sacha Baron Cohen in the lead and Will Ferrell as the ever-important sidekick, Dr. Watson.  read more »

Might we spot Harvey Weinstein picking up loose change off New York city streets soon? The man is on the financial outs, according to Nikki Finke on her blog Deadline Hollywood Daily. The media mensch thinks the rumors are true about The Weinstein Company's recent money troubles, since news broke about Harvey producing (not financially backing) Quentin Tarantino's movie Inglorious Bastards.

The movie, a World War II "Spaghetti Western," has been in the works since 2001 (originally with Miramax). But Ms. Finke said the script has been presented to four other studios, "Universal, Warner Bros, Paramount (all yesterday) and Sony (today)"

She writes:

This certainly adds fuel to those rumors that The Weinstein Co is having movie money woes.  read more »

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Speaking of a possible strike, remember last year when the writers went picketing, asking for more compensation for their online work? Scribes from The Office flaunted webisodes they wrote for the show two years ago as examples. Well, they're back (the writers and the webisodes). NBC announced that online shorts featuring characters from The Office will "air" on NBC.com starting July 10.

According to Broadcasting & Cable, the new Web series is called “Kevin’s Loan,” and will follow accountant Kevin (actor Brian Baumgartner) "as he pursues a unique solution to pay off gambling debts." Office cast members Oscar Nunez (Oscar), Leslie David Baker (Stanley) and Craig Robinson (Darryl) will star in their series roles on the Webisodes. Unless the SAG strike happens, of course.

The Screen Actors Guild is none too happy with union brethren the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists. AFTRA members accepted a three-year contract with Hollywood studios, while S.A.G. is still holding out for a better deal. Not only did the union snub S.A.G.'s demands, they also talked some trash.

The Associated Press tells us that Federation President Roberta Reardon is accusing S.A.G. of unleashing an "unprecedented disinformation campaign" that put the deal in jeopardy.

S.A.G. leaders "must be held accountable for this ridiculous waste of members' dues money, including my own, in attacking another union's contract," Ms. Reardon told reporters Tuesday.  read more »

Variety reports that Hollywood is still on hold until the Screen Actors Guild and the studios make their decisions.

Meanwhile the magazine reports on an ad aimed at guild members published by S.A.G. in today's Daily Variety: "Our industry does have a clear choice: a fair labor agreement for middle-class actors and their families ... or more management grandstanding. Support your Screen Actors Guild's national negotiating committee as it works every day for a fair deal as soon as possible for actors. Let's keep talking."

Spokesman Jesse Hiestand of The Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers, which used the "clear choice" headline in a recent ad of its own, responded to the ad thusly, speaking to the Variety reporter: "Now, even after 42 days of formal AMPTP-SAG negotiations, SAG's Hollywood leadership remains incapable of closing the deal.  read more »

Andy Blankenbuehler, the dance choreographer who won a Tony award for his saucy Latin and contemporary routines for Broadway's In the Heights, will be a guest on the best (in our humble opinion!) reality show on network TV this summer: Fox's So You Think You Can Dance. He'll be creating a new routine for one of the seven remaining couples in the competition. They dance a new routine in pairs each week in different styles, including Broadway, hip-hop, ballroom, contemporary and jazz. If the competitors make their moves on stage and don't get on judge Mary Murphy's "hot tamale train," they'll have to dance solos and risk being eliminated.  read more »

Gillian Anderson is all about Martha Gellhorn, a war reporter who covered conflicts for 60 years. As a correspondent for Collier's Weekly, she reported on the Spanish Civil War, along with her future husband, Ernest Hemingway. Ms. Anderson read Caroline Moorehead's 2004 biography Gellhorn: A Twentieth-Century Life and was hooked. "Martha Gellhorn was one of the most respected journalists of this century, and I thought Caroline's biography effectively encompassed her rich and complex life," Ms. Anderson told Variety. She was so taken with Ms. Gellhorn's story that she's producing and starring in a new movie about the journalist.  read more »

As the Politicker's Azi Paybarah reported this morning, all New Jersey cheese-rock fans will descend upon Central Park on July 12 for the Jon Bon Jovi concert. It's free but you'll need tickets. Where can you get 'em? We're half way there!

According to a press release posted by Brooklyn Vegan, beginning tomorrow, July 2, tickets will be distributed at baseball parks and events throughout New York City. The bulk of tickets distributed at the ballparks will be found at Yankee Stadium in the Bronx, with others made available at Shea Stadium in Queens, KeySpan Park in Brooklyn, and at the home of the Staten Island Yankees at 9 a.m. In addition, tickets also will be available in Manhattan at DHL All-Star FanFest at the Jacob K. Javits Center on Friday, July 11. MLB.com also will be conducting a random drawing for tickets.  read more »

Jonathan Levine, whose New York '90s dramedy The Wackness is being released this weekend, has just signed on to two new projects. He'll work on Positive, a "romantic thriller" that sounds like a slightly scarier version of Meet the Parents, and Echelon Vendetta, an adaptation of David Stone's thriller novel about a CIA agent who tries to keep the organization's shady ways under wraps.

The Hollywood Reporter reports:

"Positive" centers on a twenty-something who visits his fiancee's family only to be seduced by her sister. Occupant's Joe Neurauter, Felipe Marino and Keith Calder will produce the film, which is aiming for a mid-2009 start date.  read more »

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Chekhov's The Seagull is back on Broadway, this time with indie movie hipster god Peter Sarsgaard as Trigorin, pretty Brit actress Kristin Scott Thomas as Arkadina and Zoe Kazan (featured in the forthcoming film August) as Masha. Pretty great casting, especially considering Ms. Thomas' Olivier award for best actress for the last time she performed The Seagull. But how will Mr. Sarsgaard do compared to Alan Cumming's performance as the broody famous writer who woos an older woman and a budding actress in the Classic Stage Company's production last spring? We'll find out when the play opens open Oct. 1 at the Walter Kerr Theatre. Preview performances begin Sept. 16, according to the Associated Press.

HBO has found an actor for anew pilot that we're actually psyched about! Jason Schwartzman will play "a struggling thirtysomething writer with a drinking problem in Brooklyn" in their comedy Bored to Death, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Mr. Schwartzman is kind of stuck in this role as the resident weirdo/grumpy guy in movies but we don't mind. He'll play Jonathan, a guy who just got his heart broken by his ex-girlfriend and decides to become a faulty private detective.  read more »

Adding Machine, the little Off-Broadway show that could about a man who lost his job to a machine, will close its curtains at the Minetta Lane Theatre on July 20. The play began previews Feb. 8 and officially opened Feb. 25.

Producer Scott Morfee said in a statement, "Adding Machine is a labor of love for all involved. The New York production, which sits so perfectly at the Minetta Lane Theatre, has allowed this musical to get the kind of attention it deserves. My partners and I are proud to know that Adding Machine will prove to be a significant addition to the repertoire of opera companies and adventurous theater troupes around the world, and the introduction of an extraordinary new voice in the musical theater (Mr.  read more »

Amy Ryan, the gal who starred as "Beadie" Russell on The Wire, will reprise her role as human resources representative Holly Flax on The Office next season. Ms. Ryan appeared in last year's season finale as a puppy love interested of Steve Carell's character, Michael Scott. "I don't know what they're going to do with the character," Ms. Ryan