Mamma Mia! There they go again! My, my, how can we resist them?

FLICKERS: Ridiculously rich Mamma Mia film producer Judy Craymer is hoping to persuade Benny Andersson and his musical sidekick Bjorn

SEYFRIED & STREEP: bella Donnas?

Ulvaeus to lend their irresistible ABBA tunes to a prequel, with a brand new young cast. Will Amanda Seyfried get to play the young Meryl Streep, who played her mother Donna in MM? Stay tuned … Deidre Kelly’s new book, Paris Times Eight, already sounds like a movie. Kelly first arrived in Paris, the city of her dreams, “as a starry-eyed ingénue.” In some of her subsequent visits she returns as a budding writer who interviews Rudolf Nureyev and crashes an

KELLY: Paris, je t'aime (photo: Bryan L. Davies)

exclusive fashion show, and as an emotional daughter who takes her mother to Paris to meet her “other mother;” until finally she returns to Paris as a mother herself. Sounds like a least three great roles for women, n’est-ce pas? … and yes, it’s true, shooting is already underway in Shanghai for the Chinese version of Disney’s megahit High School Musical. How did Disney get the green light from China? Well, for one thing, the Chinese version is set at a university, “since Chinese high school students are so focused on academics that they would not have time to devote to singing and dancing.” Okay, got it.

QUOTABLE QUOTES: “I’ve no interest in playing oldies anymore. No, no, no. Far more fitting for the next stage in my career to play a slut.”

DENCH: Nothing like a Dame.

The speaker? Dame Judi Dench, now 74 but never at a loss for words. Currently starring in the about-to-be blockbuster movie musical Nine, Dame Judi’s next gig will bring her back to the boards, as Titania, the queen of the fairies in a new Midsummer Night’s Dream in Kingston, England. She first performed the role of Titania as a schoolgirl some 56 years ago, and is thrilled to be able to take another crack at it. “Of course,” she adds, “one is lucky to be acting at all. I’m happy when I have a job – any job. One is always afraid of having no work.”

Richard Rodgers & Oscar Hammerstein said it best. There really is nothing like a Dame.

21 AGAIN: It came and went 10 days ago, November 21 2009 was not just another Saturday night for Veronica Tennant. The prima ballerina who reinvented herself as a prima television producer was in three different cities that

TENNANT: November is the Coolest month

night. She was in Toronto attending the National Ballet of Canada’s performance of The Sleeping Beauty — the ballet she premiered more than 35 (!!!) years ago with Rudolf Nureyev as her prince — in tribute to Canada’s National Ballet School’s 50th Anniversary Assemble Internationale. But she was also in Edmonton, on film, as Honourary Chair of the Shumka Ballet, welcoming guests to Shumka’s Red Boots, Ballet and Bubbly Gala. And she was also in Cuba, where her much-lauded dance film, Vida y Danza, Cuba, was being screened at the 18th Anniversary celebration of Lizt Alfonso’s Dance Cuba.

JACKSON: new role

“November 21 has always been a significant day for me,” admits Tennant with a shy smile. I’ll say! Her Gala farewell performance with the National Ballet of Canada, A Passion for Dance: Celebrating the Tennant Magic, took place on November 21, 1989. And ten years later, to the day, she won her first International Emmy award as a television producer, for Karen Kain; Dancing in the Moment, on November 21, 1999.

Safety in numbers, you say? Sounds more like magic to me.

NO PEOPLE LIKE SHOW PEOPLE: Slaight Communications chief Gary Slaight will be lauded for his longstanding commitment to charitable initiatives

GABEREAU: hosting for Mercer

as the recipient of the Humanitarian Spirit Award. at the Canadian Music and Broadcast Industry Awards on March 11 at the Fairmont Royal York Hotel, during Canadian Music Week … rising marquee bait Joshua Jackson has won the lead in a feature adaptation of British TV series UFO … Robin Mirsky, executive director of Rogers Group of Funds, has succeeded CFTPA prez Norm Bolen as co-chair of Hot Docs board of directors with Michael McMahon. New board members include marketing maven Robert Pattillo, Cobalt Pharmaceuticals chairman Neil Tabatznik and filmmakers Lalita Krishna, Julia Ivanova and Danijel Margetic … and Vicki Gabereau will host when Rick Mercer entertains the multitudes in Vancouver at a gala fund-raising evening June 10 for the Kay Meek Centre.

Special P.S. to Rick Mercer Report aficionados: Mercer’s final 2009 outing airs tonight at 8 pm on CBC-TV.

TOMORROW:

Roger gets ready for Toronto, and

Liz gives some advice to some dazzling Glamour girls.

Ken Branagh reunites Tony and Colm for a comic book epic, & Dame Elizabeth reviews This Is It

TOGETHER AGAIN: Savvy screen-stealers Colm Feore and Anthony Hopkins, who last worked together on screen in Julie Taymor’s flawed but

HUARD & FEORE: Bon Cop, Bad Cop

fascinating take on Titus Andronicus, have teamed up again for director Kenneth Branagh’s production of Thor, which will bring the Marvel comic book hero to life and, no doubt, box office glory. Before winging to the movie set, Feore received a rollicking reception last week at the Ursula Franklin Academy when hundreds of high school students gathered to watch him cavort with Patrick Huard in Bon Cop,

HOPKINS: reunion for Thor

Bad Cop. And he wasn’t the only one winning cheers. Director Bruce MacDonald and leading lady Lisa Houle were in another gathering, taking questions after the screening of MacDonald’s latest opus Pontypool. And filmmaker Michael McGowan (St. Ralph) was in another assembly room, taking questions after the screening of his Joshua Jackson odyssey One Week. Making all three events happen, and simultaneously at that, was Reel Canada, a remarkable organization now in its fifth year of introducing young people to Canadian film achievements by bringing the films and the filmmakers to the classroom. Now that’s show business.

QUOTABLE QUOTES: “I loved genius in my lifetime. God was so good to me. I will love Michael forever and so will you, if you don’t already. God kissed

JACKSON: genius?

him. There will never, ever be the likes of him again.” The speaker? Dame Elizabeth Taylor, tweeting about the Michael Jackson concert film This Is It. Sez Liz: “You owe it to yourselves and your loved ones to see this again and again. Memorize it and say to yourselves, ‘I saw genius in my lifetime.’ I truly believe this film should be nominated in every category conceivable.” Yup, she likes it. She really likes it.

HOPE LIVE: Newfoundland news junkies Rick Mercer and Seamus O’Regan are headlining tonight’s Hope Live black-tie charity gala in Ottawa in

O'REGAN: in Ottawa tonight

support of Fertile Future, which helps young women and men who have had   cancer can find ways to have their own children. Among the perennial Mercer targets and political playmates expected to attend: Peter MacKay, Jason Kenney, Helena Guergis, Maxime Bernier and Scott Brison. Incidentally, Mercer was one of four sparklies honoured by the University of Ottawa last week at an AGO dinner in Toronto, picking up a Distinguished Canadian Leadership Award with high-note master Michael Burgess and high-flying astronaut Julie Payette. (CTV National Affairs

MERCER: with his Montreal posse

correspondent Lisa LaFlamme picked up U of O’s special Alumni Achievement award at the same bash.) Now on his Christmas break, Mercer resumes SRO tapings of his top-rated Rick Mercer Report in January, but wait ‘til you see him crash (you should pardon the expression) a women’s roller derby competition (ouch!) in Montreal (!!) tomorrow night at 8 pm on CBC Television.

FOOTLIGHTS: How much does New York Times theatre critic Ben Brantley love Fela!, the new musical that opened last Monday night on Broadway? “There should be dancing in the streets,” sez Brantley — and that was merely the first

THE MADONNA PAINTER: rave reviews

line of his ecstatic rave review. According to Brantley — no easy sell — there’s never been anything like it on Broadway. Which should bode well for producers Will & Jade Pinkett Smith and their comrade in showbiz arms Jay-Z … Risking The Void, the touring art exhibit showcasing the work of Canadian stage designer Cameron Porteous, is set for a 10-week run Jan 20-April 4 in Guelph, Ontario at the Macdonald Stewart Art Centre … and Factory Theatre has done it again. Good news is, Linda Gaboriau’s new translation of Michel Marc Bouchard’s The Madonna Painter opened to rave reviews from the Toronto Star, the Globe & Mail and Now magazine – how’s that for a range of opinions? Bad news is, the show must close in two weeks.  To secure your tickets now, click here!

TOMORROW:

Mamma Mia! Here we go again!

My, my, how can we resist you?

Brad gives up his metal rug, Liona makes more headlines and Harland goes ape for gorillas

NO PEOPLE LIKE SHOW PEOPLE: Bad news was, Ben Heppner had to cancel his appearance at the Canadian Opera Company’s 60th anniversary

HEPPNER: concert-to-come

concert earlier this month due to the viral infection he caught in October while singing at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden. Good news is, Heppner will perform a special solo recital with piano, on stage of the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts, at a date to be announced soon. And, his songfest will be free for all ticket purchasers of the Nov. 7 COC Diamond Anniversary concert … the Stratford festival memorial celebration of stage lion Douglas Campbell is set for this Monday at 3 pm on the Festival Stage and is open to the public … National Ballet chief Karen Kain has wooed and won dancer Jirí Jelinek, who will join her merry NBOC band as a Principal Dancer in January. Previously a Principal Dancer for both the National Theatre in Prague and the Stuttgart Ballet, Jelinek has blazed a trail dancing through Europe, and was most recently invited by the

WILLIAMS: going ape?

Hamburg Ballet to dance the role of Stanley Kowalski in John Neumeier’s version of Tennessee Williams‘ A Streetcar Named Desire … and guess who went on an African Gorilla safari, following in the footsteps of Dian Fossey? Would it surprise you to learn that I’m talking about Canuck ex-pat Harland Williams? Oh sure, it can get a bit dicey on The Jay Leno Show, but go to Rwanda, man — it’s a jungle out there. To see Harland and the Gorillas he almost Mist, uuuh, missed, click here.

SHARPS ‘N’ FLATS: As indicated in that extravagant recent photo spread in Hello magazine, Liona Boyd continues to live a fascinating life. From  her eight-

BOYD: it's her year

year romance with Pierre Trudeau — “Pierre asked me to come and live with him and have a child by him” — to her ongoing relationship with HRH Prince Philip (“He’s still my best pen pal”) to her hush-hush performance for the sequestered jurors in the O.J. Simpson trial, the world’s first female guitar virtuoso has blazed her own unique trail in show business. This fall she has two, count ‘em, two new albums – Liona Boyd Sings Songs of Love, a collection of duets with Croatian singer-guitarist Srdjan Givoje, and Seven Journeys , a CD of new-age, atmospheric music. And as if that wasn’t enough, her back catalogue is also

JOLIE: no sharp edges

being reissued by Universal on iTunes. Which by my reckoning has gotta make 2009 the Year Of The Lion(a.)

OH, STOP GRIPING: Wonder why my hero, Manhattan gossip girl Liz Smith, can always make me laugh? Here’s an item from one of her recent, eminently readable columns on the frankly fabulous femme website, wowOwow.com.

“Brad and Angie spent a recent weekend personally baby-proofing their French chateau. (Oh, stop griping. They have a chateau, that’s just the way life is. I’m sure you have something they don’t have.) Not only did the parents of six toddlers put plugs over the electrical outlets and all that, they even moved out some of Brad’s art pieces and furniture, objects too sharp, too hard, too high, too appealing to curious tykes. So, for the time being, interesting stuff like Brad’s metal woven rug are in the chateau’s garage. Which is probably a smaller chateau. Life isn’t fair, deal with it.”

Funny lady, our Liz. Truthful, too.

DOUBLE OR NOTHING: Vladimir Putin puttin’ out a rap song? Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton meeting for a cup of coffee at Starbucks? Michael Ignatieff introducing the new Liberal theme song? And Quebec’s favourite game show is “Le Whack Job”? Yes, Linda Cullen & Bob Robertson have gone AWOL again. For another crazy episode of Double Exposure Radio. click here — but do so at your own risk!

AND NOW, MY FAVOURITE POSTER-OF-THE-WEEK:

9th JEWISH FILM FESTIVAL: This poster makes me smile.

Happy weekend!

-/-

Julia plays charades, Dragons get an iTunes sound and The Frantics get ready to turn 30 (who knew?)

NOISES ON: Can’t believe it, but they swear it’s true. The Frantics, the certifiably insane, oooh, oops, sorry, the mentally extrvagant comedy troupe

THE FRANTICS: Noises-makers

comprised of Paul Chatto, Rick Green, Dan Redican & Peter Wildman, are about to turn 30. (I know, I know, they don’t look a day over 29 .) To celebrate they’re launching a new Greatest Hits CD, Frantic Noises, and working on anniversary release dates for (1) The Very Best of Frantic Times (“more than 1,000 bits compiled from our CBC Radio show,”) (2) The Frantics Walk Upright

STOJKO: Red Door booster

(“the lost tapes of our final performance together in 1998,”) (3) an all-music CD that they’re recording now, and (4) the DVD of their Frantics Reunion Show, which aired on the Comedy Network. Big news is, they’re set to perform live at The Royal on College street — for one performance only, to launch their new CD — on Monday Dec. 7 at 7 pm. All proceeds from tickets ($10 +tax in advance, $15 +tax at the door) will go to PAL (the Performing Arts Lodge.) To order your tickets now, go to their website at www.thefrantics.com, or just click here.

GOING, GOING, GONE: Today is your last chance to bid on a unique online jewelry auction where all of the proceeds raised benefit the Red Door family

PINSENT & PINSENT: all about Uniti (photo: Zoomer magazine)

shelter. Called the Uniti Collection, the pieces are created by 18Karat Goldsmiths and inspired by celebnties partnered with designers. Sparklies adding their lustre to this cause include Leah & Gordon Pinsent, Elvis Stojko and Breakfast Television charmers Dina Pugliese and Jennifer Valentyne. To review the collection and get your bid in, click here … surfers are finding more and more treasures at on-line auctions, which is why they’ve become so popular. BID 2 BEAT AIDS, LIFEbeat’s fifth annual 10-day eBay Celebrity Memorabilia Auction honouring World AIDS Day starts December 1 at 12 noon, with proceeds going to ongoing AIDS/HIV programs in the U.S. Up for grabs are personal items from Michael Feinstein, Debbie Harry, Cheyenne Jackson, Lady Gaga, Cyndi

PUGLIESE: Breakfast jewel

Lauper, Patti LuPone, Madonna, Ricky Martin, Tim McGraw, Liza Minnelli, Stevie Nicks, Cynthia Nixon, Bernadette Peters, Joan Rivers, Henry Rollins, John Waters, Vanessa Williams and the late Bea Arthur, among others. For more information, including a complete list of participating artists and images of many of the items, click here … and  Julia Roberts is among the glitterati reportedly ready to act up for the Labyrinth Theater Company’s seventh annual gala benefit called Celebrity Charades 2009: Jackpot. Beginning

ROBERTS: charity charades

December 7, celeb teams do battle in charades competition, so in addition to Julia look for Eric Bogosian, Bobby Cannavale, Mariska Hargitay, Christopher Meloni and more. And feel free to  follow the action online — where else?!? — at  www.LABtheater.org.

SEE/HEAR: Ever heard of a rock group called 30 Seconds To Mars? Not to worry. You’re not alone.  But clearly we’ve been missing something, because this band delivers an uncommonly visual punch with their words and music, which have even been incorporated into video gaming. First, click here to check out the seductive ‘biker’ film created to illustrate their new single, Kings And Queens. Then, to sample This Is War, the song they created for the in-game soundtrack for the new epic RPG, Dragon Age: Origins, click here.

Like I said — not yer average rock band.

TOMORROW:

Why Liz Smith always makes me laugh.

Plus, Brangelina update, and more!

Glee girl Lea Michele goes on record, Fergie makes a movie, and Camilla Scott plays a Scarlett woman

DEFYING GRAVITY: Currently thrilling all “Gleeks” (as fans of the hit FOX-TV show are called: The new Sony CD, Glee: The Music, Volume 1. Series star

MICHELE: powerhouse

Matthew Morrison (aka Mr Schu) and Wicked alumnus Kristin Chenoweth deliver a powerhouse performance of Heart’s Alone. Spring Awakening star Lea Michele duets with Chenoweth on a dynamic version of Kander & Ebb’s Maybe This Time, pairs with series co-star Chris Colfer on a soaring version of Stephen Schwartz’s Defying Gravity, and joins co-star Cory Monteith on lead vocals for Journey’s Don’t Stop Believin’. Music lovers and Broadway show tune aficionados characterize this first Glee CD as “delectably youthful” and “electrifyingly fresh” — and who are we to argue? And here’s another one to add to your Christmas list. The all-star soundtrack for Rob

FERGIE: one of Nine

Marshall’s screen version of the Broadway hit Nine will be released digitally December 15 and available for purchase in stores on December 22, three days before the film opens here. Bonus material on the disc includes a new version of Quando Quando Quando, performed by Fergie, who also sings one of the show’s big hits, Be Italian. Other so-far unlikely warblers include a clutch of Oscar winners who star in the movie — Daniel Day-Lewis, Penelope Cruz, Sophia Loren, Nicole Kidman, Marion Cotillard and Judi Dench, who gets to deliver the Follies Bergere showstopper. Can’t wait.

THE SHADOW OF HER STYLE: Supertalent Camilla  Scott always delivers the goods, in big stage musicals like Crazy For You, Mamma Mia and We Will Rock You, on U.S. soaps like Days Of Our Lives and The Guiding Light and

SCOTT: Larry's lady?

in intense TV dramas like Law And Order and This Is Wonderland. Now she’s playing another sublimely talented dame – the late, great Vivien Leigh – in Austin Pendleton’s wry behind-the-scenes comedy Orson’s Shadow. Set in 1960, it’s Pendleton’s version of what really happened when legendary London critic Kenneth Tynan brings Orson Welles and Laurence Olivier together to collaborate on the English language premiere of Ionesco’s Rhinoceros. Olivier, deep in the throes of his affair with his young co-star Joan Plowright, is not yet separated from the mercurial, iconic and fatally unstable Ms Leigh, which makes backstage rehearsals very, very interesting. After previews start tomorrow, Orson’s Shadow opens next week at Theatre Passe Muraille, with Christopher Stanton as Kenneth Tynan, Paul Eves as Olivier, Janet Porter as Joan Plowright, and Steve Ross as Orson Welles. To order tickets, click here.

DICKINSON: dog show?

DRAGONS’ DEN GOES TO THE DOGS: Woofstock creator Marlene Cook, the brainy entrepreneur whose annual summer salute to Man’s Best Friend drew 300,000 participants to downtown T.O. this year, pitches the Dragons tonight with five look-alike dogs — one for each dragon. Would you be surprised to learn that Ms Cook matched Kevin O’Leary to an English bull terrier?  Probably not. But apparently finding an apricot poodle with a coat that was just the right shade of red to represent Arlene Dickinson was a far greater challenge. To catch all the Dragons and their canine cut-ups, tune in CBC-TV tonight at 8 pm.

TOMORROW:

Julia Roberts, The Frantics, and more Dragons!

Mr. Sheen takes a bite out of New Moon, Mr. Brooks turns 2000 again & Mr. Mercer goes to the rodeo

NO PEOPLE LIKE SHOW PEOPLE: Good news for Mel Brooks fans — his Grammy-winning comedy collaborations with Carl Reiner, The 2000 Year Old

MIRREN: seeing Red

Man, have been remastered and repackaged for a 50th anniversary four-disc reissue (three CDs and one DVD), The 2000 Year Old Man: The Complete History, due in stores this week. Not only that, Toronto audiences well finally get to see Mel’s Broadway musical version of Young Frankenstein, now slated to play March 16 – April 18 at the Princess Of Wales … Helen Mirren is set to co-star with Bruce Willis and Morgan Freeman in a new thriller, Red, after she brings the National Theatre production of Phedre to Broadway with Dominic Cooper, the Mamma Mia boy toy currently on view with new scene-stealer Carey Mulligan in the hit TIFF star-maker An

MERCER: Rodeo daze

Education … 40-year CHUM radio veteran Roger Ashby will be inducted into the Canadian Music and Broadcast Industry Hall of Fame at a Canadian Music Week dinner March 11 at the Fairmont Royal York Hotel … and talk about yer urbane cowboy! Rick Mercer goes a-ridin’ and a-ropin’ at the Edmonton Rodeo tonight, and actually lives to tell the tale, on CBC’s Rick Mercer Report at 8 pm.

FANGS FOR THE MEMORIES: He became David Frost in Frost/Nixon, shone as Tony Blair in The Queen, and plays legendary maverick U.K. rugby coach Brian Clough in The Damned United. So what does Michael Sheen have to do with that mess of a man pictured beside him? Yup – that’s

SHEEN: he sucks, but only in THIS movie

him. Sheen plays the vampire leader Aro in last weekend’s top boxoffice sizzler, The Twilight Saga: New Moon. And he makes no bones about why he took the role. “I knew it would make my 10-year-old daughter, Lily, very happy,” he confesses. And it has. “She’s got pictures from Twilight and New Moon everywhere in her bedroom,” he notes. “And now, she’s put her dad up there as well.” Just wait ‘til she sees him as The White Rabbit in Tim Burton’s bound-to-be-peculiar re-telling of Alice In Wonderland.

MAY IN NOVEMBER: Toronto Western Hospital’s Fracture Clinic and Medical Imaging Waiting Room is a happier place this morning after renowned

KARP: a gift to last

Toronto photo artist May Karp gifted 22 pieces to TWH. Karp’s uplifting photography is already on view in a number of Canada’s larger hospitals. In 2004 she donated 27 framed images for Toronto General’s new Surgical Centre waiting room, adding warmth and a new visual focus for the families of surgery patients. After seeing the impact of her photography in the Surgical Centre, Tennys Hanson, President and CEO of Toronto General & Western Hospital Foundation, asked her to consider a similar project for Toronto Western Hospital. “Hospital waiting rooms are for patients, sometimes for their relatives or friends,” Karp notes. “Most visitors are frightened and anxious. Time passes very slowly as they wait for results or treatment. One can almost ‘taste’ the emotions. Over 20 years ago I spent a lot of time in rooms like this. I experienced all the emotions many times since then.” Which is why her colourful, eye-catching and blissfully distracting works are brightening TWH this morning.

TOMORROW:

Glee & Nine go on the record.

-/-

Looking for movie stars? Book that flight to New York, ’cause they’re all on the Great White Way

ARE THE STARS OUT TONIGHT?: Yes, and most of ‘em are working on and off Broadway. Liev Schreiber and Scarlett Johansson are currently in

JOHANSSON: room for A View

rehearsals for the revival of A View From The Bridge, still regarded in some circles as Arthur Miller’s most passionate drama. They start previews right after Christmas, then open at the Cort Theatre on Jan. 24 … Catherine Zeta-Jones and Angela Lansbury are the hot-ticket duo in the revival of Stephen Sondheim’s A Little Night Music down the street at the Walter Kerr Theater. Previews start tomorrow night, less than three weeks before their Dec. 13 opening … Emmy Award winners James Spader and Richard Thomas are already in previews for David Mamet’s

ZETA-JONES: opening tomorrow night

new sizzler, Race, directed by Mamet himself, for a Dec. 6 opening … veteran New York broadcaster Pat Collins calls her the funniest woman on Broadway, and audiences must agree, because Carrie Fisher’s one-woman show, Wishful Drinking, originally slated to close Jan. 3, has been held over another two weeks, to Jan. 17… Victor Garber will celebrate New Year’s Eve, then go right into previews for the revival of Noel Coward’s Present Laughter, set to premiere Jan. 21 at the American Airlines Theatre … 2001: A Space Odyssey alumnus Keir Dullea, who actually worked with Noel Coward, will return to Broadway this spring in a revival of Robert Anderson’s

SPADER: Race card

I Never Sang for My Father. Years ago Dullea and Coward co-starred in a London-made thriller called Bunny Lake Is Missing. After shooting a difficult scene together for director Otto Preminger, Coward turned to the young actor and chirped, “Keir Dullea, gone tomorrow!” Happily his ad-lib was not prophetic … and Tony Award owner Matthew Broderick has taken his act off-Broadway. He opens tonight at the Acorn Theatre in Kenneth Lonergan’s The Starry Messenger, about an astronomy teacher’s affair with a younger woman.  Academy Award nominee Catalina Sandino Moreno (Maria Full of Grace) plays the younger woman to Broderick’s married academic.

SMITH: backing B'way newbie

ANOTHER OPENING, ANOTHER ADOPT-A-SHOW: It took volunteer executive producers Oprah Winfrey and Tyler Perry to put Precious on the map — and did they ever. Now Shawn “Jay-Z” Carter and Will & Jada Pinkett Smith have become first-time Broadway producers, putting their considerable showbiz weight behind the new Broadway musical Fela! which opens tonight at the Eugene O’Neill Theatre after a month of previews. Directed and choreographed by Bill T. Jones, Fela! portrays the extravagant world of controversial music pioneer and Afrobeat legend Fela Anikulapo-Kuti in a hybrid of concert, dance and musical theater. Will audiences buy in? Stay tuned … and Tony winner Susan

BRODERICK: opening tonight

Stroman will direct the first-ever production of The Scottsboro Boys, an unproduced Kander & Ebb musical, off-Broadway at the Vineyard Theatre. The show will begin previews on February 12 and open on March 10. The Scottsboro Boys explores the infamous Scottsboro case of the 1930s, in which a group of African-American teenagers were unjustly accused of attacking two white women, and the boys’ attempts to prove their innocence.

And yes, it’s a musical.

TOMORROW:

Fangs for the Memories.

Lily conquers Vegas, Bette plans a Showgirl exit, and meet the new Susan Boyle (he’s a guy!)

LOVIN’ LAS VEGAS: Don’t know why I thought that Lily Tomlin and Sin City were not a natural fit. Turns out they are. La Tomlin premiered her new

TOMLIN & WAGNER: Viva Las Vegas

one-woman show, Not Playing With A Full Deck, at the MGM Grand, and reportedly loves Las Vegas! Lily’s partner and personal muse, the unabashedly brilliant humourist Jane Wagner, is the mighty pen behind her new show as well as such previous Tomlin megahits as The Search For Signs Of Intelligent Life In The Universe and Appearing Nitely. Lily’s new show is a mix of Greatest Hits – the characters her fans still can’t get enough of, like Ernestine and Edith Ann – and new characters, and

SHORT: Damages control

new technology. Tomlin’s new show ‘try-out’ played in MGM’s Hollywood Theater, which seats about 2,000 people at each performance. And when Tomlin isn’t hanging out with her Big Business co-star and Caesars Palace headliner Bette Midler (The Showgirl Must Go On) or trying to coax Jane (“it’s come down to begging, really,”) into writing a new Broadway show for her, she’s commuting to New York to shoot her scenes in the new season of Damages with Glenn Close. In it she plays the matriarch of a powerful family determined to destroy shady legal eagle Close. Assisting Lily in this mission are Martin Short as her high-powered attorney and Campbell Scott as her son. And yes, she confesses, she and Marty did misbehave one day on the set, when

MIDLER: The show must go ... off

she read her lines as Ernestine and he did his as Ed Grimley. “But never when the cameras are rolling!”

THE SHOWGIRL MUST GO OFF: P.S. for Vegas-bound Bette Midler fans: Your heroine ends her two-year residency at The Colloseum – aka The House That Céline Built – on January 31. Says Bette: “These legs have had such a great run in the desert, it may be time to haul them to places with more humidity and fewer slot machines.”

GET OUT YOUR HANDKERCHIEFS: Yes, it’s true, the latest YouTube sensation is a recent audition for Simon Cowell’s British talent show The X Factor. The singer is a 40-year-old cabinet-maker named Daryl Markham. Markham has his own website now, and is now a household

MARKHAM: YouTube sensation

name for millions of people all over the world. But can he sing? You be the judge. To see his now-historic audition, just click here.

NO BIZ LKE SHOW BIZ: Leave it to Reg Hartt to find a copy of the sumptuous MGM musical Kiss Me Kate, with Kathryn Grayson, Howard Keel and young hoofers Bob Fosse & Tommy Rall competing for Ann Miller’s machine-gun taps., in — wait for it — 3D, its screen original format. Cineaste extraordinare Hartt unspools the classic Cole Porter musical this Sunday and next at 5 pm at his Cineforum HQ at Bathurst & College. Adds Reg: “Bring your own popcorn and we will zap it for you.”

WILLIAMS: ReelWorld decade

Hmmmm, wonder if Stratford’s Kiss Me Kate star Juan Chiorian, now on stage at the Factory Theatre in The Madonna Painter, has ever seen this version? … fan faves Colin Mochrie & Deb McGrath guest with Ron James tonight at 8 pm on CBC Television …  the Kate Rogers Band performs live tomorrow morning on CBC Radio One’s GO! Show. “Tickets are free and everyone is welcome!” sez Ms Rogers … speaking of tickets, you can still snag some for this weekend’s performances of the National Ballet’s spectacular Sleeping Beauty revival before it closes Sunday .. and can you believe that Tonya Lee Williams’ ReelWorld Film Festival, the little movie marathon that grew, celebrates its 10th anniversary next spring? Ms Williams, of course, is currently stationed in Washington, D.C. — on screen, at least — in The Border. And BTW, the ReelWorld call for submissions has already started. So if you have a feature, documentary, short, music video or animation from the Aboriginal, Asian, Black, Latino, Middle Eastern, South Asian or other multi-racial community, click here and fill out the submissions form.

Happy weekend!

-/-

http://reelworld.ca/

Patti & Mandy team up again, Factory opens a Flu drama and Sue & Mr Schu get Glee-full off-B’way

BROADWAY BABIES: After they co-starred in Evita, she went on to recreate stellar stage roles at home and abroad in Sunset Boulevard, Anything Goes,

MANDY & PATTI: together in T.O.

Sweeney Todd and Gypsy and on screen in the hit TV series Life Goes On. He graduated to Sunday In The Park With George, made his mark on the big screen in The Princess Bride and Yentl, then scored a hit in three top-notch TV series, Chicago Hope, Dead Like Me, and Criminal Minds. But they always were, and still are, traffic-stopping singers who remain dream-come-true interpreters of Broadway’s greatest composers. The good news is, they’re together again at last, on a rare reunion concert tour. The better news is, they’re coming to Toronto. An Evening With Patti Lupone & Mandy Patinkin will rule the Royal Alex for one short week only, Feb. 9-14, and tickets are already on sale. So don’t say I didn’t warn ya. Because this will truly be a night to remember.

NO, NOT THAT MADONNA: After kicking off its 40th (!!!) anniversary season with Brad Fraser’s high-octane crowd-pleaser True Love Lies, Factory Theatre reportedly has another big winner in The Madonna Painter. After a

HUDSON: that's Mrs. Mandela to you

week of buzz-provoklng previews the world premiere of Michel Marc Bouchard’s theatrical parable, directed by Eda Holmes, opens tonight with a stellar cast including Bartholemew Fair scene-stealer Juan Chioran, who’s already set to headline the Stratford revivals of Kiss Me Kate and Evita next season. In Bouchard’s play, set in rural Quebec at the end of World War I, a village priest commissions a fresco dedicated to the Virgin Mary to protect his parishioners from a flu epidemic, and assistant director Cory O’Brien hints that the synergy between the premise of the play and our current H1N1 headlines was downright eerie. “Coughing rattles throughout the rehearsal hall,” he blogged two weeks ago. “Either our actors are overly ‘method’ or we’ve encountered a very strange coincidence. In a play filled with the ominous threat of the Spanish flu our cast has fallen sick. Stay home? Or come to rehearsal? Ginseng. Hand sanitizer. Cold formula tea. To get the flu shot or not to get the flu shot. That is the question.”

Should be fascinating to see who makes it to the stage tonight.

NO PEOPLE LIKE SHOW PEOPLE: Glee club guru Will Schuester (aka Matthew Morrison) and rabid cheerleading coach Sue Sylvester (aka Jane

MORRISON & LYNCH: Glee-full

Lynch) got together last week when Morrison stopped by the off-Broadway’s theatre to catch Lynch and Tyne Daly in the current Nora & Delia Ephron hit Love, Loss and What I Wore … Lisa Ray, currently being treated for multiple myeloma, is preparing for a stem cell transplant to treat her rare cancer. Next week the gorgeous star of Water and Bollywood/Hollywood starts a two-week procedure that involves releasing her own stem cells back into her blood to “reboot” her system before any further treatment … Jennifer Hudson will go to South Africa next spring to star in a screen biography of Winnie Mandela, the controversial ex-wife of Nelson … and L.A. audiences got an unexpected bonus last week when Dick Van Dyke joined the national touring cast of Mary Poppins for their curtain call at the Ahmanson Theatre.

TOMORROW:

Lily in Las Vegas

-/-

From Daniel to Norah, from Ricky to Rick, we’re back on track with more stars in our eyes (SEND)

Now, where was I?

Oh yeah, now I remember. I was about to tell you that I was going on hiatus for two weeks, and then I did That Thing We All Do But Swear We Won’t Ever Do Again,

I forgot to press SEND.

(sigh)

Actually, more often than not, The Thing I Do That I Wish I Didn’t Do is press SEND too soon, before I’ve finished typing whatever breathtaking prose I’m trying on at the time.

So — unless I press SEND too soon, or forget to press it at all — I’m back.

Did’ja miss me?

* * *

OUR TOWN: Filmmakers Michael Palmieri and Donal Mosher are set to attend tonight’s Doc Soup screenings of their family saga October Country

JONES: here next month

tonight at the Bloor Cinema … the Toronto premiere of Displacement, the multi-media dance art piece created by choreographer Robert Glumbek, visual artist Vessna Perunovich and composer Christos Hatzis, opens tonight at Fleck Dance Theatre as part of Harbourfront Centre’s NextSteps Dance Series. The show, performed by seven dancers, also features the Penderecki String Quartet … Whodunit 2009, this year much-anticipated annual Ontario College Of Art & Design fund-raiser, previews today, tomorrow and Friday before the Mystery Art by the famous and soon-to-be-famous goes on

RADCLIFFE: Greenwich Village

sale Saturday. For more info, collectors, just click here …. p.s. to Radio City Music Hall aficionados: this is the last night to see the justifiably legendary Rockettes kick up their heels at the Air Canada Centre … and the CHUM Christmas Wish, this year in partnership with CP24, yesterday launched its 43rd Christmas season for raising money and collecting toys for families in need across the Greater Toronto Area.

NO PEOPLE LIKE SHOW PEOPLE: Did you know that Daniel Radcliffe (aka Harry Potter) was personally tutored by the Coutts Bank when he turned 18 and learned how to best invest his earnings, currently estimated at $15-20 million? Me neither. But that could explain how the young Mr. R. acquired his new $6 million Greenwich Village townhouse, which will be his home base when

APATOW: on line today

he returns to Broadway to fill the Robert Morse/Matthew Broderick song-and-dance shoes in How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying … riding high on the love-letter reviews for her new album The Fall, Norah Jones is set to guest on The Colbert Report tonight. Expect to hear and see her next month with Jian on Q and Strombo on The Hour … artist Natalka Husar opens her new show, Burden Of Innocence, tomorrow in Hamilton. Advance word on Husar’s new exhibition hints at taking her lifelong obsession with painting and with the Ukraine, her ancestral home, into new territory. For more details, click here … and new comedy zillionaire Judd Apatow is taking questions today at the Funny Or Die writers’ room at 12:30 pm pst (3:30 pm our time.) To quiz him, or to just submit your question, click here.

HOSTS WITH THE MOST:  It’s official — Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin are Oscar’s newest Odd Couple. They are now set to co-host next year’s Academy

KARPLUK & MERCER: Gemini twins (photo: CP)

Awards telecast on Sunday March 7 … meanwhile, Office creator Ricky Gervais has been tagged to host the Golden Globes on Sunday Jan. 17 … and yes, I agree, Ron James did a dandy job of hosting last Saturday night’s Gemini Awards. Among the happiest winners: Rick Mercer, not just because his weekly Rick Mercer Report won Best Comedy Series, but also because he got to hang out with people he watches on TV, like Erin (Being Erica) Karpluk and Cory (Glee) Monteith — who, according to my spies, were even more excited to be hanging out with him.

Ain’t show biz grand?

TOMORROW:

Star-crossed reunion: Patti Lupone & Mandy Patinkin.