Matthew dons tap shoes, Jim sees a rabbit, Jesus goes to Harlem, and Julie & Jodie salute Arlene

STARS IN OUR EYES: Two of her favourite stars, Julie Andrews and Jodie Foster, are the proud presenters set to celebrate Disney publicity ace Arlene Ludwig at the ICG Publicists Guild’s annual pre-Oscar luncheon tomorrow at

LUDWIG: luncheon honours

the Beverly Hilton.  The Guild is dedicating its 2012 Publicists Directory and resource book to Ludwig, who has been deftly juggling print and electronic press for Disney for almost 50 years … 30 Rock star Cheyenne Jackson and Smash headliner Debra Messing will join Judy Kuhn, Jill Eikenberry, Michael Tucker, Celia Weston, Hope Davis, Tony Roberts, John Guare and many more to honour Tony winner Linda Lavin at the Vineyard Theatre’s 2012 Benefit Gala on March 12 in Manhattan … superSongwriter Paul Williams will return to T.O. next month for the March 21-24 Canadian Music Week Film Fest. This year’s CMW filmfest promises an eclectic mix of movie premieres and special events, including a retrospective screening of The Muppet Movie with a post-film Q&A at which Oscar-winning composer Williams will talk about working on the film with Jim 

SHATNER: it's his world

Henson. Also on the Hot List:  the Canadian premiere of Joe Berlinger’s new doc Under African Skies, which documents Paul Simon’s return to South Africa and his reunion with many of the musicians that he worked with on his classic album Graceland …  and after five decades of toiling in Hollywood, Bill Shatner is finally back on the Great White Way .  His one-man show, Shatner’s World: We Just Live In It,  revisits his personal and professional highest highs and lowest lows. “My plan has always been to return to Broadway every 50 years,” says Shatner, who starred on Broadway in the ’60s in The World Of Suzie Wong and A Shot In The Dark.  “Since then, of course, I’ve been refurbished; I hope the theatre has been too.” He’s at the Music Box ’til March 4.

FOOTLIGHTS:  Big Bang Theory go-to-guy Jim Parsons will follow in Jimmy Stewart’s footsteps when he co-stars with an invisible rabbit in the

PARSONS: bunny trail?

upcoming Roundabout Theatre Company revival of Harvey. Aided and abetted by  Broadway vets Carol Kane, Jessica Hecht, Charles Kimbrough  and two-time Tony nominee Larry Bryggman, Parsons begins previews May 18 and opens officially on June 14 at Studio 54 … the illustrious cast of Stratford’s Jesus Christ Superstar  — including  Paul Nolan, Chillina Kennedy and Josh Young —  won hearts and minds and much appreciative applause when they gave a short

NOLAN: Jesus goes to Harlem

performance of show highlights last Friday night at the Church Of The Intercession in Harlem. The show opens in previews March 1 at the Neil Simon Theatre  … new University Of Guelph chancellor David Mirvish was so impressed by the Theatre Sheridan production of RENT — an SRO hit two months ago at Sheridan College’s Oakville campus — that he’s bring all 32 performers to his Panasonic Theatre for a 10-night run opening May 16 … and if you loved those “re-imagined” George & Ira Gershwin musicals My One And Only and Crazy For You, better start dusting off your tap shoes. Matthew Broderick, Estelle Parsons, Judy Kaye and South Pacific sweetheart Kelli O’Hara start all-singing all-dancing previews next month at the Imperial Theatre on the latest ‘new’ Gershwin musical, Nice Work If You Can Get It, directed and choreographed by Anything Goes hit-maker Kathleen Marshall. 

MUHAMMAD ALI: still a knock-out

NO BIZ LIKE SHOWBIZ: Never one to shy away from controversy, director Stephen Frears is at the helm of the new HBO feature Muhammad Ali’s Greatest Fight, an examination of the legal battle that erupted between Ali and the U.S. government when he became a conscientious objector and declined to serve in the Vietnam War. Christopher Plummer will play Supreme Court Associate Justice John Marshall Harlan II and Frank Langella will play Chief Justice Warren Burger. Frears reportedly plans to use actual footage of Ali himself, and not cast an actor to play him …   my spies tell me that Montreux Jazz Festival chief Claude Nobs is

SUZUKI: back to Japan

wooing Leonard Cohen to do two concerts at this year’s 46th annual Swiss music extravaganza  … my spies tell me tomorrow night’s instalment of Marketplace on CBC is eye-popping in more ways than one. It’s all about the outrageously high cost of prescription eyeglasses and what we can do about it …  one year after the northeastern seaboard of Japan was devastated by a major earthquake and a giant tsunami, David Suzuki goes back to Japan for Journey to the Disaster Zone: Japan 3/11 tonight on The Nature Of Things on CBC … and if you missed last week’s provocative Future Cities installment of The Suzuki Diaries with Suzuki and his daughter Sarka, don’t fret – an encore screening is set for 10 pm tonight on CBC News Network.

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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.

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?

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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.