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.

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Andrea carries a Torch, Angie conducts (unarmed) and Rick, Ron & Don are three CBC guys we trust

NO PEOPLE LIKE SHOW PEOPLE: Gorgeous Jessica Biel can’t figure out why people can’t figure out how she and her steady fella Justin Timberlake keep such a low public  profile. “We’re never in the tabloids because we just don’t

BIEL: can't imagine what Justin sees in her

do anything that interesting,” she says with a shrug. “We don’t do anything. We just hang out at home!” … still-gorgeous Angie Dickinson is set to play conductor for the Boston Pops By The Sea on Aug. 2 but doesn’t know what to do to make it special. “Somebody told me that when Julia Child did it, she conducted with a spoon. I thought at first in homage to Police Woman I’d conduct with a gun, but then, of course, no – soooo politically incorrect!” Her fans will get to see her even sooner, as a rural woman facing blindness in the new Hallmark TV movie Mending Fences on July 18 … and by now you probably know that the June edition of Reader’s Digest lists the Top 50 people Canadians trust the most. David Suzuki placed first, followed by The Queen, Gen. Rick

MERCER: trustworthy

Hillier, Stephen Lewis and Michael J. Fox.  Rounding out the top 10 were Lloyd Robertson, Peter Mansbridge, Stephen Harper, auditor general Sheila Fraser and Rick Mercer. Among the top-20 most trusted were four hockey personalities — Wayne Gretzky, Don Cherry, Ron MacLean and Jean Béliveau. And make of this what you will, but of the eight television personalities in the Top 20, seven — Suzuki, Mansbridge, Mercer, George Stroumboulopoulos, Rex Murphy, Cherry and MacLean — are proud CBC stars. And the eighth, CTV broadcaster Lloyd Robertson, is also a CBC alumnus.

LADY SINGS THE NEWS: My favourite New York gossip girl Liz Smith scooped yesterday that Michael Jackson’s newly-discovered will stipulates that if his mother, Katherine Jackson is “unable or unwilling” to fulfill her role as guardian to Michael’s children – page Miss Diana Ross!

“Before you start giggling,” Liz warned in her  wowOwow.com post, “please remember that Diana has raised five – count ‘em – five beautiful children who have never been in a spit of trouble. Diva she may be to coworkers, but she has been an exemplary mother. This is an intelligent choice, actually.”

FOOTLIGHTS: Marquee magnets Andrea Martin, Richard Thomas and Lea Thompson are spending their summer vacation at the Williamstown

MARTIN: at Williamstown

Theatre Festival. Ms. Martin will appear in George Kelly’s little-known farce The Torch-Bearers (July 29-August 9), with Edward Herrmann, Marian Seldes and John Rubinstein.  Ms. Thompson will appear in Melinda Lopez’s Caroline in Jersey (August 5-16), and Thomas will appear one night only, playing Tennessee Williams in his new one-man show Blanche and Beyond on Sunday, August 2 …  he won great reviews as the young Captain Kirk in the new Star Trek movie, and now Chris Pine is winning more plaudits, this time on stage in Los Angeles. Pine plays a press secretary working for a Democratic candidate in Farragut North, a new play by Beau Willimon at the Geffen Playhouse. Pine, who has a stage background, reportedly delivers “a multilayered and riveting performance” …  Pam Hyatt is set to team up with renowned organist Christopher Dawes for

PINE: stage trek

a special evening at the Stratford Summer Music Festival on Aug. 2 … and superProducer Marlene Smith, honoured earlier this week at the 2009 Dora Awards, is the new Chair of Theatre Museum Canada.  Past chair Kate Barris will continue to lend her support as a member of  the museum’s Board of Directors.

FLICKERS: Latest victim of the New Hollywood:  20th Century Props, which offers a vast inventory of items used in film and television productions, now plans to go out of business next month and auction the inventory. Awwww … The Toronto Film Society returns

BANDERAS: Goodbye, Dali

with its Season 62 (!!!) summer series — 14 crime suspense thrillers showcased in seven double features. The new series, Hitchcock And Friends, starts next Monday July 6. For more details, click here ... now that she’s teamed with Gerard Butler in the romantic comedy The Ugly Truth, Katherine Heigl is switching gears again. Her next big-screen opus is a drama, Life As We Know It, for Warner Bros. … and Liz Smith says we shouldn’t hold our breath waiting for those two Salvador Dali film biographies announced earlier this year. Antonio Banderas was set to play the eccentric artist in one version, and Al Pacino was reportedly committed to playing him in the second film. But both of these screenplays were apparently deemed far too racy by the Foundation which safeguards the artist’s name and legend. And that, too, is show business.

SEE/HEAR:  You see them in the subway and on the street — posters urging you to report non-Humans if you catch ‘em misbehaving. It’s all a tease for a new thriller, District 9, slated to open here in August. Expected to be one of this summer’s most subversive sci-fi treats, it’s a low-radar collaboration between director Neill Blomkamp, best known for his animation and special visual effects,  and Oscar-winning producer-director Peter Jackson (Lord Of The Rings.)

Good news is, District 9 also has one great website. And you can check it out here. Enjoy!

TOMORROW:

Wonder Woman sings,

Citytv goes cross-border shopping,

and Dame Judi does it again!

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