Espresso - Backstage - Actor Industry News

Off-Broadway: Attendance Booms, Contributions Go Bust

Attendance at Off-Broadway theatres has been surging, but the city's many nonprofits are still struggling to raise money, according to a report in Crain's. Manhattan Theatre Club has had a huge success with Ruined (left), Lynn Nottage's play that could very well win the Pulitzer Prize today, but it has had to trim $1 million from its $22 million budget.

Free Drinks! (Oh, and NYFA Has an Open House)

The New York Foundation for the Arts has moved to DUMBO, and on Wednesday, April 22, it will host an open house from 4 to 7 p.m. at 20 Jay St., Suite 740, Brooklyn. Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz will attend, as will Dominic M. Recchia Jr., a city council member from Brooklyn and chair of the council's Cultural Affairs Committee. In addition to free drinks and refreshments, NYFA could offer you a chance to earn a grant.

SAG Board Approves Two Contracts

For one day at least, the SAG national board had a common sense of purpose, unanimously approving the commercials contract and preparing to send it to the rank-and-file for ratification. It brought to mind the days before the guild was riven with internecine fighting.

Then Sunday came around and the board was divided again over whether to send the tentative deal with TV and film producers on a new two-year contract to members as well. Still, the self-described moderates were able to get the votes they needed, raising the possibility--and we underscore possibility--that SAG's two biggest contracts could be settled by Memorial Day.

SAG, Producers Reach Tentative Deal

It is not certain that the long stalemate between SAG and producers is over, but it does appear to be coming to a close. Both SAG and the AMPTP issued a statement Friday afternoon stating that a tentative deal has been reached.

In a news release, the two parties said they would give no details of the settlement "prior to review by the SAG national board of directors this Sunday, April 19, at a previously scheduled board meeting via videoconference in Los Angeles and New York."

However, a guild source who has been close to the negotiations told Strike Watch that SAG achieved its latest demand--that this contract expires at the same time AFTRA's does, June 30, 2011.

Just a Minor, Last-Minute Change

The producers of The Gingerbread House, a new play starring Bobby Cannavale, Jason Butler Harner, Jackie Hoffman, Sarah Paulson and Ben Rappaport, have replaced the director Alex Cabnet with Evan Kilgore. Four days before its official opening.

Okay.

Reality Check: Rod Blagojevich? WTB?

NBC thinks this will pull it out of fourth place? Rod Bleeping Blagojevich? In a bleeper-bleeping reality show? Jeff Zucker is bleeper-bleeping disgrace.

I mean really. What the bleep?

Why doesn't he just give Jay Leno a second hour in primetime--it would have more integrity. Not much more, but, still.

Big Doings in Big D

The Dallas Theater Center will move from its customary home, the Kalita Humphreys Theater, into the Dee and Charles Wyly Theatre, a new space at the new Dallas Center for the Performing Arts. According to a news release, the $354-million project is the most ambitious arts development since Lincoln Center, with four new buildings united by a 10-acre public park.

McDonald, Cumpsty, Esparza to Join Hathaway in 'Twelfth Night'

  Audra McDonald, Raul Esparza, Michael Cumpsty, David Pittu, Jay O. Sanders, and Hamish Linklater will star with Anne Hathaway in the Public Theater's production of Twelfth Night in Central Park this summer.

A Winter in Search of a Lion

The Los Angeles Times yesterday ran a front-page story on a police officer, except that it wasn't a story, it was a paid advertisement for John Wells' new show Southland, which premiered last night on NBC. This is an embarrassment of epic dimensions for the Times, rivaling its previous low in 1999, when it whorred--there is no other word for it--for the newly-opened Staples Center.

If Soaps Max Out, Will Minis Fill Void?

With declining ratings and the recent cancellation of Guiding Light, there's worry that soap operas could fade away--taking with them the jobs actors have relied on for more than a half-century. Nevertheless, cable networks are using a model similar to daytime drama: scripted entertainment targeted toward women underwritten by the makers of household goods. Will that be enough?