Halloween gremlins have stopped work on the demolition of West Lothian’s ghost estate.
13.10.2022 - 22:19 / variety.com
Brent Lang Executive Editor Samuel L. Jackson had his marching orders. So when actor John David Washington approached him for tips about playing Boy Willie, a role Jackson originated in the 1987 production of August Wilson’s “The Piano Lesson,” he clammed up. “I was specifically told by the director not to give him advice,” Jackson says. “John David asked several times, but when he realized that I was not allowed to help him, he stopped asking.” The director, in this case, is LaTanya Richardson Jackson, who also happens to be Jackson’s wife, as well as the first woman to oversee a production of Wilson’s work on Broadway. The two are teaming up on the hotly anticipated revival of the classic drama, only this time Sam is playing Boy Willie’s uncle, Doaker Charles. It marks his first time on Broadway since 2011’s “The Mountaintop,” in which he played Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and LaTanya’s first time directing after a run of acclaimed stage performances, including the 2014 revival of “A Raisin in the Sun” and 2018’s “To Kill a Mockingbird.”
“I’m always open to working onstage,” Sam says. “But I was not looking for it. The fortunate thing was they got the right director who was able to convince me to do it.” “The Piano Lesson” unfolds in Pittsburgh during the Great Depression and follows an argument between Boy Willie and his sister, Berniece (played in the revival by Danielle Brooks), over whether to sell a family heirloom — a piano with carvings made by an enslaved ancestor. Berniece wants to keep it, seeing it as a valuable piece of history and a reminder of the ties that bind, but Boy Willie wants to sell it and use the proceeds to buy land to farm. “It’s a debate between honoring your legacy versus using something
Halloween gremlins have stopped work on the demolition of West Lothian’s ghost estate.
“Ant-Man And The Wasp: Quantumania” ushers in Phase 5 of the MCU next February, and the new trailer for the film that dropped this week has Marvel fans hyped. And from the looks of things, expect even more multiversal weirdness than certain Phase 4 content, as well as the return of Jonathan Major‘s Kang The Conquerer.
“There are no small roles,” said famed acting teacher Konstantin Stanislavski. Did he foresee the future of William Jackson Harper, whose addition to the cast of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania has been confirmed by Disney sources?
Taking their chemistry offscreen? After portraying love interests on Hulu’s Tell Me Lies, Jackson White and Grace Van Patten have played coy about the status of their own relationship.
Covid isn’t done with New York’s theater scene just yet. At least four Broadway and major Off Broadway productions have either canceled or postponed performances or temporarily replaced principal cast members in the last week due to the virus.
Broadway box office held steady at $28,621,480 last week as a slate of new productions began or continued previews (Almost Famous and Kimberly Akimbo filled more than 90% of their seats), MJ and Leopoldstadt set house records and The Phantom of the Opera was once again standing room only as the long-running Andrew Lloyd Webber musical heads toward its Feb. 18 closing.
Watch Below: Olivia Wilde dodges questions about Florence Pugh 'feud'The parents of two, and former couple have faced numerous headlines since Olivia Wilde began dating pop singer Harry Styles, with Olivia again setting the record straight on cheating rumours earlier this week in an interview with Elle. Now, just days after the interview, their former Nanny has made damning allegations in an interview with The Daily Mail. The anonymous nanny, who worked for the couple for three years, claimed Jason threw himself under Olivia’s car in an attempt to stop her from visiting Harry Styles. Oliva and Jason have hit back at the nanny's claims.“The night she left with her salad, Jason had chased after her, videotaping her in the house,” she claimed.“She was saying: ‘I’m scared of you, Jason, I’m scared of you.’ And he said: ‘If you’re scared of me, why are you leaving your kids with me?’”“So then, Jason went outside and lay under her car so she wouldn’t leave. She got in her car to back up, he lay under her car so she wouldn’t leave.”“She went back into the house and he went in, it was back and forth.
Trai Byers and Grace Gealey are expecting!
Danielle Brooks celebrated the opening night of her Broadway show The Piano Lesson just days ago and she sadly has to take a break from performing as she just tested positive for COVID-19.
Michael Appler When Tony and Emmy-nominee Danielle Brooks was 17 years old, at home in Greenville, S.C., she picked up a copy of August Wilson’s “Century Cycle,” a canon of 10 plays spanning the 20th century which chronicled African American life in its most vivid, lyrical and intimate settings yet written for the stage. Sifting through the collection, she picked out “The Piano Lesson” and read it, thumbing across the names of African American actors and actresses whom she didn’t yet know. “Today is about preservation,” she told Variety on Thursday at the opening night of the first Broadway revival of “The Piano Lesson,” in which Brooks stars as Berniece alongside Samuel L. Jackson and John David Washington.
Grace Van Patten and Jackson White are stepping out together!
opened Thursday night on Broadway, is mostly in tune. The August Wilson play’s greatest asset is its young leads John David Washington and Danielle Brooks, both of whom are already widely admired, but display an altogether new and enticing range of skills. 2 hours and 45 minutes, with one intermission. At the Ethel Barrymore Theatre, 243 W.
There’s abundant magic still in The Piano Lesson, August Wilson’s grand, 1987 Pulitzer Prize winning tale of a Black family torn between legacy and ambition, the past and the future, and, it’s not an overstatement to note, between life and death.
Gordon Cox Theater Editor Each year, Variety compiles a list of Broadway stars on the rise. This year, Variety fill fete this round-up of stage actors, directors and writers at its Business of Broadway Breakfast presented by City National Bank will take place on Oct.
William Earl “Death of a Salesman” actor Wendell Pierce, “The Piano Lesson” director LaTanya Richardson Jackson and “Till” star John Douglas Thompson are among the honorees set for the inaugural Salute to Broadway presented by the African American Film Critics Association. The event is set for Oct. 17 at The Lambs Club in the heart of Midtown’s theater district. “It’s no secret that some of our greatest actors have come from the stage or have tested their chops on it,” said Gil Robertson, co-founder of AAFCA. “Sidney Poitier, Ruby Dee and Ossie Davis are just a handful of our beloved icons for which this was true, with Tony winners Denzel Washington, Viola Davis, Audra McDonald, Adrienne Warren and Myles Frost among those continuing that legacy. As a reliable pipeline for outstanding Black talent in front of the camera as well as behind it, Hollywood has benefited greatly from this esteemed training ground and AAFCA Salutes Broadway celebrates that rich heritage.”
Janet Jackson is sharing a cute snap with her niece.