Taylor Swift to Receive Honorary Doctorate from NYU, Give Speech at Commencement Ceremony

Can you believe it’s been 15 years since the hit show Mad Men aired on AMC? The show debuted July 19, 2007, and the last episode took place on May 17, 2015. The Matthew Weiner drama lasted seven seasons and became a cultural phenomenon. 

For Colored Girls, Ntozake Shange’s brilliant work isn’t even just a play, but rather a series of monologues that also incorporate music and dance.The show is a modern-seeming musical of sorts, and it’s impressive that it still feels fresh and timely, as it was originally performed in New York in 1976. The title features seven women who have all faced adversity due to sexism and racism, and while everyone should see it, the event is not running very long, just for 20 weeks.A post shared by for colored girls – Broadway (@forcoloredgirlsbroadway) LGBTQ audiences have a lot of reasons to go see Take Me Out.

NEW YORK -- Brandon Taylor's “Filthy Animals” has won the Story Prize, a $20,000 honor for collections of short fiction.“Taylor is incredibly attuned to the slightest shift in the emotional weather in his characters and writes with absolute precision and compassion about their desires, vulnerabilities, failings, joys, and longings," prize judges wrote in a statement Wednesday. “His careful attention makes these very ordinary people extraordinary.

Harry Styles will no longer be a part of the “Nosferatu” remake.

NEW YORK -- The podcast series “Live from Mount Olympus” is returning this month with the same Broadway ingenuity and the delightful André De Shields but with a new hero plucked from the pantheon of mythical Greek deities.The 10-episode second series focuses on Persephone, the daughter of Zeus and Demeter, who is suddenly stolen away to the underworld. She is voiced by Joanne Hernandez.“She’s a young girl just trying to meet the expectations of her mom like any young girl would, and she just goes through a journey of learning,” says Hernandez.

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorRepublic Records is relaunching the Mercury imprint as an “extension” of the label, the company announced Monday. The move is similar to Atlantic’s relaunch of Elektra and Interscope’s of Geffen, an effort to split the parent label’s large roster so that artists receive more attention.

NEW YORK -- Earlier this month, Jesse Tyler Ferguson got a private tour of hallowed ground — Yankee Stadium. He and the cast of the Broadway revival of the baseball-themed “Take Me Out” got to walk on the grass and soak in the silent stands.“I wasn’t expecting to be as moved as I was,” says the “Modern Family” and Broadway star.

Nicolas Cage and his wife Riko Shibata enjoyed a lovely evening out in the New York on Sunday April 10 for a special screening of his latest movie The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent. The 58-year-old actor held his 27-year-old wife’s hand while they arrived for the showing. Nic and Riko were both dressed to the nines in black outfits, as the Leaving Las Vegas star smiled for the cameras. Riko’s baby bump was also showing, about three months after announcing that she was pregnant.

Taylor Swift‘s childhood homes was recently put up for sale once again, with the property reportedly already having found a new buyer.After spending her early years growing up on a Christmas tree farm, Swift’s family began renting the three-storey, five-bedroom home in Reading, Pennsylvania during the singer’s childhood.The home, built in 1929, spans 3,500 square feet and is located on a three-quarter acre lot. The family lived there for three years until moving to Nashville in 2004 to pursue the singer’s then-burgeoning music career.The New York Post reports that the property was put up for sale in February for $1.1million, and that it went under contract last Friday (April 8) after a $100,000 reduction in price.In 2020, a former owner of the house went viral on TikTok for sharing a video in which she explained her connection to Swift.

Actor Kevin Spacey asked a judge Friday to throw out actor Anthony Rapp's sex abuse lawsuit, saying through his lawyers that allegations that he abused the then-teenage Rapp at a 1980s party are false. The lawyers wrote in papers filed in Manhattan federal court that the alleged events Rapp described never occurred. Rapp has appeared in "Rent" on Broadway and in "Star Trek: Discovery" on television.

NEW YORK -- Actor Kevin Spacey asked a judge Friday to throw out a sex abuse lawsuit that his lawyers say was unjustly brought by an actor who alleges he was abused when he was 14 by Spacey at a 1980s party.The lawyers wrote in papers filed in Manhattan federal court that the allegations made by Anthony Rapp are false and never occurred.

After Marjorie Taylor Greene called out Jimmy Kimmel for joking about Will Smith hypothetically slapping her, the comedian defended his humor.

book Kitchen Confidential, he was working as Brasserie Les Halles’ executive chef — where he’d been since 1998.Now that space — closed since 2016 – has reopened as La Brasserie. Francis Staub, who operates a cast iron cookware company under his own name, signed a 15-year lease for the 173-seat restaurant. The eatery closed in 2016 and Bourdain, who tragically committed suicide in 2018, had been long gone from behind the stove.

Michael Appler Jesse Williams and Jesse Tyler Ferguson celebrated the Broadway opening for “Take Me Out” on Monday evening in New York at Second Stage’s Hayes Theater.A revival of the 2003 Tony-winning best play, headlined by Williams, Ferguson and Patrick J. Adams, “Take Me Out” is the third of 19 new shows that will open this month, continuing the march of star-driven offerings in Broadway’s first regular season since its return after the COVID-19 pandemic struck.

Tyler Cameron was an eyewitness to the beginning stages of Kim Kardashian and Pete Davidson’s romance on Saturday Night Live in October 2021. “I think they are just having fun,” Tyler told HollywoodLife EXCLUSIVELY while promoting his collaboration with HomeGoods. “I think Pete makes everyone feel loose and relaxed. He is a very good guy. I remember being around him and he was very chill and relaxed. He has a certain way about himself and I think Kim really enjoys that.”

Wilson Chapman editorJudge Judy Sheindlin is heading back to her alma mater next month for a commencement ceremony that will feature three generations of Sheindlin women in law.Judy Sheindlin, a household name from her long tenure on daytime court show “Judge Judy” and IMDB TV’s new “Judy Justice,” will serve as commencement speaker for New York Law School at its May 26 ceremony at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center.Sheindlin graduated from the school in 1965; her daughter Nicole earned her J.D. from NYLS in 1993.

NEW YORK -- Katy Perry is getting into the podcast business, narrating a series about another superstar, Elizabeth Taylor.“Elizabeth The First,” produced by Perry, House of Taylor and Imperative, is a 10-episode series about Taylor as the original influencer.Topics include how Taylor negotiated the first $1M salary to star in 1963's “Cleopatra," and the creation of a fragrance empire when celebrity-endorsed productions was not common or popular. Thirty years since its launch, White Diamonds remains a top global fragrance brand.The podcast will also discuss how Taylor used her celebrity to call attention to HIV/AIDS and advocate for the LGBTQ+ community and include rare stories from people who knew her best.In a statement, Perry says of Taylor, “like most people, I was attracted to her glamour...

Taylor Swift is becoming a doctor! The iconic singer is adding one more achievement to her career, now that New York University has decided to give her an honorary doctorate of fine arts.The 32-year-old artist will be part of a traditional ceremony with the graduating class of 2022, receving her honors at Yankee Stadium, where she will be speaking to graduates and accepting her doctorate on May 18.Taylor is set to become Doctor of Fine Arts, honoris causa, as it was revealed in a recent statement from NYU, describing her as “one of the most prolific and celebrated artists of her generation.”The institution also highlighted her achievement as the only female artist to ever win Album of the Year three times at the Grammys and the only solo artist this century to have three albums reach No.

Film at Lincoln Center and The Museum of Modern Art has set Audrey Diwan’s Happening and The African Desperate by Martine Syms will bookend the 51st edition of their collaboration, New Directors/New Films running April 20–May 1 in NYC.