| Paige Davis returning to 'Trading Spaces'
Paige Davis is moving back to TLC's "Trading Spaces." The Broadway actress and TV host will return to the once-popular home makeover series beginning in January, the network said in a statement Thursday. In 2005, TLC announced Davis would no longer host ``Trading Spaces'' and transitioned the series to a host-less format. Davis had perkily hosted the show, which features neighbors swapping homes and redecorating a room, since 2001. Besides ``Trading Spaces,'' she's also appeared on Broadway in the musicals ``Beauty and the Beast'' and ``Chicago.'' ``Trading Spaces'' will now be produced by A. Smith & Co. Productions, the TV production company responsible for Fox's ``Hell's Kitchen'' and ``Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares.'' The series was formerly produced by Philadelphia-based Banyan Productions.
Watch This: 'Hairspray'
115 minutes. Rated PG. Anyone who still doubts -- after "Chicago" and "Dreamgirls" -- that the musical is back as a movie genre probably has not seen last summer's "Hairspray," the film version of the 2002 Broadway hit that was, in turn, based on John Waters' 1988 movie comedy. Unlike those two landmark musicals, this one -- now out on DVD -- is broad and funny, its sensibility is very campy and it's out to be loved by everyone. In short, it's not the kind of material that's likely to stack up its predecessors' pile of Oscar nominations. Also like those films, its visuals eschew the split-second editing, irregular camera angles and pointless razzle-dazzle of MTV to embrace the more classic look of the Golden Age of the Hollywood musical. Stylistically, it's very old-fashioned.
Today's top 10 nation stories
DETROIT | Detroit pushed past St. Louis and became the nation's most dangerous city, according to a private research group's controversial analysis, released Sunday, of annual FBI crime statistics. Kansas City ranked the 18th most dangerous city, and Kansas City, Kan., ranked 25th. | B2 2. MISSOURIANS MAKE RHODES SCHOLARS LIST CHICAGO | Two Missourians, from Columbia and Springfield, were among 32 Americans selected as Rhodes Scholars for 2008, the scholarship trust announced Sunday. | B2 3. PRESSURE ON FOR BROADWAY SOLUTION NEW YORK | Broadway stagehands and theater producers met again Sunday, the second day of intense negotiations to find a solution to a strike that has shut down 27 plays and musicals for more than a week. Pressure has mounted for a solution to the work stoppage, which began Nov.
A second day of dark theaters and disappointed audiences on Broadway
NEW YORK (AP) — It was a second day of dark Broadway theaters and disappointed audiences as striking stagehands reaffirmed their commitment Sunday to remain off the job until producers started acting ``honorably'' at the negotiating table.James J. Claffey Jr., president of Local One, said the League of American Theatres and Producers needs to make a ``constructive'' adjustment to its counter offers.``We want respect at the table,'' he said at a somber news conference. ``If there's no respect, they will not see Local One at the table. The lack of respect is something we are not going to deal with.''Twenty-seven shows remained closed Sunday, the day after stagehands went on strike, shutting down such popular productions as ``Wicked,'' ``The Phantom of the Opera,'' ``Hairspray,'' ``Jersey Boys'' and ``Mamma Mia!''Among the shows canceled Sunday was a gala 10th-year anniversary performance of ``The Lion King,'' although a party celebrating the Disney musical's decade-long run was still being held.Producers of ``August: Osage County,'' a play by Tracy Letts from Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre Company, said they may postpone its scheduled Nov.
Something special for our aria as 'Phantom' comes to town
In January, Andrew Lloyd Webber's mega-hit "Phantom of the Opera" celebrates its 20th anniversary on Broadway, where it is already the longest running show ever. The musical has been touring America for nearly as long. So it's been a challenge for Bill Miller, "Phantom's" national marketing director, to keep the advertising fresh as the darkly romantic musical about a physically and emotionally scarred phantom haunting the Paris Opera House has crisscrossed the nation again and again. And again. In fact the two-month engagement of "Phantom" that opens to the press tonight at the Cadillac Palace marks the fifth time the show has played the Chicago market. So Miller felt it was definitely time to add some new twists to the show's advertising mix beyond the familiar shattered mask image that by now is at least as famous a theatrical marketing icon as "Les Miserables'" forlorn-looking waif.
A retooled "Birdie" flies home to the Rep
The last time Seattle-based writer Cheryl L. West had one of her plays done at Seattle Repertory Theatre was in 1998, when her Broadway musical "Play On!" ran there. Now she's back at the Rep, which is about to open a newish piece of hers, "Birdie Blue." The single-act play chronicles a lengthy marriage in the African-American community. It debuted Off Broadway in 2005 with S. Epatha Merkerson (a star on TV's "Law and Order") in the lead. Due to her TV shooting schedule, Merkerson was not available to play Birdie in Seattle. But West says she's very satisfied with the three-member cast here under Chuck Smith's direction. It includes Chicago actors Velma Austin and Sean Blake, and Seattle's own William Hall Jr. West was also happy for the chance to revise this impressionistic script about a middle-age woman who recalls her life as a transplanted Southerner in Chicago, while she bakes her son a birthday cake and tends to her ill husband.
Broadway ticket availability
Keith Anderson will play Doc to S. Epatha Merkerson's Lola in the Manhattan Theatre club revival of William Inge's "Come Back, Little Sheba," opening Jan. 24 at the Biltmore Theatre. In "Sheba," Lola, a blowzy, lonely Midwest housewife, is trapped in an unhappy marriage to Doc, a recovering alcoholic teetering on a relapse. When a pretty young woman, played by Zoe Kazan, rents a room in their home, the relationship between wife and husband is dramatically affected. Also in the cast are Lyle Kanouse, Brian J. Smith, Brenda Wehle and Matthew J. Williamson. Merkerson is best known for her many seasons on TV's "Law & Order." Anderson, an ensemble member of Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre Company, has appeared on Broadway in the 1989 revival of "Orphesus Descending," the 1999 revival of "Death of a Salesman" and the musical "Brooklyn." For tickets to "Come Back, Little Sheba," call Telecharge, 212-239-6200, or go online at http://www.telecharge.com.
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