The Boy from ‘Memphis’  By Isa Goldberg

With racial issues as a recurring element throughout many new productions this season, the Obama presence is everywhere on Broadway. “Race”, David Mamet’s new play, the revival of the old-fashioned musical “Finian’s Rainbow”, the first 90’s musical to be revived on Broadway, “Ragtime”, and Bill T. Jones’ biographical show, “Fela”, about the Nigerian singer and political activist.

Talking to Laura Benanti “In The Next Room”
By: Isa Goldberg
Watching Laura Benanti one might imagine that success comes easily. With three Tony nominations and one Tony Award for her blazing performance in “Gypsy”, several recording albums, and a recurring role on TV’s “Eli Stone” behind her, one would never entertain the grueling spinal surgery that followed a potentially paralyzing pratfall in “Into the Woods”, or the loneliness and awkwardness she recalls feeling as a high school student. Regardless, she is in private conversation just as she is in public, lovely and unassuming.

Well known to television audiences for her roles in “Designing Women” and “Will and Grace”, Ivey’s real distinction is as a stage actor. Her Tony Award-winning roles include “Steaming” (1983) where she spent most of her time on stage in the nude and “Hurlyburly” (1985) in which she portrayed a woman’s feral sexuality.  And just recently, Ben Brantley described her portrayal of the matriarch in a double bill of Edward Albee plays as “priceless” like “the purring contentment of a cat who has eaten an entire aviary of canaries.” On that note, there is a peculiar quack to the voice of Ann Landers in “The Lady With All The Answers” that isn’t there when Judith Ivey talks.


                   By Isa Goldberg
Tony Roberts: Photo: Barry GordinIf you haven’t heard, there’s a lot of clamor around the Cavendishes and it’s all self-created. George S. Kaufman and Edna Ferber’s valentine to the theater, “The Royal Family”, takes off like a madcap evening with the Marx Brothers. The 1927 satire in revival at The Manhattan Theatre Club flaunts a lineup of theatrical royalty the likes of Rosemary Harris, John Glover, Jan Maxwell, Ana Gasteyer, Larry Pine, Reg Rogers and David Greenspan.

Harriet Walter, Janet McTeer By: Isa Goldberg

If you're an English actor graced with a Tony nod this season, it's likely to feel a bit strange. After all, in London the kind of hoopla we bestow on actors is usually reserved for the likes of those named Sir and Dame as in Sir Ian McKellan or Dame Judi Dench. Still, this season's entourage of British talent on Broadway includes a list of thoroughbreds, all chomping at the bit and eager to toast Broadway's winning season.

Nick AdamsOn the eve of a charity event, the Guys and Dolls star reveals a secret about his past.
By Darren Tobia

On Monday, April 27th, Nick Adams, Broadway’s it gay, hosted a charity event for Live Out Loud, New York’s up-and-coming LGBT organization, at the Chelsea Art Museum 556 West 22nd Street @ 11th Avenue from 6:00 to 9:00 pm in New York City.

The East Hampton Grace Estate overlooking the Northwest Harbor with its magnificent sunsets is a secluded tract of land totaling nearly 300 acres bordering both Cedar Point Park and a 517 acre nature preserve. This is about as far as one can get from civilization in East Hampton, and there are only 30 homes there situated in relative isolation about 10 miles from the Village and the ocean beaches. But this is where you will find Broadway producers, Stewart F. Lane and his lovely wife Bonnie Comley, every summer for the past eight years.

One of the highlights of the Hamptons International Film Festival, which opened on Wednesday October 15th was when the international film star Jacqueline Bisset, who in 1977 appeared on the cover of both Newsweek and Time in the same week, sat down with Steven Gaines for an intimate chat about her illustrious career before a live audience at the Bay Street Theater in Sag Harbor. Bisset, who is renowned as one the world’s great beauties, stars in the Hallmark Channel’s new film, An Old Fashioned Thanksgiving, one of the festivals upcoming Spotlight films, which will be shown in East Hampton at 6 pm following the interview.

Jaye Sears, Kathleen BattleThe luminous voice of the Grammy Award winning soprano Kathleen Battle has been heralded throughout the world. After witnessing the major milestones in her illustrious career, critics have been unified in singing her praises. Words like spellbinding, magical, mesmerizing have been used to describe her performances from the stages of the world’s leading opera houses and major concert halls. She has scanned the heights of the classical musical world with her unmistakable sound performing with leading orchestras world wide.

Princess Yasmin Aga Khan
Yasmin Aga Khan, a Southampton summer resident since the early 1960’s, is a real princess, but her life is not the stuff of fairytales. Real life rarely is and nothing is quite what it seems. Born in Lausanne, Switzerland Yasmin is a modern day Princess, the second child of the American film icon Rita Hayworth and Prince Aly Khan of Pakistan, a United Nations ambassador from that country. Her father, once the Vice President of the UN general assembly, died in an automobile accident when Yasmin was just 11.