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If you missed Benedict Cumberbatch and Jonny Lee Miller in Danny Boyle’s Frankenstein production, Sky Arts is bringing it to TV for your convenience. More below.

Going to the theatre still feels like a fancy, special occasion. It can also be a bit on the pricey side, but the National Theatre has taken great steps to making the productions more accessible with special cinema screenings of selected shows.

Sky Arts is now making National Theatre productions even more accessible by bringing three different plays to TV for the very first time. Othello, The Crucible and two versions of Frankenstein will be aired on Sky Arts, Freeview and Now.

Othello, directed by Clint Dyer, stars Giles Terera, Rosy McEwen and Paul Hilton, while Erin Doherty and Brendan Cowell star in The Crucible which was directed by Lyndsey Turner. Both plays were originally performed in 2022 and captured on the stages of the National Theatre.

Bankside Films has revealed a first look at Calum Macdiarmid’s feature debut, prison thriller Wasteman.

Rye Lane’s David Jonsson stars alongside The Hunger Games: The Ballad Of Songbirds & Snakes Tom Blyth.Bankside has also revealed additional cast, star of Disney+ seriesRivals Alex Hassell, plus Corin Silva and Paul Hilton.

The UK film, currently in post-production, follows a parolee whose hopes of a fresh start are jeopardised by the arrival of a new cellmate.

Sophia Gibber and Myles Payne of Agile Films produce, in association with Philip Barantini and Samantha Beddoe’s It’s All Made Up Productions and Hoopsa Films,...

Emerald Fennells decision to cast Jacob Elordi as Heathcliff in her upcoming Wuthering Heights adaptation has sparked backlash online. Deadline revealed that Elordi and Margot Robbie will star in the film as Heathcliff and Catherine Earnshaw. Fennell is set to write, direct, and produce.

Based on the classic novel by Emily Bront, the character Heathcliff's ethnicity is somewhat ambiguous in the novel. In Wuthering Heights, the character is described as having dark skin, dark hair, and a wild appearance. He is also referred to as a "dark-skinned gipsy." Many fans had hoped to see a Romani actor portray the role, or at least an actor of color, as the general consensus among readers and literary experts is that Heathcliff is not white.

Wuthering Heights (2011) NRDramaDocumentaryRomance Release Date September 9, 2011Director Andrea ArnoldCast James Howson, Solomon Glave, Paul Hilton, Shannon Beer, Simone Jackson, Steve EvetsRuntime 128Main Genre DramaWriters Andrea Arnold, Olivia Hetreed,...

Emerald Fennell is gearing up for her next feature film, an adaptation of Emily Bront's Wuthering Heights, and she has cast a few familiar faces. After starting as an actor in projects like The Danish Girl and The Crown, Fennell has become one of the most exciting creative voices in the industry behind the hit series Killing Eve and her two feature films, Promising Young Woman and, most recently, Saltburn. Given the status of Wuthering Heights as a staple in English literature, much attention has been paid to her upcoming film adaptation, and the casting process has begun by adding two major names: Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi.

Deadline reports that Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi have joined the cast of Wuthering Heights. Robbie will star as Catherine Earnshaw, while Elordi will play Heathcliff, Catherine's star-crossed lover and a classic anti-hero. Behind the scenes, Robbie's production company, LuckyChap, will also produce the film,...

We are still approximately six weeks away from learning the nominees for the 77th Tony Awards, but across the pond the finalists for the 2024 Olivier Awards were just announced. A radical new remounting of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Sunset Boulevard” directed by Jamie Lloyd and starring Nicole Scherzinger is the most nominated show of the year with 11 citations. Another musical revival is nipping at its heels: the immersive “Guys and Dolls” scored 10, as did new play “Dear England,” which centers on England’s national men’s football team and stars Joseph Fiennes as Gareth Southgate. Scroll down to see a complete list of 2024 Olivier Awards nominations.

American audiences will be familiar with many of the plays, musicals and performers nominated this year. The Best New Musical category includes Tony Award-winning shows “Next to Normal” and “A Strange Loop,” while Best Musical Revival boasts productions of “Groundhog Day” and “Hadestown.” Caissie Levy,...

Sarah Snook, Sarah Jessica Parker, Andrew Scott and David Tennant were among the nominees for the 2024 Olivier Awards, which celebrate achievements in London theater.

Parker was nominated for best actress for her role in Plaza Suite, opposite her husband, Matthew Broderick, while Snook was nominated in the same category for her one-woman take on The Picture of Dorian Gray. Tennant was nominated for best actor for his role in Macbeth, in the same category as Andrew Scott, in a one-man version of Vanya.

Sunset Boulevard, which starred Nicole Scherzinger, who is also nominated, and is set to come to Broadway next year, received 11 nominations, while Dear England, a play by James Graham about an English football manager, received nine nominations. Stranger Things: The First Shadow, a prequel to the television series, which has also hinted at its Broadway ambitions, is up for best new entertainment or comedy play.

The Olivier...

Stars including Sarah Jessica Parker, Sarah Snook, Andrew Scott and David Tennant will compete for Olivier Awards at the UK’s most prestigious theater ceremony next month.

The Sex and the City stars is up for Best Actress for her performance in Plaza Suite – her first Olivier – while Succession’s Snook has picked up a nod for her critically-acclaimed performance as 26 characters in The Picture of Dorian Gray.

In the Best Actor category, Scott’s performance in Vanya will come up against Tennant’s role in Macbeth, while the starry nominee list also includes Joseph Fiennes for Dear England, which is being made into a BBC series, Mark Gatiss for The Motive And The Cue and James Norton in A Little Life.

Other notable nominations include for singer Nicole Scherzinger in Sunset Boulevard, where she has picked up a nod for Best Actress in a Musical. Andrew Lloyd Webber’s...

When you think about stories that have a relevant or timeless quality, a Norwegian play from 1883 about poisoned water is probably not the first thing that will come to mind. And yet, director Thomas Ostermeier’s West End debut An Enemy of the People is just that — timelessly relevant. Based on the 19th-century Henrik Ibsen play of the same name, the story follows how a small-town doctor deals with troubling news that threatens the town’s health and well-being as well as the economy. As the play that indirectly inspired the classic Jaws, An Enemy of the People draws you in with a standard first half before kicking the play into high gear with the second half. Unconventional and experimental, Ostermeier is not content with simply letting the audience observe but brings them into his story, inciting passionate discussion and discourse. Starring in the production are Matt Smith, Jessica Brown Findlay,...

Mild spoilers for Mick Herron's Slough House novels that have not yet been adapted by Slow Horses.

Slow Horses season 4 may need to borrow from future installments in order to resolve the lingering season-one mystery of what happened to Sid. The revelation that Sid "doesn't exist" at the end of Slow Horses indicates that MI5's Deputy Director General Diana Taverner may have been bluffing about her death, potentially poaching her for another role. While the show has been adapting Mick Herron's Slough House book series in order, it should not shy away from addressing Sid's fate sooner than season 7.

Despite its many twists and turns, Slow Horses has yet to resolve a key season 1 mystery. With season 4 of the hit Apple TV+ spy thriller on the horizon, Slow Horses has ample opportunity to delve into the dangling thread — though the source material may give the showrunner pause. Based...

Wuthering Heights isn't a love story, but a story about hatred and despair. Andrea Arnold's adaptation captures the bleak and hopeless atmosphere of the original novel. The film delves into Heathcliff's tormented mind, providing an empathetic look at his character.

There have been many attempts to adapt the all-time classic Wuthering Heights to the big screen, but none came closer to Andrea Arnold's take on Emily Brontë's literary masterpiece. Alternating between past and present, the book tells the story of the impossible romance between the unpredictable Heathcliff and the hysterical Catherine Earnshaw, spanning many decades, as Heathcliff dedicates his life to exact revenge on those who took his love away from him.

What most adaptations get wrong is that Wuthering Heights isn't a love story: it's a story about hatred and despair. Besides the narrators, who are merely bystanders in the narrative, each and every character in...

From its opening shot — a close-up of the nautilus-like curl of a human ear — Lucile Hadzihalilovic’s “Earwig” sets out to unsettle, slowly burrowing its way into our brains by any orifice it can. Not quite a horror film, this sometimes freaky, often frustrating third feature from the French art-house director of twisted socialization tales “Innocence” and “Evolution” (better known in some quarters as the producer and partner of Gaspar Noé) is light on dialogue and therefore, largely lacking in explanations for the haunting ideas in store.

Hadzihalilovic is a master of atmosphere and tone, but someone not terribly interested in good, old-fashioned narrative. This project, which she liberally adapted from a short surrealist novel by retired English art professor B. Catling, trades in the imagery of dreams. “Earwig” subscribes to their logic as well, all but daring audiences not to fall asleep in their seats as it lulls them...

Mrs. Harris Goes To Paris, a kind Cinderella story for older women with a Dior twist, arrives in 978 theaters this weekend with strong reviews and great word of mouth. The film is a known property among that demo given its prime trailer treatment before Focus Features’ fan favorite Downtown Abbey: A New Era — not a bad setup.

Deadline review here. The film by Anthony Fabian with Lesley Manville, Isabelle Huppert and Jason Isaacs has a 92/critics, 94/audience score on Rotten Tomatoes. It shares the pond with a handful of strong studio holdovers and new wide releases Paw Patrol: The Movie and drama Where The Crawdads Sing. Like Crawdads, Mrs. Harris is based on a popular book – the 1958 novel by Paul Gallico – and book clubs are prominent in a large marketing push.

Manville plays Ada Harris, a British housekeeper and widow who dreams of buying her own couture Christian Dior gown.

Rights

U.K.-based distributor Dcd Rights has acquired Grammy-nominated feature documentary “Music, Money, Madness… Jimi Hendrix Live In Maui.” The 90-minute documentary chronicles guitar legend Jimi Hendrix’s visit to Maui in July 1970 and details how he became ensnared in “Rainbow Bridge,” an ill-fated independent film produced by his manager, Michael Jeffery.

Jeffery secured a 300,000 advance against the promise of a soundtrack album by Hendrix — the first time a movie was funded solely by an album. Jeffery hired Chuck Wein, a former associate of Andy Warhol, to direct. However, without a script or professional actors, the shoot was proving one of excess. With Hendrix and the Experience already booked to play Honolulu, Wein, desperate to feature the band, planned to film them playing on the slope of the dormant Haleakala volcano. The show was a success but the film, less so.

The documentary is produced under the Experience Hendrix label,...

Exclusive: Giles Terera (Death of England: Face to Face), winner of an Olivier Award for his portrayal of Aaron Burr in the London transfer of Broadway hit Hamilton, will star in a history-making production of Shakespeare’s tragedy Othello, with Rosy McEwen, who won acclaim in the second season of The Alienist, as Desdemona.

The play will be directed at the UK’s National Theatre by Clint Dyer, marking the first time the play has been directed by a Black man at a major British venue. American-born Shakespearean scholar Dr. Jami Rogers hailed the outcome as “a major milestone in the history of British Shakespeare.”

Rogers told Deadline: “This means that the white lens through which the play has almost always been viewed will be challenged.”

The play, about a man who rose from slavery to become a respected Black military leader and ambassador who marries a powerful Venetian senator’s white daughter,...

Wild Bunch is handling international sales.

US sales agent and distributor Juno Films has picked up North American rights to French director Lucile Hadžihalilović’s English-language debut, Earwig from Wild Bunch.

It will be distributed theatrically in the US from July 15, ahead of a digital release later in the year.

The body horror premiered at Toronto in 2021 and also won the special jury award at San Sebastian Film Festival.

Paul Hilton stars as a man employed by a figure known only as the ‘master’ to look after a young girl living in near solitary confinement, played by Romane Hemelaers, with teeth made of ice.

‘All My Friends Hate Me’, ‘Earwig’ and ‘Il Buco’ also open this weekend.

Jurassic World Dominion is hoping to snare the top spot from Top Gun: Maverick at this weekend’s UK-Ireland box office, after two weeks at the number one for Paramount’s Tom Cruise hit.

Universal is distributing Jurassic World Dominion at 708 sites – Universal’s fourth biggest UK-Ireland opening of all time, behind No Time To Die (772),Downton Abbey: A New Era (746) and Downton Abbey (730). The Colin Trevorrow-directed title opened with 55m from early markets last week, and expands to North America, UK/Ireland, China, France, Germany, Australia and Spain this weekend.

Earwig Trailer — Lucile Hadzihalilovic’s Earwig (2021) movie trailer has been released by Juno Films. The Earwig trailer stars Paul Hilton, Romola Garai, Alex Lawther, Romane Hemelaers, Peter Van den Begin, Michael Pas, Marie Bos, and Anastasia Robin. Crew Geoff Cox and Lucile Hadzihalilovic wrote the screenplay for Earwig. Nicolas Becker, Warren Ellis, and Augustin [...]

Continue reading: Earwig (2021) Movie Trailer: A Caretaker Looks After a Girl with Ice Teeth in Lucile Hadzihalilovic’s Thriller Film...

Anti-Worlds Releasing has revealed the trailer for Lucile Hadzihalilovic’s debut feature in the English language, Earwig. We have the exclusive first look at the trailer and the film’s beautiful new poster by Laurent Lufroy.

Somewhere in Europe, mid-20th century. Albert is employed to look after Mia, a girl with teeth of ice. Mia never leaves their apartment, where the shutters are always closed. The telephone rings regularly and the Master enquires after Mia’s wellbeing. Until the day Albert is instructed that he must prepare the child to leave…

Based on the novel by Brian Catlin, the film is directed by Lucile Hadzihalilovic who is making her debut feature in the English language. The film stars Paul Hilton, Alex Lawther and Romola Garai.

Also in trailers – Exclusive: We reveal the trailer for Moon, 66 Questions

The film hits cinemas on June 10th – check out https://anti-worldsreleasing.co.uk...

In this exclusive clip from the next episode of Apple TV+’s “Slow Horses,” sidelined British spy River Cartwright (Jack Lowden) must think fast when he spots one of Diana Taverner (Kristin Scott Thomas)’s “Dogs” coming for him at the hospital.

He may be stuck at Slough House with the rest of the MI5 screwups, but he proves he can be as resourceful as any field agent when it comes down to it.

The showdown comes after the horrific events of episode three, in which Slough House head Jackson Lamb (Gary Oldman) realizes he and his team of misfits will be left holding a very bloody bag.

The fourth episode, titled “Visiting Hours,” debuts on Apple TV+ on Friday, April 15.

The ensemble cast includes Olivia Cooke, Saskia Reeves, Dustin Demri-Burns, Rosalind Eleazar, Christopher Chung, Paul Higgins, Freddie Fox, Chris Reilly, Steve Waddington, Paul Hilton, Antonio Aakeel, Peter Judd, and...

Gary Oldman is a cranky MI5 agent saddled with “absolute losers” in the first trailer for spy series “Slow Horses,” which Apple TV+ released on Wednesday.

The six-episode series is based on Mick Herron’s first novel in the “Slow Horses” series, with the first two episodes debuting globally on April 1, followed by one episode every Friday.

Oldman stars as Jackson Lamb, the brilliant but bitter veteran spy who ends up at the “Slough House,” a department of MI5, where agents who’ve made career-ending mistakes are relegated. It’s a dead-end where no interesting cases ever arise, until Jack Lowden’s still ambitious agent sees an opportunity to get back in the game.

Oldman takes a bit of pride in the group he oversees, telling Kristin Scott Thomas, “They’re a bunch of absolute losers. But they’re my losers.”

The ensemble cast includes Olivia Cooke, Saskia Reeves, Dustin Demri-Burns,...

HanWay Films have picked up comedy drama “Sweet Sue” from newcomer Leo Leigh with sales set to commence at the European Film Market in Berlin.

Buyers will also be treated to footage at the market. A first look image of “White Line’s” Maggie O’Neill, who plays the starring role of Sue, is above.

In “Sweet Sue”, which wrapped production Dec. 2021, O’Neill plays a woman who embarks on a relationship with a mysterious biker called Ron after meeting at a funeral. But Ron’s son Anthony, a social media influencer who also has his own dance troupe, is more than she bargained for.

Tony Pitts (“Rogue One”) plays Ron in the film while Harry Trevaldwyn, who is set to appear on the upcoming U.K. adaptation of “Call My Agent,” takes on the role of Anthony.

Joining them are Nick Holder (“London Road”), Anna Calder-Marshall (“Last Christmas”), Paul Hilton...

The film is directed by Mike Leigh’s son Leo Leigh.

HanWay Films has boarded world sales on Sweet Sue, the feature debut of UK writer-director Leo Leigh, now in post-production.

Screen can reveal a first look at the film, above. HanWay will debut it to buyers with first footage at next month’s online European Film Market (February 10-17).

The film is produced by Scott O’Donnell and Tim Nash for UK-us firm Somesuch, with 2015 Screen Star of Tomorrow Andy Brunskill through his Sums Film & Media.

BBC Film is backing the project by Leigh, who is the son of renowned UK director Mke Leigh.

The long-delayed 74th Tony Awards was held on Sunday, September 26 in a two-part telecast staged at the Winter Garden theater. Six-time Tony winner Audra McDonald hosted a ceremony on Paramount+ that included the awarding of all but three of the Tonys. “Hamilton” star Leslie Odom, Jr. then emceed a celebration of Broadway on CBS that included the top three prizes: Best Musical, Best Play and Best Play Revival.

Nominations were announced back on October 15, 2020. Of the 18 eligible productions from the shortened 2019-2020 Broadway season, 15 reaped bids across 25 competitive categories.

The musical “Jagged Little Pill,” a stage adaptation of Alanis Morissette’s 1995 album of the same name, leads with 15 nominations including Best Musical and for six of its cast. “Moulin Rouge! The Musical” is right behind with 14 nominations. That adaptation of the 2001 Baz Luhrmann film, scored the only Musical Actor nomination of the season for Aaron Tveit. In order to win,...

Broadway has just reopened after shuttering on March 13, 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic. To mark the return of the rialto, the 74th annual Tonys were handed out on Sunday, September 26 at the Winter Garden theater. This two-part ceremony, which will be hosted by six-time Tony winner Audra McDonald on Paramount+ and “Hamilton” star Leslie Odom, Jr. on CBS, comes almost one year after nominations were announced on October 15, 2020.

Two new musicals – “Jagged Little Pill” and “Moulin Rouge!” — lead the Tony Awards nominations with 15 and 14 bids respectively including Best Musical. A third tuner, “Tina – The Tina Turner Musical,” reaped a dozen bids as did the new drama “Slave Play.” While the nominees were decided by 48 theater professionals, the winners were voted on by 831 members of the Broadway community.

Below, the 2020 Tony Awards winners list in all 25 competitive categories.

See Broadway insiders dishing the 2020 Tony Awards nominations in our theater forum

Musicals...

Teeth made of ice play a key role in the book-to-film adaptation “Earwig,” Lucile Hadzihalilovic’s English-language debut.

But when the Gallic director saw how normal the teeth that her props team created for the film looked, she fell into a panic. “I thought the film was over,” she told Variety. “I had imagined something much more spectacular.”

The development, however, helped her understand the central character of Earwig/Albert (Paul Hilton). He is hired to look after a little girl, Mia (Romane Hemelaers), and change the ice teeth she wears that are made from her frozen saliva, each night.

“Then I thought the story is not about the fetishist thing with the ice, but more about the man that wanted to make this girl complete by giving her teeth,” she says. “But for some crazy reason, he made the teeth of ice so he has to make them again and again and again.

English-language debut is based on novel by UK sculptor and writer Brian Catling.

French director Lucile Hadzihalilovic is back at the San Sebastian International Film Festival this weekend for the European premiere of her third feature and English-language debut Earwig in Official Selection.

She has a long relationship with the festival where she won best new director in 2004 for debut feature Innocence and the special jury prize for Evolution in 2015.

Set “somewhere in Europe, mid-20th century”, Earwig stars Paul Hilton as a man called Albert, who is employed to look after a young girl, living in near solitary confinement in a labyrinthine,...

Those who know Lucile Hadzihalilovic’s work will recognize a new film as an event. Having only made two features this century––2004’s Innocence and 2015’s Evolution––a limited output has nonetheless established her as one of the most singular filmmakers working today. Relying on mood more than story, and pulling from horror and fantasy to create surreal, isolated spaces, her films act as cerebral nightmares. Earwig, her latest, offers more of the same for better and worse; the level of control over image and sound remains as potent as ever, but in service of a lackluster story.

Earwig is a variation on themes and ideas that have run through Hadzihalilovic’s other films: childhood, isolation, the transition into adolescence, mysterious authority figures running the show, and other items that evoke the feeling of a dark fairy tale. Set in Europe some time after the Second World War, we’re dropped into a dark,...

Somewhere in a fogbound pocket of mid-century Europe, a little girl with curly brown hair shares a dark and dingy apartment with a middle-aged man who makes us nervous. Her name is Mia (Romaine Hemelaers), and her constantly melting teeth are made out of her own frozen saliva. The man’s name is Aalbert Scellinc (Paul Hilton); he is not her father. Neither of them speak. The slatted wooden floors groan like ghosts whenever anyone moves, or when Aalbert tinkers with the headgear he fits around Mia’s face before meals, fresh spit pooling into each of the glass vials positioned on either side of her mouth.

Aalbert is careful not to touch her, or to let her out of the house unsupervised. At night, he holds a glass up to the girl’s door in order to listen to her sleep, or perhaps just to hear something other than...

“The plays are really where it’s at in terms of races,” Sam Eckmann declares to kick off the first of our 2021 Tony Awards predictions slugfest. Though we don’t yet know the date when the winners will be announced, we do know that Tony voters will fill out their ballots from March 1 to March 15. Sam and I regrouped ahead of the voting period to debate who we think currently has the edge going into this pivotal stretch of the race. Watch the full video above.

Sam and I both pick “Slave Play” for the top honor. Sam thinks “our conversations about racism and systemic racism, especially in the entertainment industry” will help the topical play pull off the win, while I emphasize that the opportunity to give a Tony to rising star playwright Jeremy O. Harris will also work in its favor. For Best Revival, we both back “Soldier’s Play,...

Cast and crew are shooting in isolation in a large house in central Brussels.

Lucile Hadzihalilovic has unveiled the first image from the set of her English-language debut Earwig starring UK actor Paul Hilton which began shooting in Belgium last Wednesday (November 4), against the backdrop of the country’s strict lockdown aimed at slowing the spread of Covid-19.

Set in the Belgian city of Liege some time in the mid-twentieth century, Hilton plays a 50-year-old man employed to care for a strange 10-year-old girl who lives a solitary existence in a large, darkened apartment. His main duty is to attend...

Paul Hilton, Alex Lawther and Romola Garai topline the first English-language film by the French helmer, produced by Petit Films and Anti-Worlds, co-produced by Frakas and sold by Wbi. On the heels of Innocence (New Directors Award at San Sebastián in 2004) and Evolution (Special Jury Prize and Best Cinematography Award at San Sebastián in 2015), groundbreaking French director Lucile Hadzihalilovic kicks off the shoot today for Earwig, her third feature and her first in the English language, in Belgium. Toplining the opus are Brits Paul Hilton (Lady Macbeth), Alex Lawther and Romola Garai. The story, written by the director and Geoff Cox (who was...

AFM slate also features upcoming projects from Lucile Hadzihalilovic and Justin Kurzel.

Wild Bunch International (Wbi) is launching sales on Chinese director Zhang Yimou’s drama One Second during the American Film Market (AFM) next week.

The film was to have originally world premiered in competition at the Berlin Film Festival in 2019 but was pulled at the 11th hour because of “technical reasons with post-production”.

Wbi previously sold Zhang’s 2014 love story Coming Home. It has taken worldwide sales rights, excluding Asia, which is handled by Hong-based Edko Films, apart from Australia and New Zealand.

The international sales launch follows...

Yesterday, the nominees for the 74th annual Tony Awards were announced. Honoring Broadway’s best, it comes as the industry is shut down due to Covid-19, reminding us all that the film industry isn’t the only one feeling the brunt of Coronavirus. Covid may have shut down the theaters, but the show will go on, Tony-wise. In terms of what faired the best with these nominations, the musical Jagged Little Pill led the way with a whopping fifteen nominations, with Moulin Rouge! next in line at fourteen. They led the pack, though also getting double digit citations were Slave Play and Tina: The Tina Turner Musical at a dozen each, while The Inheritance managed eleven. Here are all of the Tony nominees for this year: Best Play Grand Horizons by Bess Wohl The Inheritance by Matthew Lopez Sea Wall/A Life by Simon Stephens and Nick Payne Slave Play...

Hours after the nominations for the 2020 Tony Awards were finally unveiled on October 15, I sat down with another Broadway buff, David Buchanan, to dish all the surprises and snubs. We also predict how this year’s races will play out. We are still waiting on a confirmed date for this year’s ceremony. Watch the full video above.

As I note, “there are famous A-Lister names but they also celebrate these hardworking theater actors who aren’t necessarily household names, who are nevertheless doing incredible work.” We were both pleased to see the likes of Paul Hilton (“The Inheritance”) and “Slave Play” standouts like Ato Blankson-Wood and James Cusati-Moyer. I was particularly overjoyed to that Cora Vander Broek, the unsung hero of “Linda Vista,” reaped a bid. I note that her final line in the play marked “one of the few times this season where I experienced an entire audience...

The Tony Awards nominations were announced on Thursday, October 15 by Tony winner James Monroe Iglehart (“Aladdin”). The reveal of the roster of contenders was carried on the Tonys YouTube channel. While the nominations for the 74th annual Tony Awards were determined by 41 theater professionals, winners will be decided by 784 members of the Broadway community.

Only 18 shows were eligible for consideration by the nominating committee. On the play side, there are 10 original works and four revivals in the running. Over on the musical side, four new tuners are in contention; no musical revivals qualified. The cutoff date for eligibility was February 19, 2020. As both the Bob Dylan tuner “Girl From the North Country” and a new revival of “West Side Story” opened after that, don’t look for them on the list of nominations below.

Broadway has remained closed since March 13 due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The Tony Awards had been set...

As the days grow shorter and colder, the big prestige dramas will soon dominate the slow trickle of releases as theatres begin to open their doors once more. And though this new film will premiere via streaming services, it harkens back one of the critical and box office hits of last year. Despite its roots in comic book pulp, Joker was (for much of its runtime) a somber and sobering look at mental illness. Now we’re treated to a gender flip, minus the former film’s considerable body count, set “across the pond” in what appears to be the recent past (guessing the early to mid-90s). Oh, and the story’s main focus is played by the celebrated star of a recent Best Picture Oscar winner. But with its portrait of internal psychological struggle, just how does it concern Eternal Beauty?

The film begins with a flashback to...

You cannot just watch part of Craig Roberts’ latest film Eternal Beauty. You might think you could since it’s seemingly as schizophrenic as its lead character Jane (Sally Hawkins), but that chaos is premeditated so that it can find tonal and thematic sense by the end. I was about twenty minutes in when “hate” started to solidify as a reaction to what I saw because it felt like Roberts was poking fun at the disease—purely using Hawkins’ monotone delivery and erratic actions for laughs. If I had stopped then, however, I wouldn’t have been exposed to the glimpses into her past or the trauma she’s suffered or the dramatic weight that comes with realizing nothing on-screen is trustworthy. I wouldn’t have discovered exactly how empathetic Roberts’ depiction truly proves.

It’s not about laughs (at least not solely). This is a very personal project for...

Vanessa Redgrave, Oscar-winner for “Julia,” and Ralph Fiennes, Oscar-nominee for “Schindler’s List” and “The English Patient,” will lead fundraiser events in aid of London’s Freud museum.

Housed in the final home of the father of psychoanalysis Sigmund Freud, and his daughter Anna, a pioneer of child psychoanalysis, the museum receives no direct public funding and has incurred significant financial losses during the coronavirus pandemic. Both the fundraising events have been instigated and devised by Redgrave.

The first event is on Sept. 13 where Redgrave and Fiennes, joined by actor Daisy Bevan (“The Alienist: Angel of Darkness”) will read texts ranging from Freud, Sylvia Pankhurst and William Shakespeare.

This will be followed by an Oct. 4 event where Redgrave will be joined by actors Paul Hilton (“Lady Macbeth”) and Bevan for readings and reflections on the refugee experience. Before lockdown, Redgrave was working with the museum on an exhibition, “Code Name Mary:...

The 65th Annual Drama Desk Awards honoring the best in New York theater were announced Saturday night, with The Inheritance being named Outstanding Play and A Strange Loop taking the trophy for Outstanding Musical.

The remote ceremony was hosted by Frank Dilella. Normally, the awards are announced at a gathering of theater artists and critics in New York City. But this year, the gathering was replaced by a pre-recorded ceremony because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The awards show had initially been scheduled to air May 31, but was postponed due to the Black Lives Matter protests in New York City.

Tonight’s ceremony aired on NY1 and streamed on NY1.com and DramaDeskAwards.com. The Drama Desk Awards recipients were decided by theater critics, journalists, editors and publishers covering theater. Read the complete list of winners below.

65th Annual Drama Desk Award Winners:

Outstanding Play

Cambodian Rock Band, by Lauren Yee,...

The Inheritance, playwright Matthew Lopez’s two-part drama that re-imagines E.M. Forster’s Howards End as a 21st Century tale set among gay men in Manhattan, will close on Sunday, March 15, producers announced today.

Directed by Stephen Daldry, The Inheritance began previews at the Ethel Barrymore Theater on Friday, September 27, with an opening night on November 17. When it closes, it will have played 46 previews (28 of the play’s Part 1 and 18 of Part 2) and 138 regular performances.

The Broadway staging followed a sold-out London engagement. Though it received mostly positive reviews here – if less ecstatic than in London – The Inheritance has struggled at the box office. For the week ending Feb. 16, the two-part production grossed $345,984, just 30% of its $1.1M weekly potential. Attendance of 4,372 was at slightly more than half of capacity. The production hit its box office high point of $738,918 in early November, shortly before opening night.

The...

The Tony Awards Administration Committee met for the second time during the 2019-2020 Broadway season to discuss eligibility of eleven productions for the 2020 American Theatre Wing’s 74th Annual Tony Awards.

The productions considered were: “The Great Society,” “Slave Play,” “Linda Vista,” “The Rose Tattoo,” “The Lightning Thief: The Percy Jackson Musical,” “The Sound Inside,” “Tina – The Tina Turner Musical,” “The Inheritance,” “A Christmas Carol,” “Jagged Little Pill” and “My Name is Lucy Barton.”

The following determinations were made:

David Weiner (lighting designer) and Victoria Sagady (projection designer) will be considered jointly eligible in the Best Lighting Design of a Play category for their work on “The Great Society.”

Joaquina Kalukango will be considered eligible in the Lead Actress in a Play category for her performance in “Slave Play.”

Ian Barford will be considered eligible in the Lead Actor in a Play category for his performance in “Linda Vista.”

Marisa Tomei...

Tony Goldwyn, last seen on the New York stage co-starring with Bryan Cranston in Network, will make a four-month return to Broadway when he joins the cast of Matthew Lopez’ The Inheritance.

Starting Sunday Jan. 5, Goldwyn will take over the role of Henry Wilcox from John Benjamin Hickey, who’s taking a leave of absence to direct the Broadway-bound production of Plaza Suite starring Matthew Broderick and Sarah Jessica Parker.

Goldwyn, best known to TV audiences for his seven-season run as Scandal‘s President Fitzgerald Grant, has starred in such other Broadway productions as Promises, Promises and Holiday. Off Broadway credits include The Water’s Edge, The Dying Gaul, Spike Heels and The Sum of Us, among others.

The Inheritance, playing at the Barrymore Theatre, is Lopez’s re-imagining of E.M. Forster’s Howards End, updated to 21st Century Manhattan and shifting the characters to a group of gay men,...

The best advice about seeing The Inheritance on Broadway — which you definitely should if you’re looking for a head-spinning, heart-rending theatrical experience — is to forget the hype surrounding it. And that won’t be easy. Playwright Matthew Lopez, a Puerto Rican transplanted to New York City from the Florida panhandle, is fresh from London where his ardently ambitious play about different generations of gay men living in post-AIDs Manhattan won an armful of Oliviers (the Brit Tonys named after the late, great Lord Larry) and gushy reviews that called...

One may as well begin with Forster, E.M. to state the obvious, called Morgan in Matthew Lopez’ The Inheritance, directed by Stephen Daldry, an ambitious, often powerful two-part epic of gay history as refracted and reconsidered through Forster’s Howards End. In very human, bespectacled form, Morgan serves as combination tour guide, writing coach, gay mentor, social conscience and overall sage to a collection of 21st Century Manhattan lost boys – young men, really, who seem more inclined to indulge their sense of nostalgia with Forster’s buttoned up era than the bloodier, uglier recent past that decimated their kind. The ghosts of the Plague hover still, invisible to the younger men who live from their sacrifices, ignorant for having never looked into the sunken eyes that filled Christopher Street not all that long ago.

Before the end of this two-part, six-and-a-half-hour play – opening tonight at Broadway’s Barrymore Theatre...

Producers of Matthew Lopez’ two-part Broadway-bound Olivier Award winning The Inheritance announced the cast today, with five actors reprising their performances from the acclaimed London staging.

Making the transition from the West End will be Andrew Burnap, John Benjamin Hickey, Paul Hilton, Samuel H. Levine, and Kyle Soller. Soller won the 2019 Olivier Award for Best Actor in a Play.

Producers Tom Kirdahy, Sonia Friedman Productions, and Hunter Arnold made the casting announcement for the production of Matthew Lopez’ two-part play. Stephen Daldry will direct, as he did in London, as does scenic and costume designer Bob Crowley.

The Broadway cast for the play will feature Jordan Barbour, Jonathan Burke, Andrew Burnap, Darryl Gene Daughtry Jr., Dylan Frederick, Kyle Harris, John Benjamin Hickey, Paul Hilton, Samuel H. Levine, Carson McCalley, Lois Smith, Kyle Soller, and Arturo Luis Soria. The company will also include understudies Mark H. Dold,...

Matthew Lopez’s Olivier Award-winning two-part West End production The Inheritance will make its Broadway debut this fall, producers Tom Kirdahy, Sonia Friedman Productions and Hunter Arnold announced today.

The play, a re-envisioning E. M. Forster’s Howards End set in 21st Century New York, will begin previews at Broadway’s Ethel Barrymore Theatre on Friday, Sept. 27, with an official opening night on Sunday, Nov. 17.

The producers said casting will be announced in the coming weeks. The West End cast featured Hugo Bolton, Robert Boulter, Andrew Burnap, Hubert Burton, John Benjamin Hickey, Paul Hilton, Samuel H. Levine, Syrus Lowe, Michael Marcus, Jack Riddiford, Kyle Soller, Michael Walters and Vanessa Redgrave.

Directed by Stephen Daldry and designed by Bob Crowley The Inheritance won the 2019 Oliver Award for Best Play. As described in today’s announcement, the two-parter “begins with a gathering of young,...

Rising multi-hyphenate Craig Roberts has beefed up the British cast for his upcoming second feature, Eternal Beauty, now in production in Wales.

Alongside the already announced -- and new Oscar nominee -- Sally Hawkins (The Shape of Water, Paddington), Billie Piper (Yerma, Doctor Who), Penelope Wilton (Downton Abbey), Alice Lowe (Prevenge, Sightseers) and David Thewlis (Fargo, Wonder Woman) have also joined the film.

Other cast members include Bob Pugh (Master and Commander), Rob Aramayo (Game of Thrones), Morfydd Clark (Pride and Prejudice and Zombies) and Paul Hilton (Lady Macbeth).

Roberts’ second directorial feature after 2015’s BAFTA-nominated Just Jim, Eternal Beauty will tell the ...

Rising multi-hyphenate Craig Roberts has beefed up the British cast for his upcoming second feature, Eternal Beauty, now in production in Wales.

Alongside the already announced -- and new Oscar nominee -- Sally Hawkins (The Shape of Water, Paddington), Billie Piper (Yerma, Doctor Who), Penelope Wilton (Downton Abbey), Alice Lowe (Prevenge, Sightseers) and David Thewlis (Fargo, Wonder Woman) have also joined the film.

Other cast members include Bob Pugh (Master and Commander), Rob Aramayo (Game of Thrones), Morfydd Clark (Pride and Prejudice and Zombies) and Paul Hilton (Lady Macbeth).

Roberts’ second directorial feature after 2015’s BAFTA-nominated Just Jim, Eternal Beauty will tell the ...

Craig Roberts’ UK feature stars Sally Hawkins, David Thewlis and Alice Lowe

Billie Piper and Penelope Wilton have joined the cast of Craig Roberts’ second feature Eternal Beauty, which is now shooting for five weeks in Wales.

Piper and Wilton co-star alongside previously announced cast Sally Hawkins, David Thewlis and Alice Lowe.

Shooting will take place in and around Cardiff, Port Talbot and director Roberts’ birthplace of Newport.

Further cast members include Bob Pugh (Master And Commander), Rob Aramayo (Game Of Thrones), Morfydd Clark (Pride And Prejudice And Zombies) and Paul Hilton (Lady Macbeth).

The project is the second feature...

“Angels in America” has cast a long shadow: Tony Kushner’s fantastical dramatization of the AIDS crisis has long seemed near definitive. But over six acts and seven hours at London’s Young Vic, Matthew Lopez’s sweeping two-parter “The Inheritance” not only picks up its mantle, it might just measure up. Like “Angels in America,” “The Inheritance,” directed by Stephen Daldry, is a vast, imperfect and unwieldy masterpiece that unpicks queer politics and neoliberal economics anew. In addressing the debt gay men owe to their forebears, it dares to ask whether the past hasn’t also sold the present up short.

If Lopez steps out of Kushner’s shadow, he does so by constantly acknowledging his lineage — one character crashes a party in white wings — but his play owes more to another gay writer: E. M. Forster. A very loose retelling of his novel “Howard’s End,” “The Inheritance...