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For years, the Freestyle Love Supreme experience was a “completely ephemeral” one, as founding member Thomas Kail puts it. Only those in the small, usually 99-seat, theaters who witnessed one of the hip-hop improv group’s shows live shared in the unique memory and magic of what they delivered. But through Andrew Fried’s documentary “We Are Love Supreme,” debuting on Hulu July 17, some of those performances have been given more permanence.

“It was like we were writing poetry and lighting it on fire. And later we ended up writing a couple of novels and people liked our novels,” Kail, who also executive produced the documentary, says of the difference between Freestyle Love Supreme’s shows and “In The Heights” and Hamilton.” “We thought, ‘Well, what if we go back and show them some of the poetry we wrote?’ It informed and infused the novels.”

As Freestyle Love Supreme founding...

Exclusive: After winning a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for playing the role of Anita in 1961’s West Side Story, Egot winner Rita Moreno will return to the next big-screen adaptation of the Leonard Bernstein-Stephen Sondheim lyric musical that Oscar winner Steven Spielberg is directing. In addition, Moreno will also be an executive producer of the film.

In the new West Side Story, Moreno will be playing Valentina, a reconceived and expanded version of the character of Doc, the owner of the corner store in which Tony works. Filming for West Side Story is set to begin in the summer of 2019.

“Never in my wildest dreams did I see myself revisiting this seminal work,” says Moreno. “And to be asked by Steven Spielberg to participate is simply thrilling! Then to work together with the brilliant playwright, Tony Kushner – what a glorious stew! I am tingling!”

In the original movie,...

The recent crop of hit Netflix shows aren’t the first time Marvel has taken its heroes to the small screen. Spider-Man, the Incredible Hulk, Blade and even knock-off-ish X-Men have had a go before the current golden age. Here are all the Marvel shows you’ve seen and a few you might not have, ranked from goofiest pajama costumes to best character-driven dramas.

18. “The Amazing Spider-Man” (1977-79)

A 1977 attempt at a live-action “Spider-Man” is a fun throwback — but in a purely ironic way because Peter Parker’s wall-crawling “special effects” are pretty cringe-worthy. Watching Spider-Man fight guys using extremely hokey choreography gives the whole thing a pretty goofy vibe.

17. “Spidey Super Stories” (1974-1977)

Some days, Spider-Man takes on some super-boring villains. He goes up against The Prankster (a school principal who keeps pranking his students) and The Spoiler (who just likes to everyday things for people) in these goofy...

The Weinstein Company has been trying to develop a remake of French language hit film The Intouchables for a number of years, and has cycled through many combinations of stars and directors. The project looks set to go now, however, with final deals apparently in place for lead actors Bryan Cranston and Kevin Hart, and director Neil Burger (Divergent).

The adapted script comes from Jon Hartmere (The Electric Company), and reportedly provides a new spin on the original material that was written by French filmmakers Olivier Nakache and Eric Toledano. It is not clear how this Hollywood update will depart from the original, but the plot of that 2011 film sees a wealthy man hire a less wealthy man as his caretaker after he is paralysed in a devastating hang-gliding mishap.

While the continued determination of Hollywood to remake any successful film made overseas is somewhat disappointing and tedious, the union...

Girl Talk is a weekly look at women in film — past, present and future.

Susan Seidelman had just completed her first feature when the Cannes Film Festival came calling. In 1982, Seidelman wasn’t yet 30; she was only a few years out of film school and had only a single feature under her belt. But that didn’t matter to the world’s most well-regarded festival. They wanted Seidelman’s “Smithereens,” and the ensuing reception for the film — a punk-infused dark comedy about the bohemian underworld of New York City featuring a not entirely likable lead character — didn’t just change Seidelman’s life; it changed the way American independent cinema was received around the world.

“Smithereens,” shot guerilla-style around the city with a cast and crew made up of many of the filmmaker’s Nyu classmates, marked a sea change for Cannes: It was the first American independent feature had...

The broadcast networks have nearly 20 shows debuting this fall, including new sitcoms from Kevin James and Matt LeBlanc, the story of Mlb’s first female player and Michael Weatherly’s NCIS follow-up. To help you prep for it all, TVLine is offering First Impressions of the not-for-review pilots.

Next up on our list….

The Show | NBC’s The Good Place (Thursdays at 8:30/7:30c, following an hour-long sneak preview on Monday, Sept. 19 at 10 pm)

The Competition | ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy, CBS’ Thursday Night Football (and then The Great Indoors, new), Fox’s Rosewood and The CW’s Legends of Tomorrow...

The Good Place‘s Eleanor Shellstrop? She’s… the opposite of a marshmallow.

Not that you can tell that from these just-released photos from the upcoming NBC series. But when Eleanor (played by Veronica Mars‘ Kristen Bell) has a brush with the afterlife, she realizes she hasn’t been a very good person. So she works to fix that, aided by an “afterlife mentor” played by Cheers‘ Ted Danson.

RelatedFall TV: 15 Pilots We Can’t Wait to See!

The straight-to-series comedy is from Michael Schur (Parks and Recreation). The cast also includes William Jackson Harper (The Electric Company), Jameela Jamil,...

PBS Kids has ordered a new live-action series, Odd Squad, in which two agents, Olive and Otto, are on a mission to save the day using math. Odd Squad is created by Tim McKeon (Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends, Adventure Time, The Electric Company) and Adam Peltzman (The Electric Company, The Backyardigans, Wallykazam!), and produced by Canadian kids TV producer Sinking Ship Entertainment and The Fred Rogers Company. The new series is funded in part by the U.S. Department of Education and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Each episode of Odd Squad includes two 11-minute cases in which the agents use math to recapture a gallon-sized blob that has separated into smaller pieces, deal with a slew of unicorns, dinosaurs and wizards that have escaped from books, etc. “These early math experiences are especially important for kids from low-income families, who typically start school with lower scores in math than their middle-income peers,...

New York -- One was waiting tables at a Times Square seafood restaurant. Another was in Disney films and on tour with the Jonas Brothers. A third had performed at Carnegie Hall, but wondered when she'd land theater's biggest prize.

All three – George Salazar, Anna Maria Perez de Tagle and Celisse Henderson – are overjoyed to be making their Broadway debuts this month in a revival of Stephen Schwartz's "Godspell."

"For me, it's a dream come true," says Perez de Tagle while the others nod.

The trio is part of a 10-person cast that stars Hunter Parish, whose credits include Showtime's "Weeds" and Broadway's "Spring Awakening," as Jesus but also has plenty of young performers making their first foray onto a Broadway stage. The hip musical retelling of the New Testament's Gospel of Matthew opens Monday at the Circle in the Square Theatre.

The Tony-nominated score features the songs "Day by Day,...

The Emmy Award-winning children's series "The Electric Company" will be focusing on teaching kids math vocabulary in their upcoming third season. The new 12 episodes will target kids ages 6 to 9 years beginning February.

For this season, the show aims to help kids to improve in math. A recent study reveals that American students' math scores continue to fall below the global average.

The modern adaptation of the '70s children's series will be introducing words related to topics like probability, coin value and measurement in an attempt to provide children language to discuss and explore their understanding of these concepts.

Executive Producer Karen Fowler, said, "By building a foundation of math vocabulary and concepts at an early age, The Electric Company aims to help children bolster their understand, knowledge and motivation with these curricular concepts - something that is crucial to their future success."...

We already know that "Dancing With the Stars" finalist Kyle Massey was on "That's So Raven" and the spinoff "Cory in the House," but he has some other kid-friendly show cred.

The Disney actor also appears in the recurring role of Pj on PBS KIds Go!'s  updated "The Electric Company."

Massey is great entertainer all around, but that doesn't mean he doesn't make mistakes. Pj returns for the show's third season, which kicks off Feb. 7, and here's a fun blooper reel of his "oops" moments and general behind-the-scenes shenanigans:

Season 3 of "The Electric Company" will also feature Jenny Slate, Alan Cumming, Good Charlotte, Swizz Beats, Sherrod Small, Wyatt Cenac and Doug E. Fresh.

Follow Zap2it and Zap2itHanh on Twitter and Zap2it on Facebook for the latest movies, TV and celeb news.

Photo credit: PBS Kids Go...

"As the World Turns" took home some hardware in its penultimate Daytime Emmy ceremony. Michael Park and Maura West took home Outstanding Lead Actor and Actress, which was his first win and her second. "Atwt" also took home Outstanding Supporting Actress for Julie Pinson (pictured).

Here is the full list of winners:

Outstanding Drama Series

"All My Children"

"The Bold and The Beautiful"

"General Hospital"

"The Young and the Restless"

Outstanding Lead Actor

Peter Bergman as Jack Abbott on "The Young and the Restless"

Doug Davidson as Paul Williams on "The Young and the Restless"

Jon Lindstrom as Craig Montgomery on "As the World Turns"

Michael Park as Jack Snyder on "As the World Turns"

James Scott as E.J. Dimera on "Days of Our Lives"

Outstanding Lead Actress

Sarah Brown as Claudia Zacchara on "General Hospital"

Crystal Chappell as Olivia Spencer on "Guiding Light"

Bobbie Eakes as Krystal Carey...

Paul Rudd.s next movie will be called My Idiot Brother and he.s playing the idiot. According to THR it.s directed by Jesse Peretz who hasn.t done much else, unless you count an episode of The Electric Company. I wonder if they.re still doing the old .1 2 3 4 5 678910, 11, 12. bit. That never gets old. The movie, as described by the Reporter has Rudd playing an .idealist dealing with his overbearing mother who crashes into the homes of his three ambitious sisters and, in succession, brings truth, happiness and a sunny disposition into their lives while also wreaking havoc.. Nothing about that makes Rudd.s character in any way sound like an idiot. Actually it sounds like the movie.s more about his mother and there.s very little in there about him at all. Not much of a sentence. Since that didn't amount to much, here's Family Guy's...

It’s no secret we love TV. We watch it, talk about it, review it and generally spend a lot of time with it. So, it should come as no surprise we’re very interested in what new shows may potentially be coming to the networks in the near future.

Fortunately, we don’t have to do a lot of work to find out, and you have to do even less, because the guys and gals at EW have gathered together lists of all of the 2010-2011 season pilot orders for ABC, CBS and NBC. Wasn’t that nice of them? Yes, yes it was.

Just between these three networks (we’ll bring you Fox and the others, including cable, later), 31 dramas and 29 comedies are being considered. What shows will make it to the Fall schedule is still anyone’s guess, and we’ll have to wait until May to find out,...

CBS may have created two of the most popular new series this season - NCIS: La and The Good Wife - but the network still has some bare spots to contend with (we hardly knew ye, Three Rivers!) Not one to stray from its bread and butter shows, the network's got a Criminal Minds spinoff in the works plus a new project from CSI honcho Carol Mendelsohn, but all eyes are on its redux of Hawaii Five-o starring Lost's Daniel Dae Kim. And don't think CBS is resting on its laurels with the (unfathomable) success of Gary, Unmarried...

[This piece originally ran in April during the 2009 Tribeca Film Festival.] Here's the thing about Gabriel Noble's film P-Star Rising: it sounds relatively improbable. In what world is a nine-year-old girl a wildly talented rapper who can hold her own on the streets and in the club? Where can she go with that sort of singular talent? And this is a true story? A documentary? In Noble's touching, fascinating work, we get the backstory on the now-teenage Priscilla Star Diaz, who's currently charming fans on the 2009 reboot of the classic children's show, The Electric Company. We meet her family: shy older sister Solsky and her father, single dad Jesse Diaz, a former rising star of hip-hop who finds himself broke and living in a shelter with his two young girls. Most importantly, we get her story: how a young rapping prodigy navigates the music business, and how she deals with ...

A nude King Lear may be dandy for the Royal Shakespeare Company but PBS isn't sure.

Paula Kerger, Pbs president and CEO, said Saturday it was too early to say whether public television stations will show Sir Ian McKellen in the altogether when he appears in a filmed version of the performance, slated for broadcast in winter or spring of 2009.

"I haven't seen the taped version," Kerger said, when asked about the possibility PBS would censor the full frontal nudity in the stage performance. Besides, she added, "it's not what I think about it, it's what the FCC will allow.

"King Lear" was one of several highlights for 2009 announced by Kerger at the TCA press tour at the Beverly Hilton. Others are a 12-hour miniseries on America's national parks from super documentarian Ken Burns in the fall and a four-hour series on Latin music, "Latin Music USA," including interviews and performances by many of the biggest names in the genre, starting Jan. 21.

The Burns miniseries, broadcast over six nights, traces the birth of the national park idea through its fruition with archival material and high def cinematography. "Latin Music USA," from Wgbh Boston, starts with the mambo and the cha cha and moves up to urban fusion genres, such as Spanish rap and reggaeton.

Earlier in the morning, Sesame Workshop announced a new and updated version of "The Electric Company," which ran on PBS from 1971 to 1985. The new show, aimed at improving literacy for kids six through nine, will be a weekly series, beginning in January.