Glenn Close is telling friends she will soon be back on Broadway. Is a bullet over Broadway in her future? Depends on the score. I hear. (Depends, too, on who Michael Riedel’s sources are.) Many thought her certain return to the New York stage would be in the New York Philharmonic’s concert staging of Sweeney Todd next March. But no, that went instead to Emma Thompson.
Broadway’s Romeo and Juliet, in the face of weak reviews and tumbling box-office, has quietly moved up its closing to a rumored date of December 1; it had been January 12. But go. Don’t miss Condola Rashad’s flawed but very moving Juliet and Jayne Houdyshell, who is just smashing as the Nurse. Houdyshell will collect another Tony nomination for sure, if not the award itself.
Goose, in lieu of turkey, will served this Thanksgiving at Manhattan Theatre Club. The Snow Geese with Mary Louise Parker is being called “lethal” by those who have seen it.
Financially (and kitchen) troubled 54 Below is obviously having creative troubles. They’re doing a concert of Hit List, that inane show within the NBC floppo Smash. Yawn. Yawn. Yawn. Frankly, if this is how 54’s new creative programming is planning to go, I’d much rather see Marlo Thomas reprise her struggling actress character from That Girl in a 50th anniversary concert of Hello Dolly! (Dolly! turns 50 next January.)
Blind item 1:
What handsome network news broadcaster and his equally sexy boy-toy have become weekly regulars at A Time to Kill. Seems they, like everyone else, can’t get enough of Time’s new star, Ashley Williams. The boys always dine after the show at Cafe Luxembourg. Williams has movie executives buzzing and audiences delighting in witnessing the birth of a new star.
Blind item 2:
Which grandfatherly musical theatre composer and his handsome young companion rightly left The Glass Menagerie at intermission? The week before, the same was noticed making a quick exit from BAM during intermission.
