edjames

I love this show. Saddened by the exit of actress Bebe Neuwirth (aka Nadine Tolliver). I recently met her "replacement" Sebastian Arcelus: (aka Jay Whitman) at the theater. OK, I have a question. Is anyone else puzzled by this recent story line that has Dimitri "dating" the Secretary's daughter Stephanie (Stevie)? I thought he was gay? Do you think there will be a conversation about his sex life?

This news is so very sad. Dementia and, of course, organ failure, is devastating. David didn't inherit the best of genes. Dementia runs in the family and his father was a notorious alcoholic with a huge ego and temper. Back in the 70's I briefly dated an exec at Columbia records. He used to tell me tales about his work, especially in Hollywood. He remarked on a number of occasions that David was always getting into trouble in LA's Griffin Park very late at night cruising in the bushes. His father, Jack, was frequently called to the local precinct to bail his son out of trouble. David, May your journey be peaceful..... http://members.tripod.com/~FACF/RollingStone.jpg

Here in NYC it is a constant struggle and effort to walk down almost any street in Manhattan without being accosted at the bus stop, subway station or street corner. Hundreds of homeless sit on city streets with signs that are bogus and written to illicit funds for situations that do not exist. The most popular seems to be "Trying to raise $35 for a bus ticket home to attend my mother's/father's funeral." Of course when you walk past a week or two later, the beggar is still there with the same sign, a month later, same sign, same beggar.. You and I know that there never was a funeral and it's long finished by now. The other common plea is "Kicked out of my home. Trying to find a job." The monies these beggars raise goes to drugs, alcohol, cigarettes and other illegal activities. They often have cats or dogs with them to illicit more sympathy. If they can sit on a street corner all day, why can't they find work? There are many agencies and charities that are willing to help and some of these folks are beyond help. Many require mental health care. Laziness and stupidity abound. The NYPost ran an expose on beggars in NYC a few years back. There was a thin/skinny, African-American woman who used to sit on a piece of cardboard on Fifth Avenue, dressed in nothing but a black garbage bag. She had dirt smeared on her face, hands and legs. Her short hair was sticking up. The NYPost reporter took up surveillance for several days and watched her. Every evening around 7PM, she would get up, walk herself a couple of blocks away and open the trunk of a expensive import car, change her clothes into attractive, clean designer duds, wash her face and hands and drive off! The story made the front pages of the paper. Another tale is of a older woman who stood on the Fulton St and Broadway asking for small change. I passed her every day. I was shocked when I saw her at an upscale restaurant having Sunday brunch one time! However, tourists are easy marks and fall prey to this behavior. Believe it or not some of these more savvy beggars can earn hundreds of dollars a day if they are in the right place, hence the overwhelming number at locations like Penn Station, Grand Central Station and Port Authority. My advice, keep walking. Give your money to a reputable charity that deals with homelessness, or veterans. Write a check and take the tax deduction.

A hard ticket is now close to impossible! Sure Tony nominee for Best Musical... https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/09/theater/the-bands-visit-review-broadway-tony-shalhoub.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Ftheater&action=click&contentCollection=theater&region=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=1&pgtype=sectionfront Review: ‘The Band’s Visit’ Is a Ravishing Musical That Whispers With Romance By BEN BRANTLEY NOV. 9, 2017 Strangers in the night: Tony Shalhoub and Ari’el Stachel are members of an Egyptian ensemble who meet an Israeli cafe proprietor, played by Katrina Lenk, in the musical “The Band’s Visit.” Breaking news for Broadway theatergoers, even — or perhaps especially — those who thought they were past the age of infatuation: It is time to fall in love again. One of the most ravishing musicals you will ever be seduced by opened on Thursday night at the Barrymore Theater. It is called “The Band’s Visit,”and its undeniable allure is not of the hard-charging, brightly blaring sort common to box-office extravaganzas. Instead, this portrait of a single night in a tiny Israeli desert town confirms a lyric that arrives, like nearly everything in this remarkable show, on a breath of reluctantly romantic hope: “Nothing is as beautiful as something you don’t expect.” With songs by David Yazbek and a script by Itamar Moses, “The Band’s Visit” is a Broadway rarity seldom found these days outside of the canon of Stephen Sondheim: an honest-to-God musical for grown-ups. It is not a work to be punctuated with rowdy cheers and foot-stomping ovations, despite the uncanny virtuosity of Mr. Yazbek’s benchmark score. That would stop the show, and you really don’t want that to happen. Directed by David Cromer with an inspired inventiveness that never calls attention to itself, “The Band’s Visit” flows with the grave and joyful insistence of life itself. All it asks is that you be quiet enough to hear the music in the murmurs, whispers and silences of human existence at its most mundane — and transcendent. “The Band’s Visit,”and its undeniable allure is not of the hard-charging, brightly blaring sort common to box-office extravaganzas. Instead, this portrait of a single night in a tiny Israeli desert town confirms a lyric that arrives, like nearly everything in this remarkable show, on a breath of reluctantly romantic hope: “Nothing is as beautiful as something you don’t expect.” With songs by David Yazbek and a script by Itamar Moses, “The Band’s Visit” is a Broadway rarity seldom found these days outside of the canon of Stephen Sondheim: an honest-to-God musical for grown-ups. It is not a work to be punctuated with rowdy cheers and foot-stomping ovations, despite the uncanny virtuosity of Mr. Yazbek’s benchmark score. That would stop the show, and you really don’t want that to happen. Directed by David Cromer with an inspired inventiveness that never calls attention to itself, “The Band’s Visit” flows with the grave and joyful insistence of life itself. All it asks is that you be quiet enough to hear the music in the murmurs, whispers and silences of human existence at its most mundane — and transcendent. And, oh yes, be willing to have your heart broken, at least a little. Because “The Band’s Visit,” which stars a magnificent Katrina Lenk and Tony Shalhoub as would-be lovers in a not-quite paradise, is like life in that way, too. There were worries that this finely detailed show, based on Eran Kolirin’s screenplay for the of the same title, might not survive the transfer to Broadway. First staged to sold-out houses late last year at the Atlantic Theater Company, it exuded a shimmering transparency that might well have evaporated in less intimate quarters. They register as unmistakably alien figures there, looking like refugees from Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band in their powder-blue uniforms. (Sarah Laux did the costumes.) And there’s not a bus out of this godforsaken hole until the next morning. Just how uninteresting is Bet Hatikva? Its residents are happy to tell you, in some of the wittiest songs ever written about being bored. The “B” that begins its name might as well stand for “basically bleak and beige and blah blah blah.” Leading this civic inventory is a cafe proprietor named Dina (Ms. Lenk, in a star-making performance), a wry beauty who clearly doesn’t belong here and just as clearly will never leave. Like her fellow citizens, she sees the defining condition of her life as eternal waiting, a state in which you “keep looking off out into the distance/ Even though you know the view is never gonna change.” Photo From left, Kristen Sieh, John Cariani, Alok Tewari, Andrew Polk and George Abud on violin in “The Band’s Visit.” Scott Pask’s revolving set, so fitting for a world in which life seems to spin in an endless circle, captures the sameness of the view. But Tyler Micoleau’s lighting, and the whispers of projections by Maya Ciarrocchi, evoke the subliminal changes of perspective stirred by the arrival of strangers. Connections among the Egyptian and the Israeli characters are inevitably incomplete. To begin with, they don’t share a language and must communicate in broken English. And as the stranded musicians interact with their hosts, their shared story becomes a tally of sweet nothings, of regretful might-have-beens. That means that the cultural collisions and consummations that you — and they — might anticipate don’t occur. Even the frictions that emerge from uninvited Arabs on Israeli soil flicker and die like damp matches. The show is carefully veined with images of incompleteness: a forever unlit cigarette in the mouth of a violinist (George Abud); a clarinet concerto that has never been completed by its composer (Alok Tewari); a public telephone that never rings, guarded by a local (Adam Kantor) waiting for a call from his girlfriend; and a pickup line that’s dangled like an unbaited hook by the band’s aspiring Lothario (Ari’el Stachel, whose smooth jazz vocals dazzle in the style of his character’s idol, Chet Baker). All the cast members — who also include a deeply affecting John Cariani, Kristen Sieh, Etai Benson and Andrew Polk — forge precisely individualized characters, lonely people who have all known loss, with everything and nothing in common. A marvelous Mr. Shalhoub (“Monk”) has only grown in the role of a man who carries his dignity and private grief with the stiffness of someone transporting perilously fragile cargo. As for Ms. Lenk, seen on Broadway last season in Paula Vogel’s “Indecent,”she is the ideal avatar of this show’s paradoxical spirit, at once coolly evasive and warmly expansive, like the jasmine wind that Dina describes in the breakout ballad “Omar Sharif.” Listening to Tewfiq sing in Arabic, she wonders, “Is he singing about wishing?” She goes on: “I don’t know what I feel, and I don’t know what I know/All I know is I feel something different.” Mr. Yazbek’s melody matches the exquisitely uncertain certainty of the lyrics. That “something different” is the heart-clutching sensation that throbs throughout this miraculous show, as precise as it is elusive, and all the more poignant for being both.

While I am a big fan of this play, it did not portray gay men in the early '70's as well-adjusted happy folks. It was a pivotal play/mvie when I first came out. A birthday party gone wrong, a group of gay men reveal their inner most fears and psychological issues. Still, this new production sounds like it has a great cast!

Review: A ‘Torch Song’ Burning With Emotion Behind the Laughs TORCH SONG By BEN BRANTLEY OCT. 19, 2017 Two couples figuring things out: Roxanna Hope Radja and Ward Horton, and Michael Urie and Michael Rosen in “Torch Song.” When Michael Urie and Mercedes Ruehl start to cut each other’s hearts out in the second act of Harvey Fierstein’s “Torch Song,” your responses are likely to be deeply divided. “Stop that right now!” you think. Because what they’re doing feels too painful, too private and quite possibly too close to your own home for public consumption. But another part of you is flushed with the thrill that comes from watching two ideally matched performers, at the top of their games, demonstrating the unholy power of flesh and blood to wound its own. Portraying a New York drag queen and his mother visiting from Miami, Mr. Urie and Ms. Ruehl make a strong case for a fiercely tugged umbilical cord as the ultimate weapon of destruction. Not bad for a three-decades-old comedy that would seemed to have passed its sell-by date years ago. “Torch Song,” which opened at the Tony Kiser Theater on Thursday night in a Second Stage Theater production, is a two-act, trimmed-down version of “Torch Song Trilogy.” That’s the original four-hour portrait of the tribulations of a flamboyantly emotional gay man that captivated mainstream theatergoers when it opened on Broadway in 1982. It also picked up two Tonys for Mr. Fierstein — hitherto best known for his cross-dressing turns on the margins of Off Broadway — for best play and best actor, and established him as the rare openly gay performer and writer whom even Mom and Dad from the suburbs might enjoy without tsoris. (It was the basis for a less successful .) It could be argued that without Mr. Fierstein there would be no “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy,” “Will & Grace” or “Modern Family” on television. Still, breakthrough works that make uneasy subjects feel comfortable often seem quaint in retrospect. Certainly, that was my impression when I saw a 2012 staging of “Torch Song” in London, at the Menier Chocolate Factory. With its high sentimentality quotient and wisecracking briskness, it came across as an honorable, gender-tweaking variation on Neil Simon’s classic cash-cow comedies of urban Jewish anxiety. Yet this latest incarnation of “Torch Song,” directed by Moisés Kaufman, finds an irresistibly compelling gravity beneath the glibness. Best known for staging lyrical but earnest topical dramas (“The Laramie Project,” “Gross Indecency,” “Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo”), Mr. Kaufman turns out to be just the man for eliciting the sting within the soap bubbles of “Torch Song.” Even more important, without overdoing the tremolo, Mr. Kaufman and Mr. Urie make sure we see the vital links between camp comic postures and the genuine fear and pain that lie beneath. Defiantly quipping bravado is a suit of armor for Arnold Beckoff, the show’s leading man (and occasional lady). That carapace has served him well. But sometimes it pinches. And as Arnold, Mr. Urie, who has become one of our most inspired physical comedians, digs deeper here to let us feel exactly where it hurts. When we meet Ms. Ruehl as his mother (call her Ma) in the play’s second act, we experience the shock of recognition that occurs when longtime friends introduce us to their parents. “Oh,” we think, “so that’s where it comes from.” Embodied with carefully harnessed restraint by Ms. Ruehl, whose expert comic timing matches Mr. Urie’s, Ma loves her Arnold as only a mother can. Photo Fighting words: Michael Urie as Arnold and Mercedes Ruehl as his mother in “Torch Song.”CreditSara Krulwich/The New York Times That’s especially true for a mother who sees her own image in her grown child as clearly as this one does. Which makes the differences between them — in this case, the little matter of Arnold’s being gay — take on the openhanded smack of betrayal. The hour or so of entertainment that precedes this encounter is perfectly pleasant. It features one of the funniest simulated sex scenes ever (performed solo by Mr. Urie), not to mention some peerless aperçus. “A drag queen’s like an oil painting,” Arnold tells the audience. “You gotta stand back from it to get the full effect.” Of course, what Mr. Urie does is let us see the brush strokes that went into this frame-worthy creation. And he shows Arnold’s ambivalence about letting others perceive the genuine fragility that he caricatures. This two-sided self-exposure is especially evident in his relationship with Ed (Ward Horton), a self-defined heterosexual with a taste for dalliance in the back rooms of gay bars. It is at just such an establishment, the International Stud (a real place, and notorious in the pre-AIDS era), that Arnold meets Ed in 1974. Their passionate physical affair ends (sort of) when Ed announces he’s going to marry a woman, Laurel (Roxanna Hope Radja). Arnold, in turn, takes up with Alan (Michael Rosen), a streetwise young model and former hustler. The erotic and psychological crosscurrents among this foursome occupy the play’s second part, which is its most contrived and least convincing. It’s in the extended third section that “Torch Song” reveals the tougher mettle of which it is made. We are now in 1980. Arnold and Ed have been (platonically) reunited. And there’s a new guy in the picture: David (Jack DiFalco), a smart-mouthed gay teenager to whom Arnold has become a foster parent. Soon enough, Ma, fresh from Miami, arrives to assess this awkward ménage. And while Ma is as bright a joke maker as her son, there’s no question that it will end in tears. Featuring astute, period-specific sets (by David Zinn) and costumes (by Clint Ramos) that summon the 1970s without winking nostalgia, this “Torch Song” has been impeccably assembled, with acting to match throughout. Mr. Horton, who wears Ed’s conflicts with a forthright air of denial, is the dream straight man (so to speak) to Mr. Urie’s flamboyant Arnold. Mr. DiFalco adroitly avoids the perils of wise-child sassiness and brings a surprising and necessary flash of pain to the recollection of a gay hate crime. And Ms. Radja and Mr. Rosen make the most of what are ultimately throwaway parts. But Mr. Urie and Ms. Ruehl take the show to a level of emotional truthfulness that makes objections to ungainly construction feel beside the point. Ma’s refusal to acknowledge the fact of Arnold’s homosexuality is given full validity in Ms. Ruehl’s uncompromising performance as a woman who avoids the truth by making a joke of it. You know exactly where she’s coming from. And it’s that embracing spirit of understanding, grounded in a bedrock of family feeling, that comes to the surface so startlingly and movingly in this “Torch Song.” Like the 2011 Broadway revival of Larry Kramer’s “The Normal Heart,” a later play about gay men that once seemed stuck in the past, Mr. Kaufman’s stirring production propels an ostensible period piece into a vibrant present. Emotions as strong as those brought to the surface here, you realize, never go out of date.

Looks like a hit. I saw this wonderful revival starring Michael Urie and Mercedes Ruehl the other evening and loved it! I saw the original downtown at the Actor's Playhouse on 7th Avenue South back in 1982, when author, Harvey Fierstein, Estelle Getty, and Matthew Broderick starred. I thought the play holds up well and still has impact. Michael Urie was fabulous, although his Brooklyn accent still has leftover touches of Barbra Streisand from his role in Buyer & Celler. Of note is young handsome actor Michael Rosen who plays the role of Alan in the second act Fugue In A Nursery. Alan is a former gay hustler who is now a model and the romantic partner of Arnold. He flaunts his toned body in a pair of bikini briefs/swimsuit. Very, very cute! The audience, mostly gay men, loved it! Tremendous applause and cheers at the curtain call. Michael Reidel in the NYPost had this to day in a recent column: The buzz around the revival of Harvey Fierstein’s “Torch Song” at Second Stage Theater is so good, there’s talk of a move to Broadway in the spring. But don’t tell Fierstein. “Stop!” he says when I bring up rumors of a transfer. “I’ve got enough trouble with the ‘what nows’ without starting on the ‘what ifs.’ That’s my philosophy on that s–t.” Whatever happens, Fierstein is pleased that a play he began writing in 1978 can still entertain and move theatergoers, including many who weren’t even born when “Torch Song” (then called “Torch Song Trilogy”) won the Tony Award for Best Play in 1983. “I love to hear from the kids,” says Fierstein. “The other night a straight young couple waited for me outside the theater. They were from Australia — I’m not going to attempt their accent — and they said, ‘We don’t want to insult you, but we’ve never heard of you before. But we have to tell you we loved your play.’ “Do you know how thrilling it is to for me to hear that about a play I wrote 40 years ago? And from straight Australians?” As the original title indicates, “Torch Song Trilogy” consists of three plays. The first — “The International Stud” — introduces Arnold Beckoff, a professional drag queen and die-hard romantic. Fierstein played Arnold in the original production, winning a Tony Award and launching a career that’s kept him in the spotlight ever since. Michael Urie, from “Ugly Betty,” plays Arnold in the revival, which is being directed by Moisés Kaufman (“I Am My Own Wife”). “Fugue in a Nursery,” the second part, finds Arnold and his new lover, a male model, visiting Arnold’s ex-boyfriend, who left him for a woman. The final (and best-loved) part, “Widows and Children First!,” features a star turn for Arnold’s domineering, hilarious Jewish mother — from Miami, of course — who still hopes her son will settle down with a nice Jewish girl one day. Estelle Getty shot to fame in the role, ending up on TV’s “The Golden Girls” after leaving the show. Mercedes Ruehl gives it her own, very funny spin in this revival. The audience still gasps when Mrs. Berkoff lets Arnold have it for “rubbing my face” in his homosexuality. The character, as Fierstein now admits, was based on his own mother, who loved him dearly but struggled to come to terms with his sexuality. “I’ll tell you a story about my mother,” Fierstein says. “She took my grandmother to see me in the play on Broadway. They came after the first part [which features a graphic sex scene in the backroom of a bar] because my grandmother would not have survived it. At the end of the show, my grandmother says, ‘So Harvey’s a homosexual?’ And my mother says, ‘How should I know? I didn’t sleep with him.’ “It took her a little while, but eventually she came around to accepting my sexuality,” he continues. “And at 85 she was delivering meals on wheels to people with AIDS.” “Torch Song Trilogy” originally ran over four hours, but Fierstein has spent the last several months trimming it to fast-paced two hours and 45 minutes. “I’ve noticed a lot of theaters only wanted to do one or two of the plays,” he says. “People are scared of the word ‘trilogy.’ So I’m now calling it ‘Torch Song,’ which is a lovely phrase. If you hear ‘trilogy,’ you think, ‘Oh, my God, I’m not going to get out of here till five in the morning. Marvin, get the car!’ “But it’s just ‘Torch Song’ now. So nobody has to be scared anymore.”

Today's NYTimes reports this update on the "new show and cast"... ‘The Great British Bake Off’ as We Know It Is Over. What Comes Next? By LIAM STACKAUG. 11, 2017 The new season of “The Great British Bake Off” will be hosted by, from left, Paul Hollywood, Sandi Toksvig, Noel Fielding and Prue Leith. CreditMark Bourdillon/Love Productions, via Channel 4 Americans, “The Great British Baking Show” as you have known it is coming to an end. The season finale was broadcast in some markets last week on PBS, which has aired only the four most recent of its seven seasons. The broadcaster said it would air one of the three earliest seasons of the show — which is called “The Great British Baking Show” in the United States and “The Great British Bake Off” everywhere else — but after that, things will be different. For one, PBS, which also licenses “The Great British Baking Show” to Netflix, said it had not yet decided whether to air future seasons in the United States. What is going on? “The Great British Bake Off” has been celebrated as a cheerful vision of multicultural modern Britain and built its brand on the preternatural charm of its hosts and contestants, who compete in complex baking challenges without the lure of a cash prize. But in a twist perhaps fit for the show’s more diabolical cousin — American reality TV — it is cash that may lead to its undoing. Last September, the show’s producer, Love Productions, set off a public outcry when the show left its longtime home at the publicly funded British Broadcasting Corporation for a rival network, Channel 4, that offered more money (and will air it with commercials, which the BBC does not). Three of its hosts — the celebrity chef Mary Berry and the comedians Sue Perkins and Mel Giedroyc — quickly quit in a messy public airing of grievances over the financially motivated change. They have been replaced. Photo The original hosts of “The Great British Bake Off,” from left: Paul Hollywood, Sue Perkins, Mel Giedroyc and Mary Berry. Only Mr. Hollywood will return for the next season. CreditMark Bourdillion/Love Productions So what comes next for the show and its beloved ex-hosts? And will Americans be able to watch any of it? The New ‘Great British Bake Off’ Paul Hollywood, the one host who did not quit, will be part of what amounts to a reboot with three new co-hosts: the chef and writer Prue Leith and the comedians Sandi Toksvig and Noel Fielding. The season premiere is “coming soon,” the show said on Twitter. It also tweeted an apparent nod to the turmoil that has shadowed “The Great British Bake Off” since last year: a video in which anthropomorphized baked goods sing “we all stand together,” even as they are thrust into an oven. Love Productions did not respond to an email seeking comment. So, who are the newcomers? Ms. Leith is a chef and television personality who founded cooking schools in both Britain and her native South Africa. An advocate for healthy eating, she told The Sunday Times that her catchphrase for dismissing unappetizing baked goods would be: “It’s not worth the calories.” Ms. Toksvig is a veteran TV presenter best known in Britain as the witty, bantering host of the quiz show “QI.” She is also a political activist: In 2015, she helped found the Women’s Equality Party, which has contested elections in London, Wales and Scotland. Mr. Fielding is a comedian best known as part of the comedy troupe, and surreal BBC sitcom, “The Mighty Boosh,” which gained a following in the United States as part of the Adult Swim lineup on Cartoon Network. His brand of humor may be an odd fit for “Bake Off.” Last week, he faced a backlash in Britain after he told an interviewer he would not eat cake on the show, saying, “I get more work when I’m thinner, so I can’t put on weight.” He later said he had been joking. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/11/arts/television/british-baking-show.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Farts&action=click&contentCollection=arts&region=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=13&pgtype=sectionfront

A sad and tragic tale of a successful sports career ending in murder and suicide. A young talented football player with a $40 million dollar contract, ended because he was in fear of being outed. Married with a young daughter and a prison gay lover and high school boyfriend for many years, the movie should not be far behind! From the NYPost website: Aaron Hernandez may have murdered a former pal to protect his most guarded secret — that he was bisexual, a new report says. The muscle-bound former New England Patriots tight end allegedly had a longtime male lover, a friend from high school, and left behind a suicide note this week addressed to a gay jailhouse lover, Newsweek said. The suicide note was one of three found in Hernandez’s cell after he hanged himself Wednesday — the other two were to his fiancée and to his 4-year-old daughter. Hernandez, 27, had been serving life without parole in a Massachusetts prison for the 2013 shooting murder of his former pal, semi-pro football player Odin Lloyd, a slaying that ended Hernandez’s promising career less than a year into a $40 million contract extension. Why Hernandez threw everything away to leave his friend riddled with six bullets in the gravel of a suburban Boston industrial park has remained a mystery, even after an extensive 2015 trial. Cops long believed that Lloyd had incriminating information on Hernandez that the player didn’t want to get out. Law-enforcement sources told the Boston Globe shortly after the player’s arrest that Hernandez feared Lloyd would rat him out in a previous double murder in 2012 — for which he was acquitted last week, just five days before the suicide. Prosecutors only alluded at trial that Lloyd had said something to Hernandez just before his murder that destroyed his trust. A motive was never firmly established, something his lawyers noted in closing arguments. But multiple law-enforcement officials directly involved in the Lloyd murder case now believe that the ex-pal knew about Hernandez’s bisexuality and the Patriots player feared it would be made public, Newsweek said. Lloyd “had information the football star did not want out — that he was bisexual,” the mag said. A co-defendant in Lloyd’s murder privately confirmed to detectives that Lloyd knew Hernandez’s secret, Newsweek reported. Co-defendant Ernest Wallace told cops that Lloyd had slurred Hernandez as a “schmoocher,” or someone who is gay, before his death, the report said. Wallace himself referred to Hernandez as a “limp wrist” during a taped jailhouse visit with the former player’s incarcerated cousin, the report said. Hernandez’s alleged longtime male lover was also interviewed extensively by investigators after Lloyd’s murder and was forced to testify before a grand jury, Newsweek reported. Hernandez moved “a large amount of money” into the lover’s bank account shortly before his arrest, Newsweek reported. The ex-player’s prison boyfriend “is now on 24/7 suicide watch,” Newsweek said. Hernandez was so intent on killing himself that he jammed cardboard into the frame of his cell door to thwart guards rushing to aid him — and poured liquid soap on the floor of his cell so he’d have no traction to struggle free of his bedsheet noose if he lost his nerve. Lawyers for the Hernandez estate said they are mulling a negligence suit against Massachusetts corrections officials.

A certifiable smash hit....now try to get a ticket, without paying an enormous amount of money! Another Hamilton! The question is, given the success of the box office will Bette extend her run? Review: ‘Hello, Dolly!’ Is Bright, Brassy and All Bette HELLO, DOLLY! By BEN BRANTLEYAPRIL 20, 2017 Bette Midler, center, as Dolly Gallagher Levi in “Hello, Dolly!” at the Shubert Theater.CreditSara Krulwich/The New York Times The pinnacle of fine dining in New York these days can’t be found in a Michelin-starred restaurant, though it will probably cost you just as much. No, you’ll have to get yourself and your wide-open wallet to the Shubert Theater, where the savory spectacle of Bette Midler eating turns out to be the culinary event of the year. Ms. Midler — who opened in the title role of “Hello, Bette!,” I mean “Hello, Dolly!,” on Thursday night — not only knows how to make a meal out of a juicy part; she knows how to make a meal out of a meal. In the second act of this exceedingly bright and brassy revival, Ms. Midler can be found sitting alone at a table, slowly and deliberately polishing off the remnants of an expensive dinner, from a turkey bone dipped in gravy to a multitude of dumplings, while the rest of the cast freezes in open-mouthed amazement. Ms. Midler brings such comic brio — both barn-side broad and needlepoint precise — to the task of playing with her food that I promise you it stops the show. Then again, pretty much everything Ms. Midler does stops the show. As for that much anticipated moment when she puts on fire-engine red plumes and sequins to lead a cakewalk of singing waiters, well, let’s just hope that this show’s producers have earthquake insurance. Back on a Broadway stage in a book musical for the first time (can it be?) since “Fiddler on the Roof” half a century ago, Ms. Midler is generating a succession of seismic responses that make Trump election rallies look like Quaker prayer meetings. Her audiences, of course, are primed for Ms. Midler to give them their money’s worth in Jerry Zaks’s revival of this 1964 portrait of a human steamroller out to land a rich husband in 19th-century New York. The show was a scalper’s delight from the moment tickets went on sale. But Ms. Midler isn’t coasting on the good will of theatergoers who remember her as the queen of 1980s movie comedies or as the bawdy earth goddess of self-satirizing revues from the ’70s onward. As the center and raison d’être of this show, which also features David Hyde Pierce in a springtime-fresh cartoon of the archetypal grumpy old man, Ms. Midler works hard for her ovations, while making you feel that the pleasure is all hers. In the process she deftly shoves the clamorous memories of Carol Channing (who created the role on Broadway) and Barbra Streisand (in the ) at least temporarily into the wings. The show as a whole — which has been designed by Santo Loquasto to resemble a bank of Knickerbocker-themed, department store Christmas windows — could benefit from studying how its star earns her laughs and our love. Playing the pushiest of roles, the endlessly enterprising matchmaker Dolly Levi, Ms. Midler never pushes for effect. Her every bit of shtick has been precisely chosen and honed, and rather than forcing it down our throats, she makes us come to her to admire it. Much of the rest of Mr. Zaks’s production charges at us like a prancing elephant, festooned in shades of pink. This is true of the hot pastels of Mr. Loquasto’s sets and costumes, and of Warren Carlyle’s athletic golden-age-of-musicals choreography, which is both expert and exhausting. An antic “Hello, Dolly!” ensemble, from left: Kate Baldwin as Irene Molloy, Bette Midler as Dolly Gallagher Levi, Beanie Feldstein as Minnie Fay and Taylor Trensch as Barnaby Tucker. CreditSara Krulwich/The New York Times When an onstage laugh is called for, it comes out as a deafening cackle or a guffaw, which is then stretched and repeated. Double takes, grins and grimaces are magnified into crushing largeness, while the chase sequences bring to mind slap-happy Blake Edwards comedies. Even reliably charming performers like Gavin Creel and Kate Baldwin, who play the plot’s supporting lovers (with Taylor Trensch and Beanie Feldstein as their second bananas), seem under the impression they’re in a Mack Sennett farce. My audience couldn’t have been more tickled by these hard-sell tactics, which hew closely to Gower Champion’s original staging. A tone of sunny desperation isn’t out of keeping with what seems to be this production’s escapist mission, which is to deliver nostalgia with an exclamation point. Featuring a book by Michael Stewart and a tenaciously wriggling earworm of a score by Jerry Herman (given gleaming orchestral life here), “Hello, Dolly!” is a natural vehicle for rose-colored remembrance. It was adapted from Thornton Wilder’s play “The Matchmaker,” which grew out of his “The Merchant of Yonkers,” itself adapted from an 1842 Austrian reworking of an 1835 American one-acter. With its folksy wisdom and air of life-affirming wonder, Wilder’s script translated fluently into the hyperbole of a big song-and-dance show, which spoke (loudly) not only of a more innocent age of American history but also of a time when musicals were upbeat spectacles, with outsize stars to match. (Ms. Channing was succeeded by a cavalcade of divas, from Ethel Merman to Pearl Bailey.) Don’t forget that “Hello, Dolly!” opened just two months after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, when the United States felt anything but united. Photo Bette Midler, left, as Dolly Gallagher Levi, sets her sights on David Hyde Pierce, as the wealthy widower Horace Vandergelder, in “Hello, Dolly!” CreditSara Krulwich/The New York Times The genius of casting Ms. Midler as Dolly, a widow who decides to rejoin life by marrying the rich and curmudgeonly Horace Vandergelder (Mr. Pierce), is that she built her career on making nostalgia hip. Even when she was sassing and strutting for the gay boys at the Continental Baths in her youth (when the original “Hello, Dolly!” was still on the boards), she was channeling entertainers from the days of burlesque. With Ms. Midler, such hommages were never merely camp. She exuded bone-deep affection and respect for vaudeville stylings, in which impeccably controlled artifice became a conduit for sentimentality as well as rowdy humor. That affinity pervades every aspect of her Dolly, which is less a fluid performance than a series of calculated gestures that somehow coalesce into a seamless personality. Consider, for starters, her hydraulic walk, made up of short, chugging steps. (A real train materializes for the big “Put On Your Sunday Clothes” number, but Ms. Midler is the real locomotive wonder.) Or her take-charge New Yawk accent, spiced with the insinuating inflections of . Or her stylized collapse into exhaustion in the middle of the title song. Without stripping gears, she makes fast switches from explosive comedy to a sober emotionalism that never cloys. (Her pop hits, you may remember, include the weepy ) And her final scenes with Mr. Pierce, who delivers a beautifully drawn caricature (and is rewarded with a solo that was cut from the original), may leave you with tears in your eyes without your quite understanding why. Ms. Midler’s talents have never included a conventionally pretty voice. Yet when she rasps out the anthem “Before the Parade Passes By,” you hear her voice as that of a nightingale. And when she hikes up her period skirts to shuffle her feet, she gives the impression she’s dancing up a storm. She’s not, of course. (Her kicks in her big numbers are only from the knees.) But a great star performance is at least 50 percent illusion, conjured by irresistible will power and cunning. Ms. Midler arranges her component parts with the seductive insistence with which Dolly Levi arranges other people’s lives. After two acts of fending off Dolly’s charms, Horace finds himself proclaiming, in happy defeat, “Wonderful woman!” Nobody is about to argue with him.

And Mary's OUT! Today's news: 'Great British Bake Off' judge Mary Berry to quit, Paul Hollywood to continue when show leaves BBC The Great British Bake Off will also lose judge Mary Berry when the U.K. ratings hit moves from the BBC to Channel 4 after the end of the current season. But Paul Hollywood on Thursday announced his plans to continue for three seasons when the U.K. ratings hit moves from the BBC to Channel 4 after the end of the current season. The BBC announced the news of Berry after Sue Perkins and Mel Giedroycpreviously said that they would quit as hosts of the show. They had all been known to prefer having the show stay with the BBC. There was no immediate word on the future of fellow judge Paul Hollywood who, like Berry, has been understood to have been in talks with Channel 4. "What a privilege and honor it has been to be part of seven years of magic in a tent – The Great British Bake Off," Berry said in a statement issued by the BBC. "TheBake Off family – Paul, Mel and Sue have given me so much joy and laughter." She explained: "My decision to stay with the BBC is out of loyalty to them, as they have nurtured me, and the show, that was a unique and brilliant format from day one. I am just sad for the audience who may not be ready for change, I hope they understand my decision. I wish the program, crew and future bakers every possible success and I am so very sad not to be a part of it. Farewell to soggy bottoms." Charlotte Moore, director of BBC content, said: "Mary is an extraordinary woman, loved and adored by the British public, and the BBC is her natural home. I've been very lucky to have had the pleasure of working with Mary over the last seven years and I'm so pleased that relationship will continue. She is an inspiration to generations, a real icon and I can't wait to cook up more unmissable shows with her in the future." "We were very shocked and saddened" to learn that Bake Off would be moving, the hosts had said when they announced their departure. "We made no secret of our desire for the show to remain where it was." They concluded: "We're not going with the dough. We wish all the future bakers every success." Channel 4 had announced a three-year deal for the show, estimated by some to be worth $99 million (75 million pounds). It said the first Bake Off content planned is a celebrity version of the show in 2017. But the departure of much of the on-air team raises major questions about the future of the franchise. A modest hit when it premiered in 2010 on BBC Two, the show was later moved to flagship channel BBC One and now ranks among the biggest shows in U.K. history. The good-natured cooking competition (known, due to copyright issues, as The Great British Baking Show in the U.S.) returned for its seventh season on Aug. 24, drawing a whopping 10.4 million live viewers for a 47.5 share. That means nearly half of British TVs on during the hour were tuned in. That was a bigger percentage than the Rio Olympics. Nothing, save the Super Bowl (a 73 share) and the NFL conference championship games match that level of saturation with U.S. audiences. The Oscars and NBC's most-watched night of Olympics coverage couldn't reach a 40 share. The show is produced by Love Productions, controlled by pan-European pay TV giant Sky, in which 21st Century Fox owns a 39 percent stake. http://www.aol.com/article/entertainment/2016/09/22/great-british-bake-off-mary-berry-quits/21477217/

Sadly gone but not forgotten...THE TWO FAT LADIES RULE! Clarissa Dickson Wright and Jennifer Paterson were great. The Great british Baking Show has moved networks in the UK and will no longer be broadcast on the BBC. The host(essex) Sue Perkins and Mel Giedroyc have exited the show. news reports say they quit. no world on wether this is contract related or not. they may have exclusive contracts with the BBC. No word on Paul or Mary remaining as judges. MSN reports: It's a sad day in the Great British Baking Show tent. Sue Perkins and Mel Giedroyc, two of the popular baking competition's hosts, announced their departure in light of the show's move from its home on the BBC to Channel 4 for its next season in 2017. After a bidding war -- in which the BBC was said to offer £15 million (nearly $20 million) per year to keep the show on its commercial-free network -- the broadcasting corporation ultimately lost out to Channel 4, when the production company behind the show, Love Productions, rejected any offers below £25 million annually, the BBC reported. With the news of the move, the hosts announced on Monday they had opted to not renew their contracts for GBBS, which is known as the Great British Bake Off in the U.K. And with the help of a pun or two, they explained in a joint statement why they won't follow the show to Channel 4. "We've had the most amazing time on Bake Off, and have loved seeing it rise and rise like a pair of yeasted Latvian baps," said Perkins and Giedroyc in a statement published by the BBC. "We're not going with the dough. We wish all the future bakers every success."

The Crucible ends it's run July 17. Long Days Journey ends June 26. Both are limited run and will not be around in November.

yes, here he is in all his naked butt glory: " A lesser known role Matt played was that of Tucker Max along side Jesse Bradford in “I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell”. One good reason you should check out this movie is for the great nude scen Matt Czuchry has in it. We alway love a chance to see come male celebrities naked and this is even more then just a glimps. In it we get a good look at this handsome 34 year old celeb hunks beautiful bubble butt and if you look real close you may even see a bit of full frontal nudity!" http://www.hotcelebritymen.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/matt_czuchry-nude4.jpghttp://www.hotcelebritymen.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/matt_czuchry-nude5.jpg http://www.hotcelebritymen.com/?p=817

I think you might be referring to Joseph Hansen's, David Brandstetter gay detective novels set in LA. Hansen began writing the series in 1970 and the books span the course of 21 years. Also the Nathan Alydyne series of gay detective novels in the early '80's. Vermillion, Cobalt, Slate and Canary were all fun reads back in the day. As I used to refer to them, perfect airplane reading or vacation books. Today, author Greg Herren published his series of gay detective Chanse Macleod mysteries set in New Orleans. Happy reading!

Successful does not always translate into acting awards or performance accolades, many times "successful" is just quite simply, box office success. Harvey had a "successful" run as Tevye, whether you like his performance or not is another story, and one I do not wish to pursue. Whether we like him or not, Harvey as a big fan base and he brings people to the show. Your criticism is noted and we move along. It is past history. This thread topic was supposed to focus on the current production. Here is Ben Brantley opinion of Harvey's performance as Tevye: An Exotic Tevye in Old Anatevka By BEN BRANTLEY JAN. 21, 2005 The placid Broadway revival of "Fiddler on the Roof" at the Minskoff Theater. From the moment it sounds its first word, Harvey Fierstein's voice causes an entire audience to prick up its ears in the manner of a dog startled by a sharp whistle. Heard not so long ago issuing from the plus-size form of Edna Turnblad, the agoraphobic housewife in the musical "Hairspray," Mr. Fierstein's voice is one of the most distinctive in theater, belonging to the legend-making league of those of Carol Channing and Glynis Johns. And though a kazoo is what it most often brings to mind, it also variously evokes a congested saxophone, wind in a bottle and echoes from a crypt. It is, in a way, its own multicolored show. Whether it fits comfortably into the little Russian village of Anatevka, where "Fiddler" is set, is another issue. When David Leveaux's production of this much-loved, much-performed 40-year-old musical of life on a Jewish shtetl first opened last February, it was notable principally for its elegant, autumnal set (by Tom Pye) and its anesthetizing blandness. In the central role of Tevye the milkman, a part created in 1964 by Zero Mostel, the usually excellent Alfred Molina seemed sad, tentative and often absent. The whole show appeared to suffer from a similar lack of engagement with its material. Mr. Leveaux, the fashionable London director behind the Broadway revivals of "Nine" and Tom Stoppard's "Jumpers," may have been aiming for a tone of lyrical lament, of a goodbye to a folkloric way of life about to disappear. But it has always been the robustness as well as the sentimentality of Jerry Bock's and Sheldon Harnick's songs and Joseph Stein's book that has made "Fiddler" such an enduring favorite. Led by the somnambulistic Mr. Molina, and a bizarrely chic Randy Graff as Tevye's wife, Golde, Mr. Leveaux's interpretation sometimes barely had a pulse. That omission has been remedied to some extent by Mr. Molina's new replacement. Even at his quietest, Mr. Fierstein, who won a Tony Award for "Hairspray," has the presence of a waking volcano. And lest anyone think he needs drag to be big, let it be noted that he wears Tevye's tattered trousers with a homey and winning ease. To see the gray-bearded, bright-eyed Mr. Fierstein pulling a horseless milk cart with sardonic resignation is, you may well think, to look upon the image of the Tevye of the Sholem Aleichem stories that inspired the show. It is Mr. Fierstein's greatest asset as a performer, that unmistakable voice, that perversely shatters this illusion. Theatergoers who saw -- or more to the point heard -- this actor in "Hairspray" will require at least 10 minutes to banish echoes of Edna. But even audience members unfamiliar with Mr. Fierstein may find him a slightly jarring presence. Tevye must to some degree be an everyman, albeit in exaggerated, crowd-pleasing form. And Mr. Fierstein, bless him, shakes off any semblance of ordinariness as soon as he opens his mouth. Every phrase he speaks or sings, as he shifts uncannily among registers, becomes an event. And the effect is rather as if Ms. Channing were playing one of Rodgers and Hammerstein's simple, all-American heroines in "Oklahoma!" or "Carousel." A master of droll comic melodramas in fringe theater long before he became a Broadway star with his "Torch Song Trilogy" in 1982, Mr. Fierstein inflects every line with at least a touch of the grandeur of old Hollywood movies, whether he's being husky with sentimentality, smoky with regret or growly with displeasure. This can be quite a bit of fun. Tevye's first solo, "If I Were a Rich Man," takes on a fascinating new life, as Mr. Fierstein slides and rasps through its wordless connecting phrases. But it is sometimes hard to credit this exotic spirit as that of a tradition-bound father who has trouble making the adjustment to changing times. Andrea Martin, who has replaced Ms. Graff as Golde, might do well to borrow a bit of Mr. Fierstein's idiosyncracy. This actress, who first came to attention as a flamboyantly eccentric comedian on "SCTV," is on her best behavior here, as if being in a classic Broadway musical meant being quiet and dignified. (She was livelier in the recent revival of "Oklahoma!")There is nothing jolting or inappropriate in her performance, but there is nothing memorable either. The same might be said of the rest of the show, though Tricia Paoluccio and Laura Shoop bring a fresh and welcome piquancy as two of Tevye's five daughters. John Cariani, who was nominated for a Tony as the nerdy Motel the tailor, has now pushed his performance to grating comic extremes. The onstage orchestra sounds perfectly pleasant, and the dancing, restaged by Jonathan Butterell from Jerome Robbins's original choreography, is agreeable. Yet somewhere there is a disconnect between Mr. Leveaux's elegiac reimagining of "Fiddler," evident in its poetically somber look, and the dinner-theater-style comic performances of much of the cast. To mourn the passing of the traditional life of Anatevka, you need to have an organic and fluid sense of that life that this production rarely achieves. As for the show's new Tevye, it would seem that this "Fiddler" has gone from having too little of a personality at its center to having too much of one. Still, as Tevye himself might argue, better an overspiced feast than a famine.

Honestly, you lump Harvey Fierstein's over-the-top ridiculous portrayal with Zero Mostel who was simply a god? LOL. I lumped no one! LOL Despite the performance worthiness, Harvey had a very successful run... And, sorry, I should have said Midler played the role later in the run. Jeez!!!!

Caught an early preview performance of this classic Broadway favorite. i had seen the show beofe many years ago Starring Danny Burstein and Jessica Hecht. From the producers who brought us South Pacific and The King and I, they have created an evening of great song and dance. Original choreography by Jerome Robbins and music by Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick, everyone recognizes some of the great classic tunes that have come from this show (Sunrise, Sunset, Tradition, Matchmaker, Matchmaker, If I Were A Rich Man, etc.) Act One is full of great tunes, Act Two, not so much. Burstein is very good. He has to live up to some great performances from actors past, such as Zero Mostel and Harvey Fierstein. The choreography is terrific and I wish there were more of it. Directed by Bartlett Sher. The show has its serious moments when it focuses on the expulsion of the townspeople by Russian government. Anyway, it's an good evening of classic theater. A little long though, Act One lasts one hour and forty minutes and the whole show runs very close to three hours with a fifteen minute intermission. Of historical note is that Bea Arthur played the original Yente and Bette Midler played the daughter Tzeitel. Ed

NYPost & NYTimes agree that this production is the worst! I will skip it. NYPost critic called it "Crappachino" Al Pacino’s Broadway show is even worse than you think By Elisabeth Vincentelli http://nypost.com/2015/12/04/al-pacinos-broadway-show-is-even-worse-than-you-think/ And The NYTimes was not any kinder... Review: In David Mamet’s ‘China Doll,’ Al Pacino as an Urban Warrior in Winter China Doll http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/04/theater/review-in-david-mamets-china-doll-al-pacino-as-an-urban-warrior-in-winter.html?ref=arts

Lousy reviews! Compete and utter fiction. Shame. Review: ‘Stonewall’ Doesn’t Distinguish Between Facts and Fiction Stonewall By STEPHEN HOLDEN SEPT. 24, 2015 Photo http://static01.nyt.com/images/2015/09/25/arts/25STONEWALL/25STONEWALL-master675.jpg Jeremy Irvine, right foreground, and Jonny Beauchamp, center, star in “Stonewall.”CreditPhilippe Bosse/Roadside Attractions “Stonewall,” Roland Emmerich’s would-be epic film about a turning point in the gay liberation movement in 1969, is far from the first historical movie to choke on its own noble intentions. For its two-hour-plus duration, the movie struggles to fuse incompatible concepts. On one level, “Stonewall” is a sweeping social allegory whose central character, Danny Winters (Jeremy Irvine of “War Horse”), is an all-American boy from the provinces (Indiana) thrown out of the house by his father (David Cubitt), a high school football coach, for being gay. Arriving in New York with little money and no fixed abode, Danny is radicalized by observing, then experiencing, police brutality. On another level, the movie wants to be as specific as possible in its reconstruction of chaotic events that took place 46 years ago and have acquired a mythic dimension that demands heroic enlargement. In hindsight, the Stonewall riots are rather like the Woodstock music festival later that summer. More people claim to have been present than could possibly have been there. But except for its identification of actual police officers, “Stonewall” doesn’t bother to distinguish among facts, fiction and urban legend. Early scenes jump between Danny’s final days in Indiana, before he is observed having sex in a car with a high school quarterback, and his new life in New York. Exiled from his biological family, he bonds with a group of outsiders, homeless drag queens and hustlers who live on the streets or pile, as many as a dozen at time, into a shabby apartment. The neighborhood center of gravity is the seedy mob-owned Stonewall Inn, which is subject to periodic police raids. The movie, filmed in Montreal, does a reasonably good job of evoking the heady mixture of wildness and dread that permeated Greenwich Village street life in those days. In the summer of ’69, homosexual behavior between consenting adults was illegal in New York. At any moment, the police could descend on a gay bar, round up the customers and haul them off. By many accounts, the rebellion was led by drag queens and gay street people who for the first time stood up to the police, and “Stonewall” dutifully acknowledges their participation. But, its invention of a generic white knight who prompted the riots by hurling the first brick into a window is tantamount to stealing history from the people who made it. A trailer that focuses on that moment has led some gay activists to threaten a boycott of the film. No matter how much Mr. Emmerich and Jon Robin Baitz, the estimable playwright who wrote the screenplay, insist that the movie pays tribute to a full multiethnic range of gay and lesbian characters, “Stonewall” falls short. Like it or not, symbolism matters. Had the movie’s central character been Ray, a.k.a. Ramona (Jonny Beauchamp), an androgynous, volatile Puerto Rican who unrequitedly falls in love with Danny, there might be no quarrel. Ray’s saucy “girlfriends” include characters with nicknames like Queen Cong (Vladimir Alexis) and Little Orphan Annie (Caleb Landry Jones), who are treated with respect but remain peripheral. AND, What ‘Stonewall’ gets wrong about NYC history By Lou Lumenick September 24, 2015 | 11:42am Jeremy Irvine (right) plays a Kansas farmboy who's new to New York in "Stonewall." Photo: Philippe Bosse MOVIE REVIEW Stonewall Running time: 129 minutes. Rated R (sex, profanity, drugs, violence). Did you know that a “straight-acting” Kansas farm boy threw the first brick in the riot that sparked the modern gay-rights movement? News to me, and probably most other New Yorkers. Roland Emmerich’s seriously misjudged “Stonewall” turns the transgender drag queens who helped change America into dress extras in what’s basically a Big Apple retelling of “The Wizard of Oz” revolving around a Caucasian gay man’s coming of age. Already accepted to Columbia University, teenage Danny (Jeremy Irvine) is kicked out of town by his football-coach dad after his high school teammates see him servicing the team’s hunky quarterback. Danny’s sleeping on a park bench in Sheridan Square when Hispanic transgender Ramona (Jonny Beauchamp) invites him to share a crash pad with his flamboyant pals (all played by non-trans actors) on Christopher Street. Modal Trigger The crowd fights back against the cops in “Stonewall.”Photo: Philippe Bosse Ramona has a crush on clean-cut Danny, whose own taste in men runs more toward Trevor (Jonathan Rhys Meyers), a ripped gay-rights activist he meets at the Stonewall Inn. That’s the soon-to-be-infamous mob-owned drag bar managed by Murphy (Ron Perlman), who has half the officers at the Sixth Precinct on his payroll so he can disappear during police raids, where his customers are arrested and/or humiliated for wearing women’s clothing. Danny learns he’s not in Kansas anymore while turning tricks to support himself and getting beaten by leering cops while cruising the Meatpacking District. Nevertheless, Emmerich keeps returning to the Midwest for flashbacks, as well as for a lengthy epilogue. Back at the Stonewall, the NYPD’s public morals squad led by Inspector Pine (Matt Craven) stages an unscheduled raid while the regulars are mourning the death of Judy Garland. They’ve finally had enough, and their battle with the cops is the best-staged part of the film — even if the realistically detailed Sheridan Square set at a Montreal studio looks notably smaller than the real thing. Emmerich — a hugely successful director of disaster movies who happens to be gay — deserves credit for trying to call attention to the plight of gay homeless youth in this self-financed, if seriously flawed, labor of love. But with thinly drawn characters, uneven performances and tin-eared dialogue, “Stonewall’’ plays at best like a musical without the songs.

Here is the complete list of 2015 Tony Award nominees: Best Play Disgraced by Ayad Akhtar Hand to God by Robert Askins The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Simon Stephens Wolf Hall Parts One & Two by Hilary Mantel and Mike Poulton Best Musical An American in Paris Fun Home Something Rotten! The Visit Best Revival of a Play Skylight The Elephant Man This Is Our Youth You Can’t Take It With You Best Revival of a Musical On the Town On the Twentieth Century The King and I Best Director of a Play Stephen Daldry, Skylight Marianne Elliott, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time Scott Ellis, You Can’t Take It With You Jeremy Herrin, Wolf Hall Parts One & Two Moritz von Stuelpnagel, Hand to God Best Director of a Musical Sam Gold, Fun Home Casey Nicholaw, Something Rotten! John Rando, On the Town Bartlett Sher, The King and I Christopher Wheeldon, An American in Paris Best Choreography Joshua Bergasse, On the Town Christopher Gattelli, The King and I Scott Graham & Steven Hoggett, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time Casey Nicholaw, Something Rotten! Christopher Wheeldon, An American in Paris Best Leading Actor in a Play Steven Boyer, Hand to God Bradley Cooper, The Elephant Man Ben Miles, Wolf Hall Parts One & Two Bill Nighy, Skylight Alex Sharp, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time Best Leading Actress in a Play Geneva Carr, Hand to God Helen Mirren, The Audience Elisabeth Moss, The Heidi Chronicles Carey Mulligan, Skylight Ruth Wilson, Constellations Best Leading Actor in a Musical Michael Cerveris, Fun Home Robert Fairchild, An American in Paris Brian d’Arcy James, Something Rotten! Ken Watanabe, The King and I Tony Yazbeck, On the Town Best Leading Actress in a Musical Kristin Chenoweth, On the Twentieth Century Leanne Cope, An American in Paris Beth Malone, Fun Home Kelli O’Hara, The King and I Chita Rivera, The Visit Best Featured Actor in a Play Matthew Beard, Skylight K. Todd Freeman, Airline Highway Richard McCabe, The Audience Alessandro Nivola, The Elephant Man Nathaniel Parker, Wolf Hall Parts One & Two Micah Stock, It’s Only a Play Best Featured Actress in a Play Annaleigh Ashford, You Can’t Take It With You Patricia Clarkson, The Elephant Man Lydia Leonard, Wolf Hall Parts One & Two Sarah Stiles, Hand to God Julie White, Airline Highway Best Featured Actor in a Musical 
Christian Borle, Something Rotten! Andy Karl, On the Twentieth Century Brad Oscar, Something Rotten! Brandon Uranowitz, An American in Paris Max von Essen, An American in Paris Best Featured Actress in a Musical Victoria Clark, Gigi Judy Kuhn, Fun Home Sydney Lucas, Fun Home Ruthie Ann Miles, The King and I Emily Skeggs, Fun Home Best Book of a Musical Fun Home by Lisa Kron An American in Paris by Craig Lucas, Something Rotten! by Karey Kirkpatrick and John O’Farrell The Visit by Terrence McNally Best Score Fun Home by Jeanine Tesori and Lisa Kron The Last Ship by Sting Something Rotten! by Wayne Kirkpatrick and Karey Kirkpatrick The Visit by John Kander and Fred Ebb Best Scenic Design of a Play Bunny Christie & Finn Ross, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time Bob Crowley, Skylight Christopher Oram, Wolf Hall Parts One & Two David Rockwell, You Can’t Take It With You Best Scenic Design of a Musical Bob Crowley and 59 Productions, An American in Paris David Rockwell, On the Twentieth Century Michael Yeargan, The King and I David Zinn, Fun Home Best Costume Design of a Play Bob Crowley, The Audience Jane Greenwood, You Can’t Take It With You Christopher Oram, Wolf Hall Parts One & Two David Zinn, Airline Highway Best Costume Design of a Musical Gregg Barnes, Something Rotten! Bob Crowley, An American in Paris William Ivey Long, On the Twentieth Century Catherine Zuber, The King and I Best Lighting Design of a Play Paule Constable, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time Paule Constable and David Plater, Wolf Hall Parts One & Two Natasha Katz, Skylight Japhy Weideman, Airline Highway Best Lighting Design of a Musical Donald Holder, The King and I Natasha Katz, An American in Paris Ben Stanton, Fun Home Japhy Weideman, The Visit Best Orchestrations Christopher Austin, Don Sebesky and Bill Elliott, An American in Paris John Clancy, Fun Home Larry Hochman, Something Rotten! Rob Mathes, The Last Ship Tony Nominations by Production An American in Paris - 12 Fun Home - 12 Something Rotten! - 10 The King and I - 9 Wolf Hall Parts One & Two - 8 Skylight - 7 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time - 6 Hand to God - 5 On the Twentieth Century - 5 The Visit - 5 You Can’t Take It with You - 5 Airline Highway - 4 The Elephant Man - 4 On the Town - 4 The Audience - 3 The Last Ship - 2 Constellations - 1 Disgraced - 1 Gigi - 1 The Heidi Chronicles - 1 It’s Only a Play - 1 This Is Our Youth - 1 AND, this interesting piece on the SNUBS and SURPRISES.... http://www.ew.com/article/2015/04/28/tonys-2015-snubs-surprises Set your DVR...JUNE 7

For Jackhammer....RIP A LESSON IN LOGICS The choices we make reveal the true nature of our character. Two Tennessee farmers, Jim and Bob, are sitting at their favorite bar, drinking beer. Jim turns to Bob and says, "You know, I'm tired of going through life without an education. Tomorrow I think I'll go to the Community College and sign up for some classes." Bob thinks it's a good idea, and the two leave. The next day, Jim goes down to the college and meets Dean of Admissions, who signs him up for the four basic classes:. Math, English, History, and Logic. "Logic" Jim says. "What's that?" The dean says, "I'll give you an example. Do you own a weed whacker?" "Yeah." "Then logically speaking, because you own a weed whacker, I think that you would have a yard." "That's true, I do have a yard." The dean then says. "Because you have a yard, I think logically that you would have a house." "Yes, I do have a house." "And because you have a house, I think that you might logically have a family." "Yes, I have a family." "Because you have a family, then logically you must have a wife. And because you have a wife, then logic tells me you must be a heterosexual." "That's great, I am a heterosexual. You're amazing, you were able to find out all of that because I have a weed whacker." Excited to take the class now, Jim shakes the Dean's hand and leaves to go meet Bob at the bar. He tells Bob about his classes, how he is signed up for Math, English, History, and Logic. "Logic" Bob says, "What's that?" Jim says, "I'll give you an example. Do you have a weed whacker?" Bob says, "No, I don't." "Faggot."

RIP Jackhammer and thanks for all the laughs. In tribute: A frustrated wife buys a pair of crotchless panties in an attempt to spice up her dead sex-life. She puts them on, together with a short skirt and sits on the sofa opposite Cecil sipping a glass of wine. At strategic moments she uncrosses and crosses her legs wide enough that Cecil asks "Are you wearing crotchless panties? " "Y-e-s," she answers with a seductive smile. "Thank God - I thought you were sitting on the cat." Cecil never saw the glass coming

One more to start the week....and VERY un-PC!!!! Guy goes in an adult store and asks for an inflatable doll. Store clerk says, 'Male or female?' Customer says, 'Female.' Counter guy asks, 'Black or white? Customer says, 'White.' Counter guy asks, 'Christian or Muslim?' Customer says, 'What the hell does religion have to do with it?' Counter guy says,'The Muslim one blows itself up.'

Don't underestimate the ladies! Peeing On The Flowers A little old lady was walking down the street dragging two large plastic garbage bags behind her. One of the bags was ripped and every once in a while a $20 bill fell out onto the sidewalk. Noticing this, a policeman stopped her, and said, "Ma'am, there are $20 bills falling out of that bag." "Oh, really? Darn it!" said the little old lady. "I'd better go back and see if I can find them. Thanks for telling me officer. "Well, now, not so fast," said the cop. “ Where did you get all that money? You didn't steal it, did you?" "Oh, no, no", said the little old lady. "You see, my back yard is right next to a Golf course. A lot of Golfers come and pee through a knot hole in my fence, right into my flower garden. It used to really tick me off. Kills the flowers, you know. Then I thought, 'why not make the best of it?' So, now, I stand behind the fence by the knot hole, real quiet, with my hedge clippers. Every time some guy sticks his thing through my fence, I surprise him, grab hold of it and say, 'O.K., buddy! Give me $20, or off it comes.' " "Well, that seems only fair," said the cop, laughing. "OK. Good luck! Oh, by the way, what's in the other bag?" "Not everybody pays."