1,428 stories by "Roger Friedman"
At long last here is the exclusive I am so happy to announce: “Beautiful” is the name of the absolutely much anticipated musical based largely on the music of Carole King. But th…
Tonight Craig Lucas’s “Lying Lessons” opens off Broadway at the Atlantic Theater Company on West 20th St.– and Bette Davis is back. In this play, it’s the early…
Big day on Barbara Walters’s “The View”: I can tell you exclusively that the likely new member of the panel is Brooke Shields. Sources say Barbara Walters really wants her.…
At the Broadway premiere of Holland Taylor‘s tour de force performance as Ann Richards in “Ann,” Elaine Stritch confirmed the worst. A New York living legend, Stritch is pa…
EXCLUSIVE It’s been a long time since Sarah Jessica Parker has been on stage. But the “Sex and the City” star is getting ready to shed Carrie Bradshaw, from what I hear, an…
Maybe you’ve seen the ads for Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “Cinderella.” They are everywhere, without fail. That’s because putting this show on Broadway is a first…
It’s not a review, just overheard– last night’s first preview of Nora Ephron‘s “Lucky Guy” is said to have been a total success. Tom Hanks plays late New …
Believe it or not, Scarlett Johansson already has a Tony Award– for her work as a featured actress in Arthur Miller’s “A View from the Bridge.” That was in 2010. Now …
“Lucky Guy,” the play by Nora Ephron starring Tom Hanks, has gotten two big cast members– Maura Tierney from “ER” and the great Courtney B. Vance. Hanks plays t…
Broadway is a little short on original plays this season, so I am happy to pass on the news that Christopher Durang’s “Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike” may be moving th…
This time it’s no fun to be right. But I told you two weeks ago that “Dead Accounts,” the play with Katie Holmes as a featured player, was not going to make it. Yesterday p…
Freedom from her past constraints means Katie Holmes gets to kiss a guy for real on stage in “Dead Accounts.” The guy she kisses is Josh Hamilton, and you can tell she has a good…
Cheers and a standing ovation this afternoon at the first screening of the film version of "Les Miserables." Tom Hooper, Oscar winner for The King's Speech, has made a thrilling, sensational…
“Scandalous,” the musical co-written and labored over by Kathie Lee Gifford for a dozen years, is barely holding on. Despite bravura performances by Carolee Carmello and Roz Ryan…
Number 1 on Broadway this week: “The Lion King.” Number 1 five years ago: “The Lion King.” Ten years ago: “The Lion King.” 15 Years ago; yup. “The L…
Kathie Lee Gifford worked for 12 years on “Scandalous,” her Broadway musical about feminist evangelist pill popper and trailblazer Aimee Semple McPherson. Joy Philbin was telling…
Broadway: the show must go on, and it did last night when “The Heiress” opened on Broadway with up and coming movie star Jessica Chastain, veteran actor and former Oscar nominee …
Katie Holmes made a public appearance last night for the new Broadway play in which she will shortly open, called “Dead Accounts.” Katie, playwright Theresa Rebeck and director J…
“Motown: The Musical” is wending its way toward us inexorably. A couple of weeks ago the producers of the show invited group theater bookers and advertisers to come see a little …
EXCLUSIVE Anne Hathaway’s recent wedding to Adam Shulman got a lot of write-ups in various tabloids. The wedding took place in the woods on sacred Indian ground near Big Sur on the ver…
There are several stories that intertwine through “The Exonerated,” a play reading that took root ten years ago at the Culture Project on Bleecker Street. Now the people and thei…
I feel like deja vu all over again. I’ve written this before, but today they sent out the official release about Tom Hanks in the play “Lucky Guy.” This was Nora EphronR…
Little Steven van Zandt is doing the impossible! He’s reuniting the Rascals, the original Rascals, for a theatrical show. “Once Upon A Dream” will happen December 13, 14, a…
Exclusive: throw another film title into the Broadway mix. I’m told that Focus Features is dabbling in its first Broadway musical. They’re turning “Miss Pettigrew Lives for…
Great story in the New York Times: Broadway producer Ben Sprecher is still looking for $4.5 million to put his musical, “Rebecca,” on Broadway. It turns out his major backer disa…
