Reviewing the Drama: Broadway, Off-Broadway, Ballet, Movies, and TV Reviews

Casting News Aaron Tveit ( Next to Normal , Brain Dead ) will star alongside Edy Ganem in the legal drama, Created Equal , now in production in New Orleans. The movie focuses on a woman (Ganem) who wants to become a Catholic priest and the lawyer (Tveit) who's fighting for her. Variety has more. Tony nominee Christopher Fitzgerald ( Waitres s ) is joining the cast of the upcoming Netflix series, Godless . Fitzgerald joins Jeff Daniels, Merritt Wever, and others. BroadwayWorld.com has more. Additional casting for Hairspray Live has been announced. Ephraim Sykes ( Hamilton ) will appear as Seaweed, and Shahadi Wright Joseph ( School of Rock ) will play Little Inez. The live telecast will air on NBC on December 7. Playbill has more. Jonathan Cake has joined the cast of The Affair for its third season, and will appear in a recurring role. The season premiere is set for November 20. TV Line has more. Danny DeVito  is joining the cast of Arthur Miller's  The Pr...

Award Season Updates As many predicted, Hamilton won the Grammy Award for Best Musical Theatre Album. (Lin-Manuel Miranda posted the photo at right of a celebratory cake.) Playbill has details about that award, and you can visit grammy.com for the full list of this year's winners, including the Oscar-winning song, "Glory." Before Hamilton won, though, the cast performed the opening number. Entertainment Weekly  takes you behind the scenes of the performance. BAFTA Awards were handed out last week. The Revenant took home the top honor, and its star, Leonardo DiCaprio , director, Alejandro G. Inarritu , cinematographer, Emmanuel Lubezki , and sound design team were also winners. Three-time Tony Award winner Mark Rylance won for Best Supporting Actor ( Bridge of Spies ), and Tom McCarthy and Josh Singer won the Best Original Screenplay award for Spotlight . Visit bafta.org for the full list of winners. Additional Oscars presenters have been announced, in...

Josh Groban Set for Broadway Debut The Grammy-nominated crooner , theatre lover, and funny guy will make his Broadway debut in a Broadway mounting of Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812 . Written by Dave Malloy and directed by Rachel Chavkin (who collaborated on Preludes ), Natasha... had a celebrated run off-Broadway in 2012, and featured site-specific staging. The musical is now at American Repertory Theatre, this time with a more traditional proscenium staging. Natasha ... is inspired by a passage in War and Peace , and the original off-Broadway cast included Hamilton 's Phillipa Soo. At this time, Groban is the only confirmed cast member (and he is said to have made a sizable time commitment to the show); a theatre and specific dates have yet to be announced, though performances are expected to begin in September 2016. Broadway.com has more. Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Class of 2016 The inductees for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Class of 2016, have been an...

Presidential Medal of Freedom Recipients Announced 17 people will receive the 2015 Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor. The recipients will be presented with the honor by President Obama at a November 24 ceremony. Among those who will be honored are Barbra Streisand ; baseball greats Willie Mays and the late Yogi Berra ; Senator Barbara Mikulski ; Steven Spielberg ; Itzhak Perlman ; the late congresswoman Shirley Chisholm ; and James Taylor . Legendary songwriter Stephen Sondheim was selected for the honor last year, but was unable to attend the ceremony; he will celebrate the honor next week with Babs and the rest of the 2015 honorees. Broadway.com has more. Jesse Tyler Ferguson Returns to Broadway The Modern Family star and five-time Emmy nominee will return to Broadway in spring 2016. Though Ferguson has regularly appeared on stage in Shakespeare in the Park productions since hitting it big on Modern Family , this will mark the first time he's ...

Dave Grohl Talks Sonic Highways and Emmys Dave Grohl has been talking about the Emmy-nominated docuseries, Sonic Highways , which found Grohl and his Foo Fighters band mates traveling to eight US cities to tap into the local musical roots. (The resulting album features a song inspired by each city.) Visit Deadline to read an interview the musician gave, and watch below as he talks with two Gold Derby staffers. Foo Fighters continue to tour the US in support of Sonic Highways , and have some international dates coming up, as well. Check foofighters.com for info. Casting News Saycon Sengbloh ( Hair , Holler If Ya Hear Me ), Pascale Armand , Akosua Busia and Zainab Jah round out the cast of Eclipsed , joining the previously announced Lupita Nyong'o. The Public Theater production begins previews September 29, with opening night set for October 14. Broadway.com has more. Russell Tovey ( The History Boys , Looking ) and Richard Hansell have joined the cast of the...

Lupita Nyong'o to Star in Eclipsed Off-Broadway Academy Award winner Lupita Nyong'o ( 12 Years a Slave ) will star in the New York premiere of Eclipsed , written by Zimbabwean-American playwright and actress, Danai Guirra . The production was just added to the Public's season, and is set to run September 29 through November 8. Directed by Liesl Tommy , Eclipsed takes place during the Liberian Civil War, and focuses on the wives of rebel officers and the community they form. This will mark Nyong'o's New York stage debut. Spotlight on Spotlight Check out the trail for the new movie, Spotlight . The film follows Boston Globe reporters as they break the story of the Catholic church child abuse/sex scandal. The trailer makes it look like the film is paced like a thriller (reminiscent of Aaron Sorkin's approach to The Social Network , but without his trademark snappy dialogue), and boasts an impressive cast: Michael Keaton ( Birdman ); Mark Ruffalo ( Th...