Arts

PLAYBILL.COM'S THEATRE WEEK IN REVIEW, April 7-13: Hello, Blackbird

The title would seem to tell it all: The President and Her Mistress.

A darkly comic drama about American soldiers in the Middle East will be tested in New York City starting April 13.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The cast of the long-running hit television comedy "Frasier" could reunite, but on the stage rather than the small screen, David Hyde Pierce, an actor who starred in the show, said.

Pennsylvania State University musical theatre students are exploring two new musicals and interacting with the shows' writers in the first Penn State New Musical Theatre Festival in April.

LoveMusik, the new Harold Prince-Alfred Uhry musical that tells the love story of composer Kurt Weill and actress Lotte Lenya - using songs from composer Weill's catalog - begins Broadway performances April 12 at the Biltmore Theatre.

Manhattan Theatre Club's critically acclaimed production of David Harrower's Olivier Award-winning Blackbird, which opened April 10, has been extended through June 10 at New York City Center Stage I.

New Jersey Repertory Company, continuing its commitment to new works, will offer the world premiere of Arthur Giron's murder mystery, Love and Murder, April 12-May 6 in Long Branch, NJ.

City Theatre artistic director Tracy Brigden directs Tony Bingham, Jeffrey Carpenter, Tami Dixon and Rebecca Harris in the April 12-May 20 world premiere of Keith Reddin's The Missionary Position, a commission by the Pittsburgh not-for-profit.

NEW YORK (Hollywood Reporter) - Eugene O'Neill's "A Moon for the Misbegotten" has returned to Broadway after its last revival a mere six years ago, and the reason is simple: Kevin Spacey.

NEW YORK (Hollywood Reporter) - This is another one of those busy, promising, tempting Broadway weeks. Monday night while Diane Keaton was being toasted by the Film Society of Lincoln Center, a few streets south, the London transfer of the Old Vic's (i.e. Kevin Spacey's) production of Eugene O'Neill's "A Moon for the Misbegotten" made its debut at the Brooks Atkinson with Spacey and Eve Best in the leading roles.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - An innovative 3-D video projection setup that gives the illusion of actors suspended in midair appears on the U.S. theatrical stage for the first time this week.

LONDON (Hollywood Reporter) - As Madame Hooch in "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone," Zoe Wanamaker teaches flying and is the referee at Quidditch games. In the National Theater revival of Tennessee Williams' "The Rose Tattoo," she plays a morbidly emotional hothouse flower named Serafina delle Rose, but it would take more than broomsticks to make this overblown production fly.

Roscoe Lee Browne, a multi-talented actor of dignified bearing and stentorian voice, died April 11 at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, The New York Times reported. He was 81 and lived in Los Angeles. The cause was cancer.

NEW YORK (Billboard) - The Flaming Lips are known for their outlandish stage shows, which can involve fake blood, mock UFOs, giant bubbles and scores of people jumping around in animal costumes. Now, the group is hoping to bring that sensibility to Broadway with a musical based on its 2002 album "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots."

EDINBURGH (Reuters) - Edinburgh turns this year to a celebration of the exuberance of opera to mark the 60th anniversary of its international festival of the arts, founded in 1947 the dark days of austerity following World War Two.

Trophy Wife, a new musical adaptation of Anton Chekhov's short story "Anna on the Neck," gets its world premiere April 12 in a production by La MaMa E.T.C. and Watson Arts.

David Hasselhoff, due to a prior commitment as a judge on the TV series "America's Got Talent," will leave the cast of the Las Vegas production of The Producers May 6.

Theatrical publicist Jeremy Shaffer, who co-owned Shaffer-Coyle Public Relations since 2004, will join The Publicity Office, the New York-based press agency headed by Marc Thibodeau, on May 1.

Plans are afoot for a Broadway cast recording to preserve the score of the new musical The Pirate Queen, by Tony Award winners Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Sch–nberg.

Whatever happened to the funky Off-Broadway musical Zanna, Don't!, the gay-friendly high-school-set show that spawned a cast album and once had its eye on Broadway?

Director John Doyle, who has made a name for himself directing innovative Broadway productions of the Stephen Sondheim musicals Sweeney Todd and the current Company, is in talks to mount a new version of Sondheim's lesser-known Merrily We Roll Along.

Huntington Theatre Company will host the boozy cabaret duo Kiki and Herb as they bring their recent Broadway debut, Kiki & Herb Alive on Broadway, to Boston this summer.

Three previously produced one-act musicals - including shows by the songwriters of Broadway's Legally Blonde and Wicked book writer Winnie Holzman - will be glued together for the first time for a unique theatre experience in Philadelphia this spring.

Leaving Iowa, the popular road-trip comedy by Spike Manton and Tim Clue, will close April 8 at the Royal George Theatre in Chicago after a year-long run.

Theatre folk from all over South Florida will be celebrating April 9, when the 2007 Carbonell Awards are handed out.