Take a peek at the screen version of the Broadway musical Passing Strange directed by Spike Lee.
Strange was shot live during it’s Broadway run at the Belasco Theater and features the original cast of de’Adre Aziza, Daniel Breaker, Eisa Davis, Colman Domingo, Chad Goodridge and Rebecca Naomi Jones star. The onstage band includes Jon Spurney, Christian Cassan and Christian Gibbs and the musical creators Stew and Heidi Rodewald.
Don’t worry if you missed Strange on Broadway, thankfully some of the same energy and intensity manages to come through on the screen.
Strange hits New York City theaters on August 21.
One of Blindie’s fave comedic actresses Lauren Graham is donning ’30s glam for her Broadway debut in a revival of Guys and Dolls.
In the shot, released to Entertainment Weekly, the Gilmore Girls alum channels her character, nightclub singer Mis Adelaide.
Referencing her vocal prowess in a famous and touching scene (see below) in Gilmore Girls where she karaokes Dolly Parton’s “I Will Always Love You” to her love Luke, Graham said, “Lorelai was drunk. Don’t gauge my singing ability by Lorelai singing drunk in the seventh season.”
One of Blindie’s favorite Broadway stars Antonique Smith (right), who played Mimi Valdez in the musical hit Rent, is jumping to the big screen as Faith Evans (left) in Notorious.
The upcoming biopic, which chronicles the life and death of Notorious B.I.G. (a.k.a. Christopher Wallace), stars Angela Bassett as Biggie’s mother Voletta Wallace, Derek Luke as Sean “Diddy” Combs, Anthony Mackie as Tupac Shakur, and unknown actor Jamal Woolard as The Notorious B.I.G.
The highly-anticipated film hits theaters on January 16.
Lauren Graham (aka Lorelai Gilmore of the Gilmore Girls) will appear as the long-suffering Miss Adelaide to Oliver Platt’s Nathan Detroit in the upcoming revival of Guys and Dolls, opening March 1 at the Nederlander Theatre in New York.
Blindie’s been missing Graham’s wit and talent since the cancellation of her long-running WB/The CW series. Since her exodus from Stars Hollow, Graham has starred on the big screen with Steve Carell in Evan Almighty and Greg Kinnear in Flash of Genius.
In less than 5,900 minutes, the Pulitzer and Tony-winning musical Rent will be closing its doors (on Sept. 7) at the Nederlander Theatre in New York.
With the end of this era (12 blissful years, to be exact), Blindie presents the Top Five lasting impressions this groundbreaking musical left behind—and why we, Rent Heads, will always measure our lives in love:
For shining a positive, yet realistic light on HIV/AIDS—and presenting the real struggle of being young and LIVING with the disease.
For introducing us to life in Alphabet City, and the journey of striving to create that “one blaze of glory“—the work that will make an artist (a writer, film creator, musician) feel their life was meant something.
For being bold enough to show a masculine man fall in love with a loving drag queen, who teaches him and all of his friends the true meaning of love and friendship: “I’ll cover you!”
For showing us a lasting example of love through the journey and struggles of Afro-Latina Mimi and edgy white rocker Roger.
For urging us to believe that there is “No day but today!“
Due to the loss of one of the production’s backers, India.Arie’s Broadway debut in the revival of Ntozake Shange’s “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf” has been postponed, according to the AP.
The play, a revival of the Tony-nominated play about seven women of color from the African Diaspora, is being produced by Whoopi Goldberg and DreamTeam Entertainment Group, and was set to have opened Sept. 8 at Circle in the Square.
At the Culture Project on Mercer Street in New York, Lenelle Moïse and Karla Mosley star as two African-American performance artists, who flee to Paris to fulfill their dreams, in Expatriate.
The two-woman play, directed by Tamilla Woodard, features original music and choreography and will end its run on August 3.
Proclaiming it “delivers on all counts,” the New York Times said in a recent review, “With all the theater out there, how inspiring it is to be reminded how invigorating an Off Broadway play can be with just two appealing performers, compelling music and a searching, intelligent script.”
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