Christopher Sieber Rescues La Cage

Christopher Sieber will replace ailing Arrested Development star Jeffrey Tambor as Georges in the Broadway revival of La Cage aux Folles, according to The New York Times.

Sieber, who received Tony award nominations for Shrek the Musical and Monty Python's Spamalot, had been scheduled to star in another revival, playing Billy Flynn in the long-running production of Chicago. Producers of that show released Sieber from his contract to begin rehearsals for La Cage. Tambor dropped out of the show last Thursday, citing complications from recent hip surgery as the reason. Sieber will star in the groundbreaking drag musical opposite another gay actor, Harvey Fierstein. The two men previously worked together in the Broadway production of Hairspray.

The date for Sieber's first performance in La Cage hasn't yet been announced.

Ricky Martin Confirmed for Evita

Rumors have been floating about for the last year, and now it has been confirmed that Ricky Martin will star as Che in the Broadway revival of Evita, opening Spring, 2012.

Argentine actress Elena Roger will star as Eva Peron, a role she played in London in 2006. Michael Grandage directed that production and will oversee the Broadway revival.

Martin said in a previous statement: I've been blessed with the opportunity to perform on many of the world's largest concert stages, but I've never lost my love for the intimacy of the theater. I'm delighted to know that after I've had the chance to share new music and tour over the coming year, that I will then return once again to Broadway. I'm looking forward to playing such an essential part in Michael Grandage's wonderful production and the chance to work with the tremendously talented Elena Roger."

Book of Mormon: Filthiest, Funniest

The Book of Mormon, a forthcoming original musical cowritten by South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone and Avenue Q’s Robert Lopez, is the "filthiest, most offensive" and "sweetest" show bound for Broadway next year, according to Vogue.

Vogue describes the musical as "the story of a pair of teenage missionaries who get sent to Uganda, where can-do Mormon pep meets its match in disease, starvation, and warlords who shoot people in the face." One of the lead characters in the show is gay and will attempt to contain his sexuality.

The magazine goes on to call The Book of Mormon "hands down, the filthiest, most offensive, and — surprise — sweetest thing you’ll see on Broadway this year, and quite possibly the funniest musical ever."

While The Book of Mormon is the first Broadway musical by Parker and Stone, they are no strangers to the form or inserting subversive and explicit gay content into their projects, such as their acclaimed 1999 animated musical, South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut.

The Book of Mormon will begin previews February 24th at the Eugene O’Neill Theatre, with an official opening planned for March 24th.

Gwyneth Paltrow Considering Rock Of Ages Role

Gwyneth Paltrow has confirmed she's considering using her new-found singing skills to tackle a role in the upcoming movie adaptation of hit Broadway musical Rock Of Ages.

The show, which features songs from artists including Bon Jovi, Twisted Sister and Poison, is set for a cinematic make-over with Tom Cruise in talks to join the project.

Paltrow has now revealed she's also considering signing up, after proving her musical prowess in new movie Country Strong.

She tells Entertainment Weekly, "It sounds cool. I just got the script and I will read it on the plane home tomorrow. But it sounds like it could be fun."

Alec Baldwin is also reportedly in negotiations to join the cast, while producer Jenno Topping remains hopeful that Tom Cruise will make his involvement official: "(He is) in discussions. It's real. Although, it is not cemented."

Michael Urie Joining & Zachary Quinto Leaving Revival of 'Angels in America'

Ugly Betty star Michael Urie is taking on the towering lead role of Prior Walter in the ongoing Off Broadway revival of the Pulitzer Prize-winning play Angels in America, according to The New York Times.

Urie will start February 2, 2011, replacing actor Christian Borle when the production launches a new five-week extension through March 27th.

Also leaving the production, which opened in October: Star Trek and Heroes star Zachary Quinto, who will be replaced by theater actor Adam Driver (Mrs. Warren’s Profession) in the role of Prior’s erstwhile boyfriend Louis Ironson.

Actresses Robin Bartlett (Hannah Pitt), Zoe Kazan (Harper Pitt), and Robin Weigert (the Angel) will depart the show as well, but only Bartlett’s role has been re-cast (with theater actress Lynne McCollough).

According to the Times, the departures are all due to schedule conflicts with the unplanned additional five weeks of performances. Tickets for the extension will be $85, a steep hike from the underwritten $20 price for the initial run of the show

Rent to Be Revived Off-Broadway

Rent, the groundbreaking 1994 musical by Jonathan Larson, will be revived off-Broadway in June with a cast of unknown actors.

According to the New York Post, original director Michael Greif will stage the show at the New World Stages after the Tony Awards.

The original Rent launched the careers of stars including Anthony Rapp, Idina Menzel and Adam Pascal. It won four Tony Awards and a Pulitzer Prize for Drama, closing in 2008 after 5,124 performances.

Patrick Wilson Talks to The Advocate About His Gay Roles, His Gay Fan base & His Bare Ass

If Patrick Wilson is in a movie, you should always want to see it.

From his breakthrough in Angels in America to roles in Hard Candy, Little Children and Lakeview Terrace, he always delivers.

Lucky Brandon Voss got to chat with Patrick for The Advocate. Here are some highlights:

As an accomplished Broadway performer, were you aware of your gay fans before Angels?
Well, remember I did The Full Monty, so yeah, I was pretty conscious of the gay fans. [Laughs] But no amount of musicals can compare to the importance of Angels in the gay community, so I do think I gained a whole new legion of fans.

What does the support of the gay community mean to you?
It means a ton to me, and it’s something I take a lot of pride in. It’s silly in hindsight because everyone was awesome and convincing in their roles whatever their own sexual orientation is, but there were a few eyebrows raised before Angels came out because the majority of the male leads were straight. Regardless of the talent pool, people were like, How are they gonna pull this off? I understand the impact Angels has had on the gay community, so the fact that they thought I pulled it off was the best compliment I could get. I felt validated. You always hope you’ll have the confirmation of a core fan base; the gay community’s the core fan base of Angels, so that confirmation was a huge relief. Obviously, you don’t make a movie just for core fans, but that’s certainly where it starts.

You haven’t played gay since Angels. Why not?
There’s no rhyme and reason, but that is kind of funny, right? I really haven’t been offered a lot of gay characters. It didn’t get to the point where I auditioned, but I remember when Brokeback Mountain was happening early on—before they knew if it was going to work with Heath and Jake. But when I was sent the Brokeback Mountain script, I didn’t bat an eye. That was pretty soon after Angels came out, but I couldn’t have cared less if I only did two roles on screen and one was Joe Pitt and the other was in Brokeback. I don’t care whether a role’s gay or straight; if it’s good, it’s good.

As an actor who tackled one of the most memorable closet cases in contemporary literature, what’s your take on the Hollywood closet?
I don’t know—I feel like I could get in trouble either way. There are older actors that all of us in the business look at and think, Oh, come on. One side of me is like, Why don’t they just come out? But if they don’t want to, it’s nobody’s business. If coming out helps someone feel great and further a personal cause, that’s awesome, but I just wish no one cared. Every time I hear somebody came out, it doesn’t mean anything to me. It’s such a personal thing, and the last thing you’d want is for someone to feel like they needed to do it. I don’t know what that gains other than making some tabloid reader feel validated, like, “I knew it!” or “That’s shocking!” Then again, I don’t know that struggle. But no one’s calling me to ask about all the women I’ve slept with, so why does anyone need to tell people who they’re sleeping with? It’s a side of the business that I really detest. I don’t want anyone to know anything about me. You know, early on when we were dating, my wife asked me, “Did you care if anyone thought you were gay after Angels in America?” I said, “No, I hope they thought I was gay, Republican, a lawyer, and Mormon. Then I did my job.”

No complaints that you appear in various states of undress for almost every role, but your bare ass practically has more IMDb credits than you do. Have you ever felt sexually objectified?
I have, but not in the scenes that you’d think. You should talk to my lawyer, because if it were up to me I’d never do it except for when it’s really called for, like in Angels, Little Children, and Watchmen. Joe has to be naked in Angels because he has to strip everything away. You have to see them naked in Little Children because it’s got to be hot and raw like Body Heat. I had to be seen naked from behind in Watchmen because that’s one of the coolest panels in the comic. But then there are the things where a director will go, “Why don’t you be shirtless in this scene?” I’ll say, “Why am I shirtless?” “Uh…” “Ah, you see?!” At least I could justify it in Lakeview Terrace because it was 115 degrees out.

To read the entire interview with Patrick, go to Advocate.com.

Cheyenne Jackson: The Entertainer

With a plum new role on Glee and a repeat gig on 30 Rock, Cheyenne Jackson puts to rest the old Hollywood axiom that being gay doesn't pay.

Fast-forward past the small-town childhood, and the stubborn, insistent facts of an austere upbringing -- an outhouse, no running water (“I promised my mom I would quit talking about it.”). Skip the reproving sign atop the TV set -- If Jesus lived here would you be watching this? -- and the ban on unwholesome music. Start, instead, in the Gulf of Mexico with the bang of an epiphany -- every good story needs one, and Cheyenne Jackson’s is a peach.

It is July 1993. Along with his fellow teen missionaries, the young Jackson is handing out New Testaments, bumper stickers, and smiles. The bumper stickers read diga no a la pornografía (say no to pornography), and the trick is to catch drivers as they pause at the stoplight. “It was so bizarre and misguided,” says Jackson. “People were shamed into letting us put them on their car, but then the light would turn green and -- you know, bumper stickers! You have to do it clean and smoothly.” He mimics the act of smoothing out the wrinkles as cars lurch forward, the smiling missionaries staggering in their wake. It’s a funny image; the kind of thing Tina Fey might crib as back story for Kenneth the Page, the doltish office drudge on 30 Rock, in which Jackson has a recurring role. But it’s not a punch line on NBC, and the memory stirs complicated emotions for the teller. Jackson’s instinct is to charm and entertain, but the easy grace he projects is also a smoke screen. There are things still being worked out, processed. “This is gonna get deep,” he warns. “I don’t know if I want to say this.” He swallows, composes himself, and summons the memory.

It is July 12, and the missionaries are at the beach to celebrate Jackson’s 18th birthday. There is a cake, dyed blue. There is Jackson’s girlfriend, Willow (“We always said we were gonna name our kid Shiloh. Like, combine our names.”). The boys and girls are singing Jesus songs, playing guitar, weeping tears of gratitude and joy, but Jackson is not among them. He is out in the ocean, treading water, gazing back on the scene.

“I never felt further away from who I really am,” he says. “I’m ready to go out in the world and be who I’m supposed to be, but I am so conflicted because the church and everything in that world is telling me that who I am is wrong, just wrong. And I know I’m a good person, I know that I treat people with kindness and that I try to make the world a better place. How can who I am be wrong? And in that moment I just know that something has to change. I have to acknowledge it. I’ve never said it out loud, like ‘I’m gay.’ I go pretty far down underwater, not trying to hurt myself, or anything, but it’s the sense that I want to sink. And I look up and I can see the sun above the water, and it’s almost as if I feel something reach in and pull me up. And when I surface I am totally different. I’ve made a decision. And I look at the kids, and for once I don’t feel disdain or wish I could feel what they are feeling. I don’t wish that I could have real tears when I close my eyes to pray. I feel like this is the first day.”

Jackson turned 35 this summer, celebrating with a small birthday party at Paris Commune, a restaurant in New York City’s West Village. It was a typically low-key affair. The actor Alan Cumming came by with his partner. Ricki Lake stopped in for a quick toast. Jackson ordered the halibut and a gin and tonic. It was a busy time for the actor. He’d just filmed an episode for the eighth season of Curb Your Enthusiasm and was due to start filming a movie, The Green, starring opposite Julia Ormond, in which Jackson plays the partner of a drama teacher (Jason Butler Harner) caught up in a sexual harassment case. Although a project with HBO had recently fallen through, the actor had just been told that Ryan Murphy had written him into the third season of Glee, as the new coach of Vocal Adrenaline, and his mood was buoyant. In the eight years since he moved to New York City, he’s built an enviable résumé of successful Broadway roles, including Chad in All Shook Up and Sonny in the Tony-nominated pop opera Xanadu, as well as his role in 30 Rock, but he wears his fame lightly, never playing the diva or taking his success for granted. It’s a quality that sets him apart from many of his peers. “He’s just so low-key and undemanding and unpretentious with his approach and his delivery -- there are no boundaries, no rules, which is unique in that business,” says the designer Kenneth Cole who knows Jackson through his work for amfAR, the AIDS research foundation of which Cole is chairman. For David Mixner, a long time gay activist and fundraiser, Jackson is “a man who not only has heart but gives it to this community unconditionally.”

A few months after that birthday dinner, Jackson and his partner of more than 10 years, Monte Lapka, walked into New York’s City Hall and registered as domestic partners. “We wanted to get as married as we could,” says Jackson. “I think we were filling in some forms for wills or insurance, and I just thought, Let’s just make this as legal as we can. It was with a bunch of Russian mail order brides, literally. And it was hilarious and it was romantic, just he and me, our little secret.” Although Lapka, a trained physicist, is apparently ambivalent about marriage proper, his status on Jackson’s Wikipedia page is already listed as “spouse.” The boy of 18 who had never said “I’m gay” has come a long way.

Truth to tell, Jackson’s journey has its roots a decade before his dunk in the ocean, in the showers of a local health club in Newport, Washington (population 1,921), where a young Cheyenne found himself staring a little too intensely at his Christian scout leader. He was 7 or 8 at the time. “I remember seeing him and feeling just different -- my stomach was tingly, and I felt weird, and I liked it,” he remembers. As casually as possible, Jackson asked the scout leader if he knew where he might find his father, though the question was superfluous. “He was like, ‘No, Cheyenne, I haven’t seen him.’ And I ran back upstairs and pretended that I was still looking for my dad and ran down again so I could get another peek. I was like, ‘I can’t find him anywhere, know where he is?’ ‘No, I still don’t know.’"

Jackson’s performance in the showers that day was the first inkling of what was to come, a harbinger of years of nimble dissembling and self-denial. What was, perhaps, less predictable was that the church should be the beneficiary of all those pent-up emotions and repressed energies. But for the 8-year-old Jackson, the church represented music, singing, escape. “Singing was everything to me,” he says. “It gave me hope.” It also gave him an audience. As worship leader at the age of 14, he got to lead the congregation in a handful of songs preceding the sermon, an early platform for his musical gifts and a galvanizing insight into the power of song to connect and inspire. (At a September fundraiser for Fight Back New York, a pressure group aimed at removing anti-equality state senators from office, you could detect this influence in the quiet fervor with which he sang Sam Cooke’s “A Change Is Gonna Come”).

Jackson readily admits that the church planted the seeds of service that now finds expression in his work for amfAR and the Point Foundation. Digging ditches in Mexico and working in orphanages made him feel less powerless, less self-absorbed. It’s not a stretch to say that the church prepared him to be the advocate he’s become, one of the few entertainers unafraid to be out and outspoken. That’s a rare combination in a culture where knee-jerk homophobia keeps most actors in the closet until they’re shamed or driven out of it. Entertaining and activism don’t always go hand-in-hand, but Jackson is helped by his old-school charm. He has a quick, broad smile and a gentle wit that would have made him an excellent leading man in the screwball comedies that Hollywood turned out in the 1930s and ’40s, movies like Bringing Up Baby and His Girl Friday. It’s the kind of quality that makes people take out their checkbooks at the end of a long fundraising dinner.

“He has such a big and tender heart,” says Sherri Jackson on the telephone from Newport. She has been counting off all of the shows in which she’s seen her son perform, starting with Bye Bye Birdie and Li’l Abner in high school -- “he was in a show choir, which was a lot like Glee” -- through his early career in Seattle and his headline-grabbing roles on Broadway. When United 93, in which Jackson played gay hero Mark Bingham, came to the local Roxy in 2006 -- “the town was so supportive, the editor of the newspaper even wrote an editorial about it” -- she circled around every night just to count how many people were there. “I haven’t missed a thing he’s done,” she says, before pausing to correct this sweeping statement. “Actually, the only one I’ve missed,” -- she lets out a long, ironic laugh -- “is The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. That was a little raw. And I think I missed Rocky, as well, in Seattle.”

The omissions are telling. Prominent members of their church and local community, the Jacksons were born-again Christians with a devout belief in the teachings of the Bible. Jackson’s father was a police officer and undersheriff with a love of Westerns (Cheyenne was named after the long-running TV show starring Clint Walker as the eponymous gun-slinging hero, and not the Native American tribe from which he is partly descended). His mother was a police dispatcher. Church was compulsory, twice a week for three-and-a-half hours at a time, plus Sunday School. At home, they played Christian music -- Amy Grant, Michael W. Smith, Sandi Patty, and DeGarmo & Key. Jackson, who still remembers the Spokane Christian bookstore pulling Amy Grant’s CDs in retaliation for her “secular” duet with Peter Cetera, says he’s had to play catch-up on a lot of pop culture from his childhood. (Maybe a little too much; Lapka complains that Jackson is addicted to “what I call train-wreck TV, and I hate all of those reality shows.”)

Although Sherri Jackson does not dwell on the complicated reconciliation that followed her son’s coming out -- he called a meeting to address his parents and three siblings when he was 19 -- it’s clear that it was a long, painful process. “It was a difficult time,” she concedes. “It can be real divisive, but I feel we weathered it very well. I feel it opens your heart. I feel I’ve become more openhearted, because otherwise the world can be black and white, and it isn’t. It’s good to grow.”

Perversely, given the religious tenor of his upbringing, to say nothing of that stern warning on the TV set, no effort was made to deter young Cheyenne from worshiping another major deity: Wonder Woman. Even from a distance of 25 years, the memory of his weekly Lynda Carter fix gives Jackson goosebumps. A few years ago, his father found an old woodburning art kit of the kind once popular among boy scouts. The idea was to use a woodburning pen to etch around a suitably masculine image on a piece of wood, in this case a muscle car. Jackson, however, must have lost interest part way through. “It was as if I started it and was, like, ‘Eh, I don’t want to do that.’ And then I turn it over, and on the other side, I’d freehanded a portrait of Wonder Woman. Not only that, I’d added watercolors. I had her blue undies and her red thing. I just thought that was a perfect encapsulation of me as a child.”

The etching is now up on his fridge in the Manhattan apartment he shares with Lapka. “It’s one of my favorite things just because what it represents is so personal,” he says. “I know exactly what I felt like being that 8-year-old boy in Idaho where there are no gay people -- well, there are two gay people, they’re called the dump dykes, and they run the dump -- and no black people. It’s 40 miles from the Aryan Nation’s compound. So to be different and to know that you’re just from another planet…” He trails off, before resuming with an anecdote about meeting Carter some years ago at Feinstein’s in New York. She was singing Rita Hayworth numbers such as “Put the Blame on Mame,” and Jackson, who has several of her albums as well as one of the few VHS copies of her movie, Bobbie Jo and the Outlaw, was finally able to tell her how much she meant to him. “I told her everything and she was so lovely. And it’s so strange -- so not strange -- but so many people feel the exact same way.”

For Lapka, Jackson’s guileless quality and big-hearted enthusiasm is both an asset and a liability. “He goes into every situation believing in everyone,” he says. “That’s a wonderful quality, but it also leaves him exposed. If I could change anything about that I’d want him to self-protect more, but I don’t think he’d be the same person if he did.” Tall and muscular, with a keen, dry wit, Lapka loves to quote from books and TV shows (he describes his relationship to Jackson by paraphrasing a line from The Simpsons, in which Homer tells Marge, “Our differences are on the surface, but our sames go all the way down.”) and tends to stay in the background, volleying quips whenever they encounter annoying celebrity behavior.

For his part, Jackson looks to Lapka, who he met in Seattle -- “he was working at corporate Starbucks doing his science-nerd algorithm physics stuff” -- as an example of how to be in his own life -- resolute, confident, fearless. He tells a revealing anecdote about rehearsing for All Shook Up, his first major Broadway role. Harvey Weinstein was one of the producers, and on Jackson’s request recommended an acting coach to help him develop the character. “He immediately just broke down my façade -- all my bullshit -- and challenged me to own my own space,” recalls Jackson. The coach took him to Ninth Avenue in Manhattan, pointed down the busy sidewalk, and commanded him to walk right down the center, not bobbing or weaving as Jackson would ordinarily do. “They’ll move for you,” he told the hesitant actor. “It was very hard,” recalls Jackson. “People were like, ‘Asshole, I’m holding groceries here, what the fuck,’ but I did it. I learned to hold my own space.” He smiles. “That’s when things really started happening.”

To see a slide show of images featuring Cheyenne Jackson in OUT magazine, click here.

'Jersey Boys' Heading to the Big Screen

GK Films, the new production company from producer Graham King (The Departed, The Town), has nabbed the feature film rights to the Tony award winning mega-hit musical Jersey Boys, according to Deadline New York.

About the seemingly overnight success of the Four Seasons (i.e. Frankie Valli, Bob Gaudio, Tommy DeVito, and Nick Massi) in the 1960s, the film will include the group’s hit songs, like “Sherry,” “Big Girls Don’t Cry,” and “Oh What a Night.”

The screenplay will be written by Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice, who wrote the book of the show. Vallie and Gaudio will executive produce.

No word yet on when it will be released.

Broadway's Revival of "Angels in America" has Gone into Production

About a month ago rehearsals for the Broadway revival of Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia commenced. It is based on the former Tony Award winning Best Play by playwright Tony Kushner and stars Zachary Quinto, Bill Heck, Billy Porter, and Christian Borle.

Performances have already begun and because the shows are selling out so quickly, the show’s run has been extended again until February 20, 2011.

Angels in America opens September 14th at Signature Theatre Company. This play, shown in two parts — Millennium Approaches and Perestroika — is set in the mid-1980s, both the Reagan years and the height of the AIDS epidemic in America.

Among the many roles the eight actors take on are a young gay man with AIDS, his frightened, unfaithful lover, his former drag queen nurse, a troubled Mormon couple, a steel-winged angel, a rabbi; a Reagan politico and Ethel Rosenberg.

If you're in New York this Fall or Winter, make sure you catch this sure-to-be hit!

Ellen DeGeneres Makes Surprise Broadway Debut

Comedienne Ellen DeGeneres stunned New York theatregoers on Tuesday night when she made her Broadway debut with a surprise cameo in hit musical Promises, Promises.

The funnywoman, 52, hit the stage as a nurse in the first act of the play, which stars Sean Hayes and Kristin Chenoweth.

But DeGeneres' brief appearance was only a one-off. Te stint was filmed for the new season of her talk show The Ellen DeGeneres Show, which returns to the air next week.

Tony Winner Alan Cumming, Studly Nick Adams and Others Heat Up Broadway Bares Benefit

Some of Broadway’s biggest stars played some “Strip-opoly” in New York City Sunday night to raise money for a good cause. Lucky for us!

Broadway Bares XX: "Strip-opoly" featured over 200 of New York's sexiest dancers at Broadway's hottest night in an event produced by and benefitting Broadway Cares/ Equity Fights AIDS. It was held Sunday, June 20th at Roseland Ballroom. Broadway Bares XX: "Strip-opoly" was produced by and benefits Broadway Cares/ Equity Fights AIDS.

The event was produced by Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS, Executive Produced by Tony Award-winner Jerry Mitchell (Love Never Dies, Catch Me If You Can, Legally Blonde), and was directed by Josh Rhodes (The Drowsy Chaperone, Fosse).

The first Broadway Bares in 1992 featured seven dancers stripping at Splash bar and raised over $8,000. Since then, the 19 subsequent editions of Broadway Bares have collectively raised over $6 million to benefit Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS and grown to a full-fledged production featuring over 200 of Broadway's sexiest dancers.

At this year's performance, Tony winner Alan Cumming kept most of his clothes on but got into the spirit of things with a dazzling look. Wearing next to nothing was Broadway’s best bod Nick Adams currently appearing in La Cage aux Folles.

Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS is one of the nation's leading industry-based, nonprofit AIDS fundraising and grant-making organizations. By drawing upon the talents, resources and generosity of the American theatre community, since 1988 BC/EFA has raised over $175 million for essential services for people with AIDS and other critical illnesses across the United States.

BC/EFA is the major supporter of seven programs at The Actors' Fund - including The AIDS Initiative, The Phyllis Newman Women's Health Initiative, The Al Hirschfeld Free Health Clinic, The Dancers' Resource and three supportive housing residences. BC/EFA also awards annual grants to over 400 AIDS and family service organizations nationwide.

For more information, please visit the BC/EFA website at http://www.broadwaycares.org/. To see many, many more photos from this near-naked night, go to BroadwayWorld.com.

The Tony Awards Winners!

The 'Great White Way' went Red on Sunday night when John Logan's Broadway hit landed the lion's share of honours at the 64th annual Tony Awards, including Best Play and Best Director.

The hit show, starring Brits Alfred Molina and Eddie Redmayne, picked up five awards at New York's Radio City Music Hall.

Bon Jovi star David Bryan's Memphis was also the toast of Broadway, picking up four awards - including the night's Best Musical honour. Fela! and La Cage aux Folles claimed only three of their 11 nominations each.

Onstage husband and wife Denzel Washington and Viola Davis were big winners, claiming the night's Best Actor and Actress prizes for a Play for Fences, which was also named Best Revival. Scarlett Johansson was a first-time Tony Awards winner for her Broadway debut in A View From The Bridge and Catherine Zeta-Jones was named Best Actress in a Musical.

Green Day's American Idiot was a double winner.

There were also special awards for British playwright Alan Ayckbourn and actors Marian Seldes and David Hyde Pierce.

The show was a true celebration of all things musical and theatrical with highlights including a show-stopping performance by Glee stars Matthew Morrison and Lea Michele, a dramatic rendition of Send in the Clowns by Zeta-Jones and stunning segments from hit musicals Fela! and La Cage aux Folles.

Green Day helped give the big show a rocking start as they performed two songs from their American Idiot musical.

It was couple's night in the audience with Johansson joined by husband Ryan Reynolds, Michael Douglas supporting his wife Zeta-Jones and Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith and Antonio Banderas and Melanie Griffith turning out.

Even Jay-z, who had performed at the Bonnaroo festival in Tennessee on Saturday, and his wife Beyonce dressed it up for a night at the theatre awards.

Host Sean Hayes was perfect, cracking jokes at the expense of some of his movie star audience members and dressing up as both Annie and Spider-Man for added laughs.

The 2010 Tony Award winners are:

Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Play - Scarlett Johansson (A View From The Bridge)
Best Performance by a Featured Actor in a Play - Eddie Redmayne (Red)
Best Direction of a Play - Michael Grandage (Red)
Best Direction of a Musical - Terry Johnson (La Cage aux Folles)
Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Musical - Katie Finneran (Promises, Promises)
Best Performance by a Featured Actor in a Musical - Levi Kreis (Million Dollar Quartet)
Best Costume Design of a Play - Catherine Zuber (The Royal Family)
Best Costume Design of a Musical - Marina Draghici (Fela!)
Best Lighting Design of a Musical - Kevin Adams (American Idiot)
Best Scenic Design of a Play - Christopher Oram (Red)
Best Scenic Design of a Musical - Christine Jones (American Idiot)
Best Lighting Design of a Play - Adam Cork (Red)
Best Sound Design of a Musical - Robert Kaplowitz (Fela!)
Best Performance by a Leading Lady in a Play - Viola Davis (Fences)
Best Performance by a Leading Man in a Play - Denzel Washington (Fences)
Lifetime Achievement Award - Alan Ayckbourn
Lifetime Achievement Award - Marian Seldes
Isabelle Stephenson Award - David Hyde Pierce
Best Orchestrations - David Bryan & Daryl Waters (Memphis)
Best Original Score - David Bryan & Joe Dipietro (Memphis)
Best Book of a Musical - Joe Dipietro (Memphis)
Best Choreography - Bill T. Jones (Fela!)
Best Revival of a Play - Fences
Best Play - Red
Best Revival of a Musical - La Cage aux Folles
Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Musical - Catherine Zeta-Jones (A Little Night Music)
Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Musical - Douglas Hodge (La Cage aux Folles)
Best Musical - Memphis

Ricky Martin to Join Broadway's Evita Revival

Pop singer Ricky Martin will play Che and the Argentine actress Elena Roger will reprise her acclaimed West End performance as Eva Perón in Broadway’s first revival of the musical “Evita,” which is expected to begin performances in spring 2012, the producers of the show announced on Thursday.

The two actors represent a mix of celebrity and theater chops, with star power being the most crucial ingredient of late for Broadway revivals — though the story and music of the legendary Argentine first lady bring their own cachet as well. The show remains one of the most popular of the composer Andrew Lloyd Webber and the book writer and lyricist Tim Rice; the original Broadway production ran from 1979 to 1983, and won seven Tony Awards, including best musical, best direction for Harold Prince, and acting honors for Patti LuPone as Evita and Mandy Patinkin as Che.

The Puerto Rican-born Mr. Martin, 38, became a major pop sensation in the United States with his 1999 hit song “Livin’ la Vida Loca,” abetted by his charisma and good looks. His one previous stint on Broadway came three years earlier, as the besotted French student Marius in “Les Misérables.”

Ms. Roger, 35, drew rapturous critical notices as Evita in the 2006 revival of the show in London; she also earned a nomination for an Olivier Award, the British version of the Tony. Ms. Roger was little known beyond Argentina when she was chosen for the West End production; this latest revival will mark her Broadway debut. Ms. Roger won an Olivier last year for playing Édith Piaf in the Donmar Warehouse production of “Piaf.”

Michael Grandage, who directed Ms. Roger in the 2006 “Evita,” will direct the Broadway production. Mr. Grandage, the artistic director of the Donmar, has been nominated for a Tony Award this year for best director for the Broadway play “Red.” Rob Ashford, the director of the current Broadway musical revival “Promises, Promises,” will be the choreographer on “Evita,” as he was for the 2006 production in London.

Performance dates were not announced beyond spring 2012, and additional casting and creative team members will be announced later. The lead producers, Hal Luftig and Scott Sanders, said in a statement that the show would run in a theater owned by the Nederlander Organization, one of the three major Broadway theater owners.

Sean Hayes Named Host of This Year's Tonys

Current Promises, Promises Tony nominee and past Will & Grace Emmy winner Sean Hayes will host June 13's 64th annual Tony Awards ceremony, CBS – which will broadcast the show live from Radio City Music Hall – announced Monday.

The Tonys honor Broadway's best. This year's top nominees include the musicals Fela!" and La Cage aux Folles, with 11 nods each, and the revival of the drama Fences, starring Denzel Washington, with 10.

"I am absolutely thrilled to be hosting the Tony Awards," Hayes, 39, said in a statement. "As the new guy on Broadway, it's an honor to be included in the established alumni."

Hayes was also the subject of a controversial Newsweek essay on April 26, in which journalist Ramin Setoodeh suggested that gay actors (Hayes has recently come out) could not be believed in straight roles. The reaction was swift and severe.

Hayes's Promises costar, Kristin Chenoweth, led the charge, labeling Setoodeh's position "moronic."

All-Star Roster

Besides Hayes and Washington, other familiar names nominated for Tonys this season include Jude Law in Hamlet; Alfred Molina, in Red; Liev Schreiber in A View from the Bridge; Christopher Walken in A Behanding in Spokane; Kelsey Grammer in La Cage; Catherine Zeta-Jones and Angela Lansbury in A Little Night Music; Linda Lavin in Collected Stories; and Valerie Harper in Looped.

For a complete list of nominees, visit the Tonys website.

2010 Drama Desk Awards unveiled: “La Cage Aux Folles” Wins Best Musical Revival

La Cage Aux Folles was named outstanding revival of a musical Sunday at the Drama Desk Awards while one of its stars, Douglas Hodge, won the lead actor in a musical revival prize beating out actor Nathan Lane (Addams Family) and Cheyenne Jackson (Finian’s Rainbow), among others.

Catherine Zeta-Jones (A Little Night Music) tied for the outstanding lead actress in a musical revival with Montego Glover (Memphis). Sondheim on Sondheim starring Vanessa Williams and Barbara Cook was named outstanding musical review.

Other winners include: John Logan, Red (outstanding play), Memphis (outstanding musical), A View From a Bridge and Fences (outstanding play – tie), Liev Schreiber (A View From a Bridge) was named best actor in a play and Jan Maxwell (The Royal Family) won best actress in a play.

For a full list of the winners, go to BroadwayWorld.com.

Paparazzi!: A League of His Own

Hugh Jackman attends the Drama League Awards Friday at New York's Marriott Marquis, where the actor was honored for his role in the Broadway play A Steady Rain.

Broadway's Kristin Chenoweth Attacks Newsweek Over 'Homophobic' Article

Actress Kristin Chenoweth has taken aim at Newsweek magazine after a popular columnist attacked her gay Promises, Promises co-star Sean Hayes for portraying a straight man on Broadway.

Ramin Setoodeh suggested the former Will & Grace star was "wooden and insincere" in an online article, titled Straight Jacket, about homosexuals playing it straight on Broadway.

Appalled by the piece, Chenoweth penned an open letter, defending a gay star's right to play any role, and posted it on several social network sites over the weekend.

She wrote, "I was shocked on many levels to see Newsweek publishing Ramin Setoodeh's horrendously homophobic Straight Jacket, which argues that gay actors are simply unfit to play straight.

"I'd normally keep silent on such matters and write such small-minded viewpoints off as perhaps a blip in common sense, but the offense I take to this article, and your decision to publish it, is not really even related to my profession or my work with Hayes.

"This article offends me because I am a human being, a woman and a Christian. For example, there was a time when Jewish actors had to change their names because anti-Semites thought no Jew could convincingly play Gentile.

"I know how much it means to young people struggling with their sexuality to see out & proud actors like Sean Hayes, (Glee star) Jonathan Groff, Neil Patrick Harris and Cynthia Nixon succeeding in their work without having to keep their sexuality a secret. I encourage Newsweek to embrace stories which promote acceptance, love, unity and singing and dancing for all!"

Jordin Sparks to Play Lead in Broadway Show

American Idol alum Jordin Sparks is heading to Broadway! The singer has signed on to play the lead character Rosario in the Grammy-winning musical In the Heights starting in August, and she admits the role will be a "dream" for her.

Sparks said in a statement: "It's always been one of my dreams to perform on Broadway. This is a brand new experience for me. I look so forward to spending time in New York City and joining this talented cast and my favorite new musical."

The 12-week run will play through until November 14th.

Jordin revealed her nerves about the role on Twitter, saying her heart was racing when she met the director. She wrote: "Toured the theatre 4 In The Heights! Spoke w/ the director, saw backstage and where my dressing room will be. My heart wouldnt stop pounding!!"

In the Heights tells the tale of a Dominican family living in New York who become the focus of neighborhood admiration when their daughter begins attending college.

Jordin is currently taking part in a 44-date US tour which began on May 1st and finishes in early August.

The Tony Awards Nominations are in...

One thing not lacking on Broadway this season was star power – with such marquee names as Hugh Jackman, Daniel Craig, Scarlett Johansson, Liev Schreiber, Denzel Washington, Justin Bartha, Alicia Silverstone, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Christopher Walken, Jude Law, Sienna Miller Sean Hayes, Kelsey Grammer, Laura Linney and even Uncle Fester from The Addams Family packing in the crowds.

As for who among them will take home the Tony, the selection process narrowed Tuesday morning with the announcement of nominations by the American Theatre Wing, with the stirring musical Fela!, about Nigerian Afrobeat legend Fela Anikulapo Kuti, and the moving revival of La Cage Aux Folles, featuring pitch-perfect performances from Kelsey Grammer and British actor Douglas Hodge, outdistancing all other shows – with 11 nominations each.

Hot on their heels was the revival of August Wilson's Fences, starring nominees Denzel Washington and Viola Davis. It received 10 nominations.

In the field of leading actor in a play, besides Washington, are Jude Law in Hamlet; Alfred Molina, as the artist Mark Rothko, in Red,
Liev Schreiber in the revival of Arthur Miller's A View from the Bridge and Christopher Walken in Martin McDonaugh's A Behanding in Spokane.

In addition to Viola Davis, the nominated leading actresses in a play are Valerie Harper as the late legend Tallulah Bankhead in Looped; Linda Lavin as a New York author in Donald Margulies's Collected Stories;
Laura Linney as a disillusioned journalist in Time Stands Still and Jan Maxwell as a member of a theatrical dynasty in the classic The Royal Family

Best play nominations went to In the Next Room, Next Fall, Red and Time Stands Still.

Sorry, Morticia and Gomez

In the best musical category, while the critically wounded The Addams Family managed to gain two nods, for supporting actor Kevin Chamberlain (who plays Fester) and for its score, it was basically shut out, with its stars, Nathan Lane and Bebe Neuwirth, ignored.

Also glaringly overlooked, in the straight play category, was Hugh Jackman in A Steady Rain, despite the box office – and sexual heat – both he and costar Daniel Craig generated during its limited run.

On happier notes, the best musical nominees are Green Day's American Idiot, Fela!, Memphis and Million Dollar Quartet, about a 1956 jam session starring Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, and Elvis Presley.

Lead actor in a musical nods went to Kelsey Grammer, La Cage Aux Folles; Sean Hayes, Promises, Promises; 
Douglas Hodge, La Cage Aux Folles;
 Chad Kimball, Memphis; and Sahr Ngaujah, Fela!

Lead actress in a musical nominees: Kate Baldwin, Finian's Rainbow;
 Montego Glover, Memphis;
 Christiane Noll, Ragtime;
 Sherie Rene Scott, Everyday Rapture; and
 Catherine Zeta-Jones, A Little Night Music.

Other nominations worth noting are Scarlett Johansson's for featured actress in A View from the Bridge and two nominated musical featured actresses who long ago earned the stars on their dressing room doors (and already have Tonys on their mantles): Barbara Cook, the original Marian the Librarian in 1957's The Music Man, now in the running for her contribution to the new musical compendium Sondheim on Sondheim, and everybody's favorite, Angela Lansbury, who plays Catherine Zeta-Jones's mother in the revival of Sondheim's A Little Night Music.

For a complete list of nominations, go to the Tony Awards website.

The 64th annual Tony Awards will be telecast on CBS, live from Radio City Music Hall, on Sunday, June 13th, in a three-hour show beginning at 8 p.m. ET. No host has been announced as yet, though past emcees have included Jackman, Lansbury and Neil Patrick Harris.