The news today for Tom Cruise’s latest project, Rock of Ages, is that Saturday Night Live’s Will Forte is joining the cast of this Broadway-to-big-screen musical adaptation. Forte joins Cruise, Russell Brand, Alec Baldwin, Bryan Cranston, Catherine Zeta-Jones, and Malin Akerman’s super hot self, among others, for this star-studded celebration of the Tony-nominated musical.

Cruise is playing 80s rock superstar Stacee Jaxx and you can see from the image above that he’s hardly sacrificing his trademark manliness that he’s so well-known for these days. Don’t you worry about that, friends, because his woman, Katie Holmes, says that he’s still a boss.

“Two years ago he took me up on his P-51 Mustang, a fighter plane from World War II. He painted the words, ‘Kiss Me, Kate’ on the side,” Holmes says in the August issue of InStyle. “It feels like you’re on a bike in the sky. I thought, I’m either going to spend this whole flight totally freaked out or realize this is pretty thrilling.” (Via People)

When they landed, Katie wrapped her arms around Tom’s neck and moved in to kiss him, but he pulled back and said, “Stop it! You’re messing up my scarf!”

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Director Julie Taymor has left her $65 million Spider-Man musical just a week before the official opening night, so that’s going well.  No word yet on whether she quit or was fired, but she was definitely fired. Sources say that the producers are now considering pushing the official opening back until June, though they’ve already had a record 100, unofficial “preview” shows (which I guess is just code for “don’t complain if it still sucks”).  The delay will no doubt add to the show’s runaway budget, but should be hailed as a relief to the area’s understaffed emergency room doctors, who’ve been swamped with victims of “the spandex plague.”

“Actors are only allowed to rehearse a certain amount of time while performing on Broadway, so if they want to make some serious changes, they’re going to need to shut the show down for a good amount of time,” said NY1’s “On Stage” producer Frank DiLella. “That brings up the issue of money. The show is grossing $1.2 million a week.”
The show costs about $1 million a week to produce.
Sources say with Taymor out, the producers are considering pushing opening night of “Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark” back from next Tuesday to sometime in June.

This means the show would not be eligible for any Tony Awards this year.

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahhahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

“It’s a shame. All that money wasted,” said one New Yorker. “And for U2, with the music.”

“I think the amount of money that’s been spent on this musical is obscene,” said another. “The whole thing is ridiculous. With the number of injuries, it’s just nonsense. Money should be spent feeding the homeless, taking care of the city. It’s a reflection of our culture and it’s an outrage.” [NY1]

Wait, I’m not sure how to feel about this yet, are there any more slack-jawed yokels nearby who you could ask for an opinion?  Maybe a cabbie, or a hot dog vendor?  Oh, local news, don’t ever change. “Eh, oh, I feel bad for da homeless, but especially for dat friggin’ Bono.  Shame on you, Julie Taymor.”

Boy, who would’ve thought a Broadway musical about Spider-Man with music by U2 would turn out to be such a bad idea, huh?

Last year, HBO ran a documentary called Magic and Bird: A Courtship of Rivals (I think they meant “courtship” as a basketball pun, not to imply that the two were dating, but I’m honestly not sure which would be gayer).  Someone in the theater community apparently saw this and thought, “Hey, Magic had AIDS, maybe this could be a play!”  You can never have too many AIDS musicals, I always say.

A play about the relationship between basketball Hall of Fame members Magic Johnson and Larry Bird is being created for Broadway.
“Magic/Bird” is being developed by the producers and writer of the current Broadway show “Lombardi,” and is scheduled to debut in 2012, according to a news release.
The play “chronicles the intertwined life stories” of the two men, according to the release. It is being produced by Fran Kirmser and Tony Ponturo and written by Eric Simonson, who held the same roles in the making of “Lombardi.”
“Lombardi,” a one-act drama that opened in 2010 about the life of Hall of Fame football coach Vince Lombardi, is the only new play from the first half of the 2010-11 Broadway season that’s still running.
With the National Football League also credited as a “Lombardi” producer, it was staged with an investment of just over $3 million. Ponturo and Kirmser met on the producing team of the 2009 revival of the musical “Hair.” “Magic/Bird” is being produced in association with the NBA as well as Johnson, 51, and Bird, 54. [Bloomberg via Drew]

I’m gonna go ahead and guess that a Broadway show about Magic Johnson and Larry Bird might look a liiiiittle something like this:

I hear five minutes after they put out a casting call, Nic Cage burst in the door wearing a leather trenchcoat.  “Did somebody say something about magic birds?”

With all the attention people have been giving to the Spider-man musical, the NASCAR of Broadway,  and its endless police blotter of entertaining mishaps, people seem to have forgotten about the Green Day musical, American Idiot.  But not to worry, the producers have a plan to make it relevant again.  And that plan is Melissa Etheridge, perhaps the number one lesbian folk-pop artist of 1994.

Come to my window, Broadway.com.  I’ll be home…

Grammy winner Melissa Etheridge will be the latest rocker to step into the shoes of American Idiot’s sinister drug dealer, St. Jimmy. Etheridge will take over the role for one week only from February 1 through February 6, while the show’s current St. Jimmy, Green Day front man and show composer Billie Joe Armstrong, briefly departs the production.

“Billie Joe and I always believed that it would be incredible to have a woman take on the role of St. Jimmy,” Idiot’s director Michael Mayer said in a statement. “This character is seductive, thrilling and dangerous. Melissa Etheridge is all that and so much more. She’s a rock icon and we couldn’t be more thrilled that she’s bringing her immense talent to American Idiot.”

So next time someone asks me if I want to go see the Green Day musical, I can be like, “Screw that, I’m not sitting through the rape of my childhood.  I’m going to see that Spider-man play with music by U2.”

A thrilling, dangerous seductress

(An artist's rendition of the incident)

We’ve been Peter Panning people across the theater stage for like 200 years now, haven’t we?  I’m pretty sure they had that at the play where Abe Lincoln died.  How do you spend $65 million on a play about Spider-Man and still get that part so wrong?

An actor performing an aerial stunt fell about 30 feet, fire officials said.

Firefighters were called to the Foxwoods Theatre at about 10:45 p.m. Monday after the 31-year-old actor fell near the end of the latest preview performance. He was taken to Bellevue Hospital with minor injuries, police said. Police did not release the actor’s name, but a performer in the show identified him as Christopher Tierney.  A nurse said Tierney was in stable condition, but would not provide details.

Tierney is the show’s main aerialist and performs stunts for the roles of Spider-Man, and the villains Meeks and Kraven.

The cable to Tierney’s harness snapped during a scene in which Spider-Man rescues his love interest, Mary Jane, the performer said. It was unclear if Tierney was properly harnessed when the cable snapped. The performer said the show’s actors are responsible for hooking themselves up to harnesses used for aerial stunts.

Oh sure, the actors hooking up their own harnesses, that’s a good plan.  If a teamster’s truck breaks down on a Zac Efron movie, guess who they don’t call to fix it: Zac Efron.

(there’s more, including video):

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