And "Monty Python's the Meaning of Life"

Wait. JANUARY 22 is the drawing? Well, crap. My ESP is clearly on the fritz.

David Mamet's "The Water Engine"—West Coast Premiere, BTW…

Viertel has certainly earned the right to express his opinions (he's even been a critic, and a good one, as he raved about a show I directed…) I think it might be worth seeking out, but as with all books about an art form—including Sondheim's—it'll probably end up being a listing of prejudices.

I'm not a huge fan of putting artists in danger under any circumstances (as Olivier said to Dustin Hoffman on the set of "Marathon Man", "My dear boy, you should try acting…"

Any chance we'll talk about Michael Wilson on Friday?

Kind of macabre in the face of…

I'd love to!

While the movie is a fictionalized account of the Scopes Trial, its source material is a Broadway play by Lawrence and Lee (their claim to fame is a dramatization of the novel "Auntie Mame", which was the source of the musical). I'm a shut-in, so that's how I know…

"Grease" was always a terrible musical. However, in its original incarnation (in Chicago), it was a loosely held-together pastiche of 1950's stereotypes. The plot was never the main allure of the show, it was the song parodies and exaggerated characters from the audience's childhood that made it so popular (authors…

Except, of course, in the original stage play the lyric is "she's a real pussy wagon", and they don't mean veterinarian's truck…

"In Russia, Founding Fathers don't wait for electricity, electricity waits for them!"—Yakov Smirnov

Check out Robert Altman's TV movie version of this. Jeff Daniels and Eric Bogosian are brilliant.

Sadly, that would be Paul Kanter…

I worked the FM radio station at my college when this came out. The station manager wrote in big letters next to "Rednecks"—DO NOT PLAY THIS ON THE AIR. So of course, I did. Two weeks suspension from the station. But it was worth it, because this is arguably Newman's best album, and I wanted every prick I went to…

William Styron's amazing book on the subject has been in development hell since the 1970's (when the term "development hell" actually MEANT SOMETHING). Nobody could get it made, probably for the same reason it had to be made today by someone outside the system and with a consuming passion…

"No! Tom Hiddleston as Michael Jackson, Joseph Feinnes as the best friend!"—Louis B. Mayer

I teach theatre in Arkansas (okay, go there, I can take it), and when I mention the show in any of my classes one person swoons and the rest are like, "huh"?

Tom Hiddleston in John Le Carre's The Night Manager on AMC or GTFO…

Claudine Longet?