John Fante, a major ‘little-known’ author, produced autobiographical novels about his early struggles which have inspired a select cadre of admirers. Among the most committed of these is writer-director Robert Towne, who’s been trying to get Fante’s Ask The Dust made for years. The upshot is a careful, […]
Former “Rent” star Idina Menzel hasn’t moved in with a lover without giving the decision a lot of thought. Or maybe she has and lived to regret it. Just listen to her plant a few red flags into the notion of blissful cohabitation as she boldly opens her […]
NEW YORK (CNN) — Idina Menzel has come a long way since her days as a wedding singer. She came out of nowhere, sizzling on Broadway as the sex kitten in the sleeper hit “Rent.” And now she’s singing her own songs on her debut album. As she […]
Take the Tonys, for example: Four newcomers from the musical’s ensemble cast have been nominated; two had never acted professionally before A FEW MONTHS AGO, Daphne Rubin-Vega was on her knees vigorously scrubbing the floor of the tenement where she worked as a sculptor’s assistant when her employer’s […]
Two months, one Pulitzer Prize and acres of magazine and newspaper pages later, the waiflike hopes of the American musical are living in fancier digs. Uprooted by a cyclone of critical ecstasy and a hunger for theatrical novelty, they have posed for fashion layouts, inspired a Bloomingdale’s ad […]
When “Rent,” a rock musical version of Puccini’s “La Boheme” opened off-Broadway last February, Jonathan Larson garnered the kind of rave reviews that young, struggling composer-lyricists pray and dream for. Larson wasn’t there to read the reviews–he died of an aortic aneurysm on the night of the final […]
The subject of the work is death at an early age. And in one of the dark dramatic coincidences theater occasionally springs on us, its 35-year-old author died only weeks before its opening. Yet no one who attends Jonathan Larson’s “Rent,” the exhilarating, landmark rock opera at the […]