In a world filled with reality shows, it surprises no one more than RuPaul Charles that RuPaul’s Drag Race, which airs on LogoTV, is about to launch it’s seventh season on March 2.
“Honey, I don’t even know where my car keys are right now,” RuPaul says. “I don’t profess to know really anything. Everything I do, I am going...
The Figaro trilogy features three operas inspired by the works of Beaumarchais. Two of them are very well known: The Marriage of Figaro by Mozart and Rossini’s The Barber of Seville. The third opera, The Ghosts of Versailles, is by composer John Corigliano. He is best known for his First Symphony (performed last March by the L.A. Philharmonic), which...
“I’ve known T Bone since we grew up together in Fort Worth Texas,” says singer and actress Betty Buckley in a room at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts where she will be performing on Saturday. Her new album Ghostlight was produced by legendary musician T Bone Burnett, whom Buckley has worked with before. “He had his...
“This is the last tour of my career. I can say that right now with absolute certainty,” says 89-year old actress Angela Lansbury, best known as Jessica Fletcher from her highly successful television series Murder, She Wrote, over the phone. “Touring is tough. It really is. I wanted to come to Los Angeles. Isn’t that funny? I needed to...
Composer Igor Stravinsky’s landmark work The Rite of Spring, though commonly performed in concert halls, was written as a ballet. Last year this composition, considered one of the most groundbreaking works of the 20th century, celebrated its hundredth anniversary. To honor the centennial Carolina Performing Arts at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill commissioned multiple works by...
Forty-five minutes after my interview with Harvey Fierstein is scheduled to take place my phone rings. I say hello and hear, “I’m so, so sorry. I’m never late for interviews.” I didn’t need to ask who it was. You can’t mistake Fierstein’s voice—whether it’s his speaking voice or his written one. The latter is on display at the Pantages...
Ninety-four years have not diminished Maureen O’Hara’s wonderful lilting voice or her unfiltered worldview. The Irish-born actress appeared on film in such classics as The Quiet Man (1952), A Miracle on 34th Street (1947), and the original The Parent Trap (1961). Though she never received a single Oscar nomination, on November 8 she will receive an Honorary Academy Award from...
The number of living legends from the world of film and theater is shrinking. Shirley MacLaine qualifies as both. From her rise to fame as Carol Haney’s understudy in 1954’s The Pajama Game (which led to a contract with Paramount Pictures) to her recent appearances as Martha Levinson on Downton Abbey, the Oscar-winning actress (Terms of Endearment) and best-selling...
A theatrical production with nudity, coarse language, explicit sexuality, and strong political themes might not be among the shows most venues would consider booking. At the family-friendly Hollywood Bowl, it’s even more surprising. This weekend the 1967 musical Hair will be performed at the 92-year-old amphitheater as part of its annual Broadway at the Bowl event, joining a roster...