John Hodgman News

San Francisco Playhouse will continue its 20th Anniversary season with the imaginative and exhilarating hit musical adaptation of William Shakespeare's As You Like It. Helmed by San Francisco Playhouse's Artistic Director Bill English with music direction by Dave Dobrusky and choreography by Nicole Helfer, As You Like It will perform November 17, 2022 – January 14, 2023.

Today's top stories include casting for Leopoldstadt on Broadway, and the world premiere of The Notebook! Plus, new Broadway dates have been announced for Camelot at Lincoln Center. Read more about these and other top stories here!

Katie Finneran, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Andréa Burns and more have joined the cast of Hulu's upcoming musical series, Up Here. John Hodgman, Sophia Hammons, Emilia Suárez, George Hampe, Julia McDermott, Scott Porter, and Ayumi Patterson will also join the previously announced Carlos Valdes (Miguel) and Mae Whitman (Lindsay). 

The CW has announced their Primetime listings for the week of April 24th. Check out the listing below. 

The CW Network has released their primetime television programming for the week of April 17th. Below is the scheduling. 

SF Sketchfest announces the initial lineup for the 20th Anniversary comedy festival taking place January 7-23 in venues across San Francisco.

As part of its 25th season, ANTIQUES ROADSHOW has produced three special episodes reimagined to feature celebrity guests as the series continues its quest to reveal hidden treasures found in homes across America.

SF Sketchfest will present Festpocalypse, an all-star virtual variety show featuring over 100 of the biggest names in comedy, film, and television livestreaming on Saturday, January 30. Festpocalypse features all new performances and appearances from The Kids in the Hall, Bob Odenkirk & David Cross, SNL alums Cheri Oteri, Fred Armisen, and more.

The Civilians, the award-winning New York-based theater company, presents the ninth annual R&D Group FINDINGS Series. 

SF Sketchfest announced a new series of Live from the Archive videos that will be released each Tuesday beginning on May 5, 2020. The series will feature many never-before-seen performances, tribute conversations and panel discussions from the past 19 years and will include appearances by many comedy and entertainment luminaries.

The Eugene Mirman (Bob's Burgers, Flight of the Conchords, Delocated) feature documentary “It Started As A Joke” is available today on VOD on Amazon, Google Play, Vudu, FandangoNow, Sony and Microsoft Xbox. 

Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez were featured on this week's episode of the podcast, Ask Me Another!

Gravitas Ventures, a Red Arrow Studios company, has announced IT STARTED AS A JOKE will be released on-demand on Friday, April 3. The feature documentary chronicles the decade-long run of the EUGENE MIRMAN COMEDY FESTIVAL including the final farewell show. Packed with stars and offering an intimate look at the New York comedy scene, It Started As A Joke celebrates Eugene's unique brand of humor and his role in the alternative comedy movement. Heartfelt and hilarious, the doc offers a bittersweet goodbye to an era and reminds us of the healing properties of comedy – even in the most challenging of life's circumstances.

Eight new half-hour episodes of Poetry in America will begin airing on public television stations nationwide (check local listings) and on the World Channel starting this April and continuing through the spring and summer. Also in April, which is National Poetry Month, the series will be available to stream on pbs.org and individual episodes will be available on poetryinamerica.org.

What happens when you throw a group of nerds in a room and ask them the universe's most important questions? Questions like 'Who'd be a worse boss, Darth Vader or the Joker?' or 'Would you rather have a Green Lantern ring or a Wizard Wand?' You get SYFY's newest series, SYFY WIRE'S THE GREAT DEBATE! Set to debut on SYFY this Summer 2020, the freshman series' 12 half-hour episodes will go into production in Los Angeles in March.

Penguin Random House Audio will produce a live audiobook recording of actor David Dean Bottrell's one-man storytelling show, David Dean Bottrell Makes Love (Random House Audio; on sale February 11, 2020). Bottrell's performance features funny and poignant true love stories from his own life as a gay man living in New York and Los Angeles and working in the entertainment industry. The audiobook edition will be recorded over two live performances in January at Dixon Place, combined with additional bonus material recorded in-studio. 

SF Sketchfest announces the initial line up for the 19th annual San Francisco Comedy Festival taking place January 9-26, 2020, featuring top comedic talent performing in venues across the city. SF Sketchfest offers fans the rare opportunity to see their favorite performers in intimate live performances, discussions and immersive comedy experiences.

From American Public Media, Too Beautiful to Live is a daily podcast from Luke Burbank and Andrew Walsh. It's about life, current events, pop culture, puttering, laser baldness helmets, and tonight pants.

Building on the momentum of a powerful series of fall kick-off events, the Chicago Humanities Festival is excited to announce the full lineup for its 30th Fall Festival. Veep star Julia Louis-Dreyfus, author Jonathan Safran Foer, historian Ibram X. Kendi, comedian and The New York Times Magazine's a?oejudgea?? John Hodgman, poet Nikki Giovanni, Black Flag frontman Henry Rollins, and Senator Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) will all be part of CHF's endeavor to explore Power this fall. Returning Festival favorites including poet and musician Patti Smith, novelist Salman Rushdie, and historian Sarah Vowell will return to Chicago this fall. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. is this year's Chicago Tribune Literary Prize recipient.

Lecy Goranson will host a star-studded gala, celebrating this year's achievements of the Obie-Award winning theater ensemble, Elevator Repair Service. Under the direction of founding Artistic Director John Collins, ERS has been making original theater for 27 years. They have achieved national and international recognition with their extensive body of work, in particular the award-winning Gatz, a verbatim staging of The Great Gatsby, which enjoyed four engagements this season, from Abu Dhabi to Perth to New York City. The New York Times called Gatz The most remarkable achievement in theater not only of this year but also of this decade (which, gee, means this century too). For more information visit elevator.org.