Robert Reed News

Today ABC Family marks the halfway point to Christmas by adding a mix of original and acquired ABC Family holiday movies to its WATCH ABC Family App.

The 2014 New York Musical Theatre Festival (NYMF) presents Propaganda! The Musical a world premiere musical Book, Music, and Lyrics by Taylor Ferrera & Matt Webster. Nathan Brewer directs a cast of 10, including MaryJoanna Grisso (Nat. Tour: West Side Story), Nick Mason, Kenita Miller* (Bway: Xanadu, The Color Purple), Kenny Morris* (Bway: Hairspray, Les Miserables), Benjiman Dallas Redding (Nat. Tour: West Side Story), Shaun Repito (Nat. Tour: West Side Story), Dale Sampson*, Beth Cheryl Tarnow*, and Jillian Wallach (Nat. Tour: Legally Blonde). Propaganda! The Musical is being staged at PTC Performance Space, 555 West 42nd Street (bet. 9th & 10th Avenues) in NYC for five performances from Wednesday, July 23 through Sunday, July 27, 2014.

The cast of 70's sitcom 'The Brady Bunch' stopped by yesterday's THE TALK on CBS. During the appearance, Florence Henderson, who portrayed Carol Brady on the show, talked about what her character would think about turning 80.

The 2012 Nebula Award winners were announced earlier this week and it is no surprise that among the nominated was a 2007 winner of the L. Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future contest. Aliette de Bodard won best Short Story for 'Immersion,' which was published in Clarksworld last June. The Nebula is the top Award bestowed by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America organization. They also honor best Novel, Novella, Novelette, the Ray Bradbury Award for Outstanding Dramatic Presentation, the Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy Book, the Solstice Award, the Kevin O'Donnell Jr. Service Award and the Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award.

The first thing that might strike you about the very concept of this show, DEAD MAN WALKING is: why an opera? It's already been made into a movie that treated the foreboding subject matter with respect. Well, songs typically allow for emotional content to be spilled forth in musical theatre, and there is enough drama here to more than fill that need, so it just makes a kind of warped, but logical sense. And, the music is pure dissonance for the most part, with Jake Heggie's pounding, dark score laying a potent background for Terrence McNally's straightforward libretto. What would the point of a strong melody be anyway, you're not going to be humming these selections on the way home. Instead, you'll be thinking about the case itself, and the sacrifice Sister Helen made to try and get a seemingly cold-blooded killer to accept his crime and bring Christ into his life. You might even debate the death penalty a little, although the brutality of the crime may scotch any attempt to do that.

It's a story, of a lovely lady ... Florence Henderson gave audiences in Los Angele's Catalina Club an up close and 'Honest' night of entertainment with 'All The Lives Of Me,' under the musical direction of Broadway composer and Emmy Award winner Glen Roven. Friends and colleagues included Carol Burnett, Donna Mills, Robert Wagner, Rita McKenzie, Mitzi Gaynor, Norm Crosby, and Bruce Vilanch (who is credited as a co writer of the program) among others, were on hand as Florence Henderson opened with a hysterically funny number entitled 'Lifted,' before treating audiences to a look at all of her lives. She prefaced that she didnt mean lives like Shirley MacLaine has lives, but rather as a young girl growing up in KY as the youngest of ten children.

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