Stephen Fry News

TheOneRing.net reports that New Zealand musician Neil Finn will provide the ending credits song for the highly anticipated film THE HOBBIT: AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY. Finn is best known as the lead singer and guitar player for the band Crowded House.

Two strong local performers headline a nearly perfect production of the Peter Morgan drama.

In his new documentary film Wagner & Me, director Patrick McGrady follows one of Britain's most loved performers, actor and writer Stephen Fry (Wilde, Bones), as he explores his life-long passion for the world's most controversial composer: Richard Wagner. As a Jew, when Fry enters the world of the Wagner creations he loves, he is intensely aware that it is the same music that was also loved by and inspired Adolf Hitler. Can he disentangle the music from the composer's dark associations with anti-Semitism and Nazis?

Peter Jackson's THE HOBBIT AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY is coming to theaters on December 14, 2012. Check out a just-released trailer for the highly-anticipated film below!

Michael Xavier, Janie Dee, Claire Moore, Hayley Gallivan, Maria Friedman, Danielle Hope, Alison Jiear, Haydn Gwynne, Sally Anne Triplett, David Bedella, Tam Mutu, Paul Kaye, Stuart Matthew Price, Lucy May Barker, James Bourne, Madalena Alberto and Jenna Russell are now confirmed as the full line up of artists for Mercury Musical Developments 20th Anniversary Gala on Sunday 14 October 2012 at the Novello Theatre.

The Laguna Playhouse welcomes back Rita Rudner, one of the country's top comediennes, for an exclusive three-day stand-up engagement, aptly titled Rita Rudner: Act 3, tonight, August 24 - Sunday, August 26, 2012. Performance times are 7 p.m. each evening.

The spotlight has moved from the stage to the Queensland Performing Arts Centre (QPAC) itself as QPAC celebrates more than one million visitors in the last financial year.

Soho Cinders does what it says on the tin - it's a cheeky London W1 reworking of the classic Cinderella tale, centred on Robbie (Tom Milner), a cute but savvy young gay man with very little family but many dreams. He has ugly sisters (the deliciously vulgar, lycra-clad Suzie Chard and Beverly Rudd), a wicked stepfather we never meet and of course a Buttons-style soulmate full of unrequited love for him. This is Velcro (the standout performance from Amy Lennox), a loveable, ballsy blonde who works in his dead mother's launderette.

Soho Cinders is directed by Jonathan Butterell with music by George Stiles, lyrics by Anthony Drewe, book by Anthony Drewe & Elliot Davis, choreography by Drew McOnie, design by Morgan Large and lighting design by Hugh Vanstone. Press night will be held at the Soho Theatre on Thursday, 9th August at 8.00pm, and the show runs through Sunday, 9th September, 2012. Get a first look at the production in the photos below!

Following the sold-out concert performance of Soho Cinders at the Queen's Theatre in October 2011, Stiles & Drewe's new musical receives its world premiere at Soho Theatre running from tonight, 2nd August to 9th September 2012. The full-scale production with a live band features an all-star cast, including Jenna Russell and Michael Xavier, and featuring the voice of Stephen Fry.

Deadline.com reports that THE HOBBIT director Peter Jackson confirms that the saga will be split into three individual films, with the final chapter being released in the summer of 2014.

The Laguna Playhouse welcomes back Rita Rudner, one of the country's top comediennes, for an exclusive three-day stand-up engagement, aptly titled Rita Rudner: Act 3, Friday, August 24 - Sunday, August 26, 2012. Performance times are 7 p.m. each evening.

On 14th October 2012 Mercury Musical Developments will be celebrating its 20th Anniversary with a Gala Concert celebrating British musical theatre past, present and future, for one night only, at the Novello Theatre.

From tonight, 26 July - 12 August 2012, the Criterion Theatre will present Playing The Games, a programme of work which will celebrate both artistic and sporting talent featuring emerging and established actors, comedians, musicians, playwrights and Olympians.

Mark Rylance plays the title role in Richard III in Tim Carroll's Shakespeare's Globe productions. Joining Rylance is Stephen Fry as Malvolio in Twelfth Night and Samuel Barnett and Johnny Flynn. BroadwayWorld has a first look at RICHARD III below.

The National Theatre of the Deaf has appointed a theatre veteran as its new executive director, while it also has opened a main office at the O'Neill Theater Center in New London.