Roger Bart, best known to TV fans for his role as Desperate Housewives' ill-fated pharmacist — but also known to those with greenbacks to burn as Broadway's Young Frankenstein himself — has joined the cast of an untitled ABC drama pilot set at an upscale Los Angeles law firm. Bart will play Cliff, a volatile barrister whose wife also works at the firm. The cast also includes Norbert Leo Butz (B'way's Dirty Rotten Scoundrels) and Matthew Long (Jack & Bobby). — MWMMore casting news:• Battlestar Boss' New Starship Starts Staffing Up• Rose McGowan to Play a Woman in Chains?
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It is time to put on the Ritz. No sooner had the massive flop musical The Pirate Queen shut down production but it was announced that Mel Brooks' Young Frankenstein will set up its laboratory (and revolving bookcase, one has to hope) in the Hilton Theatre, with previews starting Oct. 11, followed by an official Nov. 8 Broadway bow. Tickets go on sale July 15, but that is of no concern for me; our resident theater queen Raven is getting me in for free. (That's my story and I'm sticking to it.)
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A pair of small-screen stars and a Tony winner will most likely headline Mel Brooks' Broadway-bound Young Frankenstein musical. Per Variety, Roger Bart (late of Desperate Housewives) is said to have landed the role of the deranged doc, while Will & Grace's Megan Mullally will tackle Elizabeth, his taffeta-loving fiancée. Broadway diva Sutton Foster is Inga, the woman who comes between them.Rounding out the cast are stage vets Christopher Fitzgerald as Igor and Shuler Hensley as Frankenstein's monster. Alas Frau Blücher is neighwhere to be seen. — Reporting by Raven Snook
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America loves it when an average Joe suddenly exhibits superpowers — witness the success of the Spider-Man movies and NBC's white-hot Heroes. Now Sci Fi Channel is taking that premise one crazy step further. In The Lost Room, a sprawling $20 million, six-hour miniseries (premiering tonight at 9 pm/ET), it's not the people who have amazing abilities, it's the simple, ordinary objects. There's a comb that stops time, a nail file that induces sleep, a pen that can microwave a body and — the big-ticket item — a key to a 1960s motel room that will open a portal to any destination in the world. Crime lords covet these objects, as do millionaires and religious crackpots, because to possess one is to possess its power.
But all Peter Krause wants to possess right now is some bug repellent. The actor, in his first
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Elmo tickles me, and I couldn't be more pleasantly surprised.
Not the cute Muppet but the fictional town of Elmo, Alaska, the gorgeously rustic setting of Men in Trees. Here, men are men, women are scarce and romantic comedy frequently erupts, spreading warmth all around.
At first, I dismissed Trees as a flimsy rip-off of Northern Exposure with a Sex and the City sensibility. (Trees' creator, Jenny Bicks, was a producer of that HBO hit.) I wasn't entirely wrong. Elmo can't hold a candle to Cicely's quirky brilliance, but it isn't meant to.
As I caught up with episodes that had aired on Fridays until ABC moved it after Grey's Anatomy — a better fit than the pretentious Six Degrees — I began to reli
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