http://www.post-gazette.com/ Articles from all entertainment categories en-us Copyright 2012, post-gazette.com. Tue, 7 Feb 2012 04:39:38 -0500 15 http://www.post-gazette.com/includes/2007design/images/150x30pg_now_logo.gif http://www.post-gazette.com/ 144 39 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/12038/1208514-44.stm?cmpid=entertainment.xml Jack Gantos kept his hopes for winning a Newbery Medal -- given annually by the American Library Association to the best-written children's book -- in "lockdown mode" over the past few months. Mr. Gantos, 60, had come close to winning the gold Newbery Medal in 2001 for "Joey Pigza Loses Control." Tue, 7 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0500 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/12038/1208533-60.stm?cmpid=entertainment.xml Patrons at the Hollywood Theater in Dormont can meet the men behind the Internet sensations "Pittsburgh Dad" and "The Mercury Men" tonight. Tue, 7 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0500 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/12038/1208534-67.stm?cmpid=entertainment.xml ABC's "The River" turns out to be a more interesting show than its pilot suggests. That's not to say the premiere, airing tonight at 9 on WTAE, is disappointing -- it's a scary enough introduction -- but future episodes expand the show's universe, better develop the characters and reveal that while the show is called "The River," not every story has to take place on a boat. Tue, 7 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0500 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/12038/1208535-325.stm?cmpid=entertainment.xml What was not to love about Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre's succulent dance foray among the hallmark composers known as the three B's -- Bach, Beethoven and Brahms? Called "Uncommon," it wasn't a full-length theatrical production, but in many respects was a more massive undertaking. Tue, 7 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0500 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/12038/1208539-348-0.stm?cmpid=entertainment.xml Defeat is a bitter pill to swallow -- especially at the Super Bowl. Perhaps it was made a bit easier for Patriots' quarterback Tom Brady, whose wife Gisele Bndchen was on hand to comfort him in Indianapolis on Sunday night, after losing 21-17 to Eli Manning and the New York Giants in a suspenseful fourth quarter, People reports. Tue, 7 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0500 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/12037/1208484-42.stm?cmpid=entertainment.xml PHILADELPHIA -- The public viewing is set for the former spiritual leader of Philadelphia's 1.5 million Catholics. Mon, 6 Feb 2012 11:31:00 -0500 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/12037/1208103-67.stm?cmpid=entertainment.xml WTAE will broadcast the funeral Mass in Philadelphia for Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua, who served as Bishop of the Diocese of Pittsburgh from 1983 to 1987, at 1:30 p.m. Tuesday on thisTV Pittsburgh, the station's over-the-air digital subchannel, Channel 4.2. Mon, 6 Feb 2012 11:30:00 -0500 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/12037/1208437-388.stm?cmpid=entertainment.xml Listen to Richard Egarr speak about the harpsichord and you might think he picked the wrong instrument. At his concerts, recitals and in interviews, he talks as much about the lute as he does the baroque keyboard instrument. But the British musician has good reason, and good reasoning. Mon, 6 Feb 2012 10:31:00 -0500 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/12037/1208439-67-0.stm?cmpid=entertainment.xml According to one poll released last week, 55 percent of U.S. adults said they planned to tune in to Sunday's Super Bowl as much or more for the commercials than for the game. If that's true, and if those viewers also spend any time on social media sites like Facebook or Twitter, odds are this was a pretty disappointing year for them. Mon, 6 Feb 2012 10:30:00 -0500 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/12037/1208438-388.stm?cmpid=entertainment.xml While her new boyfriend/producer Justin Vernon was preparing to make his "Saturday Night Live" debut with Bon Iver on Saturday, Kathleen Edwards was working another sold-out crowd at the Rex Theater. "SNL" ought to look her up sometime, because Kittythefool, as fans know her on Twitter, is the one with the range. Case in point was "A Soft Place to Land." Mon, 6 Feb 2012 00:30:00 -0500 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/12037/1208096-129.stm?cmpid=entertainment.xml At 71, five-time Grammy award winner and music legend Dionne Warwick is still on the move. To celebrate her golden anniversary in the music business, she has embarked on a world tour that will take her to six continents. It is a long way from East Orange, N.J., where her roots in gospel music began at age 6. Mon, 6 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0500 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/12036/1208306-51-0.stm?cmpid=entertainment.xml The visitors have been coming at a steady trickle, reverent, bemused, squinting at the crabbed handwriting in the anguished letters from his American tour ("They will never leave me alone ... I shake hands every day ... with five or six hundred people"), the missives on mesmerism, philanthropy, storytelling, Christmas books and his own manic energy. Sun, 5 Feb 2012 13:47:00 -0500 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/12036/1208080-51-0.stm?cmpid=entertainment.xml Three hundred and fifty years ago, using the wrong pronouns in Massachusetts could land you in hot water. If you were a Quaker living in a Massachusetts Bay settlement circa 1660, your transgressive language would have made you a target for the governing Puritans. Quakers rejected the hierarchical pronoun system that required ye, you and your to be used as a sign of deference to superiors. Sun, 5 Feb 2012 11:20:00 -0500 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/12036/1208319-51.stm?cmpid=entertainment.xml The august Morgan Library in midtown Manhattan houses the second largest collection of manuscripts and letters after the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, including the original manuscript of "A Christmas Carol," one of only a handful of Dickens' original works located outside Britain, said Declan Kiely, the Robert H. Taylor Curator of Manuscripts at the library. Sun, 5 Feb 2012 11:09:00 -0500 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/12036/1207933-325.stm?cmpid=entertainment.xml Mark Clayton Southers has been working on "The Gammage Project" for two years and directing the play through rehearsals as it readies for a Thursday opening. There was a moment when he let his actors do some freestyle acting, just to have a little fun, before getting back to the play. "That's going to be the most fun we have," he said. "It's a real tough piece." Sun, 5 Feb 2012 09:25:00 -0500 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/12036/1205681-67.stm?cmpid=entertainment.xml It is often the case that networks in the most dire straits take the wildest swings. ABC unleashed "Twin Peaks" during a ratings downturn and NBC's early 1980s desperation allowed for the creative rebirth of the network with "Hill Street Blues," "Cheers" and "The Cosby Show." Sun, 5 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0500 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/12036/1207906-44.stm?cmpid=entertainment.xml A list of the best-selling fiction and nonfiction titles. Sun, 5 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0500 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/12036/1207907-148.stm?cmpid=entertainment.xml Krys Lee's stories in her debut collection, "Drifting House," occupy spaces between, and her characters -- immigrants and refugees, families and lovers -- are nomads of time, place and culture. They make a keen observation of the layers of Korean society the past few generations, and of the dualities that have shaped the peninsula and its people Sun, 5 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0500 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/12036/1207908-148.stm?cmpid=entertainment.xml Considering how many books on pro football are released every year, it's eye-opening that a definitive biography of the best man ever to take a snap from center has never been published. That man, of course, is Bart Starr, and if you didn't know that, then it is especially important that you read "America's Quarterback" by Keith Dunnavant, the most important book on pro football this season. Sun, 5 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0500 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/12036/1207909-148.stm?cmpid=entertainment.xml The cover image of Georgia Pellegrini's "Girl Hunter" is fashioned after those old master portraits, the purpose of which is not so much to show what someone looks like, but to display who they are. Sun, 5 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0500 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/12036/1207923-67-0.stm?cmpid=entertainment.xml On a beautiful fall day in New York, Christian Borle was thinking of Pittsburgh. He had expected to return to his hometown, but filming episodes of the new NBC series "Smash" was demanding his time. "Where in Pittsburgh are you so I can imagine it?" he asked. When I told him I was near the Point, he said, "Ah. I really, really wanted to come back for Thanksgiving." Sun, 5 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0500 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/12036/1207942-388-0.stm?cmpid=entertainment.xml A kickoff reception for the exhibit "A City of Rhythm: A Tribute to African American Music in Pittsburgh" will be held in the lobby of the City-County Building, Downtown, at 6 p.m. The reception, which is free and open to the public, will include refreshments, a performance by singer/songwriter Joy Ike and comments by those involved with the city's Black History Month celebration. Sun, 5 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0500 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/12036/1207944-348.stm?cmpid=entertainment.xml Chris Bell, 25, was named to Forbes magazine's 30 Under 30 list, along with more famous names like LeBron James and actor Jonah Hill, Stanford quarterback Andrew Luck and actress Chloe Moretz. The Carnegie Mellon graduate describes himself as a game artist with formal training in game and graphic design. Sun, 5 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0500 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/12035/1208237-42-0.stm?cmpid=entertainment.xml NEW YORK -- Phylicia Rashad gave the most affectionate speech, Brian Dennehy the funniest and Donald Margulies the best written. But the best overall was by surprise presenter Meryl Streep -- affectionate and funny, delivered in that artless way that is the perfection of art. Sat, 4 Feb 2012 18:32:00 -0500 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/12035/1208111-66.stm?cmpid=entertainment.xml INDIANAPOLIS -- Three decades after his Coke commercial won advertising's version of the Oscar, Joe Greene and his No. 75 Steelers jersey make a comeback in another Super Bowl spot on television. The new commercial relies heavily on the old one, only the Coke bottle has been replaced by a container of Downy Unstopables laundry product. Sat, 4 Feb 2012 12:01:00 -0500 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/12035/1208109-122-0.stm?cmpid=entertainment.xml Ben Gazzara, an intense actor whose long career included playing Brick in the original "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" on Broadway, roles in influential films by John Cassavetes and work with several generations of top Hollywood directors, died Friday in New York City. He was 81. Sat, 4 Feb 2012 11:42:00 -0500 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/12035/1208189-388-0.stm?cmpid=entertainment.xml As Thomas Hampson neared the end of his part in Brahms' glorious "Ein Deutsches Requiem" he intoned, "Behold, I show you a mystery." It was hard for me to not take these words at face value even in the midst of a work of profound spirituality and one set to biblical verse. Sat, 4 Feb 2012 11:31:00 -0500 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/12035/1207970-388.stm?cmpid=entertainment.xml Bruce Springsteen guitarist Steve Van Zandt says touring without saxophonist Clarence Clemons is sure to be emotional for the E Street Band and its audience. Mr. Clemons died at age 69 last year after a stroke. Mr. Van Zandt said Thursday that the band's work will always be a tribute to Mr. Clemons and keyboard player Danny Federici, who died in 2008. Mr. Sat, 4 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0500 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/12035/1208083-325.stm?cmpid=entertainment.xml A dance company's season lineup is like a good recipe. It's got to be just the right blend of tried and true favorites, something sweet and something spicy with a dash of surprise. Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre's 2012-13 offering will treat audiences to a little whimsy and fantasy, passion and heartache and the ooo-la-la of turn-of-the-century Paris. Sat, 4 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0500 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/12035/1208084-67-0.stm?cmpid=entertainment.xml If Snooki and JWoww need a place to live, Jersey Shore will welcome them with open arms. Jersey Shore, Pa., that is. The Central Pennsylvania Film Office wants the stars of MTV's "Jersey Shore" reality show to come to the tiny borough in northcentral Pennsylvania or to nearby Williamsport to shoot a planned spinoff of their gym-tan-laundry lifestyle. Sat, 4 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0500 http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/12035/1208085-67-0.stm?cmpid=entertainment.xml Sharon Needles' debut on "RuPaul's Drag Race" was dead-on. The season 4 premiere Monday was the highest in Logo history for a series, a 50 percent increase over last season's opener. It scored a 0.6 rating in the premiere adult 18-49 demo, with 481,000 total viewers across various broadcast and social media platforms. Sat, 4 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0500