Oompah Loompah doopety doo....

Tiny Tom courtesy of Dailiy Mail

Pics from The Wiz

Broadway World posted it's photo coverage of The Wiz at La Jolla, and it looks amazing! Check out Michael Washington as Tinman - it looks like he's wearing a futuristic junkyard-metal version of the barricade from Les Miz.


David Alan Grier looks like his normally-annoying qualities will make him perfectly suited for playing The Wiz.


And Evillene's costume looks kinda like Jeffrey's "Couture Du Jour" gown on Project Runway... except awesomer. And eviler.

Evil Jeffrey:


Evillene:

Christine Estabrook rounds out Spring Awakening cast

Broadway World is annnouncing Christine Estabrook as the final piece of the Spring Awakening puzzle. Estabrook will play the only adult female role, replacing Mary McCann, who played it at The Atlantic. Thank goodness! Mary McCann came thisclose to ruining Spring Awakening at The Atlantic with her hemming and hawing and her surface-level emoting. It's too bad, because she's so well liked in the theater community, but she just isn't much of an actress. Moxie predicts that Christine Estabrook and Stephen Spinella will catapault the show into the stratosphere.

Kidman down the Rabbit Hole

Nicole Kidman has acquired the rights to David Lindsay Abaire's Rabbit Hole. Too bad for Cynthia Nixon, who has been getting less-than-stellar buzz for her new play, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. Sigh. Who wants to see Nicole Kidman be somber and morose in one more indie movie anyway? Part of what made Rabbit Hole so interesting was seeing someone so different and unexpected in that role. Cynthia Nixon perfectly captured the sense of this is you, or me, or your neighbor, or your coworker, or your son's schoolteacher, or whoever - loss can strike anyone, with no reason, fate, or glamour about it. Nicole Kidman in the role would be totally expected and unexceptional.

CBS's The Class Cast - NY Stage Roots

Playbill has a nice feature on the many stage actors who star in CBS's new sitcom The Class. Featured on the show are NY stage vets Julie Halston, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Heather Goldenhersh, Jason Ritter, and Sam Harris. Moxie has always found Heather Goldenhersh's weird lisp a bit on the irritating side, but Julie Halston rocks! Halston is best known to me as Bitsy von Muffling from Sex and the City (she married Nathan Lane in the Hamptons, remember?), but she was also Electra in the Gypsy revival.

And am I the only one who thinks that Jesse Tyler Ferguson is weirdly sexy? Check out what he says about his favorite comedians:

Like my father, I'm a huge Steve Martin fan. And I'd have to say Madeline Kahn, the master of twisting something in such a way that it's hilarious, even if the line's not funny. I watched 'The Comeback' the other day, and was kind of in awe of Lisa Kudrow; there's such a comic undercurrent to everything she does. Michael Richards and Jason Alexander are very funny. And Steve Carell is a most inspiring actor.

That's hot.

Photo courtesy of playbill.com and broadwayworld.com

Celebs to Deport: Emmy Rossum

Here we have more evidence that Emmy Rossum (left) MUST be shipped out on a one-way rocket launch into the burning sun. That smug, breezy, post-nip/tuck look on her face that says, "Here I am, fabulous little me, at fabulous fashion week. Gee, life is just so grand, isn't it?" Deport, deport I say!

Photo courtesy of the fabulous ladies at Go Fug Yourself

It must suck to be famous

I mean, you're just heading out to browse for the latest Shopaholic book or whatnot, trying to get that song "Daughters" out of your head, and there's your face on the cover of a magazine, with that ugly ugly headline. Ouch.

Review: The Treatment

Moxie was at opening night of The Treatment, Eve Ensler's buzzed-about exploration of... um... what IS it about, anyway? Let's see.

The Treatment begins with a stiff-as-a-board military psychiatrist interviewing (interrogating?) a traumatized soldier. As the source of his trauma is revealed, the relationship between treater and treatee becomes less and less clear. At one point, the soldier falls asleep in the arms of the doctor. At another point, the two share a passionate kiss. The connection between the pair is obviously not about a chemistry with each other, but about the needs, feelings, and humanity that each has been denying themselves, and the resulting desparation for closeness. However, the reasons behind said denials are left frustratingly unexplored. The resulting play lacks a real relationship where the two are invested in each other, and also fails to deliver fully realized characters.

Director Leigh Silverman has certainly crafted an intense experience, with glaring lights and grating sound effects during the changes that heighten the tension. As we get closer to an answer about what exact atrocities the soldier committed in the prisons of the middle east, the tension builds, but there's no real catharsis, and so nothing is learned. The Treatment ends up knee-deep in the oldest trap of political theater, feeling like schooling and punishment rather than a new, fresh look where the audience feels they've explored and learned something important.

Both Portia and Dylan McDermott do as much as they can to clear the muddy waters of the play, but there's only so much they can do. Portia's final moments are intensely powerful, but still leaves you wondering what the message really is here, and what the playwright really wants to say. Aside from "torture is bad and american politics are abysmal," I'm not really sure.

The Treatment marks the beginning of The Culture Project's Impact Festival, devoted to political work. Here's hoping that the other offerings have more focus than this one.

Photo: Bruce Glikas, broadwayworld.com

John Travolta has really let himself go

John Travolta as Edna Turnblad. Wow... the Hairspray movie is going to be so good.

Suri Cruise: Why does this baby look like Daniel Vosevic?

Well, we can all exhale a giant sigh of relief. Suri Cruise's face has been splashed across newstands everywhere, alongside her Dianetics-toting mom and pop. Katie and Tom, "heartbroken" after all the ridicule from the press, public, and sane world, are assuredly hoping that the 20-some-page spread in Vanity Fair will make them normal again.

From the pullquotes from the article, Katie Holmes seems the utterly normal, loving mom, worshiping her child and bewildered as to why the general population would harbor such disdain for her and her "family". She says, "it's really frustrating the amount of s– that's out there. And the stuff they say about Suri? You shouldn't say that about us, and you can't say that about my child." About giving birth, she said, "I was just ready. The feeling is indescribable. All I can say is the moment I looked in her eyes I felt like ... Mom." Aww. Makes Moxie almost feel all cuddly inside. Almost.


So here's my question. If Tom really is the daddy, then why does this child look so much like Daniel Vosovic, from Project Runway season 2??? Perhaps TomKat has achieved the first human clone. At any rate, that child's hair is insane.

Jennifer Lopez's Broadway Debut

Move over, Christine Ebersole. Jlo looks like she's ready to bling out Grey Gardens. Maybe they can get Marc Anthony to step in for Matt Cavenaugh, while they're at it.

Photo courtesy of Go Fug Yourself

Review: The Pain and the Itch

Moxie recently saw the invited dress of The Pain and the Itch at Playwrights Horizons, and I must say, I was quite taken with it. It's a hysterical and fascinating play that raises many, many issues of class, race, politics, family, etc in new ways, exploring the hypocrisy of where so many Americans sit these days, martini-in-hand, bemoaning Bush, middle America, the war, etc, while still being shockingly short-sighted, selfish, racist, and narcissistic. Thankfully, Bruce Norris gracefully dances across these topics in a witty style that rarely gets preachy.

Essentially, it's about one upper-middle class family's Thanksgiving celebration. Things go terribly wrong, with strong familial tensions underfoot, an avocado-munching monster stalking the halls upstairs, and a neglected 4-year-old daughter in need of medical attention.

What ensues brought back memories of The Goat, the way that was funny, and at times reminded me of so many families I grew up around, while still being about out-of-this-world, controversial, and at times even horrifying issues.

Jayne Houdyshell is so dynamic as the Grandma of the house, both terrifically informed courtesy of PBS programming and terrifically ignorant in spite of herself. Reg Rogers is half plastic surgeon in the style of nip/tuck, half 50's movie star, Clark Gable or somesuch. The other performances will certainly lock into place and gain strengh, considering how Moxie saw such an early pre-preview.

The Pain and the Itch runs at Playwrights Horizons Sept 1 thru Oct 8.

Photo: Jayne Houdyshell, courtesy of Playbill online