The world’s most famous backup dancer, Kevin Federline, is stealing some of Britney Spears’ new shine.
K-Fed opened up to People Magazine about fatherhood, meeting Brit, marrying Brit, divorcing Brit and talked about the night Spears’ locked herself in the bathroom with her son Jayden.
Federline tells People that he met Spears at a Hollywood nightclub: “Our eyes met and that was it. We just hit off and that was it.”
Yeah right!!! It could have been anyone’s eyes. Britney was going to hit it off with anyone that wasn’t named Justin Timberlake. We all had a chance!
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As we reported this afternoon, the American Musical Theatre of San Jose — a fixture on the South Bay arts scene since 1935 — announced today that it would be closing its doors and declaring bankruptcy. After I filed my story, I got an e-mail back from acclaimed playwright David Henry Hwang. He has a unique perspective on the situation, considering that his update of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “Flower Drum Song” turned out to be the last show produced by the AMT, and his revised version of Disney’s “Tarzan” played a central role in its demise — through no fault of Hwang’s. (According to the AMT, Theater of the Stars, the Atlanta theater that was partnering with the AMT and a Dallas theater on the venture, cancelled the tour after blowing through the AMT’s contribution toward the show on other productions.) Read the rest of this entry »
(l-r: Colin Brooks, Sonia de los Santos, Dan Zanes, Saskia Sunshine Lane, John Foti, Elena Moon Park; photo by Gala Narezo)
I seem to always get a bit misty eyed at Dan Zanes concerts. The first time I saw him and his Friends band perform, back in late March, I was touched by the encore song. “Sweet Rosyanne” not only closed the formal show but was what the group of musicians continued to play as they marched from the stage through the theater and into the lobby.
That they kept playing as others followed them out and then hung around to take pictures, sign autographs and just chat spoke volumes of their accessibility and general friendliness. I had another such tear-welling moment when I caught the world premiere of his new Holiday House Party revue Saturday at noon.
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Photo by Arthur Elgort
When I rang up Dan Zanes on his mobile phone Wednesday morning, he asked if I could do him a huge favor and call back in ten minutes. When I reached him a little while later, I joked that he needed the extra time to sign autographs for a horde of adoring fans.
“Wouldn’t that be nice?” he said, with a chuckle. But lo and behold, during our 15 minute chat about his brand new Holiday House Party, someone stopped him on the streets of New York to wish him well and ask for his autograph!
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The last time I saw my sister and her family, I thought I’d try to play the cool children’s music columnist and introduce them to Yo Gabba Gabba! via an advance CD of the energetic Nick Jr. family show. “Yo Gabba Gabba!” my three and a half year old niece Tarn Yoshimi announced excitedly.
We were all a bit startled, as she doesn’t watch any TV home. Could she actually be reading the cover (pictured above)? No, it turns out that she’s watched the program at daycare. So I waited to write up a review of the album until I could draw upon her expertise this Thanksgiving Day.
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Laurie Berkner’s latest album, Rocketship Run, was released in early August and makes for great Thanksgiving weekend road trip listening on a couple of different levels.
From a meta- perspective, this largely pop-folk album follows a through narrative about a treasure hunt for vocalist-guitarist-songwriter Berkner and her bandmates, bass and electric guitarist–vocalist Adam Bernstein and keyboardist-vocalist Susie Lampert.
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The Drive-By Truckers and the Hold Steady teamed up Sunday Monday for the second of two nights at the Fillmore on their “Rock ‘n’ Roll Means Well” tour. On this night, the Georgia-based Truckers kicked off the show, starting with pedal-steel-inflected ballads and getting harder and heavier as the set progressed. Rather than promote their latest, “Brighter Than Creation’s Dark,” Patterson Hood & Co. dug way back into their past to dredge up “Panties in Your Purse” and “The Night G.G. Allin Came to Town,” plus several from the band’s breakthrough “Southern Rock Opera” set. Read the rest of this entry »
Got ghosts? Whether you’re bothered by pesky poltergeists, icky ectoplasm or serious ESP issues, we’ve got your back.
In the wake of our Halloween ghost hunt, where we went ghostbusting at three famous Valley haunts, we invited you to email us with your questions for Martin. The Los Gatos psychic detective says she has been seeing dead people since she was a little girl. At 70, she considers herself an expert on things that go bump in the night. We were promptly deluged with questions on all manner of spectral concerns. Martin answers some of your supernatural queries below, and remember, the truth is out there.
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Give Kent Nicholson’s regards to TheatreWorks. The gifted Bay Area director is resigning his post as new works guru for the respected Peninsula company to decamp to New York’s esteemed Playwrights Horizons, where he will become director of musical theatre.
Nicholson began at TheatreWorks back in 2001 and he has been the driving force behind the company’s critically-acclaimed new play festival. He cemented his name in new works circles by helming a lively series of provocative premieres from Liz Duffy Adam’s “Dog Act“ (at Berkeley’s Shotgun Players) and Craig Lucas’ “Small Tragedy“ (at the Aurora) to Adam Bock’s “Five Flights” (first at San Francisco’s Encore Theatre Company and again off-Broadway) and Dave Eggers’ “Sacrament!” (at Campo Santo).
For several years, he also served as co-artistic director of San Francisco’s adventurous Crowded Fire, alongside his wife, the actress Cassie Beck. And it’s unlikely that anyone who saw his potent revival of “All My Sons” at TheatreWorks a few years back will ever forget the experience. Incidentally, Beck recently starred in Bock’s Bridezilla comedy “Drunken City” at Playwrights Horizons.
”TheatreWorks is a better theater company because of the contributions of Kent Nicholson,” said artistic director Robert Kelley in a release. “He has done a tremendous job in establishing and nurturing programs at our company that have attracted some of the most important voices in theatre and given them a place to explore new material.”
Nicholson will be transitioning out of the old gig and into the new one until next March. Bottomline: Our loss is the Big Apple’s gain.
Organizers today gave us our first peek at the lineup for the 17th annual Noise Pop Festival, which will take place at venues throughout the Bay Area on Feb. 24-March 1, 2009. The fest will include the first Bay Area performance in three years by Antony and the Johnsons, who made a big splash in 2005 with their Mercury Prize-winning album “I Am a Bird Now.” A & the J’s plan to release their long-awaited follow-up, “The Crying Light,” in January. Read the rest of this entry »
