Gossip Guy of the Week: Josh Gad

THEY promised us it would be blasphemous, and it is. They promised us it would be funny, and it's hilarious. A certain irreverent musical by the "South Park" guys and the "Avenue Q" guy opened on Broadway last week, and it's an unqualified hit. But who's that adorable young man who plays Elder Cunningham? His name is Josh Gad, and now he's a Broadway star.

CURRENT GIG "The Book of Mormon." Gad plays one of two neophyte missionaries sent to bleak, AIDS-infected Uganda to spread the word about Jesus and eternal life.

WHAT THE TIMES THOUGHT "A newborn, old-fashioned, pleasure-giving musical . . . the kind our grandparents told us left them walking on air if not on water." ("Missionary Men With Confidence in Sunshine," by Ben Brantley)

AGE 30.

BORN AND RAISED Hollywood, Fla.

ALMA MATER Carnegie Mellon.

AVAILABILITY Married, with a new baby.

BEST KNOWN FOR Small roles in movies like "Love and Other Drugs" (2010). Playing the nervous, rumpled young TV news director in ""Back to You," the short-lived Fox sitcom starring Kelsey Grammer. He's also done correspondent duties on "The Daily Show."

BROADWAY DEBUT "The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee." In 2006, he replaced Dan Fogler as William Barfee.

SECOND JOB A new Web series, "Gigi: Almost American," on My Damn Channel.

EVERY ACTOR SAYS IT, SO IT MUST BE TRUE "It is so unbelievably electric to be up on a stage and to have to work your ass off to win an audience over and to get them to follow you along on this journey. Every night is different." ("Interview: Josh Gad," by Christina Couch, avclub.com)

"The Book of Mormon," book, music and lyrics by Robert Lopez, Trey Parker and Matt Stone; directed by Mr. Parker and Casey Nicholaw; Eugene O'Neill Theater, 230West 49th Street, (212) 239-6200, bookofmormononbroadway.com. Opening night: March 24, 2011.

WANT MORE THEATERGOSSIP? Scroll on to read about the late Elizabeth Taylor and her Broadway work. Then search to read about "Hello Again" (sex in the audience), "Peter and the Starcatcher" (how Peter Pan, Tinker Bell and Captain Hook got their start) and stars of the season, including Frances McDormand in "Good People," Brian Bedford in "The Importance of Being Earnest" and Stockard Channing in "Other Desert Cities."

Gossip Girl of the Week and Forever After: Elizabeth Taylor

TYPECASTING Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton in Broadway rehearsals, playing a divorced couple in "Private Lives."

I DOUBT that she ever thought of herself as a stage actress. But Elizabeth Taylor could do just about anything. So there she was, toward the end of her marriage to Senator John Warner (and her un-career as a Washington wife), when she just upped and flew to New York and made her Broadway debut. She was 49. And it was the lead in a Lillian Hellman play in a role that Bette Davis had made famous in the film version. She came back two years later to do a Noel Coward comedy, with her fifth and sixth husband, Richard Burton. As box office receipts showed, we were thrilled to have her.


CURRENT GIG Movie star immortality.

AGE 79, when she died in Los Angeles on Wednesday.

BORN AND RAISED Born in London. Her American parents moved the family to California just in time for her to become a child star at MGM.

AVAILABILITY After seven husbands (eight if you count Burton twice), she died single.

BEST KNOWN FOR In the end, for just being herself. Incomparable beauty, her violet eyes, lots of husbands (a couple of them stolen), lots of jewelry, bawdy humor and eventually her work in the fight against AIDS. But she did win Oscars for "Butterfield 8" and "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?"

BROADWAY DEBUT "The Little Foxes" (1981), as Regina Hubbard Giddens, Lillian Hellman's Southern uber-bitch. She got a Tony nomination.

OTHER BROADWAY APPEARANCE "Privates Lives" (1983), Noel Coward's sophisticated 1930 comedy about a divorced couple who rekindle their passion while on their honeymoons with other people. She and Burton, her c0-star, had been divorced for seven years at the time, and both had married other people.

ON ACTING "Acting isn't tangible. With me it's purely intuitive. What I try to do is give the maximum emotional effect with the minimum of visual movement."

ON CELEBRITIES HAVING 'AN OBLIGATION' TO FANS "Everyone has an obligation to people. My greatest responsibility is to the human beings I'm closest to . . . Everyone has one primary obligation: to the people you love and who love you."

[Both quotes are from "Out of the Past Into the Future, With Miss Taylor," Howard Thompson's 1964 New York Times interview with Taylor, done when Burton was starring in "Hamlet."]


WANT MORE THEATERGOSSIP? Scroll on to read about the sexy revival of "Hello Again" and the enchanting downtown production of "Peter and the Starcatcher." Then search to read about stars like James Franco, Tracee Chimo, Frances McDormand and Elizabeth Taylor's onetime stepdaughter Carrie Fisher; playwrights like Rajiv Joseph, Lynn Nottage and Edward Albee; and shows like "Arcadia" and "Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo."

'Hello Again,' From the Transport Group: Voyeurs Welcome

TABLES FOR TWO Elizabeth Stanley as the Nurse and Max von Essen as the Soldier in "Hello Again," playing downtown at 52 Mercer Street.

WE got absolutely no action at my table. A friend and I went to see "Hello Again" last week, and all I knew was that it was a revival of Michael John LaChiusa's musical, which had originally been done at Lincoln Center in 1994.

The music was lovely and the actors were talented, but it was difficult not to let one other aspect of the production overshadow those things. Several times during the show, a couple of the actors would move over to one of the round, low white tables where the audience was seated, supper-club style. The actors would make themselves comfortable on the table and simulate sex. There was no actual nudity, but buttocks were bared.

This part of the production inspired one of Ben Brantley's funniest New York Times reviews ever. On the night that Brantley attended, the first assignation in the show took place in a standing position very near his table. He wrote, "I had to fold my legs to avoid turning it into a menage a trois." (Theatergossip.com regrets that it is unable to add the appropriate aigu and grave accents.)

Actually, the in-your-face encounters are a powerful theatrical device, since the message of "Hello Again" is pretty much that sex will make you miserable and even lonelier than you were before. The show was inspired by Arthur Schnitzler's 1900 play "La Ronde," which was a scandal in turn-of-the-last-century Vienna.

The cast includes Alan Campbell, Elizabeth Stanley, Max van Essen, Blake Daniel and Alexandra Silber. Characters are identified only by occupation or type. Among them: the Nurse, the Soldier, the College Boy, the Senator, the Young Thing and the Whore. The story includes a scene on the Titanic in which one man in a sexual encounter knows that the ship is sinking and the other man doesn't. At first.

"Hello Again" is from the Transport Group, which did a much-talked-about production of "The Boys in the Band" last season. You have until April 4 to see the new show.


"Hello Again," by Michael John LaChiusa, directed by Jack Cummings III, 52 Mercer Street, transportgroup.org. Opening night: March 20, 2011.


WANT MORE THEATERGOSSIP? Scroll on to read about "Peter and the Starcatcher" at the New York Theater Workshop. Then search to read about stage stars like Cherry Jones, Mark Rylance, Brian Bedford and Liza Minnelli -- and new shows like "Arcadia" and "The Book of Mormon."

10 Crucially Important Things You Should Know About 'Peter and the Starcatcher'

KEEP YOUR ENEMIES CLOSE Adam Chanler-Berat, left, as Peter and Christian Borle as the future Captain Hook in "Peter and the Starcatcher."


THERE was a time, of course, when Captain Hook had two hands, when Peter Pan was an ordinary non-flying boy and maybe even when Never Land was just another remote island in the Atlantic. "Peter and the Starcatcher," a wonder of a production at the New York Theater Workshop, takes us to that time and spins magic all around.

Don't think for a second that this is a children's show. Although sophisticated children will like it too.

1. "Peter and the Starcatcher" is to "Peter Pan" what "Wicked" is to "The Wizard of Oz."

2. The Times called the show a "blissful exercise in make-believe" with "a breathless air of adventure and a cocky confidence in its powers to enchant" ("Peter Pan [the Early Years], With Bounding Main and All")

4. It's based on the 2004 book "Peter and the Starcatchers," by Dave Barry (yes, the former humor columnist) and Ridley Pearson.

5. Christian Borle plays the pirate Black Stache, who will become Captain Hook, with such manic comedic brilliance that it's hard to believe this is the same man who just starred as an AIDS victim in "Angels in America."

6. The producers have just announced that another actor, Steve Rosen, will be alternating with Borle in the role. (It seems Borle has been cast as the lead in "Smash," NBC's forthcoming series about a Broadway composer working on a new musical.)

7. Celia Keenan-Bolger, most recently seen in "A Small Fire," is thrillingly cute, self-possessed, plucky and strong as Molly Aster, who will grow up to become the mother of an important "Peter Pan" character. The Hollywood Reporter compared her to "a pre-teen Judi Dench."

8. The "natives" on the island that will become Never Land bear absolutely no resemblance to American Indians. The leader, Fighting Prawn, is a fierce Anglophobe whose island language seems to consist exclusively of Italian food terms.

9. Molly's governess, Mrs. Bumbrake (Arnie Burton), finds love.

10. The show has been extended through April 17.

"Peter and the Starcatcher," by Rick Elice, directed by Roger Rees and Alex Timbers, New York Theater Workshop, 79 East Fourth Street, (212) 279-4200; ticketcentral.com.


WANT MORE THEATERGOSSIP? Scroll on to read about Julie Taymor, the former director of "Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark" and our Gossip Girl of the Week. Then search to read about stars from James Earl Jones to Sean Hayes, from Judith Ivey to Nicole Kidman, and Broadway openings right around the corner, including "Arcadia" and "The Book of Mormon."

Gossip Girl of the Week: Julie Taymor

FROM the beginning, it was very much about her. Bono and the Edge wrote the songs. Reeve Carney played the superhero and Christopher Tierney was the stand-in who made headlines when he got injured. But when theater people talked about the troubled $65 million supermusical "Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark," it was as Julie Taymor's show. Her vision, her inventiveness, her risk-taking, her stubborn determination to make the show a megahit, even if it meant keeping the thing in previews for the rest of our natural lives. But this week the latest chapter in the show's development was written ("Spider-Man Postponed"): A new stager and book writer were hired. Taymor was out. Oh, and by the way, the show won't be opening next week after all.

CURRENT GIG Recovering from the shock of having been dumped as director of "Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark."

AGE 58.

BORN AND RAISED Newton, Mass., as a doctor's daughter.

ALMA MATER Oberlin College. She majored in folklore and mythology.

AVAILABILITY With Eliot Goldenthal, the composer and her frequent collaborator, since 1982.

BROADWAY DEBUT "Juan Darien" (1996).

BROADWAY BLOCKBUSTER "The Lion King" (1997). She won the Tony for best direction of a musical, the first woman ever to receive that award. And the show's been playing for 14 years.

MOVIE WORK Two Shakespeares ("Titus" and "The Tempest"), one Beatles ("Across the Universe") and one artist/feminist icon ("Frida").

CUTE QUOTE "The thing that theater has over film and television is that it is not a literal medium. You can suggest things. The theater is about poetry." ("A Risk Taker Wants to Show She Can Work With Disney")

WHAT SHE WAS SAYING ABOUT 'SPIDER-MAN' THREE MONTHS AGO "We finished a week of previews, and the show’s getting standing ovations and it needs time to work out its kinks ... We have five weeks to work on the book and finesse some of the technical challenges, and that’s normal. But we feel very good." ("Julie Taymor Grilled on Broadway's 'Spider-Man' ")

WANT MORE THEATERGOSSIP? Scroll on to read about our Gossip Guy of the Week, Geoffrey Rush, starring in "The Diary of a Madman." Then search to read about just-about-to-happen Broadway openings like "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying" (Harry Potter gets an office job) and "The Book of Mormon" ("South Park" goes missionary).

Gossip Guy of the Week: Geoffrey Rush

TEN days ago, he went home without the Oscar that many people expected him to win for his role as an extreme speech therapist, opposite Colin Firth, in "The King's Speech." But Geoffrey Rush didn't have a lot of time to fret. He quickly flew back to New York, where he's astounding Off Broadway theater audiences in a revival of a Gogol masterpiece about a timid Russian clerk who hears dogs having conversations and comes to believe he is the king of Spain. The production winds up this week.

CURRENT GIG "The Diary of a Madman," at BAM. ("Send In the Russian Clown.")

AGE 59.

BORN AND RAISED Toowomba, Queensland, Australia. He grew up in nearby Brisbane.

ALMA MATER University of Queensland.

AVAILABILITY Married to Jane Menelaus since 1988.

BEST KNOWN TO MOVIE FANS AS Barbossa, the resurrected pirate captain, in the "Pirates of the Caribbean" films.

BROADWAY DEBUT The 2009 revival of Ionesco's "Exit the King," opposite Susan Sarandon. He won a Tony.

BIG BREAK The film "Shine" (1996). He won the best actor Oscar for his portrayal of the disturbed piano prodigy David Helfgott.

HOW HE PLAYS CRAZY PEOPLE SO WELL "To play a scene as if the character has some kind of mental fog that has descended and clouded his thinking, that gives you a range of things to work with," he told Bruce Weber of The New York Times. "So you haven't got to actually explore the psychiatry of the character to reveal it." ("What's an Overnight Sensation Doing in a Place Like This?")

"The Diary of a Madman," by Nikolai Gogol, adapted by David Holman, Neil Armfield and Geoffrey Rush, directed by Mr. Armfield, Brooklyn Academy of Music, Harvey Theater, 651 Street, Fort Greene, (718) 636-4100, bam.org.


WANT MORE THEATERGOSSIP? Scroll on to read about the dead movie star who's had three plays produced about her within the last year. (Hint: She's blonde but was never married to Joe DiMaggio.) Then search to read about Frances McDormand in "Good People," Daniel Davis in "Black Tie," Marin Ireland in "Three Sisters," and several big Broadway shows opening in March.