The Show Place

At ManhattanTheaterClub.com in NYC the play "Our Leading Lady" featuring Kate Mulgrew (Janeway/Voyager). Not open yet.

At the Royal Court Theater in London Anton Chekhov's The Seagull featuring Kristin Scott Thomas (The English Patient) and Chiwetel Ejiofor (Firefly, Serenity, Sexy Boots). Excellent review for this play.

Christopher Plummer (ST:Undiscovered Country) and Brian Dennehy in "Inherit the Wind", Lyceum Theatre, 149 W. 45th St.

Frank Langella (ST:Voyager) and Michael Sheen in "Frost/Nixon", London, England.

Colm Meaney (Trek:NG, DS9) "A Moon For The Misbegotten" starring Kevin Spacey and Eve Best, NYC, Brooks Atkinson Theatre, 256 W. 47th St.

Our talented Trekkers!!!

Bebe Neuwith, Frasier and ST:TNG, "CHICAGO", Ambassador Theatre 219 West 49th Street NYC.

David Hyde Pierce, FRASIER, "Curtains", Al Hirschfeld Theatre, 302 W. 45 th St. NYC.

John Mahoney, FRASIER etc,* "PRELUDE TO A KISS" The American Airlines Theatre, 227 West 42nd St. NYC.

*Mr Mahoney also co-starred in that TV show with the two female detectives. I believe he played the alcoholic former cop father of one of the lady detectives.

John Cullum, NORTHERN EXPOSURE, "110 IN THE SHADE", Studio 54, 254 West 54 th St. NYC.

If only for the sake of convenience, everyone likes to play in the backyard. Hence the history of plays and musicals about the dramas that unfold when the curtain falls. Backstage stories are front and center this week as to major openings pay tribute to the blood, sweat and greaspaint-tinged tears of the theatrical.

For this new comedy opening at Manhattan Theater Club, Charles Busch turned to a woman who rated a footnote in American history, not just theatrical annals. Laura Keene was an actress and manager whose path intersected with Abraham Lincoln's on a most unfortunate night for him. Keene was onstage at Ford's Theater in "Our American Cousin," when Lincoln was felled by John Wilkes Booth. Mr Busch's reverence for the gritty lives and sublime artistry of great actresses has informed his career as a playwright and actor. Reading history one day he got to wondering about the fate of the footnote. "OUR LEADING LADY" which stars KATE MULGREW (ST:VOYAGER) as Keene, mixes fact and fancy in imagining what went on backstage on the epochal evening. City Center 131 West 55 th St. NYC.

The other play mentioned is "CURTAINS" with David Hyde Pierce.

Yes, that IS a CHARMED one you see in the commercials for the new Tarantino movie, "GRINDHOUSE". Rose McGowan plays the lady with a machine gun leg. I guess I'll have to see the movie to discover what else she's armed with.

The movie also features Bruce Willis and Kurt Russell. Or so the ads seem to imply. Ya never know with Tarantino.

A new show on FOX is titled "DRIVE". It stars Nathan Fillin, "Mal";Firefly & Serenity. I have no line on when it's to debut but it's to be a 2 hour premier about racing cars cross country. The web site has not as yet listed the others in the cast.

OTOH I have seen commercials for a new movie/TVshow whatever featuring Summer Glau/ "River"; Firefly & Serenity. Has anyone else picked on on either of these yet? I think it might be "The Unit" starring Dennis Haysbert/President "24". It seems she's been on there for a number of episodes.

Thanks.

Opening May 11, "Georgia Rule" with Jane Fonda, Lindsay Lohan, Felicity Huffman (Desperate Hosewives) and Dermot Mulroney.

A crazed, hard partying teen is sentenced to a summer with her grandma.

"On Golden Pond" but where's Henry??

Opening May 25th "Waitress". Keri Russell, Nathan Fillion (Mal; Firefly, Serenity, & current show "Drive"), Andy Griffith (who ).

Comedy love story of a miserable waitress who turns a small town upside down with her amazing pies.

Now that might be a town worth visiting.

Opening June 1st "Knocked Up". Seth Rogen, Katherine Hiegl (Grey's Anatomy), Paul Rudd, Leslie Mann.

Looking for laughs in the aftermath of a drunken one night stand between an up and coming journalist and a slacker.

A number of cast members are said to have been in the 2005 smash hit movie "Virgin". Never heard of it.

Opening June 15th "Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer". Ioan Gruffiudd, Jessica Alba (if I have to tell you then you are from another planet), Chris Evans, Michael Chiklis (that cop show I think.)

A sequal. There was a first??

Silver Surfer is played by Doug Jones ("Pan's Labyrinth").

Yep, there was a Fantastic Four movie a while back. Alba was Sue (Invisible Girl), and the guy from "The Shield" was The Thing, iirc. (Not that you can tell, with all that stuff pasted all over him.) I haven't seen it though; apparently it hasn't come to TV yet. (If it did I missed it.)