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New York

Check Out This Avant-Garde Adaptation of ‘La Bohème’ Set in Modern-Day Williamsburg

By Emily Temple on

So this is a cool project: a group of young opera singers have adapted Puccini’s classic opera La Bohème (also the source material for Rent) into the contemporary world of Williamsburg, Brooklyn. But unlike other high-profile remakes of La Bohème, The Bohemians is actually an opera (with some tango and jazz thrown in), sung in the original Italian, and attempts, in the words of Producer Adam Margulies, to ”create a new world for an old piece.” Watch the teaser video after the jump, and then if this sounds as fascinating to you as it does to us, consider helping the creators fund their post-production on Kickstarter. … Read More

Television

‘Rent’ Cast Bids Regis Farewell with Personalized “Seasons of Love”

By Judy Berman on

Nine hundred ninety-five thousand six hundred minutes. That’s approximately how long Regis Philbin — who holds the world record for longest time spent in front of a TV camera — has been on the air. It’s nearly the equivalent of two years, which we learned this morning on Reeg’s final episode of Live! when the cast of Broadway’s Rent serenaded the host with “Seasons of Love” (i.e., the song that taught everyone who came of age in the ’90s that there are 525,600 minutes in a year). They even tailored the lyrics to Philbin (“Regis, we love you”), who looked deeply moved but — as promised — didn’t cry. We may not be huge daytime TV fans here at Flavorpill, but Regis Philbin has been a fixture of the small screen for half a century, and we’re sad to see him go. Watch the Rent tribute after the jump. … Read More

News

The Morning’s Top 5 Pop Culture Stories

By Caroline Stanley on

1. Production has been shut down on the current season of Two And A Half Men, prompting Charlie Sheen to write an open letter to TMZ about the show’s creator, Chuck Lorre. Among the highlights: “I wish him nothing but pain in his silly travels especially if they wind up in my octagon. Clearly I… Read More

Pop Culture

A Short History of Cross-Dressing in Media

By Emily Temple on

All the hubbub about Brian Bedford’s spectacular performance as Lady Bracknell in the recent Broadway revival of The Importance of Being Earnest has gotten us thinking. So much media in our culture revolves around, or at least includes, elements of cross-dressing or gender confusion, whether to comic or dramatic effect. Is this an evolution towards greater acceptance and understanding of all, or just, in some way, a deeply ingrained human impulse? Of course, cross-dressing is no new trend. The phenomenon is evident in everything from Norse and Hindu mythology to figures that shaped actual historical events (usually in the form of women dressing up as men to fight wars or be pirates, for some reason) to literature, theater, film and every kind of media in between. There are hundreds of examples, so there’s no way to document them all here, but the trajectory of our favorites still has some bearing on the largeness of the phenomenon. Click through for out brief history of cross-dressing in media. … Read More

Theatre

Meng Jinghui Brings “Rent” to China, Ditches the Drugs and Gays

By Zara Golden on

China has a strong tradition of theater, from folkloric operas to dreamscapes of shadow puppetry to the workman’s ballets of Mao. Director Meng Jinghui’s latest, however, marks a stark departure from this deeply rooted tradition of musical theater. Known for his boundary pushing and avant-leanings, Jinghui has made a name for himself with plays led by rhino keepers, and others performed behind a glass wall. This time around, he’s taking on the musical. And then, taking it… Read More