Have You Heard...?

… that film, TV and stage animal trainer and behaviorist Bill Berloni of Haddam is having a busy spell, dealing with a goat in Halfway Bitches Go Straight to Heaven, and a bunny in Sing Street, both off-Broadway. Then there are five TV series including Billions, Mrs. Fletcher and Modern Lovethat need his animal expertise, as well as a film, Marry Me, starring Jennifer Lopez, Owen Wilson and a bulldog named Romeo.

… that Darling Grenadine, which had a developmental production at Goodspeed Musicals’ Norma Terris Theatre in East Haddam two years ago, will have an off-Broadway run. The show runs through March 15. Berloni is involved in that show, too.

… that Somewhere, Matthew Lopez’ comedy-drama of a Latinx family whose early-’60s West Side home is facing the wrecking ball to build Lincoln Center is in the early stages of being developed as a television series. The play was presented at Hartford Stage in 2014, while Lopez was writing The Inheritance there, which was commissioned by the theater.

..that Juwan Crawley, a Hartt School grad from Bridgeport, has the title role in a musical Atina, Evil Queen of the Galaxy, being developed by Alan Menken. The private workshop of the show that Menken first wiote in 1980, will be held on March. Meanwhile Crawley continues to standby for the role of Genie in Broadway’s Aladdin.

… that Jeanine Basinger, who founded the famous film program, at Wesleyan University and has a great new book out The Movie Musical! will be in conversation with me as part of the Mark Twain House & Museum A Little Harmless Fun series on Wednesday, March 4.

….that on Thursday, March 19, I’ll also be talking with Michael Alago, a gay, Puerto Rican kid from Brooklyn who at 22 in the late ‘70s became the A & R record executive that signed Metallica and who went on to work with Tracy Chapman, the Misfits, Cyndi Lauper, White Zombie, Nina Simone and John Lydon. Alago’s memoir I Am Michael Alago: Breathing Music. Signing Metallica. Beating Death is just released. He was the subject of the 2017 documentary ‘Who The Fuck Is That Guy?’ The Fabulous Journey Of Michael Alago.

….that Wethersfield native Matthew Lombardo (Tea at Five, High, Looped) had a recent industry reading in New York of his new play Conversations with Mother that featured Tony Award winner Beth Leavel (The Drowsy Chaperone,The Prom) as mom. The work is based on comic and not-so-comic conversations between he and his mother.

… Former Hartford Stage artistic director Michael Wilson will helmed a revival of Horton’s Foote’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play The Young Man from Atlanta last November and December at off-Broadway’s Signature Theatre. It will star Tony Award winner Kristine Nielsen and Aidan Quinn (CBS’ Elementary). Also cast was Cheshire’s Jon Orsini. Wilson also directed ;last November a one-night-only staged reading of The Importance of Being Earnest starring Angela Lansbury as Lady Bracknell to benefit NewYork’s Roundabout Theatre Company.