Thespis Journal

The New York Daily News has a great preview article today for shows coming to Broadway this Spring. Keep in mind that these shows will join “A Chorus Line,” “Les Miserables,” “Grey Gardens,” and “Spring Awakening” that have already opened successfully on Broadway this season.

Read the whole article, but these are a few of the wonderful upcoming openings.

Talk Radio with Liev Schrieber: previews February 9 opening on February 25 at the Longacre Theater

“CURTAINS”

Previews begin Feb. 27; opens March 22 at the Al Hirschfeld Theatre. In addition to Debra Monk and Karen Ziemba, David Hyde Pierce and Edward Hibbert star in this musical within a musical by John Kander, Fred Ebb and Rupert Holmes.

“A MOON FOR THE MISBEGOTTEN”

Previews begin March 29; opens April 2 at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre. Kevin Spacey returns to Broadway in the acclaimed London production of O’Neill’s classic drama.

“DEUCE”

Previews begin April 16; opens May 6 at the Music Box Theatre.  Angela Lansbury hasn’t been in a full Broadway production in 23 years. Welcome back! She and Marian Seldes play retired tennis pros. Let the “aced it” puns fly!“110 IN THE SHADE”

Previews begin April 13; opens May 9 at Studio 54. Audra McDonald plays an old maid whose life changes thanks to a swaggering huckster named Starbuck (Steve Kazee) in this musical based on “The Rainmaker.”

“INHERIT THE WIND”

Previews begin in March; opening date at the Lyceum Theatre to be announced. Doug Hughes (”Doubt”) directs Christopher Plummer and Brian Dennehy in this courtroom drama, based on the famous Scopes trial of 1925.

Sounds like a great time to be in the city this June.

Update: Chris Matthews and Andrea Mitchell are using their non-stop commentary on the death of President Ford to bash President Bush. They are joined in ther conspiracy by Bob Woodward and David Gergen.

Norah O’Donnell and other notable liberals at MSNBC have used the death of President Ford to further their political agenda while masquerading the stories as news. Just a few highlights of their thinly disguised propaganda would include the following:

President Ford is against the current war in Iraq. This makes Ford the patron saint of MSNBC and their liberal bias. Never mind that there is no proof of this statement.

Betty Ford and Gerald Ford are reasonable, moderate Republicans since they support abortion rights and supported the Equal Rights Ammendment for women. Never mind that the ERA was a wacky 1970’s idea that even the liberals dropped because women were granted special rights by the courts in the 1970’s and 1980’s.

Ford was a great man compared to President George W. Bush. The MSNBC rumor mongers keep repetitively asking what happened to Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld and other people who worked for Ford and should be moderate. They talk about Rumsfeld and Cheney as if they are ill.

Betty Ford and Gerald Ford were a breath of fresh air compared to Richard Nixon and the current President. They have made more than one comparision of Nixon and Bush. The death of Ford has also provided MSNBC with the opportunity to trash Richard Nixon again without any supporting facts. They must conceive of themselves as historians at MSNBC since they continually try to present one totally biased view of the events of 1972-1974.

President Ford was a great man. Betty Ford was a great First Lady. The media have morhped them into liberal monsters posing as republicans. Hopefully, there will be some other attempts to set the record straight and tell the truth.

Here’s a Moonbat Ranting  Another moonbat: you’ll love it.

Hot Air is on it.  More Bush bashing is highlighted at News Busters.

All fans of Broadway will enjoy the incarnation of DREAMGIRLS on film. Just the costumes, hair, and set are worth the price of the ticket. Jennifer Hudson is wonderful. Whiule Jennifer Holliday and Lillias White remain as “the ” definitive Effie Melody White’s of our time, Jennifer Hudson is thrilling. There is not really a weak link in the casting. Eddie Murphy is hilarious, Beyonce and Anika Noni Rose are divine.

Go see it, and shake, shimmy, and roll with the dreams! Check out the fan blog!

Captain Ed has all the details on Senators Reid and Durbin refusing to participate in the state funeral of President Gerald Ford. Their political junket is more important than fulfilling leadership responsibilties.

I’m sure that this is what we have to look forward to with these disingenious democrats. It will be interesting to note if they decide to return when public pressure turns up on these two liberal icons.

How sad.

The New York Sun has an insightful and useful editorial on the matching of the man and the moment when Ford became President in 1974. Ford was gifted politician and statesman.

On the death of Gerald Ford, it is tempting to remark that his presidency was a transient moment of little historic significance save for the pardon of President Nixon and, conceivably, the signing of the Helsinki Final Act. There was the brief, but doomed, fight to sustain a policy of providing military aid to the free Vietnamese forces the Democrats in Congress were determined, after their gains in 1974, to abandon. And there was the drama of the Mayaguez. But there was also his wan economic policies, captured in the slogan Whip Inflation Now. And a general sense that Ford somehow, in the great showdown with the Soviet Union, just didn’t quite comprehend the deep tides and allowed himself to get out maneuvered in debate by Jimmy Carter.

Yet, if one takes the long view, Ford emerges in a different light, if not as a large figure, at least as a part, even a tribune, of a great shift in the Republican Party. This was the move away from the isolationism of the years that preceded World War II. The move began when Wendell Willkie challenged the incumbent Roosevelt to take seriously the threat posed to democracy by the European war. After the war, Senator Vandenberg of Michigan acceded on the foreign relations committee and helped swing the Senate behind the Marshall Plan with the famous principle that America’s voice had to “unite at the water’s edge.” Vandenberg, a Republican from Grand Rapids, inspired Ford, fresh from the Navy and before that Yale Law School, in the run for Congress that began his own long rise.

It is one of the most important facts of the 20th century that by the time Ford was elevated by Richard Nixon to the presidency, the tables had turned. It was the Democrats who were succumbing to the isolationist urge and the Republicans who were fighting to stay in the struggle against Soviet communism. First Lyndon Johnson gave up the fight President Kennedy had started for a free Vietnam and announced he would not seek a second term. Then came the Democratic National Convention of 1972, when the anti-communist labor leader George Meany was locked out, while the party, having spurned Senator Jackson, gave its nomination to Senator McGovern.

Read the entire editorial.

May God Bless Betty Ford and the Ford children.

President Jerry Ford is one of the great American leaders of the last fifty years. His decency, integrity, and greatness will outlive him and his family. The coverage on Fox News and C-Span has been wonderful these past ten hours. May God Bless Betty Ford and the entire Ford family.

President Ford’s death will be used by the remaining media outlets to re-hash the Nixon years and to reinforce the misperceptions of Richard Nixon and the republican party of the 1970’s. While Ronald Reagan is the towering figure of modern conservatism,  Jerry Ford and Richard Nixon are men of greatness with Nixon looming over the American political scene for more than thrity years.

As a tweleve year old, I was highly impressed with Mr. Ford. As a fourteen and fifteen year old, I was proud to support Ford for President against Jimmy Carter. Although Jimmy Carter’s ridiculously failed Presidency set the stage for Ronald Reagan’s rise to power, Ford would have made a greater President if he had been elected in 1976. Although Ford lst Ohio by only ten thousand votes, he did not spend one minute making a false claim to winning or act as a shadow President as pitful John Kerry has attempted to do the last two years after losing Ohio by one hundred thousand votes. Ford’s death highlights Kerry’s trite and inconsequential stature.

Thirty years later, Jerry Ford looks like a giant and a prophet compared to Jimmy Carter. While Ford is a national treasure, Carter is a national embarrassment.

Some great links from around the internet: News Busters, Michelle Malkin, Hot Air, Stuck on Stupid,

The great MsUnderestimated, AJ Strata, The BullWinkle Blog

Betsy has an excellent post.

There’s some good coverage today of the Kennedy Center Honors Telecast which will be on tonight at 9pm on the CBS television network. With Broadway giant Andrew Lloyd Weber being honored and Christine Ebersole performing the smash hit “As If We Never Said Good-bye” the show promises to be one of the best in recent memory.  Ms. Ebersole possesses one of the most compelling voices on today’s Broadway stage. She has wonderful tone and interpretive skills. I’ll bet she stops the show tonight with her magnetic energy and captivating performance.

Playbill has excellent coverage. The Kennedy Center Honors homepage has lots of information.