Entertainment category, Page 236
TV Q&A: Why so much turnover on local TV newscasts?
Trib Total Media TV writer Rob Owen answers reader questions every Wednesday at TribLive.com in a column that also appears in the Sunday Tribune-Review. Q: Why do none of the weathermen last at WTAE? First Jerry Martz, then Stephen Cropper and then Ray Petelin left. — Diana, Harrison City Rob:...
Banksy painting raises $23 million for U.K. health charities
LONDON — A Banksy painting honoring Britain’s health workers in the pandemic has sold for a record 16.8 million pounds ($23.2 million), auction house Christie’s said Tuesday. Proceeds from the sale will be used to fund health organizations and charities across the U.K., it said. The work by the mystery...
Disney shifts ‘Black Widow’ and doubles down on streaming
NEW YORK — The Walt Disney Co. on Tuesday overhauled its upcoming film release plans, postponing some of its biggest films and shifting Marvel’s “Black Widow,” among other titles, to Disney+ the same time they arrive in theaters. “Black Widow,” once planned to debut in May 2020, had been set...
Regal Cinemas, 2nd largest chain in U.S., to reopen in April
NEW YORK — Regal Cinemas, the second largest movie theater chain in the U.S., will reopen beginning April 2, its parent company, Cineworld Group, announced Tuesday. Regal had been one of most notable holdouts in the gradual reopening of cinemas nationwide. For nearly half a year, its 7,211 screens and...
The Clarks to play Butler drive-in in June
The Clarks are set to play the band’s first in-person show of 2021. The Pittsburgh rock band on Tuesday announced a show at the Starlight Drive-In in Butler on June 5. Doors open at 6 p.m. and the show starts at 8 p.m. Tickets for the show are on sale...
Greensburg theater troupe’s new show provides humorous life lessons
Some of the characters are “little jerks,” but that’s part of the appeal of the upcoming production by Greensburg Civic Theatre’s Greasepaint Players, said director Mike Crosby. In the storyline of “Miss Nelson is Missing,” a classroom of ill-behaved students test the patience of their teacher. When the long-suffering Miss...
TV Talk: KDKA-TV adds to its news team
Briana Smith started on the job last week at KDKA-TV, taking over weekend morning anchor duties. She’ll also report some weekdays and serve as a fill-in anchor as needed. She takes the place of Lisa Washington, who left KDKA in November to become a weeknight evening anchor at WNEP-TV in...
Kenny Chesney postpones 2021 tour, including Pittsburgh stop
Country music star Kenny Chesney has postponed his entire 2021 tour — including a stop at Pittsburgh’s Heinz Field — for the second time because of the coronavirus pandemic. Chesney announced Tuesday on social media that the tour would be pushed back to 2022. The Chillaxifacation tour was originally supposed...
Pittsburgh dating scene inspires New Hazlett Theater’s ‘Local Singles’Video
He heard it from a friend, who heard it from a friend — and it inspired him to write a musical. The playwright is Nick Navari of Pine, the musical is “Local Singles” and the story is about a support group for local singles. “A friend of mine told me...
TV Talk: ‘48 Hours’ executive traces love of news to growing up in Pittsburgh’s West End
Trib Total Media TV writer Rob Owen offers a viewing tip for the coming week. Pittsburgh native Judy Tygard, executive producer of CBS News’ “48 Hours” (10 p.m. Saturday, KDKA-TV), can trace the inspiration for her career back to middle school and reading about pioneering journalist and Western Pennsylvania native...
TV Talk: Fox Chapel’s Sloane Simon talks about filming tonight’s ‘American Idol’
Sloane Simon, a 16-year-old Fox Chapel Area High School sophomore, made it to Hollywood Week on Monday night’s episode of ABC’s “American Idol” (8 p.m., WTAE-TV). But due to the vagaries of TV production and editing, her audition in front of the show’s celebrity judges where she received that “golden...
Famed Tiffany jewelry designer Elsa Peretti dead at age 80
Elsa Peretti, who went from Halston model and Studio 54 regular in the 1960s and ’70s to one of the world’s most famous jewelry designers with timeless, fluid Tiffany & Co. collections often inspired by nature, has died. She was 80. She died Thursday night in her sleep at home...
Plans solidify for 93rd Oscars: No Zoom, no sweatshirts
With nominations set and just over a month until showtime, details are trickling out about the 93rd Oscars and neither sweatshirts nor zoom made the cut. “Our plan is that this year’s Oscars will look like a movie, not a television show,” said show producers Jesse Collins, Stacy Sher and...
Ruffs Dale bassoonist, 17, earns Friday Evening Music Club’s Gardner Scholarship
Until Walter Vinoski was 11, he couldn’t have told you what a bassoon even was. Now the 17-year-old Yough senior is the Friday Evening Music Club’s 2021 Mildred Gardner Scholarship Competition winner, earning $1,000 through this year’s virtual competition. He is a member of the Westmoreland Youth Symphony Orchestra and...
Stage Right’s operetta a safe pandemic haven for veteran Greensburg actor
The cast of Stage Right’s “The Pirates of Penzance” includes an actor who has traded the bright lights of the big city — at least temporarily — for the safety of his home town. “I came back to Greensburg last March to do a show at Stage Right that, obviously,...
TV Talk: Disney+ debuts latest Marvel series, ‘Falcon and the Winter Soldier’
After the inventiveness of Marvel’s “WandaVision,” a meditation on grief that lead character Wanda tried to escape by inhabiting TV sitcoms through the decades, whatever came next was likely to pale in comparison, particularly for those non-Marvel devotees who appreciated the attention to pop culture detail in “WandaVision.” And so...
Paul Stanley makes new music, but not with KissVideo
Veteran rocker Paul Stanley has a new album with his Soul Station project, but fans waiting for new Kiss material may be out of luck. Making the rounds in interviews this week, the “Starchild” said the band’s debut album, “Now and Then,” is inspired by and a tribute to classic...
Things to do in Western Pa.: March 18, 2021
What’s your musical pleasure? Country or classical, sacred or show tunes? There’s something on tap for every ear, along with an array of art exhibitions and other entertainment happenings. The details are here, in this week’s Big List. Art • What a drag: The Westmoreland Museum of American Art will...
Pittsburgh Opera explores 900 years of work by women composers
Pittsburgh Opera will explore 900 years of music by women composers in an upcoming free concert. Called “Women’s March,” the 55-minute program will stream on the opera’s YouTube channel at 7 p.m. March 26. “Certainly, the opera has performed music by women composers before, but this is the first time...
Frick and Pittsburgh artist Vanessa German collaborate in exhibition
The doors were open and music was playing as Vanessa German installed her latest works of art. “I could hear people asking about what was going on in the museum,” said German, of Homewood, who has been invited to collaborate with the Frick Pittsburgh museum. “Being around for the beauty...
AMC opening 98% of movie theaters
It’s showtime! AMC Theatres says it will have 98% of its U.S. movie theaters open on Friday, with more expected to open by March 26. Shares of AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc. are up more than 4% before the market open on Thursday. Movie theaters all over shuttered their doors a...
TV Talk: Mister Rogers gets a new statue at his alma mater
The late Fred Rogers carried the words found on a plaque at his alma mater, Rollins College, in his wallet: “Life is for Service.” Now Rogers’ life of service to children through PBS’s “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” will be honored with a sculpture to be unveiled on the Rollins campus in...
WrestleMania 37 to have 25,000 capacity each night; tickets on sale Friday
WWE announced Wednesday that tickets for its biggest show of the year will go on sale Friday. WrestleMania 37 will take place April 10 and 11 at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa. The two-day event will have a “limited capacity” of about 25,000 each night, according to a WWE spokesperson....
Agatha Christie’s iconic sleuth reborn for Pittsburgh Public Theater play
Imagine Hercule Poirot poking around Pittsburgh. In Pittsburgh Public Theater’s new production, he does just that. The legendary literary sleuth Poirot is reincarnated to solve a Steel City murder. “North of Forbes,” a new commission by local playwright Tammy Ryan, is based on Agatha Christie’s first novel. It will stream...
Yinz Citizen virtual concert to return in September with Pittsburgh musicians
On the heels of a successful event that raised $54,000 last November for 412 Food Rescue, the “Yinz Citizen” virtual concert is returning this year. The event will take place on Sept. 16. The inaugural virtual show brought together 25 local bands and artists including Wiz Khalifa, Joe Grushecky, The...
