Colman Domingo to Receive London Critics’ Circle’s Derek Malcolm Award for Innovation

Posted on December 25, 2023 by Tom Castaneda

Colman Domingo is the critics’ choice for a special recognition…

The 54-year-old Belizean-Guatemalan American actor and social justice activist will receive the first-ever Derek Malcolm Award for Innovation from the United Kingdom’s leading film critics.

The award is named after the legendary critic and film historian who died in August at the age of 91. Named in his honor, the award will be part of the 44^th London Critics’ Circle Awards that take place on February 4, 2024.

Domingo is being recognized for his work as an actor, producer, writer, and director in a career that spans film, television and theater.

He won an Emmy for his role in Euphoria and received a Tony nomination as a producer of Fat Ham, a retelling of Hamlet. In film, his recent credits include The Color Purple and Rustin and other work includes appearances in Barry Jenkins’ If Beale Street Could Talk, Lee Daniels’ The Butler and Ava DuVernay’s Selma.

“It’s an honor to receive the inaugural Derek Malcolm Award for Innovation and to be recognized in this way by the London Film Critics’ Circle, a group of journalists I deeply respect,” Domingo said. “This has been an incredible year for film, and having the opportunity to play Bayard Rustin, a man who embodied the word ‘trailblazer’, has been a great privilege.”

Malcolm was a long-standing member of the Critics’ Circle, serving a term as its president. He was variously chief critic for British newspapers The Guardian and The Evening Standard and hosted The Film Club on the BBC, as well as publishing several books. He was also a former director of London Film Festival and governor of the British Film Institute.

Colman Domingo Co-Producing the Broadway Production of “Fat Ham”

Posted on February 12, 2023 by Tom Castaneda

Colman Domingo is hamming it up…

The 53-year-old Belizean-Guatemalan American actor and social justice activist, an Emmy winner and Tony Award, has signed on as co-producer of the upcoming Broadway production of James Ijames’ Pultizer Prize winning play Fat Ham.

Beginning performances on Tuesday, March 21, the production of Fat Ham at American Airlines Theatre has an official opening night of Wednesday, April 12 for a strictly limited 14-week engagement through Sunday, June 25.

The play, which has been described as a “comic tragedy,” reinvents Shakespeare’s Hamlet by setting it at a backyard cookout where Juicy, a queer, Black Southern college kid grappling with questions of identity, is met by the ghost of his father who shows up demanding that Juicy avenge his murder, even as Juicy is trying to break the cycles of trauma and violence in service of his own liberation.

Fat Ham on Broadway is a Public Theater and National Black Theatre co-production.

“I am beyond thrilled to be a co-producer on The National Black Theater and Public Theater transfer of James Ijames thrilling Fat Ham directed by my dear friend and visionary director Saheem Ali,” Domingo said in a statement to Deadline. “This is the kind of theater that we need on Broadway – bold reimaginings of stories that fuel us all.”

The Broadway transfer of Fat Ham from the Off Broadway Public Theatre represents National Black Theatre’s first production on Broadway, and only the third play to be transferred by a Black theater in Broadway’s century-long history. The complete Off Broadway cast will make the move to Broadway.

Domingo currently stars in Fear of the Walking Dead and Euphoria, and has completed filming of The Color Purple. He is a 2011 Tony Award nominee for his performance in The Scottsboro Boys musical.

Oscar Isaac to Star in New York Revival of Lorraine Hansberry’s “The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window”

Posted on October 7, 2022 by Tom Castaneda

Oscar Isaac is embracing the sign…

The 43-year-old Cuban-Guatemalan actor will star opposite Rachel Brosnahan in the first major New York revival of Lorraine Hansberry’s The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window this February at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.

The production, running February 4-23, 2023, at the BAM Harvey Theater, will be directed by Obie Award winner Anne Kauffman.

Described by BAM as a “sweeping drama of identity, idealism, and love,” The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window is set in 1960s Greenwich Village and focuses on a diverse group of friends “whose loudly proclaimed progressive dreams can’t quite match up with reality. At the center are Sidney and Iris Brustein, fighting to see if their marriage – with all its crackling wit, passion, and petty cruelty – will be the final sacrifice to Sidney’s ideals.”

The play debuted on Broadway in 1964, five years after Hansberry’s masterpiece A Raisin in the Sun and shortly before her death in 1965 at age 34.

The Sign in Brustein’s Window has not been produced on a major New York stage since then.

Kauffman presented an acclaimed revival of the work in 2016 at Chicago’s Goodman Theatre.

“We are in dire need of Hansberry’s voice…we know so little of her and define her by one play: A Raisin in the Sun,” Kauffman said in a statement. “Without a doubt Raisin is a masterpiece, but Hansberry’s evolution and contribution to this country’s culture, history and political motion stretches way beyond that astonishing accomplishment. Her work as an artist and activist is varied and deep. The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window, written four years after A Raisin in the Sun, embraces human complexity and frailty while aggressively shaking us free of our delusions, yet very few people know of it. Now they’ll know.”

David Binder, BAM Artistic Director, said, “During the five years I spent working to produce the first Broadway revival of A Raisin in the Sun (in 2004), I fell in love with The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window. I shared this passion for Lorraine’s play with Anne and the two of us spent many, many years working together to mount the show in New York. It’s an honor to present Lorraine’s beautiful, and rarely seen, play, finally, at BAM.”

The creative team and full company will be announced soon.

In addition to his numerous screen credits, Isaac has appeared on the New York stage in Hamlet, We Live Here, Romeo and Juliet and Two Gentlemen of Verona and Beauty of the Father, among others.

The original 1964 production of The Sign in Brustein’s Window starred Gabriel Dell and Rita Moreno. A short-lived 1972 revival starred Hal Linden and Zohra Lampert.

Noomi Rapace to Star in Gender-Swapped Adaptation of William Shakespeare’s “Hamlet”

Posted on December 21, 2020 by Tom Castaneda

Noomi Rapace is taking on the Bard’s work…

The 40-year-old half-Spanish actress will lead cast in a gender-swapped adaptation of William Shakespeare’s Hamlet from filmmaker Ali Abbasi.

The film will reunite Abbasi with Meta Film after they produced the director’s Oscar-nominated Cannes Film Festival 2018 hit Border.

Iceland’s Sjón is writing the project, with Stine Meldgaard Madsen producing for Meta Film. The film will be produced in collaboration with Boom Films, with principal photography scheduled for autumn 2021.

Swedish-Danish-Iranian filmmaker Abbasi said: “Shakespeare stole the Hamlet story from us. Now it’s our turn to claim it back and make a version so insane and so bloody that make him turn in his grave. Let’s make Hamlet great again!”

Prometheus and The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo star Rapace added: “Hamlet is a dream project in its purest and most explosive way. I’ve been hoping, dreaming, wishing for this as long as I’ve been an actress. I base this as much on the material as on the creative alliance that surrounds it. Ali, Sjón and Meta are for me creatives on the highest level. They’re truly brave and groundbreaking in their different areas and always on top of their game. To take on a Danish story with a Scandinavian touch and bring it out into the world with this group of people is a dream.”

Abbasi trained at the Danish Film School and made his feature debut in 2018 with Shelley, which was selected for the Panorama competition at the Berlin Film Festival. His second film, Border, won in the Un Certain Regard section of the Cannes Film Festival in the same year.

Isaac to Star in “Hamlet” at the Public Theater

Posted on February 24, 2017 by Tom Castaneda

Oscar Isaac is taking on The Bard’s work…

The 37-year-old Guatemalan-Cuban American actor, who most recently starred in the massive blockbuster Star Wars: The Force Awakens, will appear in Hamlet beginning in June at the Public Theater.

Isaac will play the melancholy Dane, in a staging of the William Shakespeare tragedy by Sam Gold.

This Hamlet was announced last year as a production of Theatre For A New Audience, the eminent Brooklyn-based company that focuses on classics. Gold – who has a growing reputation for insightful productions of new work such as Fun Home along with a distinctly non-traditional approach to classics – withdrew the production from TFNA last June, reportedly due to concerns over support for his vision of the play. He and Isaac then brought the production to the Public.

Hamlet is slated to begin previews June 20, open July 13 and run through September 3, an unusually long run for the Public. Making his New York stage debut will be Keegan-Michael Key as Hamlet’s trusted friend Horatio. Also cast in the production are Peter Friedman (The Affair, The Path) as Polonius, Gayle Rankin (upcoming in the Netflix series Glow) as Ophelia, Roberta Colindrez as Rosencrantz, Matthew Saldívar as Guildenstern, and Anatol Yusef as Laertes.

David Zinn will design the set, with costumes by Kaye Voyce, lighting by Mark Barton, sound by Bray Poor and musical direction, composition, and performance by cellist Ernst Reijseger.

Cardenas Cast as a Series Regular on FX’s “Snowfall” Pilot from John Singleton

Posted on July 29, 2016 by Tom Castaneda

Juan Javier Cardenas is bracing for a White season…

The Latino actor has been cast as a series regular on FX’s Snowfall, the 1980s cocaine-epidemic drama pilot from John Singleton.

Co-created and executive produced by Boyz N The Hood director Singleton and Erick Amadio, and directed by El Arbi and Bilall Fallah, the pilot has been undergoing a revamp.

In addition to Cardenas, who has made appearances on The Good Wife, Blue Bloods and Law & Order SVU, new additions to the cast include Carter Hudson, Angela Lewis and Filipe Valle Costa.

Hudson will play Teddy McDonald, a CIA operative banished to the Los Angeles office after a tragic misstep in the past. When he sees an opportunity to reverse his fortunes, Teddy risks everything to get his life back on track. Lewis will portray Louise Saint, Franklin’s (Damson Idris) party girl aunt.

Cardenas will play Alejandro Usteves, a calculating rebel from the Nicaraguan Contras movement who is determined to keep his revolution alive by any means necessary.

Costa will play Pedro, the cocky heir apparent of a Mexican crime family that sells marijuana throughout Los Angeles.

Cardenas’ other TV credits include Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders, NCIS: Los Angeles and Scandal.

Costa’s credits include Blue Bloods, Gotham, and the feature film Hamlet.

Isaac to Star in Theatre for a New Audience’s Production of “Hamlet”

Posted on April 3, 2016 by Tom Castaneda

Oscar Isaac is about to Ham(let) it up…

The 37-year-old Guatemalan and Cuban American actor will play William Shakespeare’s melancholy Prince of Denmark in a new production of Hamlet for the Brooklyn-based company Theatre for a New Audience. It’s more than a year off, but the play, to be staged by Sam Gold, will certainly be a big draw for artistic director Jeffrey Horowitz’s celebrated and increasingly ambitious company, which presents in its sleek new headquarters, the Polonsky Shakespeare Center.

Hamlet is slated to begin previews June 4, 2017 for an opening June 22 and run through July 30. The pairing of star (Star Wars: The Force Awakens; A Most Violent Year; Inside Llewyn Davis) director (Tony Award winner for staging the Tony Winning best musical Fun Home) should continue TFNA’s upward profile — and demonstrate that the prospect of a Tony nomination isn’t the only reason marquee actors are drawn to the stage or even to Brooklyn

Isaac and Gold previously worked together on Zoe Kazan’s We Live Here, in 2011.

Hamlet is their first Shakespeare collaboration and their first production with TFNA.

“Oscar is celebrated for the honesty, authenticity, and intensity of his performances,” Horowitz said in announcing the production Sunday afternoon, “and Hamlet marks his long-desired return to theater after an impressive series of starring film and television roles. Sam is renowned for the transparent subtlety and nuance of the theatrical worlds he creates. Together [they] will explore the ‘undiscovered country’ of Hamlet’s world which begins, of course, with the first words of the play, ‘Who’s there?’”

Casting and other creative decisions will be announced later.

Grindstone Entertainment Acquires North American Rights to Leguizamo’s “Cymbeline”

Posted on September 3, 2014 by Tom Castaneda

John Leguizamo’s latest project will hit U.S. theaters in the near future…

Lionsgate’s Grindstone Entertainment has acquired the North American rights to the modern-day film adaptation of William Shakespeare’s Cymbeline, starring the 50-year-old Colombian actor/comedian.

The film, which had its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival, centers on a battle between dirty cops and a drug dealing biker gang, set in a corruption-riddled contemporary America. Shakespeare’s play centered on the daughter of the British king Cymbeline, who discovers she has secretly married a man raised in her father’s court, resulting in his banishment from the court.

In addition to Leguizamo, the film also stars Ethan Hawke, Ed Harris, Milla Jovovich, Penn Badgley, Dakota Johnson and Anton Yelchin.

Cymbeline, which re-teams director Michael Almereyda with Hawke more than a decade after their collaboration on Hamlet in 2000, will be distributed in the spring.

It’s Leguizamo’s latest appearance in a film adaptation of a William Shakespeare work. He previously starred in 1996’s Baz Luhrmann-directed Romeo + Juliet, an abridged modernization of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.

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