Day: April 30, 2024

Broadway time is coming, on PBS and CBS

For TV viewers, the Broadway season is coming up.
Well, maybe it’s a mini-season – five busy weeks, when Broadway-type shows get the focus. That starts May 10 with “Hamlet” on PBS … continues with three Friday concerts … then wraps up June 16, with the Tony Awards, which have just announced their nominations. And it includes some interesting crossovers:
— “Purlie Victorious” will be on PBS on May 24, three weeks before its shot at a Tony for best play revival.
— Audra McDonald (shown here), the all-time Tony champ, will be in two of the PBS specials. She has a solo concert May 17, then joins others May 31 for “Rodgers & Hammerstein’s 80th Anniversary.” McDonald is the only person to win six Tonys in competetive acting categories; Angela Lansbury and Julie Harris each won five plus an honorary one. Read more…

A smaller Billy wraps a big success

During the five-year run of “Bob (Hearts) Abishola” (shown here), lives have transformed.
Folake Olowofoyeku became a star, Gina Yashere became an American, Chuck Lorre became rich (well, richer). And Billy Gardell became barely more than half his size.
“I was in a place with my health that I needed to make a severe change,” Gardell told the Television Critics Association. He did, with bariatric surgery and careful living.
The Gardell we’ll see on the series finale (8:30 p.m., May 6, on CBS) is about 5-foot-11, 207 pounds. There were times when he apparently topped 370. Read more…

Best-bets for May 2: “Ghosts” wraps, “Wrexham” returns

1) “Ghosts” season-finale, 8:30 p.m., CBS. This s something Isaac wouldn’t have believed during his lifetime, 250 years ago: He’s marrying another man … who was a British officer … whom he killed during the Revolutionary War. (They’re shown here, in a previous episode.) Now the wedding is complicated by an unexpected guest, wrapping up a 10-episode, post-strike season. Read more…