Plays based on little-known history populate Phoenix Theatre's 2025-26 season
The Phoenix Theatre Cultural Centre will have a big start to its 2025-26 season: It will produce "The Rocket Men" by Crystal Skillman. Based on a true story, the play explores the German engineers and scientists who worked for Nazi Germany before moving to North Alabama to work on NASA's rocketry program, helping U.S. astronauts fly to the moon.
Performed by an all-female cast, "The Rocket Men" will offer a fresh perspective on scientific exploration and moral responsibility. The work is set to be a National New Play Network Rolling World Premiere, and its run will begin in September at the Phoenix. The network is a group of professional theaters that collaborate to support development and sustainability of new plays.
"We've been working with Crystal for the past year to launch The Rocket Men: Zoom readings with local actors, live readings in New York, workshopping, lots of rewriting, reshaping to land on target," Phoenix Artistic Director Constance Macy said in a news release. "I love it because it exposes hidden history told through women's voices, resonates in a profoundly modern way, and is grandly theatrical."
The rest of the Phoenix Theater's season will include more plays produced by the theater itself as well as those presented by American Lives Theatre, Indianapolis Shakespeare Co. and Summit Performance Indianapolis. A Halloween storytelling event and dance concerts also will grace the stage.
Here's the season schedule. Find tickets and more information at phoenixtheatre.org.
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21 Celebs Who Told Jokes On Talk Shows And Podcasts
Everyone likes a good joke — even celebrities! So, my friends (is it OK if I call you that? We're close, right?), here are 21 celebs who told A+ jokes on TV or a podcast: Harrison Ford was on the Late Show with David Letterman in 2015 when he told this joke — one that he said his wife Calista Flockhart wouldn't love him telling. Here it is: "So, this guy is working in the produce department at the grocery store when a lady walks up and says, 'Excuse me, where's the broccoli? I can't find the broccoli.' He says, 'Oh, I'm really sorry, ma'am, we ran out of broccoli; we will have some tomorrow morning.' So, he goes back to his work, and he's stacking the oranges when he hears behind him, 'Mister? Mister?' He turns around, and it's the same lady. She says, 'Where's the broccoli? You got any broccoli?' He says, 'No, ma'am, we're fresh out of broccoli. We'll have some tomorrow morning.' And he goes back to work." "A couple minutes later, this same woman walks up right into his face and says, 'How come I can't find any broccoli? Where's the broccoli?' He says, 'Lady, do me a favor, will ya?' She says, 'What?' He says, 'Indulge me. How do you spell 'cat,' like in 'catastrophic?' She says 'C-A-T.'" "He says, 'How do you spell 'dog' like in 'dogmatic?' She says, 'D-O-G.' He says, 'Now, how do you spell 'fuck' like in 'broccoli?' She says, 'There is no 'fuck' in broccoli.' He says, 'THAT'S WHAT I'VE BEEN TRYING TO TELL YOU LADY!'" Jeff Ross told a bunch of funny jokes to Jimmy Kimmel about being diagnosed with colon cancer, like: "My oncologist said, 'Jeff, the good news and bad news. The bad news is you're going to need six months of chemo. The good news is you lost your hair a long time ago.'" He also made this joke about having part of his colon removed: "Now I have a semicolon." One more: "I had laparoscopic surgery, so I have holes around here [points to his torso and chest]. Little holes. I'm like 50 Cent if instead of getting shot, he ate pastrami twice a week for 50 years." Chris Pratt was on Conan back in 2016 when it came up that he could speak a little German. He then enthusiastically told this joke in German (translated to English below): "Peter and his friend Dieter were sitting on top of a hill when Peter turned to Dieter and said, 'You see all those houses down there? I built them with my bare hands! But do they call me Peter the House Builder? No.' Peter then pointed to a church by the houses. 'I built that church with my bare hands, too! But do they call me Peter the Church Builder? No.' Peter next pointed to a huge wall below them and said, 'And do you see that big wall? I built that wall stone by stone! But do they call me Peter the Wall Builder? No, they do not.' Peter paused, looked Dieter dead in the eyes, and said, 'But you fuck ONE pig...'" Comedian Mike Birbiglia told Marc Maron on the WTF podcast: 'My dad had a stroke. It's been devastating, but I will say it has calmed him down.' Natasha Lyonne was on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno in the late '90s when she told a hilariously risque joke I STILL can't believe got on the it caught a none-too-pleased Leno totally off guard. NOW LISTEN... THIS JOKE IS ONE YOU GOTTA WATCH! It's a visual joke, and reading it just isn't the same. So, if you're somewhere you can watch a video, skip over the text below and watch the video, m'kay? The joke:Natasha extends her hand toward Leno and says, "There are three ladies in my hand." She then points to her palm and says, "She's blonde, she's a brunette, and she's a redhead. Now, I want you to pick up the blonde and put it by the side of your face."Leno picks up the imaginary, tiny blonde out of Natasha's hand and places it against his says, "Does that feel like the first time you made love?"Leno says, "No," so Natasha says, "OK, put her back! Put her back! Now, pick up the brunette and put her against your face." (He does.) "Does that feel like the first time you did it?"Leno said, "Uh, no.""OK, put her back, too. Ooooh, now pick up the redhead. She's a redhead. She's hot." (He puts the redhead against his face.) "That do it for you?"A confused Leno says, "No.""Not like the first time you had sex? Put her back.""OK," Leno said as he put the redhead back into Natasha's hand."Now, pick them all up," Natasha picked up all three and held them in his hand like dice."Now, shake them all up."Leno shakes the women (looking like he's making a jerk-off motion)."Now, does that feel like the first time you..." Natasha — realizing what she made him do — smiles awkwardly and says, "Oh, OK." Watch Natasha destroy Leno with her joke below: Chris Hemsworth was on the BBC's The Graham Norton Show when he mentioned that people often come up to him and tell him Thor jokes. Norton asked him to tell one, so he said: 'Thor spends the night with this woman, and the next morning he says, 'I have to tell you who I am. I'm Thor.' She says, 'You're Thor? I can hardly walk.'" On the Your Mom's House podcast, Louis C.K. shared this one: "I was in a hotel, and I ordered a wake-up call. The next morning, the phone rings, and the voice says, 'What are you doing with your life?'" Dolly Parton started an appearance on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon by talking about the reaction she got back home after her last appearance on the show. 'Everybody said, 'Well, did you tell Jimmy our famous story about our bear?' And I said, 'No, I never got a chance to tell him.' (Looks to Jimmy) 'Do you have time for it on the show? Well, this is a true story.'" "Up in Pigeon Forge, many years ago, back when I was a kid, they had a bear in a cage. You know, we're famous for the bears in the Smokies. And they had this bear in a big cage up there, and people would stop at this market and buy Cokes for this bear that was in the cage. And tourists would take pictures — for years, they would give it Cokes and peanuts." "So anyway, this bear was just getting bigger and bigger. And they were selling all kinds of stuff at this market, and this poor bear was just drinking them all. One day, some redneck put gasoline in a Coke can. Can you believe that? How bad people are? The poor bear just went crazy, and it broke out of the pen and started toward Sevierville — because Pigeon Forge is about eight miles from Sevierville — and it was going all the way down there when all of a sudden, it just fell over." Jimmy asked: 'Dead?'To which Dolly said: 'No, it was out of gas!' And while we're on the subject of Dolly and jokes, I have to share this exchange she had on her short-lived TV show, Dolly, back in 1988. When a teenager in the crowd asked her what advice she had for the teenagers of the day, she replied, "I would say, 'Act like it's raining every day and wear your rubbers.'" Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg appeared together on the YouTube show Dad Jokes, where celebs face off against each telling dad jokes. Will started things off by asking Mark, "What do mermaids wash their fins with?" The answer? "Tide." Will also got a groan/laugh from this one: "What did the angry fried rice say to the shrimp? Don't wok away from me!" Mark replied by telling Will, "Did you know in King Arthur's time one of the knights of the round table collected taxes? His name was Sir Charge." He also told this groaner: "Did you hear Steve Harvey and his wife got into a fight? It was a Family Feud." Gal Gadot was on The Late Late Show with James Corden when Corden challenged her to tell a joke in Hebrew that would make Hagar Ben Ari — an Israeli musician in the show's house band — laugh. Here's what Gal said (translated to English below): 'A baby is like instant coffee, do you know why? It's easy to make it, and it keeps you up all night.' And yes, Hagar laughed! On his podcast Norm Macdonald Live, Norm shared his father's favorite joke: "Roses are gray, violets are gray, tulips are I'm a dog." He was also famous for going on Conan O'Brien's talk shows and telling long, ridiculous the setup was often as funny as the punch line. This one was supposedly about his early days as a bartender: "One time, a drunk guy came in, and you're not supposed to serve the drunk guys. That's one of the things you learn. And also, you learn how to make the drinks. So, the drunk comes in, you know, real drunk. Three sheets to the wind, you know? This character sits down, and I says to him, I says, 'What do you want? I can't serve you.' He says, 'I don't want a drink! I want to shoot a dart at your dart board!'" "So, I says to my guy, 'You can't shoot a dart on the dart board, you're drunk! I'm not going to let you. That'd be dangerous. That's a sharp thing, a dart.' The guy goes, 'No, let me shoot one shot at the dart board.' So, I say, 'Ok, one shot, that's it.' So, the guy shoots the dart eye. Never seen anything like it. Even in his state. So, the guy says to me, he says, 'What do I win?'" "So, I don't know what he wins, I'm confused, so I start looking around, trying to find something, and I see at the bottom of the bar area is a shoebox with a turtle in it. I was going to give it to my nephew as a gift, but then, later I thought that's a dumb gift, a turtle. Nobody likes a turtle. Kid would probably just put him on his back until he dies. Kids are cruel, you know? So, I think, why not just give it to this drunk? So, I say here's your prize, here it is. And so the guy takes it in the shoebox, and he goes, 'Thanks' and walks out of there. I figure that's the last I'll ever see of that guy." "But two weeks later, the guy shows up again. Drunk again! So, now I go, oh my god, that's that guy from two weeks ago, you know? So, he walks into the bar, and I say, 'I can't serve you, buddy. I can't do that.' He goes, 'I don't want any, I want to shoot a dart at your dart board.' I say, 'Ah, no, man, I let you do that before.' He says, 'But I got a bull's eye!' I say, 'Yeah, yeah, but you can't do that again.' He says, 'Let me try.' So, he takes the dart, shoots it, bull's eye again! So, he goes, 'What do I win?'" So, I'm confused. I look around, I go, 'I don't know. What did you win last time?' And he goes, 'Oh, last time I won a roast beef on a hard roll.'" Karate Kid star Pat Morita appeared on a show in the '80s called Funniest Joke Ever Told where — you guessed it — celebs tell jokes. Here was Pat's contribution: "I was watching a short sword tournament in Japan where the guys who did the short sword demonstration were so fascinating. They awarded three prizes, so I went up to the guy who won the third prize and said, 'Excuse me, sir, what did you do to win third prize?' He said, 'Very simple. See that fly on the wall over there?' He then swung his sword at the fly, and it dropped dead on the floor in two pieces. I said, 'Oh my goodness! That is something else!'" "I then went up to the guy who won second prize and said, 'And what did you do, sir, to win your prize?' He said, 'See that fly on the wall?' And then, he sliced the fly dead into four pieces! Now, oh boy! I go up to the guy who won the grand prize and say, 'What did you do to win grand prize?' He says, 'See that fly on the wall? Watch!' He then sliced his sword at the it just buzzed away across the room." I say, "Big deal! The fly is still flying." And he says, "Yes, but that fly will never have children!" A teenage Brooke Shields also appeared on the show where she told this cute one: "Mike has this job to take 60 penguins to the Bronx Zoo, but he'd rather go to the race track. So, he decides to call his friend Joe and says, 'Hey, Joe. I've got this job for you. I'll give you five bucks if you take these penguins to the zoo.' Joe says, 'That's fine. I'd love to.' Mike goes to the race track, then the next day, he's walking down the street and sees Joe from a distance with the 60 penguins following behind him. He says, 'Joe, I thought I told you to take these penguins to the zoo!' Joe says, 'I did! And we had such a good time I thought I'd take them to the movies, too!'" I know we already had a Harrison Ford joke earlier, but it turns out the man is a master joke teller so we had to include another! Years after his Letterman appearance, he swapped jokes with Jimmy Fallon on The Tonight Show. Here's his: "So, this cannibal is walking down a path in the jungle when he passes a cannibal from another village. The first cannibal says to the second, 'How you doing?' And the second cannibal says, 'Actually, thank you for asking, I haven't been feeling that good lately.' The first cannibal says, 'What's the problem?' And the second says, 'It's my tummy.' The first says, 'What have you been eating?' The second says, 'The usual. Missionaries.' The first says, 'How are you cooking them?'" "The second says, 'Well, the usual way, we get a big pot of water boiling, a couple bay leaves, onion, some carrots, throw 'em in four, five, six hours.' 'Wait a second,' the first cannibal says. 'What do they look like?' The second says, 'They've got that little fringe of hair on their head, and they're wearing those brown robes and sandals.' The first cannibal nods and says, 'You're cooking them wrong.'" "'Cooking them wrong?' asks the second cannibal. 'What do you mean cooking them wrong?' And the first says, 'Them are friars.'" And here was Jimmy's joke: "This guy goes into the vet, and he's holding a duck. He walks in and goes, 'Doc, is my duck dead?' The doc goes, just by the fact the duck's not moving, 'Yeah, it's dead.' The guy goes, 'Uh, this is terrible. Are you sure?' The doc says, 'Well, I can run some tests if you want.' He brings out a big chocolate lab that goes over to the duck and starts sniffing the duck. The lab then looks up at the doc and shakes his head." "The doc says, 'I'm sorry. The duck is no longer with us. He's passed.' The guy says, 'Oh my goodness. Are you sure?' The doc says, 'Yeah. I mean, I could run another test.' So, he gets a cat, and the cat comes over and looks at the duck, looks at the duck's eyes, looks at the back of the duck, then looks up at the doctor and shakes his head. The doc says, 'I'm sorry, your duck is no more, he's deceased. You duck is dead.'" "'Uh, this is terrible,' the guy says. 'What do I owe you?''$1,500.''$1500 for what?' 'Well, with the lab work and cat scan...'" Going back to The Funniest Joke I Ever Heard, legendary actor Jimmy Stewart shared this one: "A woman named Margaret asks her husband, John, if he would remarry if she died. John tries to avoid the question, but Margaret persists over several days. Eventually, John admits he probably would remarry. Margaret then asks if he would sell the house, to which John replies, 'No.' She continues, 'Would you let her sleep in our bed?' John says, 'No.' Finally, Margaret asks, 'Would you let her use my golf clubs?' John responds, 'No, she's left-handed.'" Academy Award-winning actor Ernest Borgnine told his favorite funny on the show too: "This lady wanted to throw a nice steak dinner smothered with mushrooms for 15, 16 people, but she didn't want to pay that awful price at the store for mushrooms. She told her husband about it, and he said, 'There's a whole bunch of mushrooms growing in back of the barn, why don't you try those?' She asked, 'Are they any good?' He says, 'Oh, I don't know, but try them anyway.'" "So, she went out, picked some, and cooked up a big mess of them in a pot for her dog Spot, all covered with bacon grease and everything else, and Spot ate every one of them. It was just marvelous. She said, 'Bully!' and went out to get more mushrooms." "So, she had a dinner for her friends, serving steaks smothered with beautiful mushrooms. Just about half way through the dinner, the maid ran in and yelled, 'Oh my God! Spot's dead!' The lady turned white and said, 'Call a doctor, call a doctor!' They called a doctor who came and pumped everyone's stomachs. He was just about finished with the last person when the maid ran back in and tearfully said, 'You know what? The truck that hit Spot didn't even stop!'" Lastly, this is pretty cool. In 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. made an appearance on The Tonight Show where — as one does on these shows — he told a funny anecdote. Here it is: "I flew out of Washington this afternoon, and as soon as we started out, they notified us the plane had mechanical difficulties. That kept us on the ground a good while. Finally, we took off and whenever I land after mechanical difficulties, I'm always very happy. Now, I don't want to give you the impression that as a Baptist preacher I don't have faith in God in the air, it's simply that I've just had more experience with him on the ground."
Yahoo
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‘NASA Live' will show spacewalks, rocket launches on Netflix
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It's summer but the Earth is extra far from the sun; Here's what that means
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