Latest news with #WhoopiGoldberg
Yahoo
7 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Scranton Shakespeare Festival, in financial need, to charge for some shows
The Scranton Shakespeare Festival will now charge $20 for its previously free summer musicals, a response to financial strain. Its Shakespeare plays, which begin June 20, remain free. 'Despite our best efforts through fundraising and grants, we have reached a point where we simply cannot sustain our work without additional support,' according to an email the nonprofit professional theater troupe sent to patrons Sunday. 'To continue offering the kind of vibrant, ambitious productions our community deserves, and to ensure the future of Scranton Shakespeare Festival for years to come, we must ask for your help in a new way.' Tickets can be earned by helping out with productions. 'No one will be turned away for lack of funds,' according to the email. At all levels of theater, musicals generally draw bigger crowds than plays. The musicals are reliable crowd-pleasers: 'Sister Act,' 'Hairspray' and 'Little Shop of Horrors.' The first, 'Sister Act,' is June 26 to 29, plus July 26. The musical is based on the Whoopi Goldberg movie about a singer who hides out in a convent and brings new life to it. * The upcoming season of the Scranton Shakespeare Festival. (Scranton Shakespeare Festival) * Dane Huggler and Violet Martin in a past production by the Scranton Shakespeare Festival. Martin, a Scranton High School student, will play Juliet in the Festival Youth Ensemble production of 'Romeo and Juliet' and will be in the main stage production of 'Hairspray.' (Brandon Lam Photography) Show Caption 1 of 2 The upcoming season of the Scranton Shakespeare Festival. (Scranton Shakespeare Festival) Expand Buying the rights to the scripts for the summer productions cost $10,417. The total cost of this season, including stipends for the ensemble and staff, is $115,655. The festival receives Lackawanna County grants and solicits donations and sponsors. It stages fundraising shows in the off season, such as a Christmas pantomime. The Shakespeare plays remain free thanks to a new $5,000 sponsorship from PNC Bank. They begin with a youth ensemble production of 'Romeo & Juliet,' beginning June 20, followed by 'Julius Caesar' and 'Timon of Athens' in July. The schedule and box office are online at Reservations are encouraged for the free shows. The festival was started with a 2011 production in Nay Aug Park. Each year brings a different mix of visiting professional and local performers. This year there are 34, who will perform in a theater inside the Marketplace at Steamtown in Scranton. Co-founder and artistic director Michael Bradshaw Flynn could not be reached for comment.
Daily Mail
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Joy Behar bizarrely begs Sarah Silverman to kiss her at the end of an interview on The View
Joy Behar pleaded with Sarah Silverman to kiss her as they wrapped up the comedian's interview on The View. Stand-up comic and actress Sarah, 54, was a guest on the ABC panel show on Thursday where she promoted her latest Netflix special, PostMortem, which debuted on the platform May 20. But as her appearance came to a close, longstanding panelist Joy, 82, was heard asking the School of Rock star to 'kiss me.' 'It's always fun to see you,' the host remarked seconds before, with Sarah immediately retorting, 'I love seeing you!' Whoopi Goldberg then gently hinted that something was about to come, as she asked, 'You want to do the goodbye?' 'Kiss me,' Joy quietly insisted to Sarah which then prompted her to lean in for a smooch. The live studio audience erupted into applause after the bizarre moment and Sarah smacked her lips together. 'We'll all do it,' she added. Sarah had been in the studio to chat about her recently released stand-up special which she wrote after the death of her father and stepmother, who died just nine days apart from each other in 2023. Speaking to the panel, she said: 'I recorded a special and before this one, the one before that was coming out as my dad and my stepmom were dying, and so when you're finished with a special, you're at zero again with material. 'I had no material so when I went back to stand-up, that's what my life was, you know, so I literally went from, cleaning up their apartment with my sisters all day to the club and then that's what I talked about. 'It was a good jumping off point because I spoke at my dad's funeral. 'We all wore his clothes. T-shirts and shorts and there were stains on everything. 'And, you know, he was so funny that my eulogy was funny. 'I had so many funny stories about him so that's where I kind of started from when I started over.' Filmed at the Beacon Theater in New York, PostMortem, according to the official synopsis, follows Sarah as she 'hilariously navigates the absurdities of death with her signature wit, from unexpectedly finding the deal of a lifetime while planning their funerals to cherishing the bittersweet experience of hearing her mother's last words.' Earlier this month, Sarah shared a shocking revelation her late father Donald told her about how her baby brother, Jeffrey, died. Sarah had always been told that her three-month-old brother, who died before she was born, had 'suffocated' after he slipped through a space between the mattress and the bottom rail of his crib. 'The story was that something happened with the crib, and Jeffrey's little body slid and he got suffocated,' she recalled to Rolling Stone. 'But if you look back, there was never a lawsuit with the crib company or anything,' She claims that prior to his death in 2023, Donald told her that he believed the infant was killed by her 'violent' grandfather — Donald's dad — after he 'shook him in a rage.'
NDTV
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- NDTV
Brazilian Nuns' Impromptu Beatbox And Dance Session On Catholic TV Is Viral
A group of Brazilian clergy members is making waves online after an unexpected beatboxing and dance session during a live Catholic television broadcast. The now-viral video features Sister Marizele, who surprised viewers with her beatboxing skills during a May 20 appearance on a Brazilian Catholic TV channel. Dressed in a traditional white habit and blue skirt, the nun began by singing before shifting into a lively beatbox performance, using only her mouth and tongue to create rhythmic sounds. The cheerful display didn't stop there. Another nun soon joined in with some dance moves, followed by a priest in a black robe, who also took to the floor in an impromptu celebration of music and joy. Clips of the trio's performance have been widely shared on social media, with many viewers drawing comparisons to the popular Sister Act film franchise starring Whoopi Goldberg. In the comments, users celebrated the joyful moment, noting that clergy members, too, once had youthful passions and talents. One viewer wrote, "They were once teenagers who loved music - it's wonderful to see them share that with the world." Another user wrote, "This is the best thing I've seen all day." "There is something very wholesome about this," the third user wrote.
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The Independent
5 days ago
- Business
- The Independent
ABC bosses urged The View to tone down its Trump-bashing. But are Whoopi & Co. listening?
In the days since it was reported that the top executives at ABC News and its parent company Disney urged The View to tone down its politics, the largely Trump-bashing hosts of the daytime talk show have only grown more strident with their rhetoric. At times, it's even seemed like the show's panelists — specifically long-running moderator Whoopi Goldberg and outspoken Never Trumper Ana Navarro — have made a point of defying the corporate request to pull back on their politically charged commentary. 'You know, people always want us to be respectful and do the things and talk about the stuff we talk about. We can do all of that,' Goldberg exclaimed last Thursday, holding up a pocket Constitution while condemning the president for accepting a luxury jet from Qatar. 'But when you are blatantly giving the country the middle finger, that is blatant,' she added. 'You're not supposed to do that!' Navarro, who recently spoke to Disney chief Bob Iger about the show's political tone and coverage, wasted no time going after Trump this week after returning from the Memorial Day break. 'If Joe Biden said that, we'd be talking about his cognitive skills and cognitive decline for days,' she said after the show aired a clip of Trump flubbing the word 'cryptologic' during a recent speech. 'You know, he calls the way he speaks the weave, I call the thing on his head the weave.' That was just one small blip, meanwhile, in a lengthy opening segment on Tuesday that focused intently on Trump using his Memorial Day speech and soxcial media post to attack and slam his political rivals. And much as she did on a few days prior, Goldberg appeared to deliver a not-so-subtle message to the C-suite about the editorial direction of the show. 'Whatever it is, it's on us. We have work to do,' she proclaimed to applause from the in-studio audience. 'We have to get out and make sure we put the balance back into this country.' Meanwhile, Wednesday's broadcast represented the third straight episode in which The View kicked off with a lengthy segment tearing into Trump and his administration, this time over the president issuing a pardon to reality TV stars Todd and Julie Chrisley. The MAGA-backing couple, whose daughter spoke at the Republican National Convention, were convicted of tax evasion and bank fraud in 2022 for defrauding community banks of $30 million in fraudulent loans. And at the end of the A-block on the show, Goldberg once again waved around her pocket Constitution while chastising the Trump White House, all while suggesting it is a moral imperative that the show call out the actions of this president. 'When you want to know 'does this pass the smell test,' all you've got to do is check it out here. See, because there are things you don't do in America that we — the Constitution says it. It's not us saying it. It's saying we don't do this in America,' she exclaimed. 'I get that your whole family has figured out a way to make money from the country. I get it. OK. That's what you do,' Goldberg continued. 'That's what you've always done. What I don't like is that you get pi**y with other people doing the same thing. Either it's not good for everybody, or it's good for everybody. Somebody make up their mind!' The Independent has reached out to ABC News for comment. The impassioned anti-Trump screeds, of course, are nothing new on this show. In fact, it has become a feature for the better part of a decade, even when Joe Biden occupied the White House for four years. Additionally, the past week's new shows have continued the basic format that has been in place in recent months. While the show typically leads off with a 'Hot Topic' centered on political news, the rest of the program tends to feature a variety of other issues that the panel tackles. For instance, on Wednesday's telecast, the Chrisley segment was followed by discussions centering on drama with a Real Housewives cast member and Gen Z taking 'adulting' classes, alongside interviews with Julianne Moore and Ashley Tisdale. However, with Trump back in the White House, and Disney welcoming him back into office by paying him $15 million to settle his lawsuit over Good Morning America host George Stephanopoulos' inaccurate on-air assertion that Trump had been found civilly liable for raping writer E. Jean Carroll, the media landscape has suddenly shifted. Now, the massive conglomerates and mega-billionaires who control the legacy media have shown their willingness to cozy up and capitulate to a temperamental commander-in-chief who has made attacking the free press a hallmark of his new administration. It is within this current environment that ABC News chief Almin Karamehmedovic and Disney boss Bob Iger asked the outspoken hosts of The View, which Trump and his allies have long complained about, to tone down the political tenor of the show and lean more into general interest coverage and celebrity interviews. 'The move was not framed as an edict, one source said, but the suggestion alone rankled the hosts,' the Daily Beast reported about the meeting Karamehmedovic had with the show's stars and executive producer, which featured him pointing out the celebrity guest who drew high ratings. 'The group pushed back forcefully, with hosts like Navarro noting the show's audience routinely seeks out its perspective on politics, especially when the administration's radical attempts to upend the government can potentially affect their daily lives,' the Beast added. A source familiar with the matter told The Independent that the network 'constantly has conversations with talent based on viewer feedback, and this instance was no different,' adding that the meeting was merely 'about balance in the show on topics' and not necessarily 'talking about Trump.' While the meeting wasn't framed as an edict, and the hosts reportedly found Karamehmedovic's request to tamp down the politics 'silly' since it would 'look kind of bad' to their audience, the issue remained a sticking point for Navarro. She would eventually broach the subject with Iger, whom she ran into during Disney's recent upfront advertiser presentation. After Navarro thanked him for allowing the hosts to continue to do 'their job in a politically turbulent environment,' the Beast reported, Iger said that while he does support The View, he 'reaffirmed that the show needed to tone down its political rhetoric.' The conversation with Navarro revealed that the 'suggestion to tone down the politics went all the way to the top.' And though the corporate effort to tamp down the political coverage could very well be nothing more than an attempt to find the right balance for a talk show to broaden its viewership, it is impossible not to view it through the lens of the current administration's war against the media – which includes ABC. Despite Disney's settlement on the Stephanopulos interview, the president has continued to rail against the news network. Earlier this month, he fumed at an 'ABC fake news' reporter for grilling him on the luxury jet that the Qatari royal family gifted him. 'Let me tell you, you should be embarrassed asking that question,' he growled. Days later, he would threaten to sue ABC News over the way the network has reported on the $400 million jumbo jet from Qatar, wondering why Iger doesn't 'do something about ABC Fake News' while referencing his previous defamation suit against the network. Trump is also in talks to settle a $20 billion lawsuit against CBS News over a 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris, even though legal experts have called the complaint frivolous and the network itself says it is 'completely without merit.' However, because the network's corporate parent Paramount is looking to complete a mega-merger with Skydance that it needs the administration to approve, Paramount chair Shari Redstone has urged the board to settle with Trump to push the deal through. The potential payment to Trump has resulted in the resignations of CBS News chief Wendy McMahon and 60 Minutes executive producer Bill Owens, who made it clear they would not apologize as part of any settlement.
Sky News AU
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- Sky News AU
Douglas Murray mocks The View hosts' relentless activism
Reports Disney and ABC executives have urged The View to tone down their political commentary — particularly their anti-Trump rhetoric. Whoopi Goldberg has come under fire for downplaying claims of a 'white genocide' in South Africa. Ms Goldberg recently dismissed concerns, saying she had 'made movies' in South Africa and saw no evidence of 'white genocide'. It comes as US President Donald Trump confronted South African President Cyril Ramaphosa at the White House last week with a video allegedly showing the grave treatment of White farmers. Author Douglas Murray weighed in on The View co-host's recent remarks, ridiculing Goldberg's dismissal of the issue. 'She must have really got a feel for the place on the movie set, I'm sure,' Mr Murray said sarcastically. 'Like, why can't they accept that the situation for many white South Africans is absolutely dire, particularly in farming communities? Why can't they accept that that might be the case. 'I can see what they're doing. This is the classic anti-Trump movement thing.'
