RIALTO CHATTER: Riedel on Rebeck Rumors and Ferrell's Fortunes

The New York Post's Michael Riedel has a soild series of stories in his "On Broadway" column today, the first is the happy news regarding Will Ferrell's "You're Welcome America. A Final Night With George Bush"and the fact it has been playing to packed houses night after night. 

Riedel gives the news that as Ferrell wraps up his six-week run this Sunday, the backers of the show say they expect a profit of at least $1 million on their $2 million investment. Riedel also has an inspired idea about this year's Tony Awards that we won't spoil!

Next Michael Riedel reports that playwright Theresa Rebeck, who was a hit with the critics and last year with Second Stage's production of her funny satire "The Scene," about sex and showbiz, has three plays gaining heat for productions on the New York stage and beyond.

Rebeck's "Our House," another satire, that takes aim at reality television, opens this summer at Playwrights Horizons, with Michael Mayer, who won the Tony for "Spring Awakening,"  set as director.

There are also rumors of a Broadway production in the fall of "Bad Behavior," a play about two married couples grappling with infidelity. Riedel also reveals that Alfred Molina may take a leading in the play.

He also reports there is interest in her play "The Novelist," about a married Nobel Prize-winning writer who lusts after his pretty, young female assistant, "The Novelist" is a reworking of her earlier 2004 work titled "The Butterfly Collection," which starred Brian Murray as the novelist and Marian Seldes as his wife. 

To read the entire On Broadway column in The New York Post click here.