Now that we are a week removed from last Thursday's THE WIZ LIVE!, NBC's third live musical in as many years, we know that the production has predominantly been hailed as a critical and ratings success, vindicating the audacious experiment after two, less than artistically satisfying, outings. Led by a newcomer plucked from an open call, director Kenny Leon and executive producers Neil Meron and Craig Zadan found a star in Shanice Williams and surrounded her with an all-star cast that ranged from serviceable to revelatory. However, as enjoyable as the event was, especially in relationship to past efforts, THE WIZ LIVE! was not a perfect production. There is, after all, a reason why no one did live TV musicals for nearly half a century; they are hard.

Neither Laura Osnes, nor Billy Porter has loomed as large over the community in the past three years. Neither Lin-Manuel Miranda, nor Sydney Lucas has had as lasting of an impact on Broadway since 2013. Neither Laura Benanti, nor Lesli Margherita has revolutionized what it means to be a theatre celebrity as much as Annoying Actor Friend has since debuting on Twitter over three years ago; and he/she is about to do it again. On Cyber Monday, November 30th, 2015, the beloved internet personality releases a follow-up to the 2013 Best-Seller #SOBLESSED in the 'Create Your Own Show Business Destiny' novel #GRATEFUL: EVERYTHING HAPPENS FOR A REASON.

Move over CHRISTMAS VACATION, step aside HOME ALONE, we just might have a new Christmas comedy classic in our midst. THE NIGHT BEFORE, directed by Jonathan Levine, and starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Seth Rogen, and Anthony Mackie is side-splittingly funny, and has just enough sentimentality to warm your heart during the holidays.

No matter how many times a spy has had to use his license to kill, or how many women half his age he's taken to bed, or how many times he's ordered a martini 'shaken, not stirred,' at some point it all begins to be too much to handle; he begins to question the greater existential point behind all of the shooting, all of the romancing, and all of the drinking that he's done over the past 53 years. He begins to hate everything that he has been for over half a century. Welcome to your mid-life crisis James Bond; what's, waiting for you is SPECTRE, a joyless, paint-by-numbers Bond movie, where the colors are all beiges and greys, and nearly every form of familiar entertainment has been muted.

In tonight's episode of ABC's new anthology drama WICKED CITY, serial killer Kent looks to take his relationship with single mom Betty to the next level, in more ways than one. Recently, I talked with Ed Westwick (GOSSIP GIRL) and Erika Christensen (PARENTHOOD) about the bizarre love story of these obviously damaged individuals.

Broadway fans have known that Laura Benanti has superhuman powers for years, but now the whole world is in on our little secret. In the final moments of last week's SUPERGIRL series premiere, the Tony-winner was revealed to not only be playing the title character's dearly departed mother, but her Kryptonian criminal aunt as well. The surprise twist was just part of what made the pilot the most watched debut of the fall season.

TV's newest superhero show is startlingly different than nearly everything else on the current comic book landscape, and it's not just because its hero wears a skirt instead of tights. No, CBS's SUPERGIRL stands out because it dares to have fun; it dares to have a hero who is optimistic and embraces the joy of being super; and, perhaps most surprisingly, it dares to film a majority of its scenes during daylight hours.

You can take the writer out of the theatre, but you can't take the theatre out of the writer. For the past 20 years, Aaron Sorkin has been one of Hollywood's most successful scribes. From THE AMERICAN PRESIDENT to THE WEST WING to THE SOCIAL NETWORK, and many more remarkably successful projects in between, he has continually redefined the way audiences appreciate complex and intelligent characters. However, the writer made his name with his 1989 Broadway play A FEW GOOD MEN. Three years later, when the now iconic story made its way to the big screen, Sorkin wrote the screenplay, and his career as a screenwriter was born. However, with his latest film, STEVE JOBS, which opens nationwide on Friday, Sorkin proves that he still knows how to write an incredibly powerful three-act stage play, even if it just so happens to appear on the big screen.

Theatre fans have had a tenuous relationship with television musicals over the past few years. Whether it was the casual dismissal of GLEE after its strong first season, the hate-watching of SMASH, or the mixed-reactions to THE SOUND OF MUSIC and PETER PAN LIVE!, theatre fans have set a pretty high bar for programs that look to bring musical programming from stage to screen. With THE WIZ LIVE! and GREASE LIVE! still months away, a new musical TV show premieres tonight starring Tony-nominee Santino Fontana and Obie Award-winner Donna Lynne Champlin. CRAZY EX-GIRLFRIEND, the joyfully kooky comedy that debuts on The CW tonight at 8:00pm ET, was created by Upright Citizen's Brigade member Rachel Bloom, who also stars as the titular crazy character.

As popular culture continues to be fractured with the advent of new forms of media and even more forms of delivery, it is good to know that there are still some institutions that you can continue to count on for quality entertainment. The newest DVD release from PBS Distribution brings three hallowed artistic institutions together for just that purpose. Five-time Tony-winner Angela Lansbury, two-time Tony-winner James Earl Jones, and Emmy and Peabody winning series GREAT PERFORMANCES unite for a disarmingly sweet production of Alfred Uhry's Pulitzer-Prize winning play DRIVING MISS DAISY.

I've only watched one episode of NBC's Friday night sitcom UNDATEABLE, so I am not going to claim to be an expert on the deep, emotional lives of Danny, Justin, and the rest of their undateable friends. However, that one episode that I watched was an episode that was broadcast live last May. Yes the show was sucked me in with an obvious, attention-grabbing gimmick, but it was a gimmick that I found to be very interesting. Not only did the idea call back to the early days of television, where, by the constraints of technology, all shows had to be broadcast live, but it also opened up the door for legitimate comedic improv, that you can't see anywhere else on TV. Also, as someone who loves theatre as much as I love TV, this brought a new form of live entertainment into people's homes.

The goal of art is to make the viewer feel. While many didn't appreciate what the first season of HBO's THE LEFTOVERS made them feel, no one can argue that it did, in fact, make them feel something; and for many, more deeply than TV has in a long time. Often, for better or for worse, that feeling was an overwhelming sense of oppressive grief. Easily last season's most divisive show, Season 2 kicked off tonight with a slightly different approach, a more optimistic approach, but nonetheless, still a very emotionally intense approach. And, in doing so, THE LEFTOVERS has taken a gigantic step forward to becoming the most compelling drama on television.

When you were a little kid, did you ever get separated from your parents in the mall or grocery store? Can you remember how the all-consuming terror of being abandoned to fend for yourself began in your chest and then crept out until it could be felt in every extremity in your body, and you became nothing more than an inconsolable blob of sweat and tears? Now imagine that instead of the cereal aisle, you were left on Mars; and instead of in the pharmacy, your parents were 140 million miles away, and couldn't come back to pick you up for four years. On second thought, don't imagine that, you'll just start crying again. That is essentially the premise behind the new Matt Damon movie THE MARTIAN, which opens nationwide in 2D and 3D theaters today, after being exclusively on IMAX screens last weekend.

There is a saying in sports that goes, “You never want to be the guy that follows The Guy,” or something to that effect. It means that following on the heels of an icon is a fool's errand. No one remembers that Gene Bartow replaced John Wooden as coach at UCLA, or that Marty Domres took over under-center for Johnny Unitas; both were destined to fail, simply because of the legends that they were unfortunate enough to succeed. Yet, that is the  very situation in which Trevor Noah found himself when he assumed the anchor chair at Comedy Central's World News Headquarters last night as the new host of THE DAILY SHOW.

For some reason that I have yet to understand, there is apparently a considerable segment of the population that doesn't care for Anne Hathaway. I wouldn't consider myself a marked Hathaway fan, but after seeing THE INTERN, I challenge each and every one of the people that dislike her to see the movie and not walk out wishing that she was their boss/best friend.

I grew up watching the MUPPET BABIES, loving the whimsy of the odd, but relatable creatures (although always frustrated that we couldn't see Nanny's face). Then, MUPPETS TONIGHT debuted during my freshman year of high school and I started to really understand the joys of a variety show (only later for that to be enhanced by finding clips of THE MUPPET SHOW on YouTube). Also, I adored 2011's big screen THE MUPPETS; in fact “Man or Muppet” is still in heavy rotation on my iTunes. So anytime there is a new addition to the Muppets Universe, my inner-child takes notice. However, as details of their new TV show (also confusingly called THE MUPPETS) started being revealed, that inner child began to feel left out. The idea was to reinvent the Muppets in a more real-life, adult sitcom; yes, a real-life, adult sitcom, starring felt puppets.

Did you know that Sir Patrick Stewart, star of stages and screens large and small had returned to television this season? No, I didn't think so. In BLUNT TALK on the Starz network, the Shakespearean legend turned Starship captain turned mutant teacher plays debilitatingly self-destructive newsman Walter Blunt. The black comedy, produced by Seth McFarland, is what would happen if you threw HBO's THE NEWSROOM, Showtime's EPISODES, and FOX's FAMILY GUY in a blender and turned it into a half-hour TV show. It's not WAITING FOR GODOT level quality, but seeing the normally earnest actor play such a delightfully silly character is incredibly entertaining, and for some reason cathartic.

For the first time in what seems like forever, there is going to be a legitimate late-night war on network television. It won't be fueled by animosity between hosts (as evidenced by their locker room bromance), but instead by vastly different perspectives on what the job is and what it could be. Those who were worried that Stephen Colbert would just be adding another lilywhite male voice to the seemingly homogenous late-night landscape still have justifiable concerns, but at least this lilywhite male voice will be slightly more thoughtful and inquisitive than the others.

Today, I am kicking off the series with “Five Things About the JERSEY BOYS Movie,” a film that I failed to see in the theater because all of the horrendous reviews Clint Eastwood's direction received. Released in June 2014, the movie tells the story of Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons. Based on the Tony and Grammy winning musical of the same name, the film adaptation went through a number of iterations during development. Initially Tony-winning playwright, and TV and movie scribe John Logan was to pen the screenplay and Jon Favreau (of ELF, IRON MAN, and SWINGERS fame) was slated to direct.

RICKI AND THE FLASH, in theaters nationwide Friday, is a virtual treasure-trove of on-screen talent; you will be hard-pressed to find another film this year with a more eclectically accomplished cast. From three-time Oscar-winner Meryl Streep to six-time Tony-winner Audra McDonald to Oscar and two-time Tony-winner Kevin Kline (and let's not forget Grammy-winner Rick Springfield), the all-star cast is no doubt the draw for Diablo Cody's sweet, but slight film. Despite under-written characters and story, the movie succeeds on the strength of a stellar cast doing their absolute best to draw nuanced characterizations out Cody's surprisingly bare-bones script.

Tonight at 10pm ET on EPIX, one of the funniest women in the world takes to the stage for her fifth televised special, LISA LAMPANELLI: BACK TO THE DRAWING BOARD. If you are familiar with Lampanelli's work, this goes without saying, but viewer discretion is highly advised. Known to fans and critics alike as 'The Queen of Mean,' Lampanelli is an insult comic willing to attack anyone, including herself. 

Quick, name the best composer/lyricist in the history of the musical theatre. Did you say Stephen Sondheim? If not, you're wrong. We love Mr. Sondheim so much here at BroadwayWorld that we are giving away the six-DVD set THE STEPHEN SONDHEIM COLLECTION to one lucky fan.

Tomorrow is a day for celebration, musical theatre fans, as Image Entertainment releases THE STEPHEN SONDHEIM COLLECTION. This collection includes some of the most glorious productions of the musical theatre icon's works. Ranging from original Broadway casts to starry-concerts, THE STEPHEN SONDHEIM COLLECTION includes DVDs of five of Sondheim's most influential shows, and a sixth disc of the master's 80th Birthday Concert.

Though the magic of the woods is not as spectacular on a TV as it was on the big screen, the vast majority of INTO THE WOODS' enchantment admirably makes the transition to the small screen. Last Christmas, Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine's beloved Broadway fairy tale took the big screen by storm with a star-studded movie adaptation, and last week Disney released DVD and Blu-Ray versions full of bonus features. Despite all of the extras on the disks, INTO THE WOODS' main draw is still its incredible stars. With a cast of Hollywood A-listers and Broadway alums, all of whom prove more than capable of handling Stephen Sondheim's uniquely intricate and intellectual music and lyrics, this very well might be the most effectively adapted movie musical of the past half century. The lush orchestrations, the gorgeous settings, and the spectacular cast are just as bewitching as they were in the movie theatre.

Hawaii-born Elle McLemore burst onto the theatre scene in 2011 when she was cast as the evil Eva in the Pre-Broadway National Tour of BRING IT ON: THE MUSICAL. Like most of that cast, McLemore went on to make her Broadway debut when the tour made its way to New York the following year. Since then the 23-year-old has been a regular on the final season of ARMY WIVES and one of the stars of Off-Broadway's cult favorite HEATHERS: THE MUSICAL, as 'Cheerleader Heather,' Heather McNamara.