Oscars 2012: The rundown

We got an upset, cheesecake, the Muppets and Billy Crystal in blackface. We got the pure emotional joy of Octavia Spencer and the international pride of Iran and Pakistan. We got the lyrical beauty of Cirque du Soleil and the, uh, presence of Sacha Baron Cohen. Oscars 2012 was a mixed bag....

Critic Howard Kissel dies at 69

The tousle-haired, bespectacled theater critic beloved on Broadway for decades, died Friday night in Manhattan from complications from a 2010 liver transplant. Kissel was lead theater critic at the New York Daily News for 20 years; former chairman of the New York Film Critics Circle and the...

White House of Blues

Tuesday was blues day in Washington, as a number of blues and rock luminaries came to the East Room of the White House for a performance celebrating the blues and marking Black History Month. Some British bloke with moves like Jagger made the best of it, ripping into “I Can’t Turn You Loose”...

Ava after Sundance It’s been three weeks since Ava DuVernay won best director honors at Sundance for her film Middle of Nowhere, a surprise choice that caught festivalgoers off guard. Now that the dust has settled and the phone’s stopped ringing as much, the indie darling sat down with Nsenga...

The Help tops NAACP film honors The serious 2012 Academy Award contender wins best picture at the NAACP Image Awards, one of the last awards ceremonies before the 84th Oscars (this coming Sunday night). Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer took home honors as best actress and best supporting actress....

Seattle: Another Oklahoma! The 5th Avenue Theatre's staging of the vintage Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, still "a valentine to America," in the words of producer Peter Rothstein, weds folkloric homage with multiculturalism, via cross-racial casting and a vision of inclusion a far cry from...

NYC: Asian and absent in the arts In an increasingly diverse American society, Asian American actors are battling for wider acceptance. In the hothouse of competition on the New York stage, they find it harder and harder to find roles that white and even African American actors gain with more...

Whitney forever TMZ reports that the legendary singer’s family was told by L.A.  Coroners’ officials that she died of an overdose of prescription drugs, and not by drowning. At the funeral in Newark, Kevin Costner brings it all together in a powerful, emotional speech. The exit: 'I Will Always Love You...

A new home for the blues The National Blues Museum, said to be the first dedicated to the indelible genre of American music, is set to open sometime next year in St. Louis, a city whose DNA is steeped in the blues experience. The project, part of a $500 million riverfront renovation, will have...

Goodbye, Whitney The investigation Los Angeles Times: Authorities probe possible bathtub drowning scenario New York Times: A voice of triumph and pain: “She was, alongside Michael Jackson and Madonna, one of the crucial figures to hybridize pop in the 1980s ... Jackson and Madonna built worldviews...