Best Director News Blog @newzblogz.com

There’s always joy to be found watching someone do what they’re born to do.

Three stars out of fourSteven Soderbergh may dust a Best Director Oscar on his mantle. He may handle his movie shoots like a one-man show (His cinematography pseudonym was once unwittingly nominated for an Academy Award.) What he was born to do was edit, slapping little pieces of film together in unique and daring ways. There’s less importance in what his films say than how they say it.“Ocean’s Thirteen” has little to say, but it says it beautifully stone-skipp...

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Carol Mitchell-Leon is also making a return to the Horizon in the role of Mrs. Breedlove.

Performances of The Bluest Eye will be presented Wednesday through Friday at 8 p.m., Saturday 8:30 p.m. and Sunday at 5 p.m. The production opens Friday, July 13 and runs through Sept. 2. Horizon Theatre Company is located at the corner of Euclid and Austin Avenues in Little Five Points. Tickets are $20-$30 plus sales tax. Tickets are $30 on opening night, July 13. Gift Certificates are also available. All seating is General Admission.

Lydia R. Diamond was commissioned by the Steppenwolf Theatre Company to adapt Toni Morrison's novel "The Bluest Eye" for the stage. She is a Huntington Playwriting Fellow and a resident playwright at Chicago Dramatists.

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Q: I am looking for a movie made about Toulouse-Lautrec the painter. I'm almost 80, so I know it (came out) years ago.

A: I believe you are thinking of director John Huston's 1952 movie "Moulin Rouge," which offers a fictionalized take on the life of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, the crippled painter who made a splash with stylized posters he created for the Paris nightclub of the title.

Jose Ferrer earned a best-actor Oscar nomination for portraying both Toulouse-Lautrec and his father, but the award went to Gary Cooper for "High Noon." "Moulin Rouge" was up for seven Oscars in all, including best picture and best director for Huston, but it won only for art direction and costume design.

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SHN has announced that the national tour of ?Spring Awakening,? this year?s best new musical and winner of eight 2007 Tony Awards, will launch at San Francisco?s Curran Theatre in the fall of 2008.

The show marks the fifth, previously unannounced, production of the 2007-08 Best of Broadway season. Based on an 1891 play by Frank Wedekind and featuring an original score by Grammy-nominated recording star Duncan Sheik and Steve Sater, the musical tells the story of kids trying to break loose and adults trying to hold on.

The show won several Tony Awards, including Best Musical, Best Director, Best Book of a Musical, Best Score and Best Featured Actor in a Musical, John Gallagher Jr.

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Boulder's Dinner Theatre has earned 20 nominations for the Colorado Theatre Guild's second annual Henry Awards, including 13 for its musical "Ragtime," staged in an unofficial collaboration with the Shadow Theatre Company. Curious was close behind with 15 nominations. The Littleton Town Hall Arts Center nabbed 10.

The Henrys will have an unusual showdown: Both Jeffrey Nickelson and his planned, mid-run replacement, Leonard Barrett, were both nominated for best actor in a musical. Nickelson played Coalhouse Walker first, then gave way to Barrett. Castmate Wayne Kennedy, who played Tateh, was also nominated in that category.

Joanie Brosseau-Beyette pulled off an extraordinary trifecta: She was nominated for best lead actress in two musicals -- Country Dinner Playhouse's "Evita" and Boulder Dinner Theatre's "Sweet Charity" -- while also nabbing a nom for supporting actress in BDT's "Ragtime."

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