Tony Awards Will Go Virtual This Fall – Organizers of the Tony Awards have set a plan for a virtual presentation of this year’s awards ceremony to be held in the fall. The 74th annual Tony Awards ceremony had been scheduled for June 7 at Radio City Music Hall, but Broadway’s big night was postponed because of the coronavirus pandemic. The 2019-2020 Broadway season was abruptly cut short by the shuttering of Main Stem theaters in March as the COVID-19 outbreak worsened and New York state imposed strict social distancing requirements. The specific date and platform for the virtual Tonys will be announced “soon,” according to the statement from the Broadway League and American Theatre Wing, which administer the Broadway kudos. – Read more at Variety
Howie Mandel Gifts Simon Cowell with a Tricycle.
Since electric bikes aren’t his thing (Simon fell off one and broke his back), fellow America’s Got Talent judge Howie Mandel sends Simon a safe substitute–a tricycle!
This just arrived at my house!
Thank you @howiemandel pic.twitter.com/9CnvJgCIq2— Simon Cowell (@SimonCowell) August 21, 2020
Interview: Kree Harrison Celebrates Her Musical ‘Chosen Family Tree’ With New Album – As someone who prides herself on creating powerful, familial connections with her musical community, Kree Harrison has never understood the sentiment of prizing biological family relationships above all else.m”I always heard, ‘Blood is thicker than water,’ and I could never figure out why that was the saying … I’d always thought, ‘Well, that’s bulls–t,'” she remembers, adding that on a literal level, not all of her family members are blood relatives per se.
Now, the singer and American Idol alum is embracing that selected family wholeheartedly with her sophomore project, Chosen Family Tree, out Friday (Aug. 21). The 12-track effort spotlights her longtime musical pals, such as Chris Stapleton, who co-wrote the record’s first single, “I Love the Lie.” Then there’s the album’s title track, which features a cameo from her friend John Osborne of Brothers Osborne. – Read more at The Boot
The Masked Singer producer on ‘hidden secret’ to show’s success, and what to expect in season 4 – We have some really incredible ideas that have not been done before on any other show. I think there’s a lot that you’ll see that we have done with the show, from the way we’re doing our staging this year, with some new incredible ideas, as well as the way we’re doing our clue packages — we pushed the bar of creativity of storytelling to a new level that you haven’t seen yet on any Masked Singer [including international versions of the show] at all. I don’t like to say anything positive about the pandemic, but what it did to us as producers is it made us be more creative and more inventive in how we made the show. This is the one show where we can go more bizarre, and it’s okay. You can break the boundaries. And so I think that’s what you’re going to see on this season. In the past when we said this was a bonkers show — it’s even more bonkers now. – Read more at Entertainment Weekly
‘The Masked Singer’ Takes Over Iconic Los Angeles Locations for Emmy Campaign – Miss Monster is popping up at iconic spots all over Los Angeles in support of Fox’s “The Masked Singer,” while also promoting a pandemic-appropriate message: Wear a mask. Staring Aug. 20, the “Masked Singer” activation features the show’s “Miss Monster” character at the Santa Monica Pier and taking over the famous Randy’s Donuts sign. The character also makes an appearance in Hollywood next to the large dinosaur character (currently masked for COVID) on top of at the Ripley’s Believe it or Not Museum. – Read more at Variety
