Weekend Agenda: Cruel, Cruel Summer Edition

The humidity in NYC got us hot and bothered this week. Here’s the theater news we’ll be discussing while we’re huddled inside with cool towels on our foreheads like swoony southern belles…

• This week, for a hot minute, The Craptacular went big time. Indeed, it was the New York Times.  Lucky riffed on the idea of pre-show announcements infringing on her theatrical experience for the ArtsBeat blog. The Mick is so proud she may or may not have screen-capped the entire NYTimes.com website several times over.  Check out the original post, then join in the debate!
• Broadway Stands Up for Freedom — or as our attorney friend called it, Lawyers & Broadway — happened this week. A benefit for the NYCLU, the event also served as a celebration of New York’s shiny new marriage equality law. Highlights? Nikki M. James, who knocked “Be a Lion” out of the park so soundly that we wondered if she’d be interested in playing Dorothy in a Broadway revival of The Wiz; Gavin Creel, who wore a Texas tuxedo and stubble and no one cared because he continued to look like the most gorgeous person on earth; the insanely delightful Lindsay Mendez (amazing dress, girl!) who sang the equally delightful Kerrigan and Lowdermilk song “Hand in Hand.”; and Seth Rudetsky, who always makes us giggle until we pee. Excellent times, for an excellent cause. 
• In case you weren’t convinced, Glee creator Ryan Murphy has full-on lost his mind and is now saying that Lea Michele, Cory Monteith, and Chris Colfer were going to star in a really excellent spinoff, but now they’re not. Because YOU RUINED EVERYTHING, YOU HORRIBLE FANS, by freaking out about their departure from the show. Hear that? Stop freaking out! Stop caring about stuff! God, just shut up and go away, you horrible people whose very existence guarantees the future of the show.
• An Evening with Patti and Mandy comes to Broadway.  Or so the rumors say. Actually, it’s An Evening With Patti LuPone and Mandy Patinkin.  But we like to shorten it, so that it sounds like a musical about two teenage besties having an epic sleepover.  We bet Mandy Patinkin would love that.  Regardless, we hope it comes to Broadway for real.  Because I would pay a lot of money to see that, even though it doesn’t involve hot guys.
• The Alicia Keys-produced play Stick Fly got a new theater this week. No, another new theater. Originally slated for the pillbox-sized Lyceum, it’s now going to be at the slightly-bigger-but-not-really Cort. 
• American theatrical genius Tony Kushner will write Steven Spielberg’s upcoming film about Lincoln. That simply cannot be topped, you say. Well, sure it can. It will also feature the exceptionally handsome Lee Pace, late of The Normal Heart. With this development, he joins the starry pantheon of Broadway Stars Who Have Been in Movies About Abraham Lincoln, which currently only contains one other person — Jonathan Groff.
• Bonnie & Clyde has a website! With music! And it sounds terrible! Big surprise, right? 

• Justin Bartha, currently starring in Zack Braff’s All New People (and some of our more vivid dreams), has just been cast in The Social Network star Jesse Eisenberg’s new play, Asuncion.  In our opinion this really ups his nerd credibility—you know, by working for a real nerd and not just a pretend nerd—and, well, makes us love him all the more.  Now, here’s to hoping the play doesn’t suck…