Weekend Agenda: Belated Saturday Edition

We’re about to get Crif Dogs and see Once. Can you say Perfect Saturday? Here’s what we’ll be talking the whole time. Well, not during Once. At intermission.

• In what has got to be the best piece of Broadway PR-related fuckery we’ve seen in a while, Jeff Calhoun accidentally spilled to BroadwayWorld — on camera — that Jeremy Jordan will star in Newsies. I mean, everybody knew. But Calhoun’s guilelessness, in an era when artists are usually media trained into zombiedom, was pretty delightful. Jeremy Jordan’s response was just as great. He smiled, winked at the camera, and then copped to the whole thing on Twitter. And then the official @Newsies Twitter re-tweeted it. Well played, everyone. Well played.

• And let’s belabor a second notable point concerning this whole affair: You think social media’s not important to the business we call show? @Newsies just unofficially confirmed casting for its big new show of the season. On Twitter. No hasty press release. No quote to the New York Times. (In fact, the Times contacted Disney for a reaction and got shot down.) Power to the people, man. And to their social networks.

• Jonathan Groff will star in “The Good Wife” in February. In an episode that’s undoubtedly about how the internet is killing us all, The Groffinator will play a guy who sues a software company (wild guess: It will be called Smitter) after his sister disappears while protesting in Syria.

• We shed a tear or two when heard of Lysistrata Jones‘s untimely closing this week. Clearly Ben Brantley is not the all-powerful tastemaker that certain Bonnie & Clyde fans seem to think he is.

• Fuck you, Hollywood, for stealing everyone handsome and important. We called this one like a year ago, but director Alex Timbers will direct the film version of the kids book Heck for MGM. We’re wicked happy for him, but if this deprives us of seeing Mr. Timbers meandering around the theater district with his beautiful hair blowing in the breeze, we’re going to stop seeing movies altogether. Along with the rest of America.

• Oh, chinhands! Audra and Will are engaged, you guys! Puppies and kittens and rainbows and stuff.

• Michael Riedel reported this week that Leap of Faith and/or Little Miss Sunshine could make a go of it this season, given that other stuff is closing left and right. Thumbs up: Raul Esparza, William Finn, the very insinuation that Sherie Rene Scott will have something to do onstage this year, and new musicals. Thumbs down: Rushing stuff that potentially isn’t ready, rushing stuff that got bad reviews out of town, and more (and more, and more) musicals about movies.

• The in-development Houdini musical wherein Hugh Jackman will play a creepy/handsome magician for the second time got one step closer to reality this week. Stephen Schwartz, it seems, is writing the score, and Jack O’Brien is on board to direct. Hugh always gets our attention, but now this project seems like the real deal, and not just something Aaron Sorkin dreamed up by his pool one afternoon. Bring it, and hopefully soon.

• In a move that ensures that the Les Miserables movie will live up to its name, Taylor Swift and Amanda Seyfried were offered the roles of Eponine and Cosette this week. Who knew a girl could have so much longing for Lea Michele?