King Kong: The Musical is coming to Broadway — to the Broadway Theater, to be precise. Previews start October 5 and they have Opening Night set for November 8. The show, which stars a silverback gorilla puppet whose weight in press releases seems to vary between one ton and two. There was a time when mine did, too. The show debuted in Melbourne in 2013 but I gather what will open in New York will be quite different. Here's a little look at its leading man…

We've raved here about Reprise!, the Los Angeles-based group that revives classic musicals and stages them for brief runs at the Freud Theater up at U.C.L.A. I've seen some great shows there, many of which I recommended on this blog.

Reprise started in 1997 with a production of Promises, Promises that starred Jason Alexander, Alan Thicke, Barney Martin, and Jean Smart. It was great and Reprise was promising, promising. They kept going with three shows per year (plus occasional specials) and while not everything they did was a gem, the batting average was quite high. As I got to know some of the folks involved and even hosted some of their educational events, I was even more impressed. That they did so much so well with such low budgets and extremely limited rehearsal periods was astounding. Alas, money was a constant problem and the operation had to shut down. The last production of that run was Kiss Me, Kate in 2011.

Last year, they announced Reprise 2.0 with a season that was to have included Sweet Charity, Victor/Victoria and Grand Hotel. Sweet Charity, which I reviewed here, was pretty darned good on the stage, maybe not good enough at the box office. Suddenly, Victor/Victoria was replaced by And the World Goes Round, which is a much cheaper show to do. I wrote about that here but gallantly avoided mentioning that even on opening night, the theater was far from full. That's never a good sign.

Today on Facebook, Gerard Sternbach — Reprise's musical director — posted "I'm sure the news has started to come around the pike, but I am just now officially posting on Facebook that Reprise is shutting down after the second show. We are not even going to be able to finish the first season." That means that Grand Hotel, which was announced to star Hal Linden and Sharon Lawrence, won't be happening. My tickets are for the opening, October 24, so I guess I'm free that night. Anyone want to go bowling with Amber and me?

I'm really sorry to hear this. I'm not surprised but I'm sorry. I had some wonderful evenings at Reprise shows probably because the folks behind it were truly passionate about bringing good theater to that stage at U.C.L.A. Way more often than not, they did. I hope there's some way they can rebuild and we'll have a Reprise 3.0 but it feels to me like anything short of total pessimism would be unwarranted optimism.

UPDATE 9/29/18: And now we have word that the above-described announcement has been retracted and that Reprise may be alive and well. More on this over here.

So what's it going to be like for Bill Cosby in prison? That and other salient questions are answered in this article. What it doesn't tell us is who's going to play him in the inevitable movie about his downfall and disgrace.

Hey, if you live in the L.A. area, now's the time to scramble for seats at the next presentation of Puppet Up! Every now and then on no visible schedule, the folks at the Henson Alternative Company will pick a weekend and do three performances of their raunchy, X-rated, mostly-improvised puppet extravaganza. That's the Henson operation as in "Jim Henson," and it's now run by his most-able son Brian who keeps the level of creativity and performing up to the family standard.

This is a show for adults and it's often pretty naughty and they serve alcohol and the audiences love it. Part of that is because it takes place on the Henson Lot, which was once the Chaplin Lot and a place where many of your favorite shows were filmed or taped. So the venue is a bonus part of the show. Emcee Patrick Bristow is very, very good and keeping the proceedings fun and funny and the puppet performers are all quite fast and hilarious.

There are two performances on Saturday evening, November 3 and one more late in the afternoon on Sunday, November 4. I already have tickets for something else Saturday night so I'm going on Sunday because this is the kind of thing you can see every time and it's always different. If you wanna see how different a puppet show can be, order tickets A.S.A.P. over on this page.

I saw something amazing on my TV this afternoon. I saw Bill Cosby being led off to prison in handcuffs. Amazing. Absolutely amazing.

My reaction was not joy or relief or sorrow or anger or any of those. It was pure, unfiltered amazement. We've all known for some time that it might happen. This morning when I awoke, it was a near certainty. But seeing it happen…I just stared at my TV and reran it a few times on my TiVo, reacting like I'd seen the Loch Ness Monster with Elvis riding on his back. I thought of the running gag in the Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoons: "Now, there's something you don't see every day, Chauncey…"

Bill Cosby being led off to prison in handcuffs. He looked pretty amazed by it, too.

You have to wonder what was going through his mind…

• "But…but…I paid the best lawyers a fortune and they seemed so certain they would prevent this from ever happening…"
• "Don't these people know how much good I did, funding education and raising money for worthy causes?"
• "I'm Bill Cosby, damn it. They're not supposed to do this to Bill Cosby."
• "I got away with it for so long. Why did that one time lead to this?"
• "And I know so many people who did worse and nobody ever put them in handcuffs."
• "I had everything — money, fame, respect, power — but I threw it all away by being stupid and not controlling my worst impulses."

He could have been thinking anything, though I wouldn't bet money on that last one. There are a thousand other possibilities, too.  I'd lean towards the ones that are the least in touch with reality…but who knows?

Logic tells me I should be pleased that The System worked and all his money and celebrity couldn't stop that.  I should also be pleased that the women he violated received some justice.  It may be too little and/or too late but some now is better than none ever.  Other women may feel good that this may be indicative of a trend, reversing the shabby, insensitive way in which the victims of sexual abuse are ignored or treated like criminals.

I'm sure in a few days, I'll feel all that and more.  Right now, I just feel amazed.

3-10 years. I was thinking 2-4 but this feels right. Now, as I understand it, we're still waiting to see if he gets bail while his lawyers appeal or if he goes directly to jail without passing "Go," without collecting $200. If the former, the lawyers could probably keep the appeals process going until Cosby dies of natural causes. We should hear any moment.

I posted an awful lot of stuff yesterday so forgive me for not so much today. I might have something to say when the Cosby sentence is handed down. Then again, I might not. Hey, maybe someone can slip something in his drink that will put him to sleep while the sentence is being read.

At 7:47, I posted the previous post suggesting that Dave Thomas the perfect guy to play Brett Kavanaugh on Saturday Night Live. At 8:19 I received a call from my friend Shelly Goldstein. And she just posted this to Facebook…

My friend Mark Evanier insists his life is ruled by almost impossibly eerie coincidences and synchronicities. Things just happen that "fit" — things that make no logical sense. Tish tosh, you say??? Read on.

I was at dinner with a mutual friend of ours and we were discussing something Mark said. We both pulled out our phones and looked at Mark's blog — the wonderful www.newsfromme.com. The story below was the blog's newest posting. (We weren't looking for this story. It just happened to be the newest one posted.)

We looked at the photos below and then looked at the gent at the next table. He'd just come over to our table because he mistook my friend for a friend of his. When he realized his mistake, he apologized. We all laughed and he went back to his table.

So I took my phone, walked to the gent's table and showed him, Dave Thomas, the story Mark had just put on his blog — suggesting he was the perfect choice to play Brett K on SNL.

Dave laughed. We all laughed. And then I called Mark to tell him of another one of those wacky, irrational Evanier "coinky-dinks." HOW DOES HE DO IT?

p.s. If you see Dave Thomas playing this role on SNL — you'll know why.

These things happen to me. These things happen to me all the time.

Saturday Night Live has its season debut this weekend. I think it's like Season 733 or something. Anyway, I presume they've already figured out who'll play Brett Kavanaugh in a cold opening with Alec Baldwin as Donald Trump…but I can't look at the nominee without seeing Dave Thomas of SCTV.

It's Randy Rainbow with the topic/song that's on everyone's lips…

Bradley J. Birzer, who it says on the linked page is The American Conservative's scholar-at-large, celebrates the late, still-very-much-in-print Ray Bradbury. I agree with most of the piece except where it tries a little too hard to claim him as a Libertarian. You could probably make the case that Bradbury was at times a member of every major political movement except the American Nazi Party and that one that was trying to elect an otter to the House of Representatives.

We talked politics a few times and he rejected labels because they associated him with entire party platforms and he didn't agree with any party's platform in full. If he was a Libertarian, he was a Libertarian who thought taxes should be raised as much as necessary for the government to build monorails and other forms of rapid transit from everywhere to everywhere else. When you look at how much it will cost just California to build just that mythical (so far) bullet train from somewhere near Los Angeles to somewhere near San Francisco, you have a vague idea what he would have had us spend just to get around on this world. Then there were all the other planets he felt should have been easily reachable for a guy like him who didn't drive…

This runs an hour and forty-six minutes and I usually don't embed videos that long but this is an hour and a half of Rodgers and Hammerstein music at the BBC Proms. It features some superb vocalists and maybe the best orchestra in the world, conducted by that guy who looks like Stephen Colbert.

If you don't want to watch the whole thing, here are two outstanding two-song parlays: They do "There is Nothing Like a Dame" at 56:40 followed immediately by "Some Enchanted Evening." Then starting at 1:35:40, you can hear "Climb Every Mountain" followed by a terrific, rousing rendition of "Oklahoma!" I'm not the biggest fan of Rodgers and Hammerstein shows but there are wonderful musical moments in all of them and this concert does justice to most of 'em…

The Bill Cosby sentencing trial is taking place even as we blog and the New York Times is posting live updates if you're curious. At the moment, the big suspense — apart from what the sentence will be — is whether Mr. Cosby will speak on his own behalf and if so, if he'll make any admission of his crimes. If I were him, I'd get up, do the "Noah" routine, take a bow and then sit down. It's never failed.

Seems likely he'll get something like 2-4 years in a prison that will respect and deal with his advanced age and failing eyesight, plus there will be post-sentence monitoring and reporting and such. Some will say he doesn't deserve that kind of care. Others will say the sentence is too short or too long.

Me, I think any prison is fine as long as there are bars somewhere so we can say "Bill Cosby is behind bars." I also think he should not be allowed to remain free pending the outcome of the appeals process which could last longer than the defendant will.

And 2-4 years is probably right if, as the law dictates, it's only a sentence for the three counts on which he was convicted and it's not supposed to cover all the crimes for which he could not be prosecuted. If he could be sentenced just for disappointing his admirers, he'd get the chair. 2-4 years is also a pretty high percentage of the time he has remaining in this world.

In other Sexual Assault News, I dunno where we are with Brett Kavanaugh. Jonathan Chait thinks he probably won't get on the high court. It may come down to whether Trump will withdraw the name because that would be the wise thing to do in order to get a Conservative seated, or whether Trump will fight on, lest the "loss" tar his followers' belief in him as an all-powerful force that always achieves what he sets out to do. And that may hinge on how many more women come forth with accusations and how many Republican senators decide they dare not vote for this guy. There are more accusers emerging which may explain why they wanted this guy confirmed as swiftly as possible.

A friend of mine and I were talking the other day about what happens if the Democrats take control of the Senate before anyone can be confirmed to that seat. I think there's about a 2% chance of that happening but if it did, the new Senate Majority Leader should announce that the new Majority is willing to work with the president and that they will give prompt and proper consideration to any nomination he makes as long as the candidate is (a) qualified, (b) properly vetted and (c) named Merrick Garland. It's not gonna happen but it might help unite the nation. Even die-hard Republicans can appreciate a neat bit of Payback.

The late George Plimpton was a writer who became famous by going out and doing things other than writing — like scrimmaging with the Detroit Lions or trying to play golf on the PGA tour — and then writing about his experiences. He was something of a celebrity and often appeared in movies and on TV shows or was depicted in movies or TV shows. Alan Alda played him in the 1968 movie Paper Lion, which was about his brief football career.

He did some specials for television like this one which aired March 31, 1971. For this, he did something far more dangerous than suiting up with the Lions or being an ice hockey goalie for the Boston Bruins. For this special, he tried to become — for just one night on a Las Vegas stage — a stand-up comic. In the film, you'll see him get advice from some top comics of the day including Steve Allen, Woody Allen, Phyllis Diller, Bob Hope, Jonathan Winters and Buddy Hackett. On some of their faces, you can see a brave expression masking a certainty that his mission was hopeless.

I remember seeing this when it aired and thinking I'd never seen a man less suited to being a comedian and I also thought that most of the advice they dispensed to him — at least what was included in the documentary — was pretty useless and not necessarily true. Now that I'm older and have had experience writing comedy and working with comics, I see that I was right.

But I also see a fun little piece of film that reminds us what that world was like in 1971. The whole world of stand-up comedy was about to undergo a major revolution. George Carlin put out his transformative album Class Clown the following year, which was also when The Comedy Store opened in Los Angeles. Things changed a lot after that.

I enjoyed watching this again for a couple of reasons, one being that one of the writers engaged to write Mr. Plimpton's act was my old friend David Panich. David was a strange man, easily the most paranoid human to ever walk this planet. I'd write about him here but you'd never believe half of it. Unless you knew him, in which case you'd believe everything. It was also nice to see some of 1971 Los Angeles and to see some of those comedians again. Plimpton standing alongside Jonathan Winters presented a nice contrast: The man least qualified to stand on a stage and make people laugh next to the man most qualified.

One other memory: Plimpton made his Vegas debut on the stage of the Circus Maximus at Caesars Palace, an awesome performing space which was knocked down to make room for The Colosseum, an even more awesome room. In the doc when Plimpton walks out onto the empty stage of the Circus Maximus, I had a flashback to a moment when I did that. This was around 1985 or so and I went there with my pal Jeff Altman, who was working as the opening act for Kool and the Gang. During rehearsals, I strolled out there just as Mr. Plimpton did…and even though there was zero chance of me ever appearing there with people in the seats, it was a terrifying place to be. I immediately walked — no, I ran for the wings.

I have never had any yearning to be a performer and I can think of about twenty moments in my life when the absence of any such fantasies was starkly reinforced. That was just such a moment. So here's George Plimpton being a lot braver than I could ever be…