Theater

Parker has been acting for most of her life, including playing Annie on Broadway, the young bimbo SanDeE* in "L.A. Story," and a fed-up fiancee in "Honeymoon in Vegas." She is now starring in the film "Miami Rhapsody," playing a woman having second thoughts about marriage as she learns that everyone in her family has had an affair.

Redgrave appeared in over 50 films, including "Morgan!", "Blow Up", "Julia" and "Howards End". Her stage work has included Shakespeare, Chekhov, Noel Coward and Tennessee Williams. She comes from a celebrated theater family, and her daughters are both actresses. Redgrave is also well known for her political activism, including support for Nuclear Disarmament and Palestinian causes. Her memoirs have just been published by Random House.

Biographer Peter Manso has written "Brando: The Biography," the result of seven years of research and over 700 interviews. It tells the story of Brando as a man with a hidden troubled life. Mans is also the author of an oral biography of Norman Mailer.

From the Metropolitan Opera, soprano Dawn Upshaw. She has a new recording of Broadway showtunes, called "I Wish It So." It includes lesser known works by Marc Blitzstein and Kurt Weill as well as songs by Sondheim and Bernstein. Upshaw has played more then 20 roles at the Met, including the current "The Marriage of Figaro" and the recently completed "Idomeneo," both by Mozart.

The two actors co-wrote and co-starred in the 1981 film, "My Dinner with Andre." They have since worked on many other projects individually in television, theater, and film. They have now collaborated again in "Vanya on 42nd Street," a film adaptation of Chekhov's "Uncle Vanya."

Mamet's plays include "American Buffalo," "Speed-the-Plow," "Glengarry Glen Ross (for which he won a Pulitzer), and "Oleanna." His movies include, "Homicide," "House of Games," and "Things Change." Mamet is best known for his style of writing, which New York Times theatre critic Frank Rich described as "burying layers of meaning into simple precisely distilled idiomatic language." Mamet has written several books of essays; he's just published his first novel, "The Village."

In 1986, Donna Murphy was a woman in drag in “The Mystery of Edwin Drood.” In 1991, she was introduced as “a girl who will steal your heart and then forget where she put it,” playing the amnesiac songstress in “Song of Singapore.” Having become one of Broadway’s most sought-after actresses, Murphy is now playing the lead in Stephen Sondheim’s latest musical, “Passion.” Of the role, which has her playing an ugly, hysterical woman obsessively pursuing a handsome army captain, Murphy says, “I love transformation of any kind...I want to look in the mirror and not see Donna looking back at me.”<

Performance poet Sekou Sundiata. Often he performs with his music ensemble, "Dadahdoodahda." A Village Voice critic wrote of Sundiata, ". . . like Billie Holiday, Sundiata surprises with images and tumbling phrases that blend with subtle rhythmic variations. Dadahdoodahda provided enough familiar riffs and melodies to fill a dance floor. . .

Songwriter Stephen Sondheim. Last fall he gave a talk at the Museum of Television and Radio in New York City. We broadcast that talk. Sondheim's latest work, "Passion," opens tonight.

Once one of the most powerful reviewers in America, The New York Times' former drama critic, Frank Rich. It was a great day for many playwrights when RICH stepped down as critic late last year. The British press once dubbed him "The Butcher of Broadway;" playwright David Mamet called him "a terrible critic. . . an unfortunate blot on the American theatre." Some playwrights and directors even chose to take their work elsewhere to save themselves from a review by Rich.