This picture, which was released in Vanity Fair, shows the brand new musical cast for The Addams Family, which is opening in Chicago. And if all goes well, it will head to New York city's Broadway. The musical's site actually has a lot of brilliant little videos detailing this family's journey from The New Yorker to television and eventually to the stage.

In other musical news Stephen King's Carrie is amping up for its big Broadway debut and has cast Molly Ranson as Carrie, Sutton Foster as gym teacher Ms. Gardner, Marin Mazzie as Margaret White, and Jennifer Damiano as Sue. But that's not all: American Idol contestant Diana DeGarmo is in the cast somewhere as well.

Carrie: The Musical was one of Broadway's most legendary disasters several years ago, crashing and burning despite being a co-production with the Royal Shakespeare Company. It's become a legendary symbol of excess — here's a TV spot for the original production. But this new take will supposedly be very different. But you should definitely skim Youtube for old videos from the classic 1988 production — the opening scene "IN" is especially horrifying.

Not only is there a title, but Joss, Zack Whedon, Jed Whedon and Jed's wife, Maurissa Tancharoen have all worked out a few songs, and Fillion has heard a few verses. But he's mum on the potential title.

Says Fillion:

Joss, I was talking to him right before we won the Emmy. He said that he's finished writing a song or two. He told me a couple of verses to the song...It's going to be great. I know a bunch of cast members of Dr. Horrible who would love to get back into it.

See the video interview at MTV.

Congrats on the Outstanding Special Class - Short-format Live-Action Entertainment Programs win guys, you deserved to have a category created just so you could win.

Legend of Neil, Season 2, Ep. 3 — The Musical

But we'll never forget who explained what Dragon Sex really meant first, those clever car bloggers at Jalopnik plus they threw in an instructional music video for good measure.

It's no surprise that A Very Potter Musical became such a huge internet sensation — the whole production was surprisingly well executed, with great writing and a young charismatic cast that could give the big-budget films a run for their money. It's gotten so big that at a midnight screening the other night a third of the trivia questions asked were about ‘RumbleRawr' and the Mars version of the wizarding school, ‘Pigfarts'. If you're unfamiliar with the production, it's a full musical version of Harry Potter that takes some of the best of books one, four, six and seven to create a completely new take on the story.

We sat down with Darren Criss and Brian Holden (along with a few cameos from the elusive Lang Brothers) the creators of A Very Potter Musical to discuss their newfound Harry Potter stardom. Here are some of the highlights:

How did you feel about this thing basically taking the internet by storm?

Brian: In five days it will have been up for a month, but the first week that it was up it was fun and scary. It was like opening the floodgates to Harry Potter fandom, and the internet. It was really cool and overwhelming and we were getting offers. Like everyone was all, "Give me the soundtrack! I want a DVD!"

Darren: "I want to do this in my school, university, theater company." People all over the world — literally, that's not a hyperbole.

Brian: People asked us to translate it into German.

Darren: My Italian friends, that, um are actually not even my friends, they're friends of friends of friends, who may or may not actually be my friends, in Italy, sent me a long e-mail in Italian asking me to translate it in Italian.

Darren: With the show, when we started it people were all like "You should go to NY, or something and put this show on". And yeah that would be cool, but if we did, it would be a legal nightmare. It would be absolutely ludicrous, it could be done if we wanted to get our asses kicked.

Brian: This is a good time to bring up one thing that was floating around the internet when we took the videos down for a week. (We took our videos down a week) so that we could edit them and tweak them. Warner Bros never contacted us and said, "You guys have to take these videos down." We took them down for a few reasons. One, the first time we performed it, it was for a college audience, so we could get away with things you normally can't get away with like with younger kids watching — which is the case now. We wanted to make it into something that could be a PG-13 type thing, that children could enjoy without having to sneak around their parents.

Darren: Some jokes were cut, and of course we didn't want to.

Brian: We like em.

Darren: And there were things I was bummed about, 'cause I like saying them. But we didn't want any room for this show to possibly be perceived in a negative way or be attacked.

So what kind of projects are you working on now? Are you thinking about something new, or going back into the musical genre…?

Brian: Yeah, we have a few new ideas for some new musicals. They're all comedy musicals because frankly, that's what we love. That's what we like to do.

Darren: Parodies are what we love. Although I'd love to write that serious symphony one day, but its probably not going to happen because it'd just end up being too goofy.

Brian & Darren: It'd be the funniest symphony you've ever seen.

Darren: Back in the day, if you wanted to make a television show or movie or a musical, you'd have to go pitch it and get backers and stuff. What's cool about now [is] that... if I was to tell you what the show's about you'd be like "Um, ok" but now I can be like, "Hey, you wanna see it? Watch it. Just watch it, and you'll understand."

That's really what's great about the internet right now, I mean, you look at things like Dr. Horrible, which was on a shoestring budget.

Darren: We love Dr. Horrible. Joss Whedon can do whatever he wants.

Brian: He's good.

Darren: He's very good. But that's the kind of thing we do. For comedians and musicians, you can just put it on the internet

Brian: And that's the idea behind what we're working on right now.

Darren: We're really excited about it. It's going to be a full musical.

I know that the Harry Potter phenomenon is just absolutely nuts, especially with fans, and I was curious to know: what are some of the more colorful things that have probably been sent to you or asked of you?

Darren: I think I've been unofficially married to a number of people.

Brian: We always try to get him married in a few different states so we can avoid some legal trouble. I think the things that are most amusing are that Darren, Walker and Lauren Lopez in particular, are having just legions of fanboys and girls who are running after them.

If you'd like to listen through the whole interview, including the nasal-sounding wheezing that passes for my voice nowadays, here's it is infull mp3 glory.

You can find Little White Lie or A Very Potter Musical on the Starkid Channel. Also, on opening night of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, the guys all went out and serenaded film goers in Hollywood. It's worth checking out merely to see Gryffindor adorned musicians walking past Hollywood and Highland. I don't know about you, but after seeing that, a chapter of my life seemed to be...complete.

Special Thanks to the Lane Brothers, Darren Criss and Brian Holden of the StarkidPotter Channel for their cooperation.

Bob Shaye and Michael Lynne have a list of fantasy movies that should please some of the folks at the WB, but first they're going to turn Will Ferrell's Elf into a musical, which should just make gobs of money at Christmastime on Broadway. They've also got an idea for an on-screen musical adaptation of The City of Angels, which could be interesting if they line up the angel chorus just right.

But besides the song and dance features, here's the list of upcoming projects for Unique.

-Animated feature "High in the Clouds" is an adaptation of a children's book written by [Paul] McCartney, Geoff Dunbar and Philip Ardagh. The film will be directed by Rob Minkoff and adapted by Caroline Thompson. It's about a squirrel's quest to find an animal sanctuary, possibly in the clouds.

- Warner Bros. has committed to develop "7th Son," a drama based on a trio of graphic novels by J.C. Hutchins. Seven strangers, assembled after the assassination of the U.S. president, each realize they are the same man, with the same memories. Originally published as a digital download, the first novel, "Descent," is being released in the fall by St. Martin's Press. Justin Britt-Gibson is writing the script.

- WB is also aboard "Alt-Delete," a scifi comedy scripted by Tim Kelleher and Danny Zuker in which two guys working for a vidgame publishing company come to realize they are avatars in a larger game.

- Warners will also develop "Thieves of Baghdad," a 10th century family adventure steeped in the world of the Arabian Nights, with Cole Haddon writing the script. Shaye he sparked to Haddon's take on the original collection of folk tales "One Thousand and One Nights," which is in the public domain. It is a film that weaves Sinbad, Ali Baba, flying carpets, sword fights and genies in urns.WB is also at the center of the stage musical transfers of the New Line films Shaye and Lynne germinated before they left New Line:

-"The Mortal Instruments" is a bestselling young-adult fantasy trilogy by Cassandra Clare (three more volumes are in the works) about a young girl who inherited an ability to see and interact with a clan of supernatural spirits.

[Variety]

Sadly, NPH won't actually be playing Dr. Horrible, since that would probably fracture the space-time continuum. Instead, he'll be playing the Music Meister, an amalgam of various DC Comics villains, who uses his ability to create music to dominate the world. Or something. He's a former band camp nerd who's become a megalomaniac. Mostly, the episode's plot is "just an excuse to have everyone sing," says producer James Tucker. Oh, like the Buffy musical episode then?

Here's your first look at NPH's look as a Batman villain:


[TV Guide Magazine]

If you had misgivings about Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark when the project was announced a couple years ago (not me! I even wrote some lyrics that, alas, U2 declined to use), you're not alone.

Even Bono and The Edge weren't sure about the idea, as they explain in this video interview (below). But then, Edge realized that the story of a bullied kid who cultivates a special gift and becomes a target of worldwide fascination is also the story of every music geek who ever became a rock star. In other words, like nearly every other great Broadway musical, the U2-scored Spider-Man will be all about self-reinvention and showbiz. Watch the interview, and you'll also spot what may be the logo or poster art for the show, whose curtain is expected to rise next February.

Blogger Michael Avila was one such visitor, and he was excited by what he saw:

They had video of actors in harnesses flying through the air on wires, along with some special effects that looked to be in the early stages. There was also a shot of a drawing of Spidey's Rogue's Gallery, featuring familiar faces such as Electro, Carnage and Sandman... [I]t looks to have visual effects unlike anything Broadway's ever seen (makes sense, with the estimated $40 million price tag). There were two shots shown (one of which I caught in a pic) that featured these effects. More important, I glimpsed one guy flying around with some kind of wingspan, not in any way resembling how Spidey would look web-swinging around town. My first instinct was this was a look at one of the villains in the show. The Vulture, maybe? Morbius?? The Green Goblin perhaps, although it did not look like someone sitting on any type of Glider.

While we're as excited as the next fans at the idea of Spider-Man belting out new songs by Bono and the Edge (which is to say, slightly unconvinced and concerned that it may be a disaster), the mention of Carnage as a potential villain sends an unpleasant chill down our collective spine. Will we have to sit through lame 1990s knock-off villains as well as rock opera?

Exclusive!! Spider-Man Musical Info (sort of) [Popzone]

[Myspace]

Of course, Neil Patrick Harris might have got the job because he's a talented, charismatic actor with a string of Broadway credits in both dramas and musicals, including Assassins, Proof, and Cabaret. I suppose that's possible.

But as far we're concerned, he deserves the gig based solely on the strength of his work in Joss Whedon's Dr. Horrible's Singalong Blog. Just check out the clip - that's some virtuoso acting and singing right there, and I don't even really like musicals:

Here's hoping his entire performance as host is just singing the entire Doctor Horrible soundtrack, maybe with some dramatic readings as Colonel Carl Jenkins from Starship Troopers mixed in for good measure. Throw in a climactic showdown between Dr. Horrible and former Tony Awards host Hugh Jackman as Wolverine and we might just have the superhero event of the summer on our hands.

The series will premiere on Dailymotion, who spoke to Black about dreaming up this odd little show about a space cabdriver. He promises lots and lots of cameos from well-known science-fiction franchises. And he explains how it literally became a space opera:

I'd cast Norm Thoeming as Harry, the driver, and he performs each week at I.O. in "Opening Night: The Musical". Knowing he had a musical background, I began to wonder if there was a way to incorporate that into the show - and slowly my mind came around to the idea of making it a musical. I'm writing all the music and lyrics and Norm and Monica Young (who's also a principal cast member) are just INCREDIBLE singers. They'll take on the brunt of the singing and I'll make sure just to write single words or lines for me to sing. I'm not exactly tone-deaf, but Norm and Monica could each do American Idol.

The official website describes it as "think Hitchhikers Guide meets Flight of the Conchords, and you're halfway there." That's a pretty tall order, so I'm interested to see what well be getting.

[via Tube Filter]

Sadly, Stephin Merritt won't be performing the songs he composed for the Coraline musical, but you can listen to little cuts from a demo with Merritt's vocals, and yes they are amazing. The music will be performed by a piano orchestra. What's that, you ask? Apparently a piano orchestra is a collection of a pianos from "a toy piano, a prepared and a prepared piano (a piano that has had its sound altered by attaching objects – such as tinfoil, rubber bands and playing cards – to the strings)." So while it's sad to imagine anyone else singing Merritt's work, this piano orchestra helps soften the blow quite a bit.

The musical was adapted by playwright David Greenspan and is being directed by Leigh Silverman. A special limited engagement runs on May 7th and will run until June 20th at New York City's Lucille Lortel Theatre.

Ticket for the performance goes on sale Monday March, 23 on the MCC Theater website.

The show - due to premiere in London this April before heading to the States - features the scores from the six movies, rearranged by John Williams himself and performed by an orchestra in front of a backdrop of re-edited footage from the movies, creating a 90 minute visual narrative accompanying the music. But that's not all that you'll see when you visit the show, according to Rolling Stone magazine:

[Tour producer, Spencer] Churchill said A Musical Journey is bigger than 90 to 95 percent of all rock tours because of the stage, the LED screen, and all the vintage Star Wars costumes that will be displayed within several thousand square-feet of "front of the house" space each night. Churchill can't detail specific artifacts from the exhibition but said, "It will be a lot of stuff. A few of them have never been seen before."

"Let's put it this way," says [Churchill's partner, Greg] Perloff, "We could sell tickets just for the exhibit and people will feel like they've got their money's worth."

This means respecting the movies and the fans, according to Churchill... which, in turn, means that you shouldn't expect to see someone dressed as Darth Vader appearing in front of the orchestra to try and get everyone to boo him:

Certainly you want it to be entertaining without it being kitschy and I think we are doing that completely. It's not a bunch of shtick. It's not R2-D2 going across the stage - that's what it's not going to be.

As long as the 90-minute re-edit of the movies excises Jar-Jar, I'll be happy.

Flick Image by PowerPig.

LucasFilm Says "Star Wars: A Musical Journey" Bound For U.S. [Rolling Stone]

According to E! Online, the Star Wars musical will premiere next year in London's O2 arena, and will feature singing Wookiees and a Stormtrooper kick line. The show, featuring songs set to some of John Williams' famous music, will cover the entire saga from Episode I all the way up to Episode VI. And it'll incorporate film clips.

No matter what, it can't be as great as the Donnie and Marie Star Wars episode, featuring Kris Kristofferson and Redd Foxx:

Darq Knight: The Musical was written by Yale students Marshall Pailet and James Pollack with help from Tessa Williams, and Emma Barash. The plot follows the Dark Knight but strays to make jokes about the sexual tension felt by Alfred for Bruce and breaks for "With or Without You” anthems.

Just so you understand how truly hilarious this show must have been here is a "director's note" from the playbill:

“Darq Knight: The Musical” was once upon a time the brain lovechild of a midsummer coffee date between myself and Bono, and has quickly become the most important and influential work of our time. We feel the original Dark Knight text superimposed upon the insightful work of modern musical genius that is the epic 80’s rock cannon will not only entertain the masses, but also begin a dialogue on important and profound issues such as slavery, government, medicare, and of course the existence of God. And inform. Text.

The show ran last week at a local theater and let's hope that this press will convince them turn the bat light onto the stage one more time.

For more pictures check out the round up at Ivy Gate Blog.

Thanks Dan.

Explaining his plans about a possible DVD version of his web short, Whedon told TV Guide:

We're already working on some of the DVD extras, which are going to be the finest in all the land. We're actually going to do, in addition to the commentary, what we refer to as ‘commentary with an exclamation point'! A musical commentary that is a completely original musical, that is all commentary songs, and we're writing that now... We're just piling it on. We're like, we're going to make more fun of the idea of extras than anything else.

And where there's a DVD, there's sequel potential... maybe:

Whether this has any impact on the Internet is unclear to me. It will be something that hasn't been done. And although some people came up with a plan on how to monetize this right away, our first priority was to put this out. We do it for the fans, we do it as an advertisement for itself and for just this culture, this idea of people who are doing something smaller scale but hopefully in such a way they can reach a lot of people. And maybe then it can make us an eleven-ty kadillion dollars. Or maybe it won't.

Dr. Horrible, will be an "internet miniseries event," streaming for free on the show's official site. Part 1 will appear on Tuesday, July 15, and the the second and third parts will appear July 17 and 19. All three parts will disappear on July 20, but Whedon hopes to have all three parts available for downloading soon afterwards.

Exclusive: First Look at Joss Whedon's "Dr. Horrible" [TV Guide]