Musical

It is debatable who will get more out of "Manet," the historically minded or the pictorially inclined. But the ordinary playgoer is bound to get less than either from Mark Turnbull's song-filled tribute to the 19th-Century French painter at the Moulton Theatre in Laguna Beach. Although the ambitious Laguna Playhouse production is mounted lovingly, staged with mastery and played by its star with the sort of panache most professional theaters would kill for (let alone a community theater)

Patrick SWAYZE, who made his name as the hunky dance instructor-from-the-wrong-side-of-the-tracks in 1987's "Dirty Dancing," will be displaying his moves onstage in Bob Fosse's "Chicago," beginning Wednesday at the Pantages Theatre for a three-week run. To prepare for the role of Billy Flynn, the slick legal eagle popularized by Richard Gere in 2002's Oscar-winning movie, the actor put in a short, unadvertised stint in the Broadway production, his...

"OK, ladies, let's do 'Vaudeville.' " The women of the chorus, a young and shapely bunch, obligingly assume a variety of frisky poses. As the piano picks up the beat, they bump and grind their way through the burlesque number -- after cooing over "little Sammy Davis," the precocious kid who's playing the circuit when he should be in school. "I would never have it that good again," sighs the grown-up Davis (Obba Babatundé). "The tragedy was that it had to happen when I was 6!"

Fox's clever decision to sneak-preview, back in May, the pilot of "Glee" -- the high school musical whose second episode airs tonight -- created a kind of cliffhanger summer for a show that had not yet properly premiered. The pilot was rebroadcast last week in a "director's cut," a phrase that translates as "Take this seriously." The series is set in an Ohio town where high school Spanish teacher Will Schuester (Matthew Morrison) takes over the glee club after its former director (Stephen Tobolowsky)

Joe Henry is tapped into the American past in unexpected ways. He lives in a roomy South Pasadena Craftsman designed for President Garfield's widow, and his preferred attire, a black suit and pointy boots, suggests that the 48-year-old singer and guitarist would have been at home playing in Elvis Presley's first band. "I typically come to things late," Henry said. "I was too busy with Leadbelly when the Clash happened." These days, the easygoing musician is venturing back to some of the most harrowing music in the American canon: The tormented country blues of Son House, Robert Johnson and Skip James.