Musical

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)

The stage musical "Louis & Keely: Live at the Sahara" has been a runaway hit with critics and audiences since opening in Los Angeles more than a year ago. It extended its run seven times at the Geffen Playhouse and is scheduled to go on a national tour next year. But one key person is not happy with the show. The widow of legendary Las Vegas crooner Louis Prima has come out against the biographical musical, saying that the production is "almost 100% falsehoods" and a "totally untrue, disrespectful, hatchet job" of her late husband.

If at first you don't succeed, wait till they write a play about you. Herbert Hoover, who flunked the Great Depression, will enjoy a comeback bid this September, courtesy of the La Jolla Playhouse. Having toured an emo-influenced rock musical about the man on the $20 bill in "Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson," the New York stage company Les Freres Corbusier is offering its take on Hoover, the man no president wants to be lumped with on economic performance. "Hoover: Tanned, Rested and Ready to Rock" will have a brief run Sept.

Of the many ingredients which make up a great musical, "Nine" has none. The central character's high-class problems--how to juggle the many women in his life and come up with an idea for his next movie (he's an Italian director)--do not stir up vast reservoirs of sympathy. Arthur Kopit's book gets off a few good wisecracks but generally takes poor Guido's plight much too seriously. Maury Yeston's music is fairly routine, but his lyrics aren't even that good. Would you believe a lusty Italian whore who repeatedly advises a group of boys to "Be Italian / You rapscallion"?

First THE good news: Compared to our debt-roiled, war-mired nation, Broadway had a lot to celebrate this year. In addition to luminously acted new dramas and shimmeringly staged revivals, there was something approximating a genuine horse race for best musical -- a godsend for everyone who religiously sits through the normally suspense-bereft Tony telecast. The competition Sunday night between "In the Heights," the genial Latino block party with a vernacular beat (which won), and "Passing Strange," the coming-of-age saga of a young, boho and black musician named Stew (which should have won)

Having toiled in the rock biz since the heyday of the lower-Manhattan music scene 13 years ago, and having weathered a messy divorce, messier managerial problems and a long battle with drugs, there's no question that Willy DeVille is a soul survivor. What hasn't survived is the soul. At the Coach House in San Juan Capistrano Sunday night, backed by a new Mink DeVille band (with no familiar faces), he was still singing about the aching sadness of failed love--and thanks to his vocal gifts, you could still feel the ache.

When motocross trainer Cole Seeley started teaching "High School Musical's" Corbin Bleu how to ride for the new motocross movie "Free Style," he put him on a Kawasaki 110, the perfect size for an 11- or 12-year-old child. If Bleu felt embarrassed by his diminutive wheels, he could always remind himself that Seeley started on smaller ones. "I've been riding since I was about 4," Seeley said. "My first bike was a PW50. If I remember right, my parents hid it in my next-door neighbor's garage, and I did a scavenger hunt to find it. It was a very exciting day for me."

Production designer John Myhre won Oscars for his work on director Rob Marshall's 2002 period musical "Chicago" and his 2005 drama "Memoirs of a Geisha." He's also supplied the eye-popping looks for the 2006 musical "Dreamgirls" and last year's fantasy thriller "Wanted." But for all that, perhaps his most creative project is his latest, the musical "Nine," opening Dec.18. Marshall directed this lavish adaptation of the Broadway musical hit, itself based on the 1963 Fellini film "8 1/2 ," about a movie director (Daniel Day-Lewis)

She doesn't want to be known as that "chick from that girl group." Or the actress who played Lil' Kim. Naturi Naughton wants you to remember her name. And to help ensure the name recognition sticks, she's starring in the revamped production of "Fame," which hits theaters Sept. 25. She plays Denise, a singer-pianist whose parents disapprove of her attending the New York City High School of Performing Arts. Sure, the 1980 Oscar-winning hit musical about gifted students with ambitions of being famous came out before Naughton was born.

The sky is a clear and light enamel blue, but inside the banquet hall of the El Montecito Presbyterian Church, a light drizzle falls. You can't see the actual drops, of course, because they exist in another realm -- the bountiful imagination of "Wicked" composer-lyricist Stephen Schwartz. Schwartz is one of the American musical theater's most successful composer-lyricists, and the scene is a rehearsal for his first opera, "Séance on a Wet Afternoon," which Opera Santa Barbara will unveil Saturday at the Granada Theatre for the first of three performances.