Simon Russell Beale

When National Theatre director Nicholas Hytner offered him the chance to direct a revival of Tom Stoppard's 1972 classic, "Jumpers," David Leveaux readily agreed. The key reason, he says, was Simon Russell Beale. "You don't think of doing 'Jumpers' unless you have an actor who can carry George Moore," says Leveaux, "and there are few in any generation who can do that." The actor who would be playing Stoppard's passionately intellectual protagonist Moore is no stranger to Stoppard.

William Shakespare will get the full PBS treatment in "Shakespeare Uncovered," a six-part series announced this week to be shown on three consecutive Friday evenings starting Jan. 25. Each night will feature two hourlong segments, focused on one or two plays by the Bard, each with a celebrity host. The series is built on interviews with actors, directors and scholars, clips from screen versions of the plays under consideration, and live performance segments filmed at today's Globe, and staged specifically for "Shakespeare Uncovered.

William Shakespare will get the full PBS treatment in "Shakespeare Uncovered," a six-part series announced this week to be shown on three consecutive Friday evenings starting Jan. 25. Each night will feature two hourlong segments, focused on one or two plays by the Bard, each with a celebrity host. The series is built on interviews with actors, directors and scholars, clips from screen versions of the plays under consideration, and live performance segments filmed at today's Globe, and staged specifically for "Shakespeare Uncovered.

When National Theatre director Nicholas Hytner offered him the chance to direct a revival of Tom Stoppard's 1972 classic, "Jumpers," David Leveaux readily agreed. The key reason, he says, was Simon Russell Beale. "You don't think of doing 'Jumpers' unless you have an actor who can carry George Moore," says Leveaux, "and there are few in any generation who can do that." The actor who would be playing Stoppard's passionately intellectual protagonist Moore is no stranger to Stoppard.

British director Sam Mendes won an unprecedented three Olivier Awards for his productions of "Uncle Vanya" and "Twelfth Night," while the new Broadway play "Vincent in Brixton" won best play. Mendes, 37, accepted his history-making honor Friday from New York, where his repertory productions of "Uncle Vanya" and "Twelfth Night" are playing at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Last fall, the two plays closed out Mendes' decade as artistic director of London's Donmar Warehouse theater.

An intimate, two-hander play by a relatively unknown writer took home the top prize at this year's London Evening Standard Theatre Awards. "Constellations," by Nick Payne, won the prize for best play on Sunday, beating out works by Caryl Churchill and James Graham. "Constellations" ran at the Royal Court Upstairs earlier this year and starred Sally Hawkins and Rafe Spall. The play -- a cryptic, science-themed romance that runs a brief 70 minutes -- received mostly positive reviews.

Pat, the tortoise in Tom Stoppard's "Jumpers," began life here as an imported Chinese toy in an outdoor market. Spotted, purchased and delivered to the National Theatre's Paul Wanklin by his alert brother-in-law, the future theater star turned out to be not just cheap but durable. Equally important, this turtle was adaptable.

Jessica Lange, the two-time Oscar-winning film star, received her first Olivier nomination Thursday, while two little-known Irishmen, bound for Broadway in the same play, are both up for best actor. Winners of the 25th annual Laurence Olivier Awards--London's nearest equivalent to Broadway's Tony--will be announced Feb. 23.

"The Deep Blue Sea" shows us where love has gone, reveals the dark and despairing places where ardor has shipwrecked and run aground. Exceptionally well-made and completely fearless in its depiction of the widest range of romantic emotions, this is a film as fiercely committed to passion as its heroine, and that's saying a lot. As played by Rachel Weisz in a performance every bit as compelling as her Oscar-winning work in "The Constant Gardener," Hester...

Theater this year had a hard time competing with real-life drama (the melodramatic collapse of the economy; Barack Obama's stirring, historic victory; and, for heart-attack-inducing suspense, Rafael Nadal's superhuman defeat of Roger Federer in the Wimbledon final). But there were a few powerhouse performances that deserved headlines of their own. "All's Well That Ends Well," San Diego's Old Globe. Darko Tresnjak's enthralling production of Shakespeare's "problem play" may have laundered out some of the unsettling darkness, but it was so gracefully staged and spoken that it added fairy-tale enchantment to a summer evening.

Two Pulitzer Prize-winning dramas, Nilo Cruz's "Anna in the Tropics" and Doug Wright's "I Am My Own Wife," will face off for best play in next month's Tony Awards, while "Wicked," a big-budget Broadway hit about the witches from L.

"Men of few words are the best men."-- from "Henry V" Act 3, Scene 2 Coming from William Shakespeare, it's a pretty ironic comment, given that he wrote hundreds of thousands of words himself -- in poems and in 38 plays. But what words. Words that resonate down the ages more than four centuries later. Words that read brilliantly on the page but are shown to their best advantage when spoken. And this is where "The Complete Arkangel Shakespeare" comes in.