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Record producer Thomas Z. Shepard has won twelve Grammy awards for producing the original cast albums of shows like VictorVictoria, Ain't Misbehavin' and La Cage Aux Folles. He is best known for his many collaborations with Stephen Sondheim on such albums as Company, Sweeney Todd, Follies In Concert, Sunday in the Park With George, Merrily We Roll Along, A Little Night Music and Pacific Overtures.

Ain't Misbehavin' at La Mirada theatre runs through October 8, and the critics are weighing in...

La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts amp Mccoy Rigby Entertainment present the first show of its 2017-2018 season, and the 40th anniversary of the iconic theatre with American Idol's Frenchie Davis starring in Ain't Misbehavin', with music by Thomas 'Fats' Waller, conceived by Richard Maltby, Jr. and Murray Horwitz, musical direction by Christopher Troy, choreography by Jeffrey Polk and directed amp staged by Ken Page - an original cast member of the 1978 Broadway premiere...

La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts amp Mccoy Rigby Entertainment present the first show of its 2017-2018 season, and the 40th anniversary of the iconic theatre with American Idol's Frenchie Davis starring in Ain't Misbehavin', with music by Thomas 'Fats' Waller, conceived by Richard Maltby, Jr. and Murray Horwitz, musical direction by Christopher Troy, choreography by Jeffrey Polk and directed ampstaged by Ken Page - an original cast member of the 1978 Broadway premiere...

Songbird, Frenchie Davis, was first introduced to the world as a fan-favorite on the secondseason of the hit television show, American Idol. Since then, she has continued to wowaudiences with her unique and versatile talent. She has performed in numerous Broadway shows,including Rent Cinderella Enchanted, Dreamgirls and Ain't Misbehavin', which earned her aGrammy nomination. Her television credits include being a top-five finalist on the first season ofNBC's The Voice a guest-starring role on the Own Network's Wanda Sykes PresentsHerlarious and voice-over work for the hit Nickelodeon cartoon, Wonder Pets.

Songbird, Frenchie Davis, was first introduced to the world as a fan-favorite on the secondseason of the hit television show, American Idol. Since then, she has continued to wowaudiences with her unique and versatile talent. She has performed in numerous Broadway shows,including Rent Cinderella Enchanted, Dreamgirls and Ain't Misbehavin', which earned her aGrammy nomination. Her television credits include being a top-five finalist on the first season ofNBC's The Voice a guest-starring role on the Own Network's Wanda Sykes PresentsHerlarious and voice-over work for the hit Nickelodeon cartoon, Wonder Pets.

The Development Wing presented its fourth annual Broadway Under the Stars benefit concert on Saturday, June 6, 2015. The exclusive, one-night-only event was hosted by acclaimed writerlyricist Jonathan Brielle, Artistic Director of The Development Wing and Vice President of The Johnny Mercer Foundation, and featured musical performances by Broadway's best, including Roz Ryan Chicago, Ain't Misbehavin', Cole Burden Murder Ballad, Brooke Sunny Moriber The Threepenny Opera, Ken Prymus Cats, The Wiz, Patricia Noonan Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, along with young artists,Jenna Downs, Jake Swain, and more. With Musical Direction by Jeffrey Klitz, Broadway Under the Stars took place on the grounds of the historic Vala Maison, an exquisite country-style estate located in Tewksbury, New Jersey.

The ninth annual edition of Broadway Backwards, a one-night-only performance produced by Broadway CaresEquity Fights AIDS and benefiting Bcefa and the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual amp Transgender Community Center of New York, took place last night. This year's special event featured the talents of Michael Berresse Kiss Me, Kate A Chorus Line, Tony winner Beth Leavel Elf, The Drowsy Chaperone, Tony winner Debra Monk Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, TV's 'Girls', Ken Page Ain't Misbehavin', Cats, Tony winner Billy Porter Kinky Boots, Tony nominee Andrew RannellsThe Book of Mormon, TV's 'Girls', Tony nominee John Tartaglia Avenue Q, TV's 'Johnny and the Sprites.', and moreThis year's edition of Broadway Backwards bwaybackwards was held at Broadway's Al Hirschfeld Theatre 302 W 45th Street, NYC, current home to the Tony Award-winning Best Musical Kinky Boots. BroadwayWorld was there for the after party festivities and you can check out...

Ruben Studdard is ready not only for a new television image, but for a new image overall.

That's why the Season 2 "American Idol" winner agreed to participate in Season 15 of NBC's weight-loss competition "The Biggest Loser," which premieres Tuesday, Oct. 8. Though contestants are prohibited from specifying how they've fared before episodes air, Studdard says he's satisfied with his results so far -- and also with the ones he's had professionally since his "Idol" win over runner-up Clay Aiken 10 years ago.

"After 'Idol,' my first album ['Soulful'] went double platinum pretty fast," he tells Zap2it. "Because of the climate in the music industry now, it's hard for young people to do that. To sell 200,000 records now is pretty much the same as selling 2.5 million when I was on the show.

"I went on the show to showcase that I'm able to sing all kinds of music, and to be successful at doing that.

I took a look and last year I saw 24 movies and reviewed 23 of them at the Toronto Film Festival (read my recap here). So I took a quick look at the lineup announced so far for this year's festival to see what I may or may not be seeing and already my list of "must sees" is at 18 followed by three titles I really want to see. After that I have 18 films followed by six that are quite unlikely I'll fit along with three I saw and already reviewed at Cannes earlier this year. As is always the case with film festivals of this size, I simply have to weigh each film by measure of "importance" in the grand scheme of things, followed by those I'm most excited to see and after that is when I can begin poking around at some of the films that raise my curiosity, but...

Alfonso Cuarón's Gravity, one of many Special Presentations at this year's Tiff.

The Toronto International Film Festival has begun to announce its lineup for its 2013 edition, beginning with Gala and Special Presentations. To browse the festival's programming on their web site, visit here.

Gala Presentations

American Dreams in China (Peter Chan, China)

The Art of the Steal (Jonothan Sobol, Canada)

August: Osage County (John Wells, USA)

Cold Eyes (Cho Ui-seok & Kim Byung-seo, Korea)

The Fifth Estate (Bill Condon, USA)

The Grand Seduction (Don McKellar, Canada)

Kill Your Darlings (John Krokidas, USA)

Life of Crime (Daniel Schechter, USA)

The Love Punch (Joel Hopkins, France)

The Lunchbox (Ritesh Batra, India/France/Germany)

Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom (Justin Chadwick, South Africa)

Parkland (Peter Landesman, USA)

The Railway Man (Jonathan Teplitzky, Australia/UK)

The Right Kind of Wrong (Jeremiah Chechik, Canada)

Rush (Ron Howard, UK/Germany)

Shuddh Desi Romance (Maneesh Sharma, India...

The 2013 Toronto Film Festival selection grew quite a bit today as the organizers announced the Midnight Madness, Documentary, Vanguard, City to City and Cinematheque selections for this year's festival. Among the title announced there aren't exactly a ton of names that pop off the paper immediately. The Midnight Madness selection will open with Lucky McKee's All Cheerleaders Die in which a young girl who practices the dark arts turns on her best friend after she joins the cheer squad. However, I assume most attention will be on Eli Roth's The Green Inferno, a film in which a group of humanitarians go to the Amazon to help a native tribe only to have the tribe kidnap them and later learn their cannibalistic heritage is very much intact. The Documentary selection includes plenty of familiar faces such as Marcel Ophuls, Claude Lanzmann and Errol Morris and Frank Pavich will be bringing Jodorowsky's Dune,...

New documentaries from acclaimed filmmakers Claude Lanzmann ("Shoah"), Marcel Ophuls ("The Sorrow and the Pity"), Frederick Wiseman ("Titicut Follies") and Errol Morris ("The Thin Blue Line") highlight the typically strong doc lineup at the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival, Tiff organizers announced on Tuesday. Lanzmann will be represented with "The Last of the Unjust" (photo above), which chronicles the last president of the Jewish council in the Theresienstadt ghetto in World War II. Ophuls has "Ain't Misbehavin'," an autobiographical doc. Wiseman's "At Berkeley" looks at the Uc Berkeley campus in the...

When Sarah Polley decided to make a documentary about the mother she lost as a girl of 11, she had no idea of the extraordinary family secret she would unearth. The acclaimed Canadian film-maker talks about the often painful burden of exploring the lives of loved ones – and why she thinks marriage is a 'crazy and optimistic' institution

As I fly to Canada to meet Sarah Polley, I think about the glimpses of her in Stories We Tell – her first full-length documentary feature, which bowled over critics at Sundance and the Venice film festival and has won Canada's Film of the Year award. She looks like a contemplative Madonna on screen, with long, fair hair. She listens more than she talks. She encourages her family to speak. Her film may be her story – but she gets others to tell it. Michael Polley, her British-born father – an actor who worked for an...

Three Tony champs -- Hugh Jackman ("The Boy from Oz"), Kristin Chenoweth ("You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown") and Andrea Martin ("My Favorite Year") -- led a recent reading of the 1978 tuner "On the Twentieth Century." The non-profit Roundabout Theater organized this star-studded cast for what could be the first step towards a full-scale production. This musical adapation of the 1932 farce by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur ("The Front Page") boasted a book and lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green and music by Cy Coleman. The plot revolves around a down-on-his luck producer (Jackman), a spoilt leading lady (Chenoweth) and a rich eccentric (Martin) all aboard a train bound for Hollywood. For its first run, John Cullum, as the beleaguered impressario, as well as Kevin Kline in a featured part won Tony Awards as did the score, book, and scenic design. The show lost the top prize to "Ain't Misbehavin'" an.

Carrie Underwood and Kelly Clarkson are Grammy Award veterans by now. They'll be joined at the 2010 awards by a couple of fellow "American Idol" alumni.

Season two winner Ruben Studdard and season five finalist Mandisa each picked up the second Grammy nods of their careers on Wednesday. Studdard is part of the original cast recording of "Ain't Misbehavin'," which is up for best musical show album. Mandisa was nominated for best pop/contemporary gospel album for her effort "Freedom."

Clarkson earned her fifth career nomination by scoring a nod for "All I Ever Wanted" as best pop vocal album, while Underwood was nominated twice: best female country vocal performance for "Just a Dream" and best country collaboration with vocals for "I Told You So" with Randy Travis. They're the sixth and seventh Grammy nominations of her career.

Clarkson, Underwood and Jennifer Hudson are the only past "Idol" contestants to have won Grammys in the past.

"American Idol" has produced some very note-worthy performers and that includes Broadway musical stars.

The Tony-winning revue "Ain't Misbehavin'" will be headed to New York to play the Lehman Center for the Performing Arts in the Bronx on May 16, 2009. The musical stars previous winner Ruben Studdard and former contestant and "Rent" star Frenchie Davis.

The original production of the show was written by Richard Maltby, Jr. who currently directs the tour. The original show brought its star, Nell Carter, into stardom and featured tunes from Fats Waller.

The current production also stars Trenyce Cobbins, Patrice Covington and David Jennings. Tickets for the show are available online at www.aintmisbehavinontour.com for the price of -.

Actress and singer Nell Carter, who found fame on both the Broadway stage and in television, died Thursday at her home in Beverly Hills, where she collapsed and was discovered by one her 13 year-old sons; she was 54. The actress had suffered from diabetes and underwent brain surgery in 1992 to remove an aneurysm, though she recovered and continued to perform throughout the `90s, and was currently in rehearsal for a Long Beach, CA, production of Raisin, the musical version of Raisin in the Sun. Carter rose to fame in the 1978 Broadway musical Ain't Misbehavin', for which she won a Tony Award; she re-created the role for a 1982 TV adaptation, which garnered her an Emmy Award. The heavyset actress with the big voice and wicked sense of humor was perhaps best known for the '80s sitcom Gimme a Break!, which ran from 1981 to 1987 and brought her two Emmy nominations. In addition to her recent stage work, Carter recently appeared in the TV shows Reba and Ally McBeal. She is survived by her two adopted sons. --Prepared by IMDb staff...