Here’s why we’re grabbing a cinnamon roll with our coffee this morning:
- Viola Davis is set to star in Shonda Rhimes and Betsy Beers’ How to Get Away with Murder. The legal thriller follows Annalise DeWitt, a brilliant professor of a Criminal Law 100 class called “How to Get Away With Murder.” DeWitt, who is married to a psychology professor and is having a secret affair, becomes entangled in a real-life murder mystery. Grey’s Anatomy writer Peter Nowalk will pen the script and executive produce the project alongside Beers and Rhimes. [HollywoodReporter]
- Audra McDonald is set to star in the Broadway musical Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill as Billie Holiday. The five-time Tony Award-Winner will star in the production that plays out one of holiday’s last performances in 1959. Lucky fans will have the chance to sit at tables on the stage as McDonald sings classics such as “Strange Fruit” and “Somebody’s on my mind”. Previews of the play, directed by Lonny Price, begin March 25 and opening night is April 13. [HuffingtonPost]
- Beyonce honored art director Ian Cuttler Sala, who was killed during a car accident on Sunday. The 43-year-old man was the passenger in a car with Selma Hayek’s brother, Sami Hayek, when control of the car was lost. Sala was pronounced dead on the scene. Beyonce, who worked with Sala on album covers for Destiny Fulfilled and Dangerously in Love, paid tribute to him on her Facebook page, saying that he would be “greatly missed.” [E!News]
- The Goodman theatre in Chicago is the latest theater company to host a series of short plays about the killing of Trayvon Martin. The Goodman will present six 10-minute works by eight African-American playwrights as a part of a March 3 production of Facing Our Truth: Short Plays on Trayvon Martin, Race and Privilege. The plays, commissioned by The New Black Fest, a Brooklyn-based company dedicated to supporting Black playwrights, will also be featured in Los Angeles, New York City and Washington D.C theatres. [ABC]