Denzel donates $1M to college debate team

Denzel donates $1M
to college debate team

MARSHALL, Texas — Denzel Washington is donating $1 million to Wiley College to re-establish its debate team. Washington was in Marshall last week to screen “The Great Debaters,” the story of Wiley’s 1930s debate team. He stars as educator and poet Melvin Tolson, who led the all-black college’s elite debate squad. During his appearance, the 52-year-old actor-director said he would like to see the team get going again. Marshall is a city of about 24,000, located 140 miles east of Dallas. Wiley has about 900 students. “The Great Debaters” opens Christmas Day. It has been nominated for a Golden Globe Award for best picture drama.

Opera will make films
of its performances

SAN FRANCISCO — The San Francisco Opera plans to make films of its performances available for showings in movie theaters starting in March, the company said Tuesday. The opera said it would put six operas into worldwide theater distribution each year over the next four years. Earlier this year it began offering live simulcasts of its productions at San Francisco’s AT&T Park and other outdoor venues. The productions it plans to release in 2008 include five from the fall season and one from the summer season: Puccini’s “La Rondine” and “Madama Butterfly,” Saint-Saëns’ “Samson and Delilah,” Mozart’s “The Magic Flute” and “Don Giovanni,” and “Appomattox.” The San Francisco Opera said its agreement with The Bigger Picture, a distributor of digital movies, would make it the first opera company to capture and screen its work with the same picture and sound technology used in Hollywood feature films. The deal calls for the productions to be recorded in a surround-sound format and to be shown with the latest digital projectors, the opera said.

Today’s birthdays

Comedian Charlie Callas is 80. Actor John Hillerman is 75. Rock musician Peter Criss is 62. Psychic/illusionist Uri Geller is 61. Producer Dick Wolf (“Law & Order”) is 61. Rock musician Alan Parsons is 58. Actor Michael Badalucco is 53. Actress Blanche Baker is 51. Rock singer Billy Bragg is 50. Country singer Kris Tyler is 43. Rock singer Chris Robinson is 41. Actress Nicole deBoer is 37. Actor Jonah Hill is 24. Singer JoJo is 17.