newsmakers

newsmakers

Mirren honored with Harvard’s Hasty Pudding award

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.

Helen Mirren has been honored as woman of the year by Harvard University’s Hasty Pudding Theatricals, twerking as part of the traditional spoof roast Thursday.

Mirren at first tried to sign the word “twerk,” then let slip a curse word and danced. She said she’s tried to twerk privately in her bedroom, and having to do it in public was humiliating.

She also joked that being honored by Prince Charles as Dame of the British Empire at Buckingham Palace didn’t come anywhere close to getting the ceremonial Hasting Pudding pot at Harvard. The festivities also included a parade.

Mirren, 68, won the 2007 best-actress Oscar for her role as Queen Elizabeth II in “The Queen” and has been nominated on three other occasions. She also appeared in “Age of Consent, “Gosford Park” and “The Madness of King George.”

She said she’d still like to play the powerful 18th-century Russian monarch, Catherine The Great.

Mirren said she’s rooting for “12 Years A Slave” at this year’s Oscars.

Hasty Pudding Theatricals is America’s oldest undergraduate drama troupe. It annually honors performers who have made a lasting and impressive contribution to entertainment. Emmy Award-winning actor Neil Patrick Harris will be honored as man of the year next Friday.

Last year’s winners were Marion Cotillard and Kiefer Sutherland.

‘Back to the Future’ musical planned for London in 2015

NEW YORK

Director Robert Zemeckis is literally going back into the past for his next project — a stage musical of “Back to the Future.”

Producers said Thursday night that a show adapted from the sci-fi comedy franchise starring Michael J. Fox will open in London’s West End in 2015, the 30th anniversary of the film. A Broadway run is a possibility if the new musical flies as well as the film’s specially equipped DeLorean.

The new musical will have a book by Zemeckis, Bob Gale and Jamie Lloyd, and new music and lyrics by composer Alan Silvestri and songwriter and producer Glen Ballard. Lloyd will direct.

In the 1985 film, Marty McFly becomes a human guinea pig who travels back to his hometown in 1955. Once there, he gets caught up in the soap-opera lives of his own teenage parents, including his mom, who develops a crush on her future son.

The film was written by Zemeckis and Gale and had plenty of music, including the Huey Lewis and the News theme tune “The Power of Love” and Marty McFly’s futuristic rendition of “Johnny B. Goode.”

The film, which co-starred Christopher Lloyd, Crispin Glover and Lea Thompson, was so successful that it spawned two sequels, “Back to the Future Part II” in 1989 and “Back to the Future Part III” in 1990.

Beyonce by the book: Rutgers offers course on pop star

NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J.

Beyonce is one of the world’s most- scrutinized pop stars, and now that study is moving to academia.

The Department of Women’s and Gender Studies at Rutgers University is offering a course called “Politicizing Beyonce.”

Kevin Allred, a doctoral student who is teaching the class, tells the university’s online news site that he is using Beyonce’s career as a way to explore American race, gender and sexual politics.

The class supplements an analysis of Beyonce’s videos and lyrics with readings from black feminists. Allred says he’s seeking to help students think more critically about media consumption.

Rutgers also has a class examining the theology of Bruce Springsteen’s lyrics.

Georgetown University has a class called “The Sociology of Hip-Hop: The Urban Theodicy of Jay-Z,” focusing on Beyonce’s rapper husband.

Associated Press