On Sunday, Neil Patrick Harris, Julianne Hough, and the cast and creative team behind “Damn Yankees” sat in the press room of Yankee Stadium answering questions from a group of theater journalists who looked as natural in the setting as Ethel Merman and Patti LuPone would in the dugout during the playoffs. “It’s a little surreal for all of us to be here,” Rick Miramontez, the publicity wizard behind the event, confessed shortly before the press conference kicked off.

An intense rainstorm spoiled some of the fanfare around the announcement of a revival (one of the stars, Austin Scott, was supposed to throw out the first pitch), but the day’s larger point was clear. It’s never been harder to launch a Broadway musical, and the Great White Way could use all the help it can get. Enter the Bronx Bombers and Major League Baseball, which, in a first, will partner on the show along with its Emmy Award-winning production label MLB Studios.

“It’s an exciting opportunity to get asses in seats,” Harris said. “It’s really the opportunity to give people who don’t normally go see theater a reason to go. If this will allow arenas full of people…to know that seeing Broadway is something that is accessible to them and ideally awesome, then that would be a great thing.”

For the past year and change, a lot has been written about the challenges facing musicals. Such shows typically carry production budgets of $15 million to $20 million, which means that in order to recoup their investments, they have to play to full houses. Harris and Hough are stars who bring passionate fan bases from their stints on “How I Met Your Mother” and “Dancing With the Stars,” but the economics are daunting.

Acclaimed revivals like “Cats: The Jellicle Ball” wrapped up their runs early after ticket sales began to soften, while new musicals like “The Queen of Versailles” and “Beaches” bombed. More recently, “Two Strangers Carry a Cake Across New York” announced it would close shop in November despite rave reviews. Yes, some of the biggest hits on Broadway remain long-running musicals like “Hamilton” and “The Lion King,” but no new juggernauts have emerged to challenge them since COVID upended the business.

Partnering on a musical may be new for baseball, but the business has integrated its talent with promising results. “Buena Vista Social Club” recently sold out shows after tapping former New York Mets player José “Candelita” Iglesias to appear as the narrator for a limited run, and the production will enlist former Yankee Bernie Williams and his guitar to join the show’s band next month.

MLB’s involvement in “Damn Yankees” wasn’t immediately clear, but baseball will help promote the show to its fans. As for the musical, it’s getting a facelift. The setting will move from the 1950s to 2000, as the Orioles try to take on the Yankees, who were enjoying a period of dominance that saw them win four straight World Series. The creative team behind “Damn Yankees” made it clear that they were committed to being true to the sport. Miramontez said that a technical adviser had been hired, and Scott said he’s been studying game footage as he prepares to play Joe Boyd, a thwarted fan who sells his soul to carry the “Birds” to glory.

“I am kind of coming into this world, learning the baseball world, the culture, and the language of the sport,” Scott said, adding, “I’ve already been watching a lot of highlight reels and a lot of footage, especially of Aaron Judge.”

On Sunday, Harris, Hough, and Scott met Judge and the rest of the team in person after braving the downpour to shoot promotional images on the field. Harris explained why they had made the trek to the Bronx by recounting the entire plot of “Damn Yankees” to members of the clubhouse.

“I just didn’t know if they knew the context of meeting us, like why we were here,” a sheepish Harris admitted.

EXCLUSIVE: Hugh Laurie is the latest addition to The Trial of Louise Woodward, HBO‘s true-crime limited series from creator Matthew Barry. He joins a cast that has Catriona Chandler in the title role, which also includes Joanne Froggatt, Meghann Fahy, Sagar Radia, and Chloë Sevigny.

This marks Laurie’s third outing with HBO after Veep and Avenue 5 – both comedies from Armando Iannucci.

The Trial of Louise Woodward tells the shocking true story of how, in 1997, an 18-year-old British au pair (Chandler) was accused of shaking to death a baby left in her care by her American host family, setting off an international media firestorm as the trial unfolds in full view of both the British and American public.

Laurie plays Judge Hiller B. Zobel, the Massachusetts Superior Court judge who presided over the murder trial. As previously announced, Froggatt plays Louise’s mother, Susan, with Fahy and Radia as Deborah and Sunil Eappen — parents of the victim, Matthew Eappen. Sevigny plays Louise’s defense attorney, Elaine Whitfield Sharp.

Barry wrote the series, serves as showrunner and is exec producing alongside Susanne Bier, who directs all episodes, as well as Frank Spotnitz, Emily Feller, Tobi de Graaff, and Antoine Douaihy. Big Light Productions and Anton TV are the production companies.

An Emmy nominee and three-time Golden Globe winner perhaps best known for starring in Fox’s medical drama House, Laurie will next be seen starring opposite Amy Poehler in the new Peacock comedy Dig from Parks and Recreation‘s Mike Schur. Adapted from Kate Myers’ bestselling novel Excavations, the series premieres November 23. He’s also the EP & star of Apple TV’s The Wanted Man, a thriller from Hijack and Lupin creator George Kay that premieres January 6.

After earning a Golden Globe and his seventh Emmy nom for his work in the John Le Carré series The Night Manager, he’s set to return to Le Carré’s world opposite Matthew Macfadyen and Charlie Hunnam in the forthcoming limited series Legacy of Spies from BBC and MGM+. He is represented by WME, Hamilton Hodell and Johnson Shapiro Slewett & Kole.

It’s full speed ahead for Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi’s lavish, lush, and queer historical drama “La Bola Negra” this fall movie season. It’s now a surefire Oscar heavyweight and even frontrunner, especially after winning the Oscar-precursory TIFF People’s Choice Award first prize.

Known as Los Javis, the filmmakers (who are also exes) shared the Best Director prize at the 2026 Cannes Film Festival with Pawel Pawlikowski for “Fatherland.” It’s easy to see why, as their unabashedly grand movie traverses multiple 20th- and 21st-century timelines with impeccable craft to resurrect an unfinished text by Spanish poet Federico García Lorca. The film will also mark Netflix’s longest theatrical window to date once “La Bola Negra” launches in select theaters on October 16. Watch the full official trailer below.

“La Bola Negra” is inspired by an unfinished play of the same name by Lorca, the gay writer who rose to fame in the 1920s as a member of the Spanish literary movement Generation of ’27. Lorca was murdered in 1936 during the Spanish Civil War by followers of Francisco Franco, and his body remains undiscovered to this day.

The film weaves together three interconnected stories of the lives of gay men across a century of Spanish history. One storyline set in 1932 is based on Lorca’s original play, about a young man named Carlos (Milo Quife) who applies for membership to his father’s casino but faces accusations of homosexuality. A 1937 storyline draws on material from the play “La piedra oscura” by Alberto Conejero, who co-wrote the screenplay with Los Javis, and follows a musician-turned-Nationalist soldier, Sebastián (Guitarricadelafuente), who develops a relationship with prisoner-of-war Rafael Rodríguez Rapún (Miguel Bernardeau), Lorca’s real-life lover. The final storyline in 2017 follows Alberto (Carlos González), a history grad student researching queer music of the 1920s whose long-lost maternal grandfather unexpectedly dies.

The cast of “La Bola Negra” also includes Pedro Almodóvar muse Lola Dueñas, a scene-stealing Penélope Cruz, plus Glenn Close (speaking Spanish!), Julio Torres, and Yenesi. The film also has a score by Raül Refree, along with the original song “La Nieve,” written and performed by Guitarricadelafuente.

Here’s the trailer for “La Bola Negra.”

“La Bola Negra” opens in select Los Angeles and New York theaters starting October 16, with more markets to follow. It will then debut on the Netflix streaming platform December 2.