This is your annual chance to see what you’re missing on the tube while you're at work. From soap operas to game shows to talk shows to kid-friendly programming, the Daytime Emmy Awards—which airs at night—celebrates the best of daytime television, a far more diverse umbrella term than one would imagine. Nominees ranging from Rachael Ray to the stars of
General Hospital to Dr. Oz to the evening’s emcee Regis Philbin, who is nominated alongside co-host Kelly Ripa for two Daytime Emmy Awards, will for once come on the small screen during the evening hours. But besides the complex worlds depicted on
As the World Turns and Dr. Phil’s dramatic program, the ceremony will also honor a couple of daytime greats—
One Life to Live creator Agnes Nixon will receive the Lifetime Achievement Award, presented by the queen of snubbery, Susan Lucci, and the ever-present TV personality Ryan Seacrest will introduce a tribute to Dick Clark, featuring Donny Osmond, Chubby Checker, and The Jersey Boys. And with this year’s event taking place in Las Vegas, viewers can expect performances from
The Lion King, Blue Man Group, Cirque du Soleil, and, of course, some showgirls. Clearly, producers are making the most of their newfound freedom after the 3 p.m. hour.
The 37th Annual Daytime Emmy Awards air live on CBS on Sunday, June 27.
After a decade of celebration, scandal, and scintillating performances, the BET Awards are putting on their 10th annual ceremony this year with Queen Latifah as host, Janet Jackson making her comeback, and Prince earning the Lifetime Achievement Award. The show, which will broadcast live from the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, boasts Golden Globe-esque honors, with categories in all realms of entertainment, from Best Actor to Best Gospel to Video of the Year. Besides Jackson’s reported return to the stage, this year’s BET Awards will also include performances from Diddy with Dirty Money, Usher, Ludacris, Kanye West, Eminem, Alicia Keys, and this past year’s breakout star in the rap world, Drake. Though it's geared toward the African-American community, BET has a diverse group of nominees, including
Avatar stunner Zoe Saldana and 18-year-old Disney darling (and BET’s first Hispanic nominee) Selena Gomez. And what would an award show be without a Lady Gaga nod—and subsequent ridiculous headpiece?
The 10th Annual BET Awards air live on BET at 8:00 p.m. EST on Sunday, June 27.
After starring on her own sitcom, earning her own talk show, hosting the Academy Awards, and pretending to offer musical advice as a judge on
American Idol, Ellen DeGeneres’ career is coming full circle. The one-time stand-up comedian is returning to the stage for a special she taped at TBS’ Just for Laughs festival in Chicago. But beyond her jokes and signature suits, DeGeneres is also bringing a slew of entertainment for
Ellen’s Somewhat Special Special that airs this week, recalling the type of variety television she remembers watching as a child. “I grew up watching Carol Burnett and the Smothers Brothers and Sonny and Cher and Donny and Marie. I just like that format. I like
seeing different things,” DeGeneres told USA Today. And different is something viewers certainly will get—from Grammy-winning country music group Lady Antebellum to an acrobat known as The Flag Man to Nick Cannon to a Japanese magician’s
Matrix Ping Pong act to DeGeneres herself. “Sometimes, at lunchtime, for my housekeepers and my gardener, I'll sit them down and I'll do five minutes or so, but that's just to get some spare change to go shopping," she joked to the paper.
Ellen’s Somewhat Special Special airs on TBS on Sunday, June 27 at 9 p.m. EST.
Don’t let the voluminous ginger-colored hair fool you—it actually takes a team of highly comical men to make Conan O’Brien look good. And much like the former late-night talk show host, Andy Richter and the rest of O’Brien’s writers have had a rough year. But with their boss brushing off his shoulders and returning to television, it’s only fitting that they too have their time in the spotlight. "The writers of our show, many of them are
performers in their own right," O'Brien’s longtime sidekick Richter—and host of the upcoming
The Conan Writers Live comedy special—told USA Today. In addition to Richter, Reggie Watts will dazzle the Chicago crowd at the Just For Laughs festival with his musical stylings, as well as many other writers—Brian Kiley, Deon Cole, Jimmy Pardo, Andres du Bouchet, Josh Comers, Matt O’Brien, and Dan Cronin. And while these guys were flown across the country with their boss, O’Brien, only to be out of the gig, seeing him rise from the ashes has been a treat. “It was like suddenly
Conan's the leader of a small South American country,” Kiley told the Los Angeles Times.
The Conan Writers Live airs on TBS on Sunday, June 27 at 10 p.m. EST.
It’s a wistful week for Broadway and Off-Broadway this week as the curtains close on a quartet of shows:
Red,
Hair,
Sondheim on Sondheim, and
Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson. John Logan’s Tony-winning play
Red about Mark Rothko, starring Alfred Molina, will have its final performance on Sunday, as will the limited run of
Sondheim on Sondheim, featuring Vanessa Williams and Barbara Cook. Despite a longtime ride at the top, the Broadway revival of
Hair will also play its last show this week after nearly 550 performances, and surprise Off-Broadway hit rock musical
Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson will sadly put on its last emo show about the seventh U.S. president. This could be your last chance to hear “Populism, Yea, Yea” live.
Red
,
Hair, Sondheim on Sondheim, and Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson will all put on their final performances on Sunday, June 27.
John Baldessari’s work is not only art itself, but a comment on the state of contemporary art theory. The now 79-year-old Californian once said, “If I saw the
art around me that I liked, then I wouldn’t do art.” And now, that art that he does like will finally be featured in a retrospective of more than 150 of his works from his nearly 50-year career at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art beginning this week. From photos to videos to canvases to books, Baldessari’s work—incorporating both text and images—is revered as some of the earliest conceptual artwork in America and his influence is finally being formally noticed. Baldessari has both mocked conceptual art and created it since making a name for himself in the 1960s, and he’s been particularly important to the L.A. art scene. “There have been many important artist-teachers in Los Angeles, but John has really
had a hand in the ascendancy of Los Angeles as a center for artists,” LACMA director Michael Govan told the Los Angeles Times.
John Baldessari: Pure Beauty
opens at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art on Sunday, June 27.
Another day, another James Patterson book flying off the shelves. Patterson has turned out yet another inevitable bestseller with
Private, which is exciting news for crime junkies and perturbing news for those of us who wonder when, or if, the prolific author ever sleeps. With
Private, Patterson turns his attention to ex-CIA man Jack Morgan, who now runs a private investigation company with a penchant for bending—or just plain breaking—the rules. Morgan finds his investigation of an NFL gambling case derailed at the news that his friend’s wife, his former lover, has been murdered. The ensuing investigation throws Morgan into serious legal and moral gray areas, proving once again why Publisher’s Weekly
dubbed Patterson’s novels “the Porsches of commercial fiction.”
Private goes on sale Monday, June 28.
Finally, what parents and wine lovers across the world have been waiting for: a look inside the mind of the woman who gave the world Kathy Griffin. With her crankily dished-out advice and seemingly endless supply of boxed wine, Maggie Griffin became a fan favorite on her daughter’s reality show,
My Life on the D List. Naturally, this led to a book deal. Named after her signature technique for getting the most out of a box of wine,
Tip It imparts assorted wisdom from the 90-year-old lush along with commentary from her ever-loudmouthed daughter. Could there possibly be better sources of life advice? Tip it!
Tip It: The World According to Maggie comes out on Tuesday, June 29.
After traveling from Vienna to Atlanta to Dallas to New York over the past two years with more than 100 artifacts, the acclaimed King Tut exhibit makes its way to the Rockies this week.
Tutankhamun: The Golden Age of the Great Pharaohs, settling at the Denver Art Museum on Tuesday, includes treasures from a 2,000-year period never before seen in the United States, including King Tut’s tomb itself, which was discovered 85 years ago. “This exquisite exhibition is sure to be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for visitors from Denver and around the region to experience the art of ancient Egypt right here in the Mile High City,” Lewis Sharp, director of the museum, said in a statement. As much as Americans are excited to have the opportunity to see the short-lived Egyptian king’s encasing, the monarch himself is likely also eerily experiencing this side of the pond and pyramid for the first time—having made the journey to both the South and now the West. The Bangles—both the King’s arm accessories and the '80s pop group—could not be more excited.
Tutankhamun: The Golden Age of the Great Pharaohs opens at the Denver Art Museum on Tuesday, June 29.
Just in case you haven’t gotten sick of “Tik Tok” and “Rude Boy” blasting out of, oh, every speaker in America for the past several months, you now have a new way to satisfy your summer jam cravings: fresh off a set of shows in Europe, Rihanna and Ke$ha kick off the U.S. leg of their Last Girl on Earth tour this week, starting with a show in Auburn, Washington. No word yet on exactly what pop’s resident party girls have planned, but we have a feeling it involves lots of pyrotechnics, even more booty-shaking dancers, and as few clothes as possible. You know, if you’re into that kind of thing.
The Last Girl on Earth tour kicks off on Friday, July 2.
Norman Rockwell used his paintbrush as Steven Spielberg and George Lucas use their cameras—all three men, in their respective mediums, have tapped into the nostalgia of Americana and thus made significant places for themselves in the country’s cultural landscape. Lucas and Spielberg recognized that connection and began collecting Rockwell’s work, which will be on display at the Smithsonian in Washington D.C. this week. Spielberg, Lucas, and Rockwell alike were masterful storytellers, who valued the simpler times of childhood and the imaginations that allowed for the impossible to become possible. And with 57 of the artist’s major works on display from Lucas and Spielberg’s private collections for the exhibition, the comparisons become even clearer.
Telling Stories: Norman Rockwell from the Collections of George Lucas and Steven Spielberg is the first major show to explore those connections between his iconic depictions of life in America to that in popular film. Though his paintings and drawings center more around the picture-perfect dinner table than aliens with glowing fingers on bicycles or a lightsaber battle with a shrouded man, Rockwell’s works show that realism and idealism are not too far off.
Telling Stories: Norman Rockwell from the Collections of George Lucas and Steven Spielberg opens at Smithsonian American Art Museum on Friday, July 2.
