It may be Tina Fey's week, but it's Justin Bieber's
year. While fans are certainly excited to see Fey reunite with the
Saturday Night Live crew that catapulted her career, the upcoming show is really all about the 16-year-old heartthrob who has come into his own. After dominating page views on YouTube, taking over the Twitterverse, and selling out a nationwide tour, Bieber is set to join the short list of young performers who have taken the
SNL stage. Bieber told Chelsea Handler he will make an appearance in a sketch or two as well. Thanks to his April Fool's Day prank taking over
Funny or Die
, we've learned that this certainly is Bieber's world—and we're just living in it.
Saturday Night Live,
featuring Tina Fey as the host and Justin Bieber as the musical guest, airs Saturday, April 10 at 11:35 p.m. EST.
Padma Lakshmi is busy with her newborn baby, but that isn't stopping Bravo from reigniting the flames of the
Top Chef kitchen with a new season of
Top Chef Masters. Mexican-food king Rick Bayless may have won over Gael Greene and audiences with his performance in the first season of the series, but now it's time for another batch of highly esteemed chefs to engage in a televised cook-off. As in its first iteration, food journalist Kelly Choi will play host with Greene, James Oseland, and Jay Rayner heading up the Critics' Table. But while Lakshmi may have her hands full,
Top Chef judge Gail Simmons of Food & Wine magazine has made herself available to judge the world-renowned culinary artists this season. Susur Lee, David Burke, Rick Moonen, Mark Peel, Wylie Dufresne, and Ludo Lefebvre are just a few of the 22 famous chefs competing to win $100,000 for the charity of their choice—not to mention the coveted masterful title.
Top Chef Masters premieres on Bravo at 11 p.m. EST on Wednesday, April 7 before moving to its regular slot at 10 p.m. on April 14.
Since his
first apology didn't exactly win anyone over in February, fallen golfer Tiger Woods is again trying to save face with another press conference. But after more than 15 alleged mistresses—and some very vulgar text messages—it seems some may have finally lost interest in the legend on the green. Some networks who aired Woods' first apology do not plan to air his first press conference live from The Masters today in Augusta, Georgia. ESPNEWS, CNBC, MSNBC, Fox News, and Fox Business, however, will show the world champion explain himself again. "Ultimately, Tiger's return is one of the
biggest stories of the year. Our goal is to serve fans," an ESPN exec told USA Today. Maybe "I can't, I'm sorry, Don't hate me" will sound better the second time around?
Tiger Woods' press conference is scheduled for 2 p.m. EST on Monday, April 5, to be aired on select channels.
From the minds of the men who wowed audiences with
The Wire comes a new HBO series expected to be just as jaw-dropping.
Treme is set in New Orleans three months after Hurricane Katrina devastated the boisterous southern city in 2005. The dramatic series, created by David Simon and Eric Overmyer, follows a group of New Orleanians as they try to rebuild their lives, homes, and the city's uniqueness in the aftermath of tragedy and destruction. The jazz band marches on with an incredible cast, including two vets of
The Wire, Wendell Pierce (as Antoine, a devilish trombone player) and Clarke Peters (who plays the head of a Mardi Gras Indian tribe), as well as Steve Zahn in his first TV series role, and the always reliable John Goodman. And then there's the show's real star—the music. True to New Orleans' rhythm & blues, funk, and jazz music, the series showcases the best of what the struggling city has to offer. Unfortunately, a real-life tragedy took hold of the set just before the show's premiere when TV writer and producer David Mills
passed away on the set of the show this past week.
Treme
premieres Sunday, April 11 at 10 p.m. EST on HBO.
Boys may come and boys may go, but Madonna is here to stay. The queen of pop, who is already busy designing a clothing line with her daughter Lourdes, is putting her most recent Sticky & Sweet Tour on CD and DVD. The superstar's eighth worldwide concert tour for her eleventh studio album,
Hard Candy, is a dance-tastic journey through four stages—S&M, Old School, Gypsy, and Rave. But for those who couldn't afford to fork over hundreds of dollars to catch it live, Madge is now offering to put on her show in the comfort of your own home, and as a bonus, she includes her controversial comments about Sarah Palin and the pope. It's a smorgasbord not to be missed.
Madonna's Sticky & Sweet Tour comes out on CD/DVD Tuesday, April 6.
The White House's Enhancing Perceptions in Culture Awards (aka EPIC) has honored women in leadership for the past eight years and 2010 is no different. The event will preview Abby Disney's PBS series
Women, War & Peace, present an award honoring Nicholas Kristof's
Half the Sky co-author Sheryl WuDunn, and Meryl Streep will honor the highly anticipated film
Yes Madam, Sir. The nonfiction feature film took Australian filmmaker Megan Doneman six years to produce. With the help of Academy Award-winning narrator Helen Mirren, the movie tells the story of India's most controversial revolutionary, Kiran Bedi. Streep is just one of the 400 prominent business, philanthropic, political, and entertainment leaders scheduled to attend the festivities hosted by actress Kerry Washington. And while they're all undoubtedly accomplished in their own light, let's not lie—we just can't get enough of Meryl.
The White House's
EPIC Awards will take place on Wednesday, April 7 at 6 p.m. in New York.
Crib sheet for looking cool this week: Pick up a copy of Brooklyn art-noise-electronic trio Growing's new album
Pumps. Tell people it sounds too much like fellow noisers Black Dice. Say, "I remember when Growing was good." Vehemently express that the band "sold out" by signing with the eponymous record label of hipster lifestyle brand Vice. Tell people you think the Williamsburg scene is "dead" and that "the acid house revival is the new noise." And listen to
Pumps all the time anyway, in secret, because it's awesome.
Growing's Pumps
hits stores on Tuesday, April 6 on
Vice Records.
We've all had serious bummer weeks: You lose your job, you have to move back in with your folks, your little brother bombs a Hong Kong hotel. OK, maybe we've never had a serious bummer quite like that. But all the better to put your problems into perspective, right? Christopher Rice's new thriller,
The Moonlit Earth, charts the journey of a recently laid-off woman trying to find her terrorist-suspect brother—who also happens to be gay. Rice, son of vampire book queen Anne Rice, has established a reputation as a writer of intelligent beach reads; in
The Moonlit Earth, he looks to continue his streak of clever, nuanced thrillers.
Christopher Rice's The Moonlit Earth will be available in bookstores on Tuesday, April 6.
Harvard Professor and Pulitzer Prize-winner Edward O. Wilson is finally delving into the world of fiction with
Anthill, a beautifully written coming-of-age novel about a young boy in Alabama. The highly respected author and entomologist may be sneaking some science down the throats of self-respecting fiction readers everywhere with the tale of a boy-turned-environmental lawyer who tries to save wildlife, but we hardly mind.
Edward O. Wilson's Anthill
comes out Tuesday, April 6.
Anne Lamott—more famous for her book about writing (
Bird by Bird) than any of her fiction—continues a set of stories begun in two previous novels (
Rosie and
Crooked Little Heart) in her latest,
Imperfect Birds, which follows the story of a teenage Rosie being sent to an outdoor rehab facility. Despite also having the word "Bird" in the title,
Imperfect Birds is not a followup to
Bird by Bird, unless the "Rosie" character is some kind of terrible extended metaphor for learning how to write a book, which we are pretty confident she is not.
Anne Lamott's Imperfect Birds will be available in bookstores on Tuesday, April 6.
A Broadway musical about a drag show may seem a far cry from Kelsey Grammer's critically acclaimed role as the drab psychologist on
Frasier, but the actor is taking a leap with the upcoming revival of
La Cage aux Folles. The story that inspired
The Birdcage is back on the New York stage this week with Grammer as Georges, the master of ceremonies at a St. Tropez drag nightclub that stars his longtime partner Albin (aka Zaza), played by British actor Douglas Hodge. "I had a wonderful experience playing Henry Higgins in the New York Philharmonic's
My Fair Lady in 2007, which made me
long to perform in a musical on Broadway," Grammer told Playbill.com. "Jerry Herman and Harvey Fierstein's wonderfully funny and touching show is about being true to yourself and the challenges you face as a parent, as a spouse and as a family." But interestingly enough, the tables—and wigs—will soon be turning, as the five-time Emmy winner told the New York Post that six months into the show's opening, he will
switch to the role of Albin.
The 2010 revival of La Cage aux Folles begins previews at the Longacre Theatre on Tuesday, April 6 in New York.
Nothing really says Broadway quite like the financial scandal of the century, which is something Lucy Pebble understood in creating
Enron, one of the newest plays to hit the Great White Way. The show, which is finally landing in New York after earning six Olivier Award nominations during its London run, is inspired by the real-life crisis that began in 2001, leading to one of the biggest audit failures and largest bankruptcy reorganizations in American history. With Broadway vet Norbert Leo Butz as Jeffrey Skilling, Gregory Itzin as Kenneth Lay, Marin Mazzie as Claudia Roe, and Stephen Kunken as Andy Fastow, the show explores the corporate greed, arrogance, and naïveté that lead to the collapse of a modern day empire. What's next—a Lehman Brothers concert?
Enron will begin previews on Broadway on Thursday, April 8 at The Broadhurst Theatre in New York.
Sean Connery has easily established himself as the most notable living Scot. The actor, best known as Bond, James Bond, is using his fame to better those from his native country when it comes to fashion. Scotland, notorious for its unflattering kilts, may not be considered a fashion capital of the world, but Connery and his wife, Micheline Roquebrune, are determined to prove Americans wrong. The Lord and Lady are putting on their 8th Annual Dressed to Kilt Charity Fashion Show in New York this week,
celebrating eccentric Scottish style. The 2010 theme is "Mad for Scotland," and the designers exhibited this year have embraced an "anything goes" attitude. The catwalk will be flooded with unexpectedly notable names such as Al Roker, Kellie Pickler, Charlie Rose, Mike Myers, and Joan Jett—and the attire is listed as "Something Scottish, and hats encouraged for the ladies." Vanity Fair calls the evening "more freewheeling and entertaining than any Bryant Park Fashion Week presentation." Sign us up.
The 8th Annual
Dressed to Kilt Charity Fashion Show will take place in New York City on Monday, April 5.
