Tony Danza in Las Vegas Staging of “The Producers”

Actor, singer, and dancer Tony Danza is returning to a role he knows well: that of Max Bialystock, the devil-may-care conniving con man in the production of The Producers at the Paris Hotel on the Las Vegas strip. He played Bialystock on Broadway from Dec. 19, 2006 to March 11, 2007. He will remain in the role in Vegas until its closing on Feb. 9, 2008.

Lord of the Dance to Embark on 45-City Tour

Fresh off the dancing heels of its 10th anniversary tour, Lord of the Dance has booked more than 45 tour dates in North America next year, beginning Feb. 5 in Fargo, ND.

Ticket Reselling Becomes Legal in Missouri

Missouri ticket brokers, your day has come. For the first time, reselling an event ticket is legal in the state, allowing for a transparent, free market for ticketing

Wayne Newton Back “Dancing”

Following a heart scare, Wayne Newton has been cleared by doctors to go on the road with the third annual tour of Dancing with the Stars. The 38-city North American road trip kicks off Dec. 18 in Seattle and runs through Feb. 10 in Philadelphia.
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Dallas Cowboys Build Dream Stadium

As the saying goes, everything’s bigger in Texas.

Dallas Cowboys owner and president Jerry Jones is taking that saying quite literally, as he and the city of Arlington, TX are in the process of building what will be the NFL’s largest stadium. Scheduled to open before the 2009 NFL season, the stadium promises to give fans an incredible experience, with endless possibilities for the future.

Smashing Pumpkins Returning to Europe

The Smashing Pumpkins will return to the U.K. and Europe in 2008 for a major arena headlining tour, starting Jan. 27 in Belgrade, Serbia. The tour will also feature shows in Hungary, the Czech Republic, Austria, Italy, Switzerland, France, Ireland, Scotland, England, the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland, where the trek wraps March 3.

Bruce Springsteen Adds More Dates in ‘08

Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band this week released the first series of additional tour dates for 2008, which will start Feb. 28 in Hartford, CT and wrap up April 30 in Charlottesville, VA.

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Lawsuits Still Pending As Missouri Prepares to Allow Ticket Reselling

Missouri is about to become the latest state to allow unfettered ticket reselling while it continues to wage a legal battle against two brokers it claims misrepresented tickets the companies didn’t have in their possession.
The state will begin allowing ticket reselling on Wednesday, Nov. 28, following Connecticut, New York and Minnesota, among others.

Diamond reveals `Caroline' inspiration

Neil Diamond held onto the secret for decades, but he has finally revealed that President Kennedy's daughter was the inspiration for his smash hit "Sweet Caroline."
"I've never discussed it with anybody before — intentionally," the 66-year-old singer-songwriter told The Associated Press on Monday during a break from recording. "I thought maybe I would tell it to Caroline when I met her someday."
He got his chance last week when he performed the song via satellite at Caroline Kennedy's 50th birthday party.
Diamond was a "young, broke songwriter" when a photo of the president's daughter in a news magazine caught his eye.
"It was a picture of a little girl dressed to the nines in her riding gear, next to her pony," Diamond recalled. "It was such an innocent, wonderful picture, I immediately felt there was a song in there."
Years later, holed up in a hotel in Memphis, Tenn., he would write the words and music in less an hour.
"It was a No. 1 record and probably is the biggest, most important song of my career, and I have to thank her for the inspiration," he said. "I'm happy to have gotten it off my chest and to have expressed it to Caroline. I thought she might be embarrassed, but she seemed to be struck by it and really, really happy."
The enduring hit recently reappeared on the singles chart, thanks in part to the Boston Red Sox. "Sweet Caroline" is played at every home game.
"I think they consider it good luck," Diamond said, adding that the Red Sox have become his favorite baseball team.
The tune's return to the charts leaves Diamond "speechless," he said. "That song was written 40 years ago, so I am just overwhelmed by the fact that it has returned and that, more importantly, people have taken it into their hearts for so many years."
Diamond is now at work on a new album, his second collaboration with producer Rick Rubin.
"We're both very excited about it," Diamond said. "I think it's going to be one of my best ever."

Kelly Clarkson and Reba McEntire Plan Tour

Looking to capitalize on their hit “Because of You” from the “Reba Duets” album, Reba McEntire and Kelly Clarkson are teaming up for a 15-date tour in early 2008 called 2 Worlds 2 Voices.

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Live Nation and Signatures Network Finalizing Deal

Live Nation has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire merchandise company Signatures Network for a total of approximately $79 million in cash, stock and repayment of debt. Capital adjustments still need to be worked out. The transaction is expected to close later this year. Signatures Network’s Chief Executive Officer, Dell Furano, will head up Live Nation Artists’ Merchandise Division. Live Nation also owns artist merchandiser Anthill Trading and high end artist merchandise company, TRUNK Ltd

Weekly Ticket Searches (Novemeber 11-17)

The following are the top 5 ticket searches (PlatinumTickets.com) for the week of November 11-17

1. Boston Red Sox Tickets
2. Wicked Tickets
3. Jersey Boys Tickets
4. National Finals Rodeo (NFR) Tickets
5. Celine Dion Tickets

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Ozzy Fans Caught in Sting

Thirty-six Ozzy Osbourne fans who thought they had won VIP tickets to the singer's show in Fargo, North Dakota, got an even bigger surprise when they showed up at the venue on October 29th: They were busted in a sting operation for infractions including neglecting to pay child support and failure to appear in court. "Most of them were completely stunned as they walked around the corner and realized the people wearing PDL Productions T-shirts were sheriff's deputies, " says Cass County Sheriff Paul D. When Osbourne learned about the incident without his consent, he issued an angry statement:"Sheriff Laney should be apologizing to me for using my name in connection with these arrests. it's insulting to me and to my audience, and it shows how lazy this particular sheriff is when it comes to doing his job." Laney says he has no plans to apologize. " We are charged with serving warrants,"he says,"and we just found a creative way to do it."

Weekly Ticket Searches (Novemeber 4-10)

The following are the top 5 ticket searches (PlatinumTickets.com) for the week of November 4 - 10

1. Miley Cyrus as Hannah Montana Tickets
2. National Finals Rodeo (NFR) Tickets
3. Jersey Boys Tickets
4. Wicked Tickets
5. Legally Blonde Tickets

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Monthly Ticket Searches (October 2007)

The following are the top 5 searches (platinumTickets.com) for the month of October 2007

1. Wicked Tickets
2. Colorado Rockies Tickets
3. Boston Red Sox Tickets
4. National Finals Rodeo Tickets
5. Arizona Diamondbacks Tickets

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Weekly Ticket Searches (Oct 28-Nov 3)

The following are the top 5 ticket searches (PlatinumTickets.com) for the week of October 28-Novemebr 3
Miley Cyrus as Hannah Montana Tickets
Wicked Tickets
Legally Blonde Tickets
National Finals Rodeo (NFR) Tickets
Van Halen Tickets

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Shula Off Base

Every year, the 1972 Miami Dolphins pop champagne when the final undefeated team loses, preserving their 17-0 squad as the last to enjoy a perfect season. It's a rite of autumn in the NFL.
But now, here comes the New England Patriots, and if ever the cork was staying put, this is the threat. They've blown out eight opponents, beat their only perceived equal on the road, and now stare down history in a way perhaps like no one previously.
So leave it to Don Shula to start the tarnishing, start the mud slinging.
The Hall of Fame former Dolphins coach claimed to the New York Daily News that because the Pats were caught filming the New York Jets defensive signals from the sidelines in the season opener – a violation of league rules – that a 19-0 season would be marred and that an asterisk could be attached to it.
"The Spygate thing has diminished what they've accomplished," Shula told the paper. "You would hate to have that attached to your accomplishments. They've got it."

Ah, not really.
Shula certainly has the right to an opinion on the Patriots, but if it isn’t going to be fact-based then it rings hollow and desperate in a way that is far beneath him.
This isn't to defend the Patriots or Bill Belichick for that blatant and calculated bit of cheating. It was an embarrassment for the franchise and its coach.
The NFL was right to fine Belichick $500,000, the team $250,000 and take a first-round draft pick (or a second- and third-round pick were the Patriots to somehow miss the playoffs). It should have gone further and suspended Belichick for the second Jets game this season.
But the facts of the crime are clear – New England was caught filming Jets coaches during the first half of the first quarter of the first game of the season. The first time the Patriots employee operating the camera tried to head to the locker room, he was stopped by NFL security and forced to hand over the incriminating evidence.
New England's coaches never got to watch the tape. The filming constituted cheating and the intent was obvious. But thanks to what is now a convenient bit of circumstance, to say the Patriots gained an advantage from the film is inaccurate. They couldn't have.
The reality is New England hasn’t gotten anything out of the so-called "Spygate" this season except deserved national scorn.
Shula also raised the issue of alleged past filming, but tape of defensive signals from past seasons would be mostly useless. NFL teams constantly update their movements, even week to week, since it isn't against NFL rules to film the coaches' signals from other areas of the stadium.
New England was trying to get a real-time, in-game advantage. The NFL confiscated previous season tapes and destroyed them without further punishing the Pats.
Shula even accuses NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell of covering up past crimes, which is a strong allegation that the league, naturally, denies.
"I think the commissioner just wanted it to go away," Shula said.
Vast conspiracy theories aside, the debate here is about this season and this season only.
If you want to project back on previous seasons – where allegations of similar conduct, among other stories, exist – and even question the legitimacy of New England's three Super Bowls, hey, that's what Belichick has wrought upon the franchise. The Patriots have no moral high ground to stand on.
But for this year, considering the severity of the punishment and the level of outrage, you could even argue that New England is possibly the cleanest team in the league.
However, Shula is arguing forward just in case New England wins its next 10 games, Super Bowl included.
"(The NFL's punishments) tells you the seriousness or significance of what they found," Shula told the paper. "I guess you got the same thing as putting an asterisk by Barry Bonds' home run record."
Of course there could be some back story at play here beyond Shula's interest in preserving the unique greatness of that Dolphins team.
It starts, naturally, with Belichick. One of the Pats coach's closest friends and chief protégés is Nick Saban, who took over the Dolphins from 2005-06, ran them into the ground, fled in a heap of lies only to replace Shula's own son, Mike, at Alabama.
There is also New England's 21-game win streak over the course of the 2003 and '04 seasons that some Patriots players tried to equate to the Dolphins 17-0 season, which Shula at that point claimed wasn't the same.
Whatever it is, Shula has this one wrong.
While it will certainly play well to the growing anti-Patriots crowd nationally, regardless of intent and even giving thanks to fortuitous timing, New England is in the clear this season.
The facts are the facts, the timeline is the timeline, no matter how Shula wants to spin it.

Springsteen's New York Triumph

Bruce Springsteen has played Madison Square Garden nearly thirty times, but he says the two nights he played there with the E Street Band in mid-October rank among his graeatest shows ever. "I don't know if it's the myth of the Garden, the heavyweight fight, "Springsteen says. "But there was definitely something going on in that audience. It was really alive-you could feel it onstage. Those shows were as good as any New York shows we've ever done."

Bonds would skip Hall of Fame induction if there's an asterisk in Cooperstown

NEW YORK (AP) -- Barry Bonds would boycott Cooperstown if the Hall of Fame displays his record-breaking home run ball with an asterisk.
That includes skipping his potential induction ceremony.
"I won't go. I won't be part of it," Bonds said in an interview with MSNBC that aired Thursday night. "You can call me, but I won't be there."
The ball Bonds hit for home run No. 756 this season will be branded with an asterisk and sent to the Hall. Fashion designer Marc Ecko bought the ball in an online auction and set up a Web site for fans to vote on its fate. In late September, he announced fans voted to send the ball to Cooperstown with an asterisk.
Of course, the asterisk suggests Bonds' record is tainted by alleged steroid use. The slugger has denied knowingly using performance-enhancing drugs. Fans brought signs with asterisks to ballparks this season as he neared Hank Aaron's career home run mark.
Bonds has called Ecko "an idiot."
"I don't think you can put an asterisk in the game of baseball, and I don't think that the Hall of Fame can accept an asterisk," Bonds said. "You cannot give people the freedom, the right to alter history. You can't do it. There's no such thing as an asterisk in baseball."
Hall of Fame vice president Jeff Idelson declined to comment Thursday night.
Hall president Dale Petroskey has said accepting the ball doesn't mean the museum endorses the viewpoint that Bonds used illegal substances. He said the museum would be "delighted" to have the ball.
"It's a historic piece of baseball history," Petroskey said in September.
So, if the Hall goes through with the asterisk display?
"I will never be in the Hall of Fame. Never," Bonds said. "Barry Bonds will not be there.
"That's my emotions now. That's how I feel now. When I decide to retire five years from now, we'll see where they are at that moment," he added. "We'll see where they are at that time, and maybe I'll reconsider. But it's their position and where their position will be will be the determination of what my decision will be at that time."
Giants general manager Brian Sabean reiterated Thursday that the team won't bring back Bonds next season. The seven-time NL MVP, who has spent 15 of his 22 major league seasons in San Francisco, was asked whether he will retire as a Giant.
"Yeah, it's my house. No matter what that's my house, no one's going to take that away, no one ever," Bonds answered. "No one's going to take the love of that city of me away, ever."
Bonds, who has 762 homers, broke Aaron's record with a shot into the right-center seats off Washington Nationals pitcher Mike Bacsik at San Francisco on Aug. 7.
Matt Murphy, a 21-year-old student and construction supervisor from New York, emerged from a scuffle holding the ball. He said he decided to sell it because he couldn't afford to pay the taxes required to keep it.
Bonds told MSNBC he hoped to reach 764 homers because he was born in July 1964. He said he's been working out and still is considering whether to play next season.
"I may hit two home runs so I can go home. I just think that I have a lot of game left. I think that I can help a team with a championship," Bonds said. "I'm a hell of a part-time player, too."
Bonds said he won't talk to George Mitchell's staff looking into steroids use in baseball while he is under investigation in the BALCO case. A grand jury has been investigating whether Bonds committed perjury when he testified he never knowingly took performance-enhancing drugs.
"I know it ends in January, so a couple more months. But I haven't been keeping up with it. Not at all," Bonds said. "I have nothing to hide. I have said that before and I will say it now and I will look you in the face. I have nothing to hide, nothing. So look all you want to."

Guilty or innocent, awful way for Hingis to bow out

You could call Martina Hingis a lot of things, but you'd never call her dumb. That's why it was stunning to hear she was retiring because of allegations that she committed a supremely stupid act -- ingesting a party drug sometime around the Wimbledon fortnight.
People rooted for Hingis when she was a teenaged sensation back in the mid- to late-'90s because she brought guile and finesse to what was then increasingly turning into a power game. Her occasional crisp or impudent comments were generally forgiven.
Her match preparation was impeccable. She was a businesslike professional even at 17 -- fit, committed and great at calculating the angles. She exhibited those same traits, along with a more buff physique and a sense of perspective, again when she returned last year at age 26.

Martina Hingis' career ends with 43 titles (including five Grand Slams), two retirements, and one cloud of suspicion.It would be easier to believe that Hingis took a truly performance-enhancing drug than to imagine her impulsively snorting cocaine after a third-round loss at tennis' most genteel event.
Hingis denied any drug use during her career in a statement issued Thursday, thereby underlining one of the unstated reasons she might have decided to shut things down. In all probability, she knows few people will be inclined to believe her. She might have had a fighting chance a few years ago, before Olympic gold medalist Marion Jones, baseball All-Star Rafael Palmeiro, Tour de France winner Bjarne Riis and others fouled the waters.
The statement also indicated that Hingis has had a chance to observe what happens to athletes who stand and fight -- the time and money it takes and the impossibility of completely bleaching the stain away. That, coupled with her age and the chronic hip pain that has kept her from playing regularly since last spring, prompted her to pull the plug.
As with most doping cases in sports, we're faced with making sense of the seemingly illogical. (We're also left -- again -- with the question of why in hell would it take four months for a drug test to be resolved in tennis when other sports get it done in a fraction of that time.)
Hingis missed the game enough after three years away that she willfully came back last year, risking all the inevitably unflattering comparisons with her younger self. She marched resolutely from rankings oblivion into the top 10 and continued to try to play through pain when things started to unravel this season.
Why, after all that effort, would she risk something even more precious -- her integrity? How could someone so precise on the court be that sloppy?
Hingis didn't ease back into competition in 2006 -- she attacked the schedule like a to-do list. She rocketed to the quarterfinals of the Australian Open in her first month back. That May, she beat five top-20 players and an old nemesis, Venus Williams, in the semifinals on an impressive title run in Rome.
Then her comeback season settled into a somewhat predictable pattern. Hingis had focus, stamina and a residual aura that kept her from losing to lesser players, and she routinely sliced and diced her way to later rounds of tournaments. But when it came to the women at the very top, Hingis bumped into the same glass ceiling she probably would have hit if she had never gone away.
Still, watching Hingis go about her job provided a welcome respite from chronicling the woes of the walking wounded on the WTA circuit. There was a sense of controlled urgency about her play, borne of the underlying knowledge that she was living on borrowed court time.
This season began auspiciously for Hingis with a finals appearance in the Gold Coast Australian Open tune-up and a win in Tokyo -- her 43rd, and we'll dare to say, her last WTA championship. She got engaged to endearingly gritty, goofy Czech pro Radek Stepanek. The relationship didn't last and neither did her health.
Lower back and hip problems began to plague Hingis during the clay-court season; she wasn't able to defend her title in Rome, and she pulled out of the French Open. She scraped herself off the disabled list to make an appearance at Wimbledon only, as she freely admitted, because of the significance of the place.
Hingis had to save two match points to beat a callow British wild card in the first round, and when she came in to talk to reporters afterwards, there was a wistful quality to her demeanor. She didn't flinch when she was reminded that it had been 10 years since she won the championship there.
"I was totally pleased with myself at 17," she said. "You think the whole world belongs to you."
At another point, Hingis said she was simply "happy to be able to run and walk and play tennis again. I wasn't able to do that five weeks ago. You know, sometimes simple things make you really happy. That's what happened to me today. Sometimes you realize, you know, that not everything is about winning Grand Slam titles, what it does to you at the end of the day."
If injuries alone had forced Hingis to retire, her comeback would have been remembered as a statement both about her and about the competition. It said a lot about the durability of her shot-making skills and the fierceness of her desire. But it also showed how psychologically porous most of the WTA field is these days, despite the much-vaunted hunger of young starlets from nontraditional tennis nations.
Hingis looked at the level of play from the outside and made what turned out to be an accurate calculation. A woman who knows how to win and relishes the fight can hang in with the best in this sport and make a pretty darn good living in the process, even after a lengthy layoff. We'll probably see more and more second acts in the future -- women taking sabbaticals rather than see-yas, coming back after babies and burnout and bum knees. There's no reason they shouldn't.
This retirement doesn't have that open-ended feel to it. Guilty or innocent, it's an awful way for Hingis to go out.

Hingis says she is accused of testing positive for cocaine; retires from tennis

ZURICH, Switzerland (AP) -- Martina Hingis said Thursday she has been accused of testing positive for cocaine at Wimbledon, and then announced her retirement from professional tennis.
Hingis, a five-time Grand Slam champion and former Wimbledon winner, denied using cocaine.
"I find this accusation so horrendous, so monstrous that I've decided to confront it head on by talking to the press," she said. "I am frustrated and angry. I believe that I am absolutely 100 percent innocent."
Her voice broke as she fought back tears in reading the statement. At the end, she took no questions and left the news conference.
The 27-year-old Swiss player lost in the third round at Wimbledon to Laura Granville, 6-4, 6-2.
Hingis said the positive test, which could lead to a doping suspension of up to two years, led to her retirement because she doesn't want to spend years fighting the case.
Mario Widmer, Hingis' manager, said he did not know why she waited until now to make the announcement.
Hingis returned to the sport two years ago after a four-year absence because of injuries.
She won three straight Australian Open titles from 1997-99, and Wimbledon and the U.S. Open championships in 1997. She came within one match of winning the Grand Slam in 1997, losing only in the French Open final.
On March 31, 1997, Hingis became the youngest female player ever to lead the world rankings. She was 16 years, 6 months and 1 day at the time. She is currently ranked No. 19.
Hingis, who lost in the third round of the U.S. Open, hasn't played since her second-round loss to Peng Shuai of China, 7-5, 6-1, in Beijing on Sept. 19.
Former top-ranked player Mats Wilander and Karel Novacek had positive tests for cocaine at the 1995 French Open. Both were banned for three months and ordered to return prize money and forfeit rankings points.
Others have tested positive for a variety of banned substances.
Hingis said she was accused by "an outsource testing company" of taking cocaine during Wimbledon. She said she was "shocked and appalled" when notified that her urine sample came back positive after the loss to Granville.

"They say that cocaine increases self-confidence and creates a type of euphoria," she said in a statement. "I don't know. I only know that if I were to try to hit the ball while in any state of euphoria, it simply wouldn't work.
"I would think that it would be impossible for anyone to maintain the coordination required to play top class tennis while under the influence of drugs. And I know one other thing -- I would personally be terrified of taking drugs."
Hingis said she later underwent a privately arranged hair test which came back negative for cocaine. The official backup "B" sample test on her Wimbledon urine sample, however, tested positive for the drug.
Hingis said she hired an attorney who found "various inconsistencies" with the urine sample taken during Wimbledon.
"He is also convinced that the doping officials mishandled the process and would not be able to prove that the urine that was tested for cocaine actually came from me," she said.
Hingis said it could take years to fight her case.
"I have no desire to spend the next several years of my life reduced to fighting against the doping officials," she said. "The fact is that it is more and more difficult for me, physically, to keep playing at the top of the game.
"And frankly, accusations such as these don't exactly provide me with motivation to even make another attempt to do so."
Widmer said the test was on June 29 but that Hingis heard about the positive result in mid-September and the positive 'B' sample two or three weeks later.
"She has great angst over this," Widmer said. "She is heartbroken. ... It's crazy. It's very complicated and complex."
WTA Tour chief executive Larry Scott said the tour had not received any official information about a positive test and "as a result we are not in a position to comment on the matter."
"However, it is important to remember that in the area of anti-doping, all players are presumed innocent until proven otherwise," Scott said.
Referring to her retirement, he said, "Martina Hingis is a tremendous champion and a fan favorite the world over. In her most recent comeback, she proved again that she can perform at the very highest levels of the game."
The national association Swiss Tennis issued a statement praising Hingis.
"With Martina a great player is retiring, who was always an example and a figurehead for tennis in Switzerland," association president Rene Stammbach said in the statement. "We deeply regret that Martina Hingis ended her outstanding career under the circumstances of such accusations."