Producers

For its final full season in the Mechanic Theatre, the Baltimore Center for the Performing Arts has announced that it will return to a six-show lineup in 2002-2003 and that the megahit The Producers will be part of its first season in the renovated Hippodrome in 2004. Highlights of the 2002-2003 series will include The Producers' chief rival for last year's Tony Award, The Full Monty, as well as Charles Busch's hit comedy The Tale of the Allergist's Wife, with Valerie Harper repeating her Broadway role.

NEW YORK - In a decision that may set off yet another scramble for Producers tickets, the matinee on Sunday, March 17, will be the last performance for the two above-the-title stars of the blockbuster musical. Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick have been with the show since last February, when it began a tryout in Chicago. When the show moved to New York the following month, it quickly became the must-get ticket on Broadway. The surprising choice to fill Lane's role is Henry Goodman, a British actor who is little known in the United States but who won an Olivier, British theater's highest award, last year for a riveting portrayal of Shylock in a Royal National Theatre production of The Merchant of Venice.

In a season in which Broadway, frequently dubbed the Fabulous Invalid, experienced a miraculous recovery, the runaway hit "The Producers" chalked up more Tony Award nominations than any show in history. A record 15 nominations went to the musical theater adaptation of Mel Brooks' 1968 movie about a shifty Broadway producer and a timid accountant who hatch a scheme to make a fortune by deliberately mounting a flop. "The Producers" received nominations in every category for which it was eligible, including three for Brooks (for co-writing the book with Thomas Meehan, composing the score and co-producing the show)

NEW YORK -- After four years of critical acclaim and troubled ratings, this season could be the last for "Homicide: Life on the Street," executive producer Tom Fontana says.During an interview Tuesday on the set of "Oz," the drama series he and partner Barry Levinson are producing for HBO, Fontana said that "Homicide" is going to have to improve its ratings or NBC will cancel the show."I'm very concerned about it," Fontana said. "I mean, I think NBC wants to renew 'Homicide' for another year past this year, but I'm not sure we can get the numbers up to where NBC wants them to be for renewal."

ANNAPOLIS - By the dock outside Phillips restaurant, ABC News producers Yael Lavie and Robert Wheelock are standing back to back, separated by a dozen yards and the bleating of cell phones. To the right, Police Sgt. Paul Gibbs is showing Wheelock where it might be possible to stage an enormous tug-of-war game that would span the harbor. To the left, a gaggle of local publicists and tourism representatives are flooding Lavie with suggestions about who should appear on TV - a woman from a Renaissance fair, a man who raises terrapins, an underground band.

A city schoolteacher has been awarded $1.3 million by a federal jury in Baltimore that found that several Hollywood producers and production companies stole his story treatment in making the 1994 movie, "The Air Up There."Samuel A. Zervitz, a special education teacher at several Baltimore public schools who lives in Mount Washington, contended that Hollywood Pictures, Buena Vista Productions, Interscope and individual producers used a seven-page script synopsis he wrote called "Recruiting" to produce the movie starring Kevin Bacon.

Plans call for a new television series to be filmed in Baltimore, and two of Hollywood's more accomplished producers will be here early next year to shoot its pilot episode.The show, a weekly drama about a young boxer titled "The Contender," is being produced by Hugh Wilson and Tim Reid, co-producers of the short-lived but critically acclaimed "Frank's Place" series on CBS, said Paul McGuire, a senior vice president at United Paramount Network in Los Angeles."The pilot is shooting in Baltimore -- totally in Baltimore -- that's the plan, and that's about all I can tell you right now," McGuire said.

For almost two decades, Baltimore was mainly seen by the TV industry as a place to make shows about cops and crime. But now, the city is looking more like the nation's capital to some of Hollywood's top producers. On Thursday, Gov. Martin O'Malley announced that "House of Cards" - a Washington-set TV series starring Kevin Spacey - will be filmed in Baltimore this spring, making it the third political drama to be produced in Maryland in less than a year. "This current run of going three for three with Washington political stuff is really something," said Jack Gerbes, director of the Maryland Film Office.

Towson University's students will have a featured spot on "The Ellen DeGeneres Show," although what they'll be doing and where they'll be doing it remains a mystery. The show's producers have received permission from Towson to stage an impromptu gathering at 7 p.m. Wednesday somewhere on campus, said Gay Pinder, a media relations specialist for the university. Details of what those gathered will be asked to do, as well as where they will be asked to do it, are still being ironed out and will be communicated via Twitter as the time gets closer.

Diners wanted. The producers of "Kitchen Nightmares" are taking reservations for diners who want to be a part of the reality show's filming at Cafe Hon in Baltimore's Hampden neighborhood. If you'd like to dine at Cafe Hon during the filming , which is scheduled for Nov. 4-7, contact the production team by email at Baltimorerest@gmail.com. Include your name, party size and a phone number the producers can reach you. The restaurant will not be taking reservations for these days; only the producers are. The producers don't explicitly say so, but there is no guarantee that everyone who wants to be part of this filming will be included, much less part of the edited telecast.