More news from Shawnland:

Alan Cumming will play the notoriously dashing Mack the Knife opposite Edie Falco and pop singer Nellie McKay in the forthcoming Wallace Shawn adaptation of The Threepenny Opera set for Broadway's Studio 54 next season.

Scott Elliott (Hurlyburly, The Women) will direct the Roundabout Theatre Company commission which will begin performances in Spring 2006, according to a Roundabout spokesperson.

Shawn (Aunt Dan and Lemon) translates and adapts the original German book and lyrics of Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill's classic musical Die Dreigroschenoper. Set in London in the 1800s, The Threepenny Opera concerns a notorious bandit who marries a girl, much to the chagrin of her father. The peeved patriarch does everything in his power to imprison his son-in-law in this political and social satire.

This looks great. I've seen two notable performances of Threepenny, one starring Sting in his naked-photos-in-the-rainforest days (good days), and one featuring film and stage star Lance Baker, a.k.a. my high school boyfriend. The latter was very good. The former was about as bad as a revival can be, though Sting looked great swinging through the cages onstage.

Remember, always, that it could be worse: Since last fall, there have been awful reports that Lance Bass is producing a new version of The Great Gatsby with Chris Carmack as James Gatz and, uh, Paris Hilton as Daisy. What, the young Robert Redford and Mia Farrow weren't classy enough for you? Fitzgerald drank at—and was once banned from—the Seelbach Hilton Louisville; he later set Tom and Daisy's, I mean Chris and Paris's, wedding in the ballroom, so the Gatsby-Hilton association is deep. At least something is.

Mack's Back in Town [Playbill]
The 50 Coolest Things About Louisville (besides the Derby) [Velocity]
Five Best: Hotels from novels [London Independent]
Paris Hilton: Is she the girl you love to hate or hate to love? [Rolling Stone]