Free Republic

Johnny Manziel completed 9-of-12 passes in his first appearance with the Hamilton Tiger-Cats but it was the Toronto Argonauts who cruised to the easy 36-18 victory at Tim Hortons Field in the exhibition opener for both teams. Manziel, 25, certainly didn’t look out of place but faced a Toronto defence minus most of its starters and Hamilton was very conservative in its play-calling. The six-foot, 210-pound Texan, who signed with the Ticats two weeks ago, directed five drives (22 plays) and was especially effective throwing on the run.

A theatre agent has apologised for a comment she made in a private forum that criticised a casting call for only black, Asian or minority ethnic actors and claiming the decision put “talented white performers out of work”. Gemma Hamilton, who runs Lowy Hamilton Artists, made the remarks in a forum on Facebook, in which she said she was “bored of breakdowns asking for BAME actors” because it “adds that va-va-voom to the cast list”. “And now I see a breakdown for BAME-only that are actor/musos. It’s putting talented ‘white’ performers out of work. I think it stinks,” she wrote....

Nestled among the rolling hills and Amish dairy farms of Lancaster, Pennsylvania a family-owned regional theatre called Sight & Sound is drawing record crowds to its just-launched musical JESUS: Live Onstage. The cast of 50 actors—augmented by live camels, donkeys, doves and the most state-of-the-art special effects imaginable—just opened on March 10th (but good luck getting a ticket until sometime in late May or June…as audiences pack the 2,000 seat auditorium for what can best be described as a, well, religious experience.)“The thing about live theater is that it is totally unique with each performance and we don’t get to see it until it unfolds on...

Axl Rose has hit out at Apple’s Tim Cook on Twitter, describing him as the “Donald Trump of the music industry”. Cook is the current chief executive officer (CEO) of Apple, taking over from Steve Jobs in 2011 after the company’s co-founder resigned. He was previously Apple’s chief operating officer (COO). Guns N’ Roses frontman Rose has now appeared to criticise Cook by tweeting: “Tim Cook is the Donald Trump of the music industry.” Rose’s reasoning is not quite clear. Rose has previously criticised Donald Trump for appointing controversial former Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions as his Attorney General, later asking...

This afternoon, in a Super Soul conversation at the Apollo Theater, media titan Oprah Winfrey confirmed to Broadway icon Lin-Manuel Miranda that she will not be running for the presidency in 2020. Discussing their social platforms, Miranda confirmed that he would not consider running for public office, after which Winfrey chimed in, "I'M NOT EITHER!" Though the crowd expressed some disappointment at the decision, both stars agreed that they would continue to use their popularity for positive change in the world. Sylvia Obell ✔ @SylviaObell Lin-Manuel Miranda said Oprah is the only person who could drag him away from his...

As we debate the ongoing question of immigration – not just who and how many to allow in, but also when, if ever, to allow them to vote – it might be helpful to remember the thoughts of our Founders on the issue. It is now common for one side of the debate to say “we’re a nation of immigrants,” giving rise to the assumption that we always believed in open borders in the past, so this current concern about a wave of cultural invaders is something new… but in fact, nothing could be further from the truth. 215 years...

A great many people – especially conservatives – reverence the Constitution, consider that it has been abused and that if only the doctrines expressed within were revived and respected, all would be well with America again. This, of course, is a kind of children’s bedtime story – and approximates reality to about the same degree as the story of the Three Little Pigs. The Constitution was peddled and imposed on us by men like Alexander Hamilton, a grasper after power who very openly loathed the ideas expressed by men like Jefferson in his Declaration (and even more so in his...

Justin Huff, a casting director who has been involved in Broadway shows including 2013 Tony champ “Kinky Boots,” has been fired from his position at prominent casting agency Telsey + Company over internal reports of sexual misconduct. “He was let go last week,” Bernard Telsey, the founder of Telsey + Company, told Variety. “I was given reports of inappropriate behavior which I took very seriously, and once I was able to get some information, it was very clear he had to leave this office.” Huff, who was a senior staff member at Telsey’s company, did not respond to requests for...

Cultural Appropriation has become another tool of the racist Left meant to increase minority hatred toward conservatives. I drove slowly by some Halloweeners today, who wore the most nondescript, boring  costumes that could be  yanked out of the absent imaginations of public school kids. No cowboys, no Indians, no Mexican sombreros, no clowns, no privileged princesses . . .  Its as if the majority of youth and their parents have totally surrendered to  the  message that its an insult, rather than compliment, for a young girl to be a Pocahontas or (god forbid) a privileged WHITE princess like Sleeping Beauty....

Last week, three-time Formula One champion Lewis Hamilton asked people to “try to educate” themselves on why athletes are kneeling for the American national anthem in protest of police brutality and oppression of people of color. Not long after, he said he may join them at the U.S. Grand Prix this month. The act of kneeling for the anthem started with NFL player Colin Kaepernick in 2016, and has since spread. Even in sports that have yet to see kneeling in their arenas, such as NASCAR, everybody has an opinion: Team owners Richard Petty and Richard Childress said they’d fire...

Having now endured a more than two-year orgy of adoration for the Broadway hip-hop musical, Hamilton, the public surely deserves a historical corrective. Historian Brion McClanahan's latest work on the Revolutionary period, How Alexander Hamilton Screwed Up America, is being released Monday. Ron Paul, the Libertarian and Republican candidate for president and longtime U.S. Representative from Texas, has written the foreward, which he graciously shared in advance with Reason. The central government has always been the greatest threat to liberty in America, but most Americans don't understand how modern America became the warfare state. How did the president acquire so...

The Hamilton judge who wore a ‘Make America Great Again’ hat in court has been banned from trying casesJustice Bernd Zabel, who declared his support for Donald Trump in court, is no longer presiding in court, according to a spokeswoman for the Ontario Court of Justice.A Hamilton judge who wore a “Make America Great Again” hat to court the day after the U.S. election and declared his support for president-elect Donald Trump is no longer hearing cases. Justice Bernd Zabel, appointed to the bench in 1990, stopped being assigned new cases on Dec. 21, 2016, a spokeswoman for the Ontario...

A Canadian judge who wore a hat in court with Donald Trump’s campaign slogan “Make America Great Again” has been suspended without pay. The Ontario Judicial Council said Tuesday that the conduct of Justice Bernd Zabel warrants the most serious reprimand possible short of removing him from the bench. The council said the hat incident was an “inexplicable act of judicial misconduct” from an otherwise respected judge. …

The Library of Congress has put the papers of Alexander Hamilton online for the first time in their original format. The Library holds the world’s largest collection of Hamilton papers—approximately 12,000 items concentrated from 1777 until Hamilton’s death in 1804, including letters, legal papers and drafts of speeches and writings, among other items. Now, for the first time, these original documents—many in Hamilton’s own hand—will be available for researchers, students or the generally curious anywhere in the world to explore, zoom in and read at loc.gov/collections/alexander-hamilton-papers/.

Hillary Clinton received a reaction that Mike Pence was likely hoping for when he ventured out to see Hamilton shortly after the 2016 election. Instead of a lecture from the stage and boos from those in attendance, Clinton was given a standing ovation by the crowd that made it seem more like a political rally than a theater performance. The former Secretary of State and 2016 presidential candidate attended the Tony award-winning play Oslo on Sunday — telling the story of the Oslo Middle East Peace Accords that saw “back-channel” negotiations that eased tensions between Israel and Palestine in the...

Hamilton creator and star Lin-Manuel Miranda released a politically-charged video this week for the song “Immigrants” from The Hamilton Mixtape, which is based on music from the popular Broadway show. The 6-minute dramatic visual opens with a group of immigrants listening to a radio report about the U.S. Congress’s legislative debate over border security and immigration reform. “It’s really astonishing that in a country founded by immigrants, ‘immigrant’ has somehow become a bad word,'” the reporter says. As each rapper recites their lyrics, scenes of refugees and immigrants doing various jobs are intermingled throughout. The video features contributions from Rogue...

After the Women's March, the Tax March, and the March for Science, progressives will march again this weekend for "truth," calling for an independent commission to investigate alleged ties between President Donald Trump's campaign and Russia. Marches are planned in Washington, D.C., and a 135 other cities Saturday, according to organizers, which include many of same groups that organized the previous anti-Trump rallies. Saturday's "March for Truth" will include speeches from Watergate prosecutor Jill Wine-Banks and Javier Muñoz, the star of Hamilton, among other actors and musicians. Members of Congress will address several rallies, including Texas Rep. Al Green, who...

There are plenty of nonmusical plays coming to Broadway this spring, but producers are fretting that few of them are selling. Three of those plays — “Sweat,” “Indecent” and “Significant Other” — moved to Broadway because of strong reviews from former New York Times critic Charles Isherwood. But he and the paper have since parted ways, and there’s no guarantee that Ben Brantley, or whoever else reviews them for the Times, will be as kind. First, the numbers. The only play with a decent advance is “The Glass Menagerie,” starring Sally Field. Sources say it’s sold close to $3 million...

NEW YORK (AP) Original cast members of the Tony Award-winning Broadway hit ''Hamilton: An American Musical,'' will sing ''America the Beautiful'' during pregame festivities at Super Bowl 51, the NFL and Fox announced Friday.

I don't think there's a slight bit of hyperbole or exaggeration involved when I say that Hamilton, the awful musical that millionaire New Yorkers are required by law to throw away thousands watching, represents everything that was wrong with America in 2016. Allow me to make the case. First, there's the music. I'm admittedly not much of a hip-hop aficionado, but I know shit from Shinola. From my perspective the art form has more or less been going downhill since Strictly Business (the EPMD record, not the Tommy Davidson vehicle), but there have been some highlights worth mentioning, mostly thanks...