Lawrence.com

Musicals sink in red ink

"Seussical" and "Jane Eyre," two of this season's more prominent new musicals, will close Sunday, at a combined loss of more than $17 million. "Seussical," a $10 million-plus production based on the stories of Dr. Seuss, will end its run after 197 performances at the Richard Rodgers Theatre. Despite generally negative reviews, "Seussical" producer Barry Weissler kept the show afloat, first bringing in talk-show superstar Rosie O'Donnell to play the Cat in the Hat.

"Jane Eyre" received a Tony Award nomination for best musical, but business did not improve after nominations were announced May 7. The $6.5 million musical, based on the Charlotte Bronte novel, shuts down at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre after 185 performances.

Go-Go's singer takes it off off

Our lips are sealed, but Belinda Carlisle's aren't. She's happy to talk about posing nude for Playboy. The lead singer of the Go-Go's did a photo shoot in December, which will appear in the magazine's August issue. "It's sort of an homage to the sort of Vargas style, '50s pinup," Carlisle said Wednesday on ABC's "Good Morning America," where she performed with the four other members of the pioneering '80s girl group, whose hits include "Our Lips Are Sealed."

"You don't have to be age 20 and size zero to be ... sexually viable or viable as a woman," said Carlisle, 42. "And that's part of the point that I would like or we all like to prove, anyway." The Go-Go's released their first album of all new material in 17 years, "God Bless the Go-Go's," on Tuesday.

'Love Story' redux

Ryan O'Neal has adopted a dark sense of humor about his battle with leukemia. The actor told Variety columnist Army Archerd that his "Love Story" co-star Ali MacGraw recently contacted him when she learned of his illness. The film was about star-crossed lovers who meet, marry and then discover she is dying of cancer. "She had this same disease in the movie," O'Neal laughed. "She said to me, 'I hope you didn't catch it from me."'

O'Neal said he recently completed work on the Al Pacino film "People I Know," in which he plays a publicity agent.

Being John Malkovich Stipe

Michael Stipe knows what it's like being John Malkovich � sort of. The R.E.M. lead singer said he often gets mistaken for the Oscar-nominated actor, and vice versa.

They're both thin. They're both bald. And the comparisons are even more apropos when you consider that Stipe co-produced the critically acclaimed 1999 film "Being John Malkovich."

"People come up to me all the time and say, 'Oh, I loved you in "Dangerous Liaisons."' And then when I met John, he said the same thing happens to him: 'Oh, "Losing My Religion" is my favorite song!"' Stipe says in the June issue of Esquire magazine.