OLTL & AMC Reboot Alums: Corbin Bleu and Eric Nelsen Star in New Play, THE DODGERS!

No, it’s not a play about the Major Leage Baseball franchise Los Angeles Dodgers, but instead about a bunch of Vietnam draft dodgers that stars former One Life to Live and All My Children revival cast members: Corbin Bleu (Ex-Jeffrey King) and Eric Nelsen (Ex-AJ Chandler).

The actors will perform in the new play The Dodgers which is set to have its premiere in Los Angeles at the Hudson Theatre.

In story, four boys in a band who expect to play music, do drugs and make love must face a lottery that will send at least one of them to Vietnam, propelling them to take daring and dangerous steps to dodge the draft.  Bleu takes on the role of Simon, while Nelsen will play the role of Chili.  The play was written by Diana Amsterdam.

Courtesy/TheDodgers

Back in 2015, the stage reading of the play brought out the likes of Finn Wittrock, Billy Magnussen and Mackenzie Mauzy in the leading roles, all of whom have gone on to success following their daytime soap starts.

The new production begins on January 21st and ticket info can be viewed here.  

So, if you are in the Los Angeles area might you be intrigued to check out Corbin and Eric live in their new play? Let us know!

Dancing With The Stars Recap

I really like this show and will watch even if I don’t care about the contestants.  This season however, the cast is perfect.  I know who they all are, am interested in many of them, and am blown away from the level of dancing right out of the gate.  I don’t really get the need to move the judges to the other side of the stage. I don’t think moving the couples to the stage was needed. I believe Tom Bergeron is fantastic as the host, and I think Brooke Burke is not needed and not interesting.  Shame when shows think they need to change things, but still, this show is great TV.

I may not blog about it each week because what there is not a lot to say, but I will be watching and tweeting and voting.  Here is a breakdown of the cast, my two cents on their opening performance, who I pick to win, and who I think should go home first. Important to note that my 17 year old son does not watch this show, and mocks me when I cry while watching a dancing show, but he was glued to the TV for Bill Nye the Science Guy. Not only did he watch Bill, but he talked about it on social media and all of his friends were watching it too.  It will be interesting to see how that plays out.

BRANT DAUGHERTY: I don’t watch his show, but this kid is adorable.  When he shared the story of telling his mom he was on the show and she freaked out in Wal-Mart, I fell in love with him a little bit.  He started off good, will only get better, but is not popular enough to make it to the end.

LEAH REMINI: Love her.  She is funny and cute and there is something about her that I think is charming and relatable. She is quirky and entertaining and actually a good dancer. She will get better, people like her, she will have fancy friends in the audience and wills tick around.

CORBIN BLEU: He is a great guy and I understand his wanting to reboot his career, but he became famous through dance movies that were heavily choreographed, and learning the choreography is part of the challenge, so he has an unfair advantage.  He'll be here for a while.

JACK OSBOURNE: What is not to love about this man? I think he is brave and adorable. I love his parents, and I want him to do well here. I was super surprised by his first time out.  He is really very good. I cried when Sharon and Ozzy started to cry and I really hope Jack sticks around.

AMBER RILEY: This is a beautiful girl and I think her personality is cute. She is not a trained dancer but the girl can move. She was given 27 out of 30 on her first dance and I just don’t get it.  She hardly did anything, so already the judging is not being fair.  She’ll be in the finals.

ELIZABETH BERKLEY LAUREN: She looks great having just had a baby, but there is something about her personality that rubs me the wrong way.  I don’t get her, am not invested in her, and think she can be the first to go even though she is a good dancer.  She won’t stay long.

BILL NYE: I love this guy.  When he says there is sexual tension with his partner I was laughing out loud.  He is fantastic and while not a great first time out, he is super popular and he is going to stick around. He will get better but it does not matter because he is entertaining regardless.

KEYSHAWN JOHNSON: I thought he was cute, but also rude.  He is a little full of himself and while athletes tend to do well here more often than not, I don’t care about him and he can go at any time as far as I’m concerned.  He needs to be nicer to his partner and check his ego a little bit.

CHRISTINA MILIAN:  She is pretty and I know her more from The Vice than her career, but she is sweet, a good dancer, and once the judges from the Voice stop by she will get better numbers. Not sure she can do it on her own.  She gushing over JLo was the highlight of her performance.

BILL ENGVALL:  He is funny.  If this show were about being funny he could win, but it isn’t, so he will go quickly.  Not sure he is popular enough, or good enough, to make it through to the halfway point. That said, he is a regular guy and we like when regular guys do good.

VALERIE HARPER:  I cried from the moment she started talking to the moment she took her bow.  I love her, think she is fantastic, an icon, and a hero.  I want her to be there for as long as she is able.  I know it’s about dancing, but it is also a popularity contest, and she is the best to me.

NICOLE SNOOKI POLOZZO: I love this girl. She is funny and cute and her personality has matured, but maintained the humor.  She is a great dancer and I found her to be insanely likable here.  I pick her to be in the finale and I am rooting for her.  Waiting for a fist pump Snooks!

It was a great opening show and I for one am grateful they are only doing one night a week.  I loved the dancing, loved that my kid watched part of it with me, loved that there is someone for everyone, and loved that in a sea of reality television crap, there is something truly worth watching. Even with some ridiculous scores from the judges, they are keeping it real.

Another Side of Corbin Bleu!

On May 1, 2007 Corbin Bleu, the star of High School Musical, Flight 29 Down, and Jump In! is going to show his fans something new—literally. It’s his debut CD, aptly called Another Side. Since Corbin has become a great friend to us at Scholastic News Online, he sat down with us and talked about working on the CD in the studio (bet you didn’t know he liked to slip his shoes off and go barefooted!), his musical inspirations, and lots more. Also check out our great pix of Corbin in the studio.
Q: Were there any songs you recorded for the Another Side that didn’t get used?
Corbin: There was one song called “Rush You” that I really loved, and everyone who heard it felt the same way. It was actually one of the tracks that were going to be on the final cut of the CD, but after a close review of all the songs it just didn’t seem to blend well with what I was trying to do with the rest of the album. I do hope to be able to revisit it for a future album, though.

Q: Did you write any of the songs?
Corbin: I cowrote 5 of the songs off of this album: “We Come To Party,” “Never Met A Girl Like You,” “Mixed Up,” “Homework,” and “If She Says Yeah” (which isn’t on the actual album, but it will probably end up being a bonus track).

Q: What producers did you work with?
Corbin: I had different producers, depending on the song. I actually got to work with Ne-Yo who wrote and produced my song, “I Get Lonely.” I also worked with David Kopatz, Stereo, Dan James and Leah Haywood, Matthew Gerrard, Damon Sharpe, and Greg Lawson, just to name a few.

Q: Do you have a favorite song on the CD? Why?
Corbin: “Mixed Up,” which is one of the songs I cowrote, is probably my favorite. I feel that the song really says a lot about who I am and explains how I feel about some things. I also really love the beat.

Corbin Bleu at work in the recording studio. (Photo: Courtesy Corbin Bleu)

Q: What singer/musician/band most influenced you in your style of music?
Corbin: The artists I look up to the most are Prince, Michael Jackson, and Lenny Kravitz. When it comes to presence and feel, I try to model myself after them while still incorporating my own essence. When it comes to style of music, Justin Timberlake was a big influence.

Q: How long did it take to make the album? Describe a typical day in the studio.
Corbin: Of course, there’s a lot more that goes into making an album than just being in the recording studio. The whole process has been going on for a little less than a year now, but the bulk of the album took place within about 3 months time. A typical day in the studio consists of warming up for about 15 to 30 minutes, depending on if I’m having a good day or not. Then I sing the song all the way through about 2 or 3 times. Then we break it down in sections. After that, they try to do a quick comp of what we just did to see if we still need to record some more. If so, we do. If not, we’re done! I also like to record barefoot, and I always have a Jamba Juice. It was like that very first time I recorded, so I just kept it up.

Q: Was working in a recording studio what you thought it would be like?
Corbin: No. I was so nervous the first time, and I had nothing to worry about. Everybody is always so nice and helpful, and they want you to do a good job just as much as you want to. I used to be a little self-conscious of my singing, but after creating the album and seeing how willing everyone is to work with you, I became a lot more confident and my singing even improved.

Q: Tell us about the title of your album—Another Side. Who picked it? What does it mean to you?
Corbin: I came up with it because I felt this is the first time everybody is really getting to see, or hear, this side of me. Aside from “Push It To The Limit,” which was really for the soundtrack of Jump In, nobody has heard me sing because I didn’t have any solo parts in High School Musical. Making an album is a little different then playing a character; you actually get to be yourself.

(Photo: Courtesy Corbin Bleu)

Q: What do you hope people will learn about you when they listen to the CD?
Corbin: What I really hope people learn about me is my love for performing. I really wanted to make a fun, upbeat album that would make everyone want to get up and dance. In order to do that, I had to give out a lot of energy in my performance in order for it to be portrayed in the music. I hope people really feel that when they listen to the album.

Q: Do you think fame has changed you?
Corbin: I don’t think that fame has changed me as a person, but it has just allowed me to learn new ways to live well in my new life.

Q: When you have downtime, what do you like to do?
Corbin: Even though I love what I do with a passion, it is a lifestyle that can become very hectic. Due to my chaotic schedule, I like to use my downtime as a motive to relax. Whether it’s with family, friends, or just by myself, I do what I can to unwind and prepare myself for the next wave of craziness to arrive.

Q: Who is the person you confide in the most right now?
Corbin: Wow, that is a very tough question. I think mostly my parents, but I also have a select group of very close friends that I like to confide in.

Q: What performing skills and traits in general do you think you need to work on?
Corbin: All of them. I think that the moment you say to yourself, “I am as good as I can be,” you have lost. Everything in life can always use improvement. Everyday I find out new ways that I never knew existed to better my craft and myself. The greatest are never satisfied.

Q: What’s next for you? Another movie? CD? TV series?
Corbin: There are a lot of projects in the works right now that aren’t quite set in stone yet. What would be ideal for me would be to continue doing features, go work Broadway, and then go on a worldwide tour for another album. I want to do it all.

'The Beautiful Life' thin on vision

The fashion drama is much like CW's other offerings: There are pretty young things, standard plots and pop music in the background.

For its new, Ashton Kutcher-produced world-of-modeling soap opera, "The Beautiful Life: TBL," CW has added an abbreviation of the title to the title itself -- as if to make it seem, somehow, that the show is already popular and being talked about, in shorthand. It's a kind of wishful thinking, as if I were to name myself "Robert Lloyd: Cool," in the hope that you might believe I am.

In any case, the series, which premieres tonight, is not so different from, or significantly worse -- or better -- than the network's other two season premieres, "Melrose Place" and "The Vampire Diaries," which also affix stock characters, played mostly by good-looking young folk, to standard plot lines sexed up with pop songs and different flavors of visual glamour. Because they do not aim particularly high, they pretty much hit what they aim at.

"TBL," to go with the hoped-for nomenclatural flow, imports to its catwalk milieu a host of tropes from the backstage dramas of yore. It opens with a well-staged set piece -- real-life designer Zac Posen's Fashion Week show -- where newcomer Raina Mayer (Sara Paxton) gets her Ruby Keeler moment after unraveling superstar Sonja Stone (Mischa Barton) returns from . . . somewhere . . . unable to fit into her dress. (Note that Barton, who seems something more than 23, looks exactly as underfed as every other girl on the show.)

Flashbulbs pop, petals float from above and the applauding crowd rises to its feet as Raina is anointed a New Thing. This is seemingly meant to be a moment of beauty and revelation, but Paxton looks strained and unhealthy; I wanted to buy her a meatloaf. If the "normal" young women of television have become, as a class, skeletons with breasts, these girls -- being models -- have been cast as thinner yet. It is an awful, undying trend yet authentic to the setting, I suppose, to judge by the fashion magazines that occasionally pass through my field of vision.

Raina, we learn, is hiding from her troublesome family by appearing in fashion shows and getting her picture in magazines. (Granted, she has dyed her hair blond, which is usually enough to fool a television character.) But she is as good a person as she is thin and is clearly destined to love farm-fresh Chris Andrews (Ben Hollingsworth), who we know is also good because he is from Iowa and defends a waitress against the smarmy city slicker who will then ask him, movie-style, "Ever do any modeling, Chris Andrews from Iowa?"

Chris and Raina meet cute -- they bump into each other, literally! -- at the agency run by Elle Macpherson, which represents all our main mannequins: Nico Tortorella, successful and superior; Corbin Bleu (from the "High School Musical" musicals), who really just wants to sing; and Ashley Madekwe, calculating and ambitious. The models all live together in a brownstone, like contestants in a reality show, but even less real. At night, everyone parties.

"You aren't like these people, are you?" Chris says to Raina.

"Look who's talking."

Indeed, their light is offset by much surrounding dark -- the cost of fame is high, children, and might involve kissing a person you do not like. But expect no serious examination of the fashion world here: Like an old C.B. DeMille biblical epic filled with blood and sex, "TBL" celebrates the very thing it seems to criticize. And that kind of show business never goes out of style.

Easton Corbin's New Album 'About to Get Real' Influenced By Country Legends

Easton Corbin

Kristin Barlowe

• 43 
• 140 
• 1 

Easton Corbin was done with recording his third album for Mercury Records. All the tracks were recorded and just waiting to be released by the label. And then...

“We had worked on it for about a year and thought we were finished,” he tellsBillboard. “We were just waiting for Mercury to give the green light. So we decided that we would go back and search for some new songs and see if we could find anything out there that might be as good or better than anything we had cut.”

At the end of the day, Corbin and producer Carson Chamberlain did just that. “We actually found three new songs for the record. I think those songs made the record that much better.”

Easton Corbin: CRS 'New Faces' Spotlight

The disc, About to Get Real, was released this past Tuesday. Leading the way for the project is Corbin’s current single, the melodic “Baby Be My Love Song,” which has so far peaked at No. 4 on the Billboard Country Airplay chart. The single has climbed the charts since its release in September. Corbin admits that he tries not to worry about the charts, preferring to leave that aspect of his career to his promotion team.

“I try not to pay attention to it too much,” he says. “I mean, you’ve got to. But I don’t dwell on it a lot. There’s guys at the label, and that’s what they do. I try to look at the highlights of things and see where they are going, but I try not to get too in-depth in it.”

The Florida native says he’s simply trying to make music for his fans, and they have been asking for some new material for a while. “A lot of people have been asking us about new music. I’m definitely ready. It’s always great to have some new and fresh material out there for the listeners.”

Easton Corbin Aims to Top Debut With 'All Over the Road'

Having grown up influenced by such singers as George Jones, Sammy Kershaw and Keith Whitley, Corbin says it was another country legend that came to his mind when he heard the album’s title cut. “That song felt like a modern day Conway Twitty song,” he said. When I heard it for the first time, it took me back in time to some of his biggest hits. It’s a great song.” He is also quick to praise Chamberlain’s work behind the board on the track. “The production helped make things flow a lot better, and really pushed it along."

Of the three songs that made the later cut on the album, the singer feels that “Yup” is going to be a crowd favorite. “I think it’s going to be a fun one for the live show. It’s definitely different than anything I’ve ever done. It’s a song that I think everyone can relate to. I think every guy has been in a bar, and the girl comes along -- and he’s hooked.”

“Wild Women and Whiskey” is also one key song from the album, written by two of his favorite singers in Nashville: Ronnie Dunn and Terry McBride. “It’s great to have them represented on the album,” he says. “I grew up loving Brooks and Dunn, and Ronnie Dunn is one of the best singers out there -- such a great artist and a great writer. It’s an honor to be associated with him, as well as Terry McBride, who has written so many great songs.”

Mercury Records Co-Founder Irwin Steinberg Dies at 94

Corbin’s name is also listed as a co-writer on three cuts on the album, something he takes a great deal of pride in. “I’m very honored to be represented as a songwriter along with some of the best in the business. I think I’ve grown quite a bit as a writer over the past few years. I think that comes with age and coping with life experiences.”

It’s been a whirlwind five years for Corbin, who topped the charts with his first two singles, “A Little More Country Than That” and “Roll With It,” in 2010. He’s also chalked up four gold singles during that time span. “I can’t believe how quick it’s been,” he says. “It seems like it was just yesterday. We’ve had a great five years, and maybe we can get another five or more out of it. As an artist, that’s what you hope for.”

Detroit News: Gilbert's name-calling devalues 'the important work that was done here'

• Kenny Corbin

Update 7:00 p.m., July 1, 2015: Detroit News response to Gilbert's radio interview has been included below.
In response to a data-driven investigative report by The Detroit News on Quicken Loans' record in Detroit, the mortgage lender's founder Dan Gilbert took aim at the coverage in a WJR interview on Wednesday. 

Speaking on conservative Frank Beckmann's show Wednesday, Gilbert claimed the News' reporters — Joel Kurth and Christine MacDonald — who co-wrote the story were unprofessional in their approach. The pair have won multiple awards over the years for their work at the News. 

"She seems like a pretty smart girl," Gilbert said on WJR of MacDonald, who is an adult.

As part of a series that examines the effect of foreclosures in Detroit, the News found Quicken Loans, which relocated to the city in 2010, "had the fifth-highest number of mortgages that ended in foreclosure in Detroit over the last decade — and half of those properties are now blighted."

In an interview, Quicken told the newspaper: "It's very hard to make any causation between these loans and the fact that (homeowners) walked away or could not afford the payments and some eventually became blighted." 

According to the News' meticulously reported investigation, about one-in-four loans — 24 percent — Quicken issued in Detroit was considered "subprime," meaning they "were written at 3 percentage points or higher than treasury rates of comparable maturity" — showing the company wasn't a "major player in the subprime mortgage industry" active in Detroit between 2004-2006.  About 68 percent of all loans in the city issued during that time were considered subprime, city records show. 

In the chat with Beckman, Gilbert — who has been credited with reviving a sleepy downtown — said that "ninety percent of the problem" in Detroit was over-assessed properties and extremely high property taxes. He also plainly suggested there needs to be more accountability of journalists.

"Someone needs to hold these muckracker [sic] people accountable," he told Beckmann. Gilbert has been vocal in the past over previous reports on Quicken Loans' record. 

Gary Miles, the News' managing editor, said Wednesday evening that Gilbert's remarks were disappointing.

"Mr. Gilbert didn’t so much challenge the facts of our reporting on foreclosures and blight in Detroit as he did attempt to assail the character and reputation of two of the most trusted and decorated journalists in Detroit and the credibility of The News," Miles said in a statement to MT. "That’s disappointing. We’re happy to discuss our findings or analysis, as we did with him and his team prior to publication. Their positions were well represented. To respond to the name-calling would only serve to devalue the important work that was done here."

Quicken executives have asserted the company didn't issue subprime loans. 

"Every loan that we did in the City of Detroit in the 10 years they studied — between 2005 and 2014 — were conventional FHA, VA loans with average interest rates of 6%," Gilbert said in the WJR interview.

Gilbert told the News he believed subprime loans were any with interest rates above 13 percent, similar to what a company spokesperson conveyed to MT in a cover story last fall.

"[I]f you are using the word 'subprime' as is most commonly used in today's world, which refers to toxic loans with 12%, 13%, 14% or even higher interest rates that was responsible for the collapse of the US mortgage market and even the US economy: NO, QUICKEN LOANS NEVER PARTICIPATED NOR ORIGINATED THESE TYPES OF LOANS," the spokesperson wrote in an email, loudly.

Records MT reviewed showed in one instance that, in 2007, Quicken issued a $171,000 loan to a Detroit homebuyer that was a five-year hybrid adjustable-rate mortgage. This initially allowed the borrower to make payments that didn't even cover the monthly 6.875 percent interest cost. 

At any given time, the borrower was afforded the ability to pay a larger amount to pare down the principal. After five years, the interest rate could then begin to change, records show, with a maximum interest rate capped at 11.875 percent. At that point, the borrower could have begun to make interest-only payments. But the buyer failed to make payments and lost his home to foreclosure in 2010. 

Analyses of the industry from 2004-2007 have shown that as many as 90 percent of borrowers who received this type of loan — called an option-ARM — only made the minimum less-than-interest payment each month. One veteran of the industry previously described option-ARMs as being "guaranteed to blow up." 

'X FACTOR'S DRAMA, DRAMA, DRAMA: Paula Abdul Asked To Show Up As Judge Without Done Deal; Nicole Scherzinger Didn't Want Corbin Bleu As Co-Host; Now Steve Jones Done Deal As Replacement

EXCLUSIVE:Simon Cowell sureknows how to turn up the behind-the-scenes drama on TV shows, whether he’s appearing on them or producing them. I’ve just learned thatPaula Abdul has been asked to show up for the judges panel for his U.S. version of The X Factor in Los Angeles on Sunday. But here’s the thing: I’m told her deal still isn’t done yet but is in “final negotiations.” Reps are working all day and probably all night to get it done before tomorrow’s 1 PM and 6 PM tapings of auditions with wannabe contestants when the full judgespanel assembles for the first time at USC’s Galen Center. But Simon Cowell is counting on his former American Idolsidekick to show up anyway because,hey, they’re friends. “But will she reallyshow up? No way her reps will let her go if that deal isn’t done,” an insider just told me. The sticking point at first was that CBS still had a hold on Abdul stemming from her deal to headline another TV talent series as lead judge, Live to Dance, which debuted in January 2011 only to be canceled after one season. CBS wasn’t letting Paula go to Fox at first. That now seems to have been ironed out, but there still are several deal points to finalize. “She’s been asked to show up tomorrow whether her deal is done or not,” an insider explained to me.

Meanwhile, there’s also been behind-the-scenes drama regarding picking the hosts for The X Factor. Cowell told me recently he wants a known female performer and a young Hollywood actor to co-host. His initial picks were 32-year-old former head Pussycat Doll and ABC’s Dancing With the Stars standout Nicole Scherzinger, always his first choice to host, and Corbin Bleu, the 22-year-old African-American co-star of the High School Musical franchise. With both talents able to sing and dance, the possibilities for their hosting seemed myriad. But, according to an insider, at their first meeting, “Nicole walked in and saw Corbin and his baby face and asked, ‘What are you, 15?’ And then she walked out.” So, just like that, Bleu was nixed. Instead, veteran UK emcee Steve Jones was flown in for an audition, and insiders say he had “chemistry” with Scherzinger. So now he’s a done deal for the gig. Like UK and now U.S. version X Factor judge Cheryl Cole, Jones isn’t known to American audiences. “But Simon’s goal is to bring fresh talent and fresh faces to the U.S. and he’s doing it,” a source close to Cowell explains to me. A Fox insider laughs off concern there are too many Brits now on board this American show: “We are going to have an advertising integration with Berlitz, so we are going to make a few extra bucks on the accents.”