People: Robinson performs at music festival
If the comedy thing doesn’t work out, Craig Robinson has an easy second career lined up: musician.
Robinson, a comedian and actor probably best known as Darryl on “The Office,” brought a smokin’ hot seven-piece band – The Nasty Delicious – to the Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival in Manchester, Tennessee, on Saturday evening, and turned the comedy tent into a dance hall.
“It’s my first love,” Robinson said. “I used to play the piano as soon as I could reach it. My mother was first-chair cello in college. She was a singer, an organist. Our house, when we came up, you were going to piano lessons no matter what else you were doing, so it’s a part of me.”
The 42-year-old Chicago resident isn’t stopping at his stand-up comedy set. He’s also incorporating music into his first starring role on television. He’ll play a music teacher on his new sitcom “Mr. Robinson,” in development for NBC – the network that first introduced Robinson to a larger audience as the loveably surly warehouse foreman on “The Office.”
He also stars as Maceo in the James Brown biopic “Get On Up,” out in August.
‘After Midnight’ to play final show
The Broadway musical celebrating Duke Ellington’s years at the Cotton Club nightclub in Harlem is dancing into history: It will play its final show June 29.
“After Midnight,” a candy sampler of some two dozen musical numbers that showcase dance, jazz or vocals backed by 17 musicians from Jazz at Lincoln Center, won only one of the seven Tony Awards it had been nominated for and has only been a modest draw at the box office.
A rotating group of stars have led the show, including Fantasia Barrino, k.d. lang, Toni Braxton, Kenny “Babyface” Edmonds and Vanessa Williams. Songs include “I Can’t Give You Anything But Love” and “Stormy Weather.” Dule Hill, known from TV’s “Psych,” is the emcee.
The birthday bunch
Actress Joan Van Ark is 71. Pop singer Gino Vannelli is 62. Actress Laurie Metcalf is 59. Actor Eddie Cibrian is 41. Actress Sibel Kekilli (TV: “Game of Thrones”) is 34. Singer Diana DeGarmo (“American Idol”) is 27.