Actor Jermey Piven has hit back at the producers of New York play Speed The Ploug after theatre bosses filed an official complaint over his departure from the show.

The Entourage star abruptly quit the David Mamet play in December ust seven weeks after making his Broadway debut, claiming he was forced to withdraw on doctor’s orders as he had fallen ill with mercury poisoning.

Tributes are pouring in for legendary British playwright Harold Pinter, who died on Wednesday aged 78.

The writer, who penned classic plays including The Birthday Party and The Dumb Waiter and was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2005 for his contribution to the arts, passed away following a long battle with cancer.

And friends and former colleagues have lined up to pay tribute to Pinter following his death.

Gwyneth Paltrow wants to swap the big screen for the Broadway stage, and is already planning out her dream theatre roles.

The actress has put her Hollywood career on the backburner so she can raise her children with husband Chris Martin; Apple, four, and two-year-old Moses.

She has committed to making just one movie a year, and insists she can no longer be regarded as a film ’star’.

Actor Richard Dreyfuss is preparing to return to the West End stage - four years after he was sensationally fired from musical The Producers.

The Jaws star has been coaxed back into theatre work by Kevin Spacey, who is the artistic director at London’s Old Vic Theatre, to star in the venue’s new play Complicit.

Dreyfuss’ last experience in stage work ended in embarrassment following his dismissal from Mel Brooks’ The Producers in 2004.

Moviemaker Woody Allen has been forced into honouring a promise to direct an opera - because he’s not dead.

The revered film mogul declined offers to take charge of an opera for years, while the head of Los Angeles Opera and Placido Domingo both urged Allen to reconsider.

So, to keep everyone happy, the 72-year-old bowed to the pressure three years ago, thinking he’d be dead before he would have to honour his promise.

Beloved Broadway and Yiddish acting star Bruce Adler has lost his cancer battle at the age of 63.

Adler died early on Friday, according to reports.

A multi-Tony Award nominee, Adler starred in hit musicals Crazy For You, Those Were The Days and Sunday in the Park With George.

He also appeared on TV in Law + Order and the small screen adaptation of Crazy For You, and his voice can be heard in Disney animated films Beauty and The Beast and Aladdin.

Veteran comedian Mel Brooks is planning on turning his 1974 Western spoof Blazing Saddles into a Broadway musical.

Brooks adapted his 1968 film original The Producers into a hugely successful stage show in 2001, and more recently wrote the score for an adaptation of Young Frankenstein, which opened in New York last year.

And now Brooks is rumoured to be working on adapting Blazing Saddles for the stage.