On this day in 1558, Elizabeth I ascended to the English throne upon the death of her half-sister, thus giving birth to the remarkably fecund Elizabethan Age. From that era sprang probably the most influential writer in English history, William Shakespeare.

Today, let's remember Shakespeare by taking a look at Denzel Washington as Brutus in the 2005 Broadway revival of Julius Caesar. Washington received lukewarm reviews for his performance – and some outright bad ones – but it sure looks good.

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Will the Great White Way need to change it's name soon? With plays like The Color Purple, A Raisin in the Sun, and, most recently, the all-black production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, black theatergoers are hitting the ticket offices in droves.

Last week alone, Cat sold $700,000 in tickets, a large number for a non-musical, and the audience is about 75 percent black. Stephen C. Byrd, the producer behind the show, sees dollar signs. Next up, he has plans for a multiracial version A Streetcar Named Desire and Death of a Salesman and an stage adaptation of James Baldwin's Giovanni's Room. Just five years ago, industry insiders doubted that anything would bring a major black audience to Broadway. No one should ever doubt how hungry diverse entertainment options.

• India.Arie is Broadway-bound and set to appear in a revival of Ntozake Shange's famous For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow Is Enuf. [EW]

• What do Jack Johnson and Eliot Spitzer have in common? [Root]

• Remy Ma is calculating and irresponsible, says the prosecution in her shooting trial. [MTV]

• HBO has ordered 13 episodes of a series based on Jill Scott's movie, The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency. She'll star of course in the show, of course. [DV]

• Janet Jackson's in the hospital with the flu. Buy her album to make her feel better, would you? [E!]

• A rapping monk preaches peace. Swoon. [APP]

• 14 years after apartheid fell, how's the racism in South Africa? [Guardian]

• "Can a black police officer be racist against black people?" [NYT]

• Obama's got the upper hand in PA, but can he keep it? [AP]

• One of the world's foremost arms dealers, whose weapons were used in atrocities throughout Africa, has been caught. [Time]

• A dog clothing company gets at DMX for $242,000. [WP]

• The American Association of Blacks in Energy says that blacks of all income levels pay more for heating and lighting. [DP]

• When vacationing in the Dominican Republic, don't even try to get into a club called the Loft. [Forbes]

• Nas will headline a back to school concert at Virginia Tech that's free for all students and faculty. No word on whether R. Kelly was invited to sing his special song. [CM]

• Whiteface on the London stage? [TheStage]

It may not be Dreamgirls, but Ciara's starring role in the motion picture version of the play, Mama, I Want To Sing, could propel her closer to Beyonce triple-threat status.

The movie, based on the Vy Higginsen-created hit Off-Broadway musical, centers on the story of choir girl morphing into a pop star. According to 'Variety,' 'Mama' will also star R&B diva Patti LaBelle and screen siren Lynn Whitfield. The film is scheduled to start shooting next month in Louisiana with plans of opening in theaters next February.

Thoughts: Lynn Whitfield's role in the film should erase those pesky pregnancy rumors. Ciara's voice can't possibly stand up to Patti LaBelle's. I wonder what they'll do about that issue.

[BV]

August Wilson died before he got to see his last play, Radio Golf on Broadway. The play is the final installment in a series of ten, each a snapshot of the black experience in every decade of the 20th century. In Radio Golf, which takes place in Pittsburgh in 1997, Wilson depicts the modern day class struggle between blacks with an unlikely friendship between a real estate developer/mayoral candidate and the old vagrant whose house he wants to tear down.

Thanks to a dear friend with a Broadway hookup, I caught the show last night. The cast was filled with familiar faces from television and movies — the lead, Harmond Wilks, is played by Harry Lennix, late of 24 and Stomp The Yard. His wife is Tonya Pinkins, a Broadway and soap opera veteran.

The play was provocative, if a little long. Wilson draws a line between right and wrong that is evident by the end of the show, but it is a simplified (but necessarily theatrical) conclusion to conflicts — over redevelopment and gentrification, the widening gap between blacks of different social classes, and assimilation with whites — that are anything but cut and dry. For tickets and more information, go to Radio Golf on Broadway.

[USAT]