Quick Takes: Low Grammy show ratings

Wednesday’s Grammy nominations may have represented a big “Recovery” for Eminem, but more viewers opted for “Law & Order.” CBS’ Grammy nominations concert at 10 p.m. — at which the rapper’s “Recovery” album topped the nominations with 10 nods — drew 5 million viewers, a 21% slide from last year’s show. It was easily defeated by NBC’s “Law & Order: Los Angeles,” which was No. 1 in the slot with 9.1 million viewers.

The Grammy show producers had their work cut out for them, given that their show followed a repeat of “Criminal Minds” (9.1 million), which draws an older and not perfectly compatible audience. Perhaps a bigger problem? Last year’s big nominee was Beyoncé, whose “Single Ladies” had become an inescapable pop hit.

—Scott Collins

Sundance trots out A-list roster

There will be stars after all.

A day after the Sundance Film Festival revealed its 2011 competition lineup — a slate that deliberately favored unfamiliar filmmakers working with little-known actors — the nation’s top showcase for movies made outside the studio system revealed its premiere slate Thursday, and a lot of A-listers will be headed to Park City, Utah, come Jan. 20.

The dramatic premiere roster includes new films starring Greg Kinnear (“The Convincer”), Tobey Maguire (“The Details”), Kevin Spacey (“Margin Call”), Paul Rudd (“My Idiot Brother”), Ewan McGregor (“Perfect Sense”) and Pierce Brosnan (“Salvation Boulevard”). Among the women in leading and supporting roles: Elizabeth Banks, Laura Linney, Julia Ormond, Zooey Deschanel, Eva Green, Jennifer Connelly, Marisa Tomei, Katie Holmes and Amy Ryan.

In a surprising twist, only two of the dramatic premieres already have distribution deals.

The full Sundance lineup can be found at latimes.com/awards.

—John Horn

‘Much Ado’ with Lyle Lovett

The Los Angeles production of Shakespeare’s “Much Ado About Nothing,” starring Helen Hunt, is getting another celebrity cast member, organizers said Thursday. Singer-songwriter Lyle Lovett will be joining the cast, having already signed on as a composer.

“Much Ado About Nothing,” produced by the Shakespeare Center of L.A., began performances at the Kirk Douglas Theatre in Culver City on Wednesday, with an official opening Dec. 12.

Lovett will join the production Dec. 10, playing the singing role of Balthasar, an attendant to Don Pedro. He has written a handful of new songs for the play and will be recycling some old ones as well, a spokesperson for the show said.

—David Ng

New NBC office project for Carell

Steve Carell may be leaving “The Office” at the end of the season, but he’s sticking with NBC.

On Thursday, the network announced that it has bought a new comedy series from the actor, tentatively titled “The Post-Graduate Project,” to be produced by Universal Media Studios and Carell’s Carousel Television.

NBC described the single-camera comedy as “a sweet and nostalgic take on the period of Carell’s early life as a U.S. Post Office mail carrier and centers on a small-town post office frequented by a quirky but tight-knit group of local twentysomethings.”

When he was younger, Carell worked briefly at a post office in Littleton, Mass., where he delivered mail by driving his own car around town. The post office didn’t have its own mail trucks.

—Melissa Maerz

Stolen Degas is France-bound

An Edgar Degas painting that was stolen 37 years ago and recently rediscovered before an auction in New York will be returned to the French government, U.S. officials said Thursday.

U.S. Atty. Loretta Lynch and James T. Hayes Jr., head of the New York office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, announced that a Manhattan seller had agreed to turn over the painting, “Laundry Woman With Toothache,” without a forfeiture proceeding.

Sotheby’s had given the small oil portrait of a young woman holding her jaw an estimated value of $350,000 to $450,000.

—Associated Press

Conductor drops December shows

Conductor Jeffrey Kahane has withdrawn from his December concerts with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra due to his continued recuperation from an extended illness, the music group said Thursday.

In September, Kahane canceled his season-opening appearances with the orchestra as a result of a bout with mononucleosis.

Pianist Anne-Marie McDermott is scheduled to replace Kahane for the Baroque Conversations series concert Dec. 9 at Zipper Concert Hall. Michael Stern, music director of the Kansas City Symphony (and Isaac Stern’s son), will take the podium Dec. 11 at the Alex Theatre in Glendale and Dec. 12 at UCLA’s Royce Hall.