Quick Takes: ‘Book of Mormon’ cast album ranks No. 3 on U.S. sales charts

After winning nine Tony Awards Sunday night, including the one for best musical, “The Book of Mormon” got more good news Wednesday: Its cast album ranked No. 3 on the U.S. sales charts last week.

It was the highest-charting Broadway cast album — and first top 10 — since 1969, when “Hair” spent 13 weeks at No. 1, Billboard reported.

The Broadway album sold 61,000 units during the week that ended Sunday — a paltry figure compared, say, with the more than 1.1. million that Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way” sold two weeks ago, but Billboard said it marked the largest sales week for any cast album since Nielsen SoundScan began tracking data in 1991, the previous record having been 54,000 for “Phantom of the Opera” in 1992.

The trade publication said “Book of Mormon” was helped by AmazonMP3 having priced a digital copy at $1.99 for three days last week.

Topping the Billboard chart was Adele’s “21,” with “Born This Way” at No.2

—Lee Margulies

Rijksmuseum redo on track

Rembrandt’s “Night Watch” and other famed works by Dutch masters will return to their permanent home by 2013, as a radical decade-long renovation of the national Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam nears completion.

A sneak preview Wednesday showed the 19th century museum both modernized and closer to its original plan. Its red-brick exterior, reminiscent of a fairy-tale castle, remains intact. Inside, maze-like corridors have been scrapped in favor of large spaces and high ceilings.

The museum will house about 7,500 works of art for public viewing, around the same amount as before renovations began in 2003.

Originally scheduled for completion by 2009, the $536-million renovation has faced several setbacks, notably an “only-in-Amsterdam” fight over bicycle access.

Bike advocates won, and a window-lined public tunnel runs through the middle of the ground floor.

—Associated Press

Timberlake’s more into acting

For the umpteenth time, Justin Timberlake still has no plans to return to music anytime soon.

Though the Grammy winner is toplining two summer films, “Bad Teacher” with Cameron Diaz and “Friends With Benefits” alongside Mila Kunis, he is still being quizzed about his largely dormant recording career. And the answer remains the same.

“I don’t have a single song ready to go,” Timberlake told Playboy in a recent interview. “People keep asking me when a new song or album is coming out, and I don’t know what to say. Music is not my focus right now. It may be someday. It could happen next month or next year but right now it’s not where it’s at for me.”

Timberlake hasn’t released a disc since 2006’s platinum-selling “FutureSex/LoveSounds.”

—Gerrick D. Kennedy

Was it a plot to kill Joss Stone?

Two men have been arrested near Joss Stone’s home on suspicion of conspiracy to rob and murder, after reportedly being found in a car with swords, rope, a body bag and plans of the soul singer’s secluded house in England.

Stone said in a statement that she was “absolutely fine and getting on with life as normal” as police charged the men with conspiracy to commit robbery and conspiracy to commit grievous bodily harm.

Devon and Cornwall police said Junior Bradshaw, 30, and Kevin Liverpool, 33, both from the Manchester area of northwest England, were arrested Monday morning near Stone’s house in Cullompton, 175 miles southwest of London, after residents reported a suspicious-looking vehicle.

—Associated Press

D.C. ‘Follies’ heads to N.Y.

The Kennedy Center’s revival of Stephen Sondheim’s musical “Follies” is being transferred to the Marquis Theatre on Broadway this summer.

The center announced Wednesday that the $7.3-million production with a book by James Goldman would have a limited engagement on Broadway after it closes Sunday in Washington. Dates, casting and ticket information for New York were not announced.

The Washington production stars Bernadette Peters and is in its final week of sold-out performances.

The original Broadway production of “Follies” opened in 1971. It won seven Tony Awards, including best score. It’s the story of a reunion of former showgirls on the eve of their theater’s demolition.

—Associated Press

Finally

Turtle talk: Sean Astin, Jason Biggs, Greg Cipes and Rob Paulsen will provide the voices of the four heroes in a reboot of “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,” a computer-animated series that will premiere this fall on Nickelodeon.