Quick Takes: Bret Michaels sets return

Bret Michaels is set to return to the stage a little more than a month after suffering a brain hemorrhage.

His representative announced Friday that the rocker and reality star would perform at the Hard Rock Live in Biloxi, Miss., on May 28. He plans to tour in June and also is hoping to return to NBC’s “Celebrity Apprentice.”

The former lead singer for Poison had an emergency appendectomy on April 12. Ten days later he suffered the hemorrhage that left him in intensive care for two weeks in a Phoenix hospital.

—Associated Press

Singing praises of Lena Horne

Lena Horne, whose signature song was “Stormy Weather,” was remembered at her funeral on Friday as a shy girl from Brooklyn who fought racism for decades to emerge as a world-class singer and social activist.

“She was so many ideas existing all at the same time in the same space and they were all conflicting and they were all true,” her granddaughter, Jenny Lumet, told hundreds of mourners at the Church of St. Ignatius Loyola in Manhattan.

They included fellow entertainers Chita Rivera, Diahann Carroll, Dionne Warwick, Cicely Tyson and Jinji Nicole.

Horne, who also starred on stage and in films, died Sunday at 92.

—Associated Press

Walters’ surgery goes as expected

A spokeswoman for Barbara Walters said Friday that the veteran television interviewer has successfully undergone surgery to replace a faulty heart valve.

“Barbara Walters’ surgery went well and the doctors are very pleased with the outcome,” spokeswoman Cindi Berger said in a statement. “Ms. Walters is recovering as expected. No further statements will be made at this time.”

The 80-year-old co-host of ABC’s “The View” told viewers Monday about the surgery. She said she planned to recuperate over the summer and return to work in September.

—Matea Gold

Ebert envisions a memoir next

Roger Ebert’s next book won’t just be about movies.

The film critic and prolific Twitter user is writing a memoir. It will cover everything from his battle with thyroid cancer to his friendship with Gene Siskel, his fellow critic and “Siskel and Ebert at the Movies” co-host who died in 1999.

Grand Central Publishing executive editor Mitch Hoffman said Friday that the currently untitled book has a tentative release date of fall 2011. Ebert’s previous works include “Roger Ebert’s Book of Film” and “I Hated, Hated, Hated This Movie.”

—Associated Press

Reprise lists 2010-11 season

For its 2010-11 season, Reprise Theatre Company will present what Artistic Director Jason Alexander calls a trio of “fun, beautiful love stories”: “Gigi,” “Kiss Me, Kate” and “They’re Playing Our Song.”

“It’s been rough going for a bunch of people for a bunch of reasons of late,” Alexander said. “So I thought it would be great to do a season that doesn’t have a particularly dark undercurrent.”

Alexander, best known for his long-running role on “Seinfeld,” will take one of the lead roles this fall in “They’re Playing Our Song,” which follows the on-again off-again relationship between two songwriters.

No other casting was announced for the three musicals, which will be presented at UCLA’s Freud Playhouse.

—Karen Wada

Baryshnikov to be at REDCAT

Two of the dance world’s great artists will share a stage — one in person, the other through the troupe he founded more than half a century ago — when Mikhail Baryshnikov joins the Merce Cunningham Dance Company for a benefit performance June 7 at REDCAT in downtown L.A.

The event will coincide with Cunningham Dance’s previously announced June 4-6 appearances at Walt Disney Concert Hall as part of the Glorya Kaufman Presents Dance at the Music Center series.

The June 7 show will benefit REDCAT and the Cunningham Dance Foundation, which is working to preserve the legacy of the iconoclastic choreographer, who died at 90 last year.

Cunningham’s company is on a two-year international tour that is designed to showcase seminal works from the choreographer’s career and give audiences a final chance to see the dancers he trained. The concluding performance will be on Dec. 31, 2011, in New York, the company’s home base. The group will disband after the tour.

—Karen Wada

Finally

Fall TV: NBC renewed “Chuck” for a fourth season and ordered four new series Friday, including a legal drama with Jimmy Smits playing a Supreme Court justice who returns to private practice and another drama about unconventional lawyers from producer David E. Kelley (“Boston Law,” “Ally McBeal,” “The Practice”).