Quick Takes: U.S. ballet troupe visits Cuba

American Ballet Theatre dancers promised pirouettes — not politics — during the troupe’s historic visit to Cuba this week, the first by the New York-based company since shortly after Fidel Castro’s 1959 revolution turned the island into an ideological enemy of the U.S.

America’s premier ballet company was in Havana to pay homage to Cuba’s most famous ballerina, 89-year-old Alicia Alonso, who danced with the American Ballet Theatre in the 1940s and ‘50s before returning to her homeland to found Cuba’s National Ballet.

The U.S. dancers will perform scenes from “Siete Sonatas,” “Fancy Free” and “Theme and Variations” — a ballet written by George Balanchine in 1947 specifically with Alonso in mind — during performances Wednesday and Thursday at Havana’s 5,500-seat Karl Marx theater.

—Associated Press

Moore, White to reunite

TV Land is reuniting Mary Tyler Moore with her 1970s sitcom sidekick Betty White.

The network announced Tuesday that Moore will guest star on the second-season premiere of White’s comedy, “Hot in Cleveland.” It’s due to air Jan. 19.

The episode will be the first time the two have acted on screen together since “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” went off the air more than three decades ago. On that classic sitcom, Moore was an assistant news producer at a TV station, while White played the host of a homemaking show.

—Associated Press

Sutherland on Broadway

Now that “24” has ended its run on Fox, Kiefer Sutherland has been at work on new projects, some of which are well off the beaten Hollywood track. For one, there’s his role in Danish film director Lars von Trier’s new science fiction film, “Melancholia.” And now comes word that the actor will make his Broadway debut next year in a revival of the play “That Championship Season.”

The production, directed by Gregory Mosher, will open in March and will costar Chris Noth, Brian Cox, Jason Patric and Jim Gaffigan. Patric is the son of the play’s author, Jason Miller, who won the Tony Award and the Pulitzer Prize for the work in 1973.

The drama follows a group of high school basketball champions who come together at a reunion to dissect their troubled lives. The play opened on Broadway in 1972 and starred Paul Sorvino and Charles Durning. It was later turned into a film.

—David Ng

Cher: What’s with rock hall?

Do Sonny & Cher belong in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame?

Cher thinks so. In fact, she’s peeved that they aren’t there already.

“It just seems kind of rude,” she says in the December issue of Vanity Fair. “Sonny was a good writer, and we started something that no one else was doing. We were weird hippies before there was a name for it, when the Beatles were wearing sweet little haircuts and round-collared suits…. We influenced a generation, and it’s like: What more do you want?”

—CNN

Macy’s parade names lineup

Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade this year will have some big names to go along with the big balloons.

Macy’s on Tuesday announced the list of celebrity performers for the event, covering the musical gamut from pop to hip-hop to folk. Among those scheduled to perform are Kanye West, Jessica Simpson, Colombian rock singer Juanes, Arlo Guthrie, Gladys Knight, boy band Big Time Rush and teen singer Victoria Justice.

—Associated Press

Weir’s new film to debut

“The Way Back,” Peter Weir’s first film since 2003, will open the first Museum of Tolerance International Film Festival next week, officials at the L.A. museum said Tuesday.

The movie, which stars Ed Harris, Colin Farrell, Jim Sturgess and Saoirse Ronan, tells the story of a group of people that escapes from a Siberian gulag in 1940 and makes its way to freedom across thousands of miles. It is scheduled for release in January.

The festival, running Nov. 13-18, will present more than 20 other films that “shine a light on human rights issues.”

Information: (310) 772-2408 or https://www.museumoftolerance.motiff.

—From a Times staff writer