Quick Takes: NBC quits ‘Playboy Club’

“The Playboy Club” became the first show of the 2011-12 television season to be canceled when NBC pulled the plug Tuesday, 15 days after the ‘60s-era drama premiered. It drew only 5 million viewers for the first installment and had gone down from there.

The series will be replaced on Mondays at 10 p.m. by a newsmagazine, “Rock Center With Brian Williams,” beginning Oct. 31. Reruns of the drama “Prime Suspect” will fill in until then.

On a happier note for the struggling network, NBC gave full-season pickups to two of its new comedies, “Up All Night,” starring Christina Applegate and Will Arnett, and “Whitney,” starring Whitney Cummings.

—Yvonne Villarreal

Dig 3-D? Disney says be our guest

Blame (or thank) Simba.

In the wake of the success of “The Lion King 3D,” which has earned $80 million in the United States in the last 31/2 weeks, Disney has announced theatrical re-releases for four of its animated catalog titles in 3-D: “Beauty and the Beast,” “Finding Nemo,” “Monsters, Inc.” and “The Little Mermaid.”

The four films will unspool over the next two years, beginning in January with “Beauty and the Beast,” the 1991 hit that became the first animated film to be nominated for an Oscar for best picture. “Finding Nemo,” first released in 2003,will follow in 3-D in September 2012. “Monsters, Inc.” (2001) will premiere in 3-D in January 2013. Finally, “The Little Mermaid” will open in September 2013.

—Rebecca Keegan

Adele cancels over vocal cords

Adele has been forced to cancel her upcoming 10-city, sold-out tour because of a hemorrhage on her vocal cords, representatives for the singer said Tuesday.

The British soul diva had just completed a stint in the United Kingdom and was prepping to kick off an additional U.S. leg on Friday in Atlantic City, N.J., when she fell ill. She had been scheduled to perform in Florida, Georgia and Texas.

“I have absolutely no choice but to recuperate properly and fully, or I risk damaging my voice forever,” she said in a statement.

In June, Adele was forced to halt her largely sold-out tour after being stricken with laryngitis. She rescheduled the 14 dates that had to be canceled and added six more. She played 10 of those 20 dates in August, including two in L.A. The other 10 were the ones that now have been scrapped again.

—Gerrick D. Kennedy

‘Sesame Street’ addresses hunger

A new poverty-stricken muppet will highlight the issue of hunger struggles on a prime-time episode of “Sesame Street,” the show said Tuesday.

Pink-faced muppet Lily, whose family deals with food insecurity, will join Big Bird, Elmo and other favorites on a one-hour installment featuring country star Brad Paisley and his wife, Kimberly Williams-Paisley, called “Growing Hope Against Hunger.” It will air locally at 7 p.m. Sunday on KOCE-TV.

The new muppet will bring awareness to the ongoing hunger struggles that families face in the United States, the show said.

—Reuters

‘Peace’ has been to L.A. before

Antaeus Company’s upcoming staging of Noel Coward’s drama “Peace in Our Time” won’t be the first in America after all, the Los Angeles ensemble acknowledged Tuesday — or even the first in L.A. But it will be the first in a very long time.

Antaeus made a mistake in announcing that its production, which opens Oct. 20, would be the U.S. premiere of a piece first staged in London in 1947, company spokeswoman Lucy Pollak said. In it, Coward set aside his trademark sparkling comedy and imagined how life would have gone if the Nazis had conquered Britain during World War II.

A journey through archives at The Times revealed that “Peace in Our Time” was first staged in Los Angeles by the Geller Theatre Workshop in September 1949. The Pasadena Playhouse mounted a full production the following year.

—Mike Boehm

Finally

Broadway bound: Alicia Keys will co-produce and compose original music for the Broadway comedy “Stick Fly,” starring Dulé Hill and Ruben Santiago-Hudson. It begins performances in New York City next month.