People in the news

From Billy Joel to Bob Dylan

New York – Twyla Tharp took on the music of Billy Joel and created “Movin’ Out,” which ran for more than three years on Broadway.

Now the director-choreographer has turned to another pop superstar, Bob Dylan, for her next project – “The Times They Are A-Changin’.” The musical, a coming-of-age story set in a circus, opens Oct. 26 at Broadway’s Brooks Atkinson Theatre. Preview performances begin Sept. 25.

“The Times They Are A-Changin”‘ concerns a young man, played by Michael Arden; his tyrannical father, portrayed by Thom Sesma, and a beautiful circus performer (Caren Lyn Manuel).

The musical received mostly encouraging reviews when it premiered last February at San Diego’s Old Globe Theatre. The San Diego Union-Tribune called it an “exciting, flawed, phantasmagoric fable,” while the San Francisco Chronicle said it “looks like a success,” praising the production’s “dynamic performances and imaginatively acrobatic choreography.”

Olympian Shannon Miller is divorcing husband of 7 years

Oklahoma City – Former Olympic gymnast Shannon Miller is divorcing her husband of seven years.

Miller, 29, and Christopher B. Phillips, 33, married in a lavish ceremony that featured many of her teammates from the 1996 U.S. squad that won the team gold medal in the Atlanta Games.

She filed for divorce in May 2004, but money disputes dragged the case out more than two years. The divorce is expected to become official in September.

Phillips, an eye surgeon, alleges that Miller had an affair with a married male athlete and that she threatened to accuse him of abusing prescription drugs if he didn’t agree to her demands during the divorce proceedings.

“I’ve been put through the wringer over this,” Phillips said. “It’s been a very bitter and terrible divorce. … She has really, really hurt me.”

Miller denied the accusations, calling them “lies and innuendo surrounding an emotional divorce.”

“The worst thing I ever did to my ex-husband was to put unleaded gas in his car and not premium. With gas prices these days, do you blame me?” Miller wrote in an e-mailed response to questions from The Oklahoman for a story published in Sunday’s editions.

“We all have choices to make in life. I have chosen to be happy by leaving this painful experience in the past. I hope Chris is able to move on as well.”

The couple, who lived in Oklahoma City and a Houston suburb before moving to Boston, have no children.

Miller also won two silver and three bronze medals in 1992 in Barcelona and an individual gold medal in the balance beam in Atlanta.

Tying the knot twice

New York – Brigitte Nielsen can call it legal now.

The model and actress married her fifth husband, Mattia Dessi, on Saturday – 17 months after a ceremony that wasn’t legal because she hadn’t finished divorcing No. 4, People magazine reported on its Web site.

The ceremony last year between Nielsen, 42, and Dessi, a 28-year-old Italian former model, was “more like an official engagement,” said Nielsen’s manager, Luigi Balduini.

They officially tied the knot in Malta, People reported. Their earlier ceremony took place in the Dominican Republic, while Nielsen was still married to former racecar driver Raoul Meyer.