Marlee Matlin joining 'Spring Awakening' on Broadway

Marlee Matlin is joining the Deaf West Theatre production of "Spring Awakening" on Broadway.

The Oscar and Golden Globe winner will make her Broadway debut in the upcoming revival, which will feature a cast of 27 that blends hearing and deaf performers.

Matlin is the only deaf performer to win an Academy Award, which she did for "Children of a Lesser God."

The show is a rock musical based on Frank Wedekind's classic drama about a dozen young people discovering their sexual identities. The music is by Duncan Sheik, the lyrics are by Steven Sater and the revival is choreographed by Spencer Liff.

Previews begin Sept. 8 at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre and will be performed simultaneously in English and American Sign Language.

Taylor Swift's next adventure? Stop Chinese counterfeiters

TATTLE DOESN'T often look to the Wall Street Journal as an entertainment source, but the Journal doesn't often write about Taylor Swift.

So for those of you who've been long concerned about Chinese counterfeiters, worry no longer.

Taylor is on the case.

And if there is one thing Taylor is good at, aside from writing catchy pop tunes and touching the souls of tween girls, it's stopping people from profiting off her who do not pay for the privilege.

Goodbye, knock-off; hello, "Shake it Off."

With her popularity in China exploding, a huge black market for Taylor Swift products has grown with it, with, as the WSJ reports, "e-commerce peddlers selling everything from fake perfume to pirated autographed guitars."

So, Taylor is striking back.

She's launched her own branded clothing line with Nashville-based Heritage66Company, and teamed with China's two biggest e-commerce players, JD.com and Alibaba, in order to sell it.

Starting next month, the Tmall marketplace site will carry Swift-branded $60 designer T-shirts, with a clothing line to follow in September. All products will have antipiracy hanging tags that enable customers to track their authenticity on the Web as if they were verified Mike Schmidt autographs.

In November, Taylor will bring her "1989" tour to Shanghai, so don't get caught wearing a cheap knockoff when she puts you up on the Jumbotron singing "Bad Blood."

But beating Chinese counterfeiters won't be as easy for Taylor as crushing a small tech company called Apple.

The Journal reports that there are nine trademarks in China registered under the name Taylor Swift, three of which are owned by individuals other than Taylor Swift.

Taylor does not own personal trademarks for items including purses, infant onesies, bathing suits, shoes and hats.

Benjamin Bai, a partner in the Shanghai office of law firm Allen & Overy, told the Journal that trademark disputes are difficult to win in China, because the law is based on who files first.

Bai said that if Taylor were now to launch a line of branded Taylor Swift swimsuits, she would be infringing on someone else's trademark under Chinese law.

* In other Taylor news, she led the pack with nine MTV Video Music Award Nominations - including Best Female Video, Best Collaboration and Video of the Year.

Miley Cyrus will host, Aug. 30.

* Local guy Rob McElhenney, co-creator and co-star of the FX/FXX series "It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia," will make his movie directing debut on "Minecraft," another movie based on a computer game.

* Computer games, however, may be high-level source material: Mashable.com reports that Sony Pictures Animation is developing an animated feature film based on emojis.

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* You can't stop them, you can only hope to contain them.

The FYI channel says that Khloe Kardashian will host and produce a "hybrid" talk series in which she will be joined in the kitchen and at the dinner table by celebrity guests and friends for conversation, cooking and party games, FYI said yesterday.

The show will be titled "Kocktails With Khloe."

Gosh, that is so close to her porn film title.

- Daily News wire services

contributed to this report.

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