An arts and entertainment digest with a local point of view ...

Football in her blood

Kate Mara has been a busy actress, and she's about to get busier.

The great-granddaughter of Art Rooney Sr. and Timothy Mara, founders of the Steelers and the New York Giants, is now on screen in the Oscar-nominated "Brokeback Mountain" as Alma Jr. at age 19. Next up, Mara has been cast in "We Are Marshall," based on the 1970 plane crash that killed football players, most of the coaching staff, sports commentators and boosters from Marshall University in Huntington, W.Va.

McG will direct and Matthew McConaughey has been signed to star as coach Jack Lengyl, with Matthew Fox (TV's "Lost") playing assistant coach William "Red" Dawson, who was not on the plane. Filming is expected to begin this spring on the Marshall campus and other West Virginia sites.

Sharon Eberson, Post-Gazette entertainment editor

Howard here and there

Terrence Howard's first phone call after hearing his name sandwiched between Philip Seymour Hoffman and Heath Ledger as a Best Actor Oscar nominee: to his mother, Anita, in Pittsburgh. "I could hear the big smile on her face. She just started a second course of chemo," he told People magazine. "This was something to pick up her spirits."

Howard was nominated for "Hustle & Flow" but his resume is diverse. He played one of Jacksons in the partially made-in-Pittsburgh miniseries "An American Dream," a reluctant bass drum player in "Mr. Holland's Opus" and, more recently, a TV director in "Crash," an aspiring rapper in "Hustle" and a cop in "Four Brothers."

A father of three who lives in Philadelphia, Howard told the magazine he's taking his son, Hunter, his mother, mother-in-law and aunt to the Kodak Theater on March 5. (For Howard, man of style, see page E-11.)

Barbara Vancheri, Post-Gazette movie editor

'Wicked' ways

Megan Hilty is flying high these days. A graduate of Carnegie Mellon's School of Drama, she appeared in City Theatre's "Cafe Puttanesca" and CMU's "The Wild Party" and nabbed the $10,000 top prize in the National Society of Arts and Letters musical theater competition in 2004.

Today she can be seen in her latest role: Since May 31, she's been the girl in the bubble in the Broadway production of "Wicked," playing Glinda, the Good Witch.

Hilty, of Bellevue, Wash., headed to her audition for "Wicked" a week before her CMU graduation and saw the original Glinda, Kristin Chenowith, at work.

"I just thought after seeing it, 'Wow -- no one is going to be able to take over for Kristin, least of all me,' " she told Broadway.com. "So, going into the audition, that must have been some sort of confidence builder. I never thought it would be me, so I had no nerves."

-- Jane Vranish, Post-Gazette dance critic