By Amy Argetsinger and Roxanne Roberts
Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Betcha your school play didn't have flying monkeys! "The Wiz," at the Duke Ellington School of the Arts, may be the glitziest (and priciest) high school musical in the country, thanks to a $200,000 donation from showman Kenneth Feld.

The Broadway-style production, which closes Friday, is the first beneficiary of the school's new high-tech theater department, which got a huge boost from the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey heir after he read an article about funding cuts at D.C.'s only magnet arts school. In October his foundation donated $100,000 in lighting, sound, sets and other backstage equipment, and another $100,000 in cash, which was used to bring in director Lynda Gravatt and musical director e'Marcus Harper and to hire costume designer Reggie Ray as a full-time teacher, reports our colleague Keith Alexander.

The result: two full casts, elaborate Afro-centric costumes, and scenery and lighting effects not found in your average teenage drama department. (Then again, with an advisory council that's headed by Ellington alum Dave Chappelle and includes names like Stevie Wonder, Patti LaBelle, Rita Moreno and Barack Obama, it's not your average high school.)

Feld is obviously pleased with the results: He's presenting another $100K tonight at a pre-performance reception with Mayor Adrian Fenty, D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee, D.C. Council member Jack Evans and members of Ellington's board.

Nicolas Cage is suing Kathleen Turner for libel in a London court, the BBC reports, over claims in her new memoir, excerpted in the U.K.'s Daily Mail. Turner wrote that her "Peggy Sue Got Married" co-star was arrested for both DUI and, uh, stealing a Chihuahua; Cage says neither happened. Maybe, but . . . what a great story!

Sharon Bush has been sued by her former fiance over an 11-carat engagement ring. Gerald Tsai, 78, claims Bush (the president's former sister-in-law) refused to return the $434,000 yellow diamond after they broke up last year. A lawyer for Bush, 55, had no comment.

R&B legend Ronald Isley will have to serve 37 months in prison for tax evasion, a California appeals court ruled, rejecting the "Twist and Shout" singer's argument that, at 66, he's too old and sick to do the time. Isley, now in a federal pen in Indiana, is due out in 2010.

Gary Coleman, the 4-foot-8 former child star of "Diff'rent Strokes," told "Inside Edition" he's been secretly married since August to Shannon Price, a 5-foot-7 redhead who he says is his first-ever romantic partner. Congrats! Price, 22, says the relationship is "off and on"; Coleman, 40, says they often go a week without speaking.

Newt Gingrich doing the good-hubby thing at the annual Neiman Marcus sale at Tysons on Sunday. The former House speaker, in reading glasses, trailed wife Callista through the St. John racks, toting her Chanel bag on his right arm while speed-reading and highlighting in a large book (maybe his new tome, "Real Change"?) he balanced on his left.

"It's none of your business. . . . My private life is my private life. If we don't reclaim that, we're all going to be designated as public people and we will have no more civil liberties."

-- Gary Condit, refusing to say if he had a "sexual relationship" with Chandra Levy, after denying a "romantic relationship." In a dramatic and wide-ranging interview with California Conversations magazine, the former congressman discusses his youthful political rise, his battle with former California speaker Willie Brown, his leadership of the Blue Dog Democrats and, inevitably, the murdered-intern scandal that ended his career.