Richard Gere is man of the year
Actor Richard Gere was in town yesterday to pick up his Hasty Pudding Man of the Year award. The actor was slated to get his tribute before the opening-night performance of the Hasty Pudding Theatricals' production of ''Some Like it Yacht." Earlier yesterday, Gere was at the Boston Harbor Hotel for lunch with Harvard types before touring Harvard Square with Nancy O'Dell and her crew from ''Access Hollywood" in a segment that will air Monday. Gere, who is best known as the star of ''Pretty Woman" and ''American Gigolo," won a Golden Globe for his role as a flashy lawyer in the film version of ''Chicago." Gere's trip to Harvard comes just a week after Halle Berry wowed the zany student troupe when she was given her Woman of the Year honors. Last year's honorees were Catherine Zeta-Jones and Tim Robbins. Previous recent recipients include Sandra Bullock and Robert Downey Jr., Anjelica Huston and Martin Scorsese, and Sarah Jessica Parker and Bruce Willis.
Making merry with ‘Muslim’
It's with tongue firmly planted in cheek that Mike Mosallam gives Osama bin Laden a shout-out in ''Muslim: The Musical," which plays again tonight at the Boston Conservatory's Zack Box theater. ''I wouldn't be doing the show if not for him," said Mosallam. ''He's enabled me to say what I have to say." The show, Mosallam's graduate thesis project, is a light-hearted look at a young Muslim-American's response to the Sept. 11 attack. Mosallam plays every part, including a suicide bomber, a housewife from Iowa, and Sister Mary Muhammad. ''It's a cross between Sesame Street and Anna Deavere Smith's one-woman show about the LA riots," he said. ''I'm teaching the audience through laughter."Mitt’s on the road again
Every week, it seems, Mitt Romney's running off somewhere to try out his presidential patter. Want to hear his rap? Tune into C-SPAN's ''Road to the White House" tomorrow at 6:30 p.m. to watch the governor gab in Columbia, S.C. Romney, who'll electrify the crowd at Lexington County's Bronze Elephant Dinner, has visited the Palmetto State three times in the past 12 months. . . . Blues pianist Marcia Ball's stature as New Orleans royalty was confirmed Wednesday night when singer Irma Thomas, the ''Soul Queen of New Orleans," showed up at Ball's second set at Scullers Jazz Club. Ball, a native of Vinton, La., was starting her second song, ''In the Night," when Thomas and husband Emile Jackson walked in. Thomas, fresh from performing at the Grammy Awards, headlines her own show across the river at Cambridge's Regattabar through tonight. But at Scullers she joined Ball for the title song of their 1998 Grammy-nominated album, ''Sing It!"Actor Donnie Wahlberg gave lessons on how to operate a Blackberry to Park Plaza Hotel and Towers marketing guy Greg Clark. Wahlberg, who was recently seen in ''Saw II" and ''Annapolis," stayed with his family in the hotel's presidential suite for the week. He dined at Bonfire on Thursday night.
Senator Ted Kennedy taped a segment for Chet Curtis's NECN show the other night. And since the appearance fell on Kennedy's 74th birthday, NECN president and founder Phil Balboni and NECN news director Charlie Kravetz joined Curtis in giving the senator a birthday cake.
Meredith Goldstein of the Globe staff and correspondent Clea Simon contributed. Names can be reached at names@globe.com or at 617-929-8253. 
