They say the course of true love never does run smooth, but it sounds like the road to Broadway doesn't, either. At least if you ask the beleaguered team behind our favorite star-crossed musical "Bombshell."

The latest piece of bad luck to befall this wannabe Broadway titan is the loss of its director, the legendary - or, if you prefer, notorious - Derek Wills, who is leaving the show and taking his directing skills, his choreography and his womanizing ways with him. Where, we don't know yet, but the show's loss is our gain, because this stuff is gossip gold.

Could the bad luck on "Bombshell" be having a ripple effect on other shows, too? Its star, Karen Cartwright, was supposed to headline a tiny show called "Hit List" at The Winter Fringe Festival, and her presence was enough to pique the interest of some of theater's leading lights. Who doesn't love an uptown girl making her way downtown? But then, the night of the first performance, the curtain came up on her ill-prepared replacement. So either our uptown girl didn't like her stint on the wrong side of the tracks, or there was a bit of a tug-of-war in which Broadway heavyweight and current "Bombshell" producer Jerry Rand had the distinct advantage. We're going with the latter.

By all accounts the result was a fiasco, even for The Fringe. But then, the next night, the (former) director of "Bombshell" was spotted in the audience - and its leading lady on stage. We hear that after that disastrous first night, the house was only half full - but that Cartwright was sensational. Is this Derek Wills' unerring eye for talent at work? And if a girl sings her heart out on stage, but there's only an audience of folding chairs and a few lost Fringe Festival patrons, does it matter?

Derek Wills could make it matter - and we're eager to see if he will...