Web posted on: Thursday, July 01, 1999 3:53:29 PM EDT

• MTV tries to help 'Real World' Ruthie
• Material Girl sues accountants
• Curtains for 'Miss Saigon' in London
• Woodstock '99 stages new blood

NEW YORK (CNN) -- In a shift in policy, MTV is intervening in the life of a cast member of "Real World." Show producers decided to send Ruthie, a 21-year-old Hawaiian, to a 30-day rehab program for alcohol abuse after a series of incidents.

Each season, the show puts several strangers in a house together and films their lives. Usually producers let nature run its course, but this time was different.

"It was like watching a train wreck," said Mary-Ellis Bunim, executive producer and co-creator of the show, "and we couldn't let that happen."

During the episodes in Honolulu, Ruthie gets alcohol poisoning at one point, and apparently drives drunk at another.

After the driving incident, which has not yet aired, "Real World" supervising producer Matt Kunitz tells Ruthie on camera that she needs to get help or risk being fired. Ruthie gets counseling but keeps drinking, and it's her six other housemates who later confront her, Bunim says. That confrontation culminates in a fight.

Ruthie does complete a rehab program paid for by MTV. But Bunim, wanting to keep the suspense, won't say whether it was successful.

Madonna

NEW YORK (CNN) -- Madonna is suing her former financial advisers after the state took a $2 million chunk of her assets.

Madonna has filed a $2.5 million lawsuit against Padell, Nadell, Fine, Weinberger & Co. on Tuesday. The complaint accuses the firm of malpractice and breach of contract.

Burt Padell, the firm's senior partner, says the lawsuit has to do with Madonna having to pay $2 million in New York state income taxes after he prepared a 1992 tax filing claiming she was a California resident.

He says because she'd lived in New York for more than 183 days, that made her subject to New York income taxes. Madonna paid the taxes. She fired Padell in 1996, but he says he has no hard feelings for her.

LONDON (CNN) -- "Miss Saigon" is wrapping up a 10-year run in London. The last performance is scheduled for October 30. Producer Cameron Mackintosh says recent audiences have fallen to about 60 percent.

"We were starting to see its time in London was coming to a natural end," he says.

Since its debut at the Drury Lane in London -- a theater in which a younger Mackintosh himself once worked on a production of "Oliver!" -- the opulent, sung-through "Miss Saigon" has made an estimated $35 million in profits.

That makes it the third most profitable musical in British theater history. "Cats" and "Les Miserables" -- also staged in part or fully under Mackintosh's producing aegis -- are the first and second.

"Miss Saigon" is still running on Broadway. The New York production is to have its own 10th anniversary in New York in 2001.

Set at the end of the Vietnam War and after the fall of Saigon, the show tells the story of a tragic affair between a Vietnamese girl and an American soldier. The production about to close in London has been, in part, notable for Mackintosh's per-ticket contributions to the bui doi, or young people who were born wartime children of U.S. servicemen and Vietnamese women.

ROME, New York (CNN) -- The Insane Clown Posse is one of five new acts now scheduled to perform at Woodstock '99.

Promoters also are booking in Buckcherry, Oleander, Moby and The Umbilical Brothers -- creators of off-Broadway's "Thwak," which combines comedy and mime with audio effects.

Among the better-known acts tapped to perform: Alanis Morrisette, the Dave Matthews Band and Sheryl Crow.

Woodstock '99 is scheduled for July 23-25 at the old Griffiss Air Force Base in Rome, New York. Organizers say they expect as many as 250,000 people to attend.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.