Review Roundups - Page 95

Former 'Saturday Night Live' and Comedy Central star Colin Quinn moves his one-man show Colin Quinn Long Story Short, directed by Jerry Seinfeld, to Broadway's Helen Hayes Theatre for an 11-week limited engagement. Preview performances began on Friday, October 22nd and will officially open on Tuesday, November 9th. The production will play through Saturday, January 8th. Colin Quinn Long Story Short proves that throughout human history, the joke has always been on us.??The New York Post says of this summer's critically acclaimed Bleecker Street Theatre production that it's 'historical and hysterical. While he dutifully traces his saga from the caveman era to the present, Quinn happens to be very, very funny. Clearly benefited from Seinfeld's influence, with tight pacing and a procession of hilarious one-liners,' while NY1 says, 'The humor is infused with plenty of witty insights...even wisdom.

Composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim's new book 'Finishing the Hat: Collected Lyrics (1954-1981) with Attendant Comments, Principles, Heresies, Grudges, Whines and Anecdotes' was released today, October 26, 2010. The book debuted at #11 on the New York Times Book Review Bestseller list this week.

Based on Pedro Almodóvar's internationally acclaimed 1988 film, WOMEN ON THE VERGE OF A NERVOUS BREAKDOWN is set in late 20th-century Madrid and tells the story of the intertwining lives of a group of women whose relationships with men lead to a tumultuous 48 hours of love, confusion and passion and now it's come to Broadway!

THE SCOTTSBORO BOYS, the exhilarating new Kander & Ebb musical, opens Sunday, October 31 at the Lyceum Theatre (149 West 45th Street). THE SCOTTSBORO BOYS is the final collaboration by musical theatre giants John Kander and Fred Ebb (Chicago, Cabaret). Based on the notorious 'Scottsboro' case in the 1930s (in which nine African-American men were unjustly accused of a terrible crime) this musical explores a fascinating chapter in American history. This production is directed and choreographed by five-time Tony Award winner Susan Stroman (The Producers) and features a book by David Thompson (who adapted the script for Chicago's record-breaking revival).

Signature Theatre Company presents the first New York revival of Tony Kushner's ANGELS IN AMERICA: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes, directed by Michael Greif. ANGELS IN AMERICA opens Thursday, October 28 at the Peter Norton Space (555 West 42nd Street). The play began previews on September 14. Millennium Approaches and Perestroika, the two parts of ANGELS IN AMERICA, alternate in repertory.

Priscilla Queen of the Desert began previews on October 12th in Toronto, and officially opened in Toronto last night on the 26th. BWW has been on hand to bring you photos, videos and interviews with the cast and crew as they prepare to launch the North American Premiere of this world-wide smash (with lots more coverage to come!)

RAIN performs the full range of The Beatles' discography live onstage, including the most complex and challenging songs that The Beatles themselves recorded in the studio but never performed for an audience. From the early days of their appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1964 through Sgt. Pepper and on to the Abbey Road years, RAIN performs it all. The multi-media concert recaptures the era through all phases of The Beatles astounding musical career including Shea Stadium, the psychedelic late 60s and the long-haired hippie, hard-rocking rooftop days. A fusion of historical footage and hilarious television commercials lights up video screens and live cameras zoom in for close-ups.

It's an opportunity to see acting legends James Earl Jones and Vanessa Redgrave together on stage when they star in one of the most beloved and celebrated American stories of the late twentieth century, Driving Miss Daisy, which will have its Broadway premiere this fall. Alfred Uhry's Pulitzer Prize-winning play (later adapted into an Oscar-winning film) is a timeless, searing, funny, and ultimately hopeful meditation on race relations in America, told through the complex relationship between Daisy Werthan (Redgrave) and her driver Hoke Colburn (Jones), two of popular culture's most enduring characters.

LOMBARDI, a new American play from Academy Award-winning playwright Eric Simonson, is based on the best-selling Vince Lombardi biography 'When Pride Still Mattered', by Pulitzer Prize-winning author David Maraniss. LOMBARDI, starring Dan Lauria as the legendary Hall of Fame football coach Vince Lombardi and Judith Light as his wife Marie, opened Thursday October 21 at the Circle in the Square Theatre, (50th, west of Broadway).

Sex and the City's Kim Cattrall, has returned to the stage to star in Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra at Liverpool Playhouse. The production, which is directed by Janet Suzman, includes Jeffery Kissoon as Antony along with RSC's Ian Hogg and Martin Hutson. Additional cast memebers include: Ross Armstrong, Alex Blake, Rory Fleck-Byrne, Gracy Goldman, Martin Herdman, Oliver Hoare, Muzz Khan, Aicha Kossoko, Simon Manyonda, Offue Okegbe, Robert Orme, Bhasker Patel, Ken Shorter and Mark Sutherland.

Flashdance The Musical, based on the Paramount Pictures film (screenplay by Tom Hedley and Joe Eszterhas, story by Tom Hedley), is produced in the West End by Christopher Malcolm, David Ian, The Baruch Viertel Routh Frankel Group, and Transamerica.

American playwright David Hirson's rollicking 1991 play, LA BÊTE, is a comic tour de force about Elomire (David Hyde Pierce), a high-minded classical dramatist who loves only the theater, and Valere (Mark Rylance), a low-brow street clown who loves only himself. When the fickle princess (Joanna Lumley) decides she's grown weary of Elomire's royal theatre troupe, he and Valere are left fighting for survival as art squares off with ego in a literary showdown for the ages.

In BLOODY BLOODY ANDREW JACKSON, rising star BENJAMIN WALKER reprises his role as America's first political maverick. A.J. kicked British butt, shafted the Indians and smacked down the Spaniards all in the name of these United States-who cares if he didn't have permission? An exhilarating and white-knuckled look at one of our nation's founding rock stars, BLOODY BLOODY ANDREW JACKSON recreates and reinvents the life of 'Old Hickory,' from his humble beginnings on the Tennessee frontier to his days as our seventh Commander-in-Chief. It also asks the question, is wanting to have a beer with someone reason enough to elect him? What if he's really, really hot?

Hamlet, recently opened at the National Theatre's Olivier Theatre, featuring Rory Kinnear, Clare Higgins. The production is currently selling tickets through January 9.

Today's Broadway Blogs on BroadwayWorld.com from Friday, October 8, 2010.

'Leap of Faith' opened at the Center Theatre Group/Ahmanson Theatre at the Los Angeles Music Center on October 3. Four-time Tony Award-nominee Raúl Esparza and Golden Globe Award-nominee Brooke Shieldsstar in the world premiere of 'Leap of Faith,' which pairs Reverend Jonas Nightingale (Esparza), the consummate flim-flam man, and Marva (Shields), the beautiful small-town woman and single mother who challenges everything Jonas believes in.

Today's Broadway Blogs on BroadwayWorld.com from Friday, October 1, 2010.

Today's Broadway Blogs on BroadwayWorld.com from Wednesday, September 29, 2010.

Cameron Mackintosh's current touring production of Les Miserables will run at London's Barbican Theatre, it's English-language birthplace in 1985, for 22 performances through October 2, 2010. A Queens Theatre staple for nearly 22 years in the West End, this new run will mark the first time in London that the same musical has run simultaneously.

In celebration of Sondheim's eightieth birthday, the Open Air Theatre season closes with INTO THE WOODS, co-directed by Timothy Sheader and Liam Steel. Perfectly placed within the Open Air Theatre amphitheatre, the musical gives the stories of The Brothers Grimm a dark and humorous twist. The production officially opened and the reviews are in! BroadwayWorld brings you a sampling below.