Ahmanson Theatre News

BroadwayWorld brings you the Best of Los Angeles in the year 2012. Check out the Top Theatre Stories from each month during in the year 2012. We look forward to another exciting year of theatre in 2013!

Voting is now underway for the Los Angeles Awards and continues until December 31, 2012. Winners will be announced in early January.

The choices I have made are based solely on the plays and performances that I actually saw. I cannot see all the great talent that is out there in LA; it is physically impossible, as there exist far too many theatre/cabaret performances for one person to cover. So if a choice of yours is not on my list, chances are, I did not see that play or performance...or, it just did not make the final cut. I also do not separate Equity from Equity waiver; I consider all the productions/performances I select to be of top-of-the-line quality/professionalism.

The Old Globe today announced the complete cast and creative team of its 100th anniversary production of the George Bernard Shaw classic Pygmalion. Starring Tony Award winner Robert Sean Leonard (The Invention of Love, Born Yesterday) as Professor Henry Higgins and Charlotte Parry (The Importance of Being Earnest, The Real Thing) as Eliza Doolittle, the production coincides with the 100th anniversary of Pygmalion's 1913 premiere in Vienna, Austria. Directed by Nicholas Martin (Butley, Present Laughter), Pygmalion will run on the Donald and Darlene Shiley Stage in the Old Globe Theatre, part of the Globe's Conrad Prebys Theatre Center, Jan. 12 - Feb. 17, 2013. Preview performances run Jan. 12 - Jan. 16. Opening night is Thursday, Jan. 17 at 8:00 p.m. Tickets can be purchased online at www.TheOldGlobe.org, by phone at (619) 23-GLOBE or by visiting the Box Office at 1363 Old Globe Way in Balboa Park.

Following the performance of The Second City's 'A Christmas Carol: Twist Your Dickens!' on Fridays December 21 and 28, Gino Santini, the lyrically challenged crooner played by Larry Joe Campbell, will be bursting through the fourth wall to host a post-show karaoke party.

Voting is now underway for the Los Angeles Awards and continues until December 31, 2012. Winners will be announced in early January. Check out the live standings below.

Enveloping the audience in a magnitude of musical splendors, the $3.1-million William J. Gillespie Concert Organ, played by world-renowned organist Todd Wilson, captures the beauty, range and colors of popular and traditional holiday music during Pacific Symphony's annual "Holiday Organ Spectacular."

The National Theatre's epic War Horse, winner of five 2011 Tony Awards including Best Play, will come to Chicago this December for a limited three-week engagement from tonight, Dec. 18, 2012 - Jan. 5, 2013 at the Cadillac Palace Theatre (151 W. Randolph St.).

Robert Egan directs the West Coast premiere of OTHER DESERT CITITES, which is currently running through January 6, 2013. Michael Weston joins Jon Robin Baitz, Jeannie Berlin, Robert Foxworth, Robin Weigert and JoBeth Williams. Check out highlights from the production below.

The Second City's "A Christmas Carol: Twist Your Dickens!" by Peter Gwinn and Bobby Mort, will play Center Theatre Group's Kirk Douglas Theatre, directed by Marc Warzecha in a World Premiere, now playing through December 30, 2012. BroadwayWorld has a first look below.

According to the show's official website, the new musical Kinky Boots, from four-time Tony Award-winner Harvey Fierstein (book), Grammy Award-winning rock icon Cyndi Lauper (Music & Lyrics), Tony Award-winner Jerry Mitchell (Director & Choreographer), will begin preview performances on Broadway at the Al Hirschfeld Theatre (302 West 45th Street) on March 3 instead of the previously announced March 5. Opening night remains set for Thursday, April 4, 2013.

A Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, a TV alien, a silver screen starship pilot, a Tony Award nominee, a Mini-Me and others join the collection of stars from the worlds of stage, screen, radio, politics, music, food, fitness, spirituality and interplanetary transport (both real and imagined) who had already signed on for special cameo performances in the world premiere of The Second City's "A Christmas Carol: Twist Your Dickens!" at Center Theatre Group's Kirk Douglas Theatre.

Voting is now underway for the Los Angeles Awards and continues until December 31, 2012. Winners will be announced in early January. Check out the live standings below.

The Los Angeles Company of the Off-Broadway smash hit Silence! The Musical at the Hayworth Theatre ends its run today, December 9, 2012.

In a bi-coastal celebration of the season, internationally acclaimed soprano Lisa Vroman is performing with 150 members of the National Children's Chorus (NCC) and a chamber orchestra in two evening concerts themed "Candlelight" - Thursday, November 29 in Los Angeles and tonight, December 8 in New York.

In this week's edition of 'Around BWW: Regional Highlights of the Week', we take you around the country - and beyond - with the most-read theater stories for the week of December 3! Scroll below to see what made news in your area!

Marc Acito's new play with music or monological, HOW I PAID FOR COLLEGE will premiere at THE HUB THEATRE this Friday, December 7, 2012. The production features Alex Brightman in a one man tour-de-force, and is directed by The Hub's Artistic Director, HELEN PAFUMI. Inspired by his own misspent youth, Acito describes the story as 'just true enough to be embarrassing to my family.' Published in 2004, Acito's novel How I Paid for College won the Ken Kesey Award for Fiction and was hailed as a New York Times 'Editors' Choice.' Get a first look at Brightman onstage in the photos below!