Alan Menken News

The digital release of the Original Broadway Cast Recording of Newsies has made debuted on the Billboard charts, landing at #1 on the Top Broadway Chart, #27 on the Top Digital Chart and #74 on the Billboard Top 200.

The Drama League has gathered together a team of Broadway's best to serve as Honorary Co-Chairs for the 78th Annual Drama League Awards set for Friday, May 18, 2012 at 12:00 p.m., at the Marriott Marquis Times Square (1535 Broadway). The team of Broadway luminaries includes Nina Arianda, Christian Borle, Norbert Leo Butz, Kathleen Chalfant, Raul Esparza, Rosemary Harris, Jeremy Jordan, Christine Lahti, Linda Lavin, Norm Lewis, Judith Light, Audra McDonald, Cynthia Nixon, Denis O'Hare and Blair Underwood. The Honorary Co-Chairs serve as ambassadors for The Drama League Awards and the excellence of the New York theatre season, and welcome the attendees of the Awards Luncheon at a cocktail reception before the event.

LOST Theatre and NM Productions presents An Evening of Alan Menken for three evenings only in May 2012. Following the success of its sell-out performance on the Battersea Barge, 'An Evening Of Alan Menken' now transfers to the Lost Theatre. This musical revue follows the career of American Award-winning composer Alan Menken and features songs from many of his well loved hit musicals and film scores such as 'Little Shop Of Horrors', 'Beauty and the Beast', 'Aladdin', 'The Little Mermaid', meet Deloris Van Cartier and the "Sisters of our Mother of perpetual faith" from 'Sister Act-The Musical' and many many more. Featuring a cast of 8 professional singers, a 4 piece band and tickets at just £10, this is set to be a fun, toe tapping evening out for everyone to enjoy.

4@15: Four New Fifteen-Minute Musicals, performed in conjunction with University of California, Irvine, will commence performances Friday, April 20, for three performances only at Roy Arias Theatre Center. Tammy Holder serves as Music Director; Brian Blythe directs.

Classic Stage Company, under the leadership of Artistic Director Brian Kulick and Executive Director Greg Reiner announced today that acclaimed/awarding winning actresses Judy Kuhn and Melissa Errico will star as Fosca and Clara in the company's new production of Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine's Tony Award-winning musical PASSION, to be directed by John Doyle (the Tony Award-winning revivals of Sondheim's Sweeney Todd and Company). PASSION is slated to begin performances in February, 2013. Additional casting will be announced in the coming weeks and months, as well as full creative team. PASSION opened on Broadway in May of 1994 and received the Tony Award that year for Best Musical.

For the first time, Disney's Beauty and the Beast, the award-winning worldwide smash hit Broadway musical, produced by NETworks Presentations, is coming to the State Theatre for 3 performances, Tuesday, May 1 - Thursday, May 3 at 7 PM.

Sting caught NEWSIES on Broadway this weekend with his wife, Trudie Styler, and the couple posed with the show's stars - Jeremy Jordan as Jack Kelly and Kara Lindsay as Katherine Plumber. Check out the photo below!

4@15: Four New Fifteen-Minute Musicals, performed in conjunction with University of California, Irvine, will commence performances Friday, April 20, for three performances only at Roy Arias Theatre Center. Tammy Holder serves as Music Director; Brian Blythe directs.

On March 27, Raven-Symone took over the leading role of Deloris Van Cartier in Broadway's SISTER ACT. She is stepping into the high-heeled boots of Tony and Olivier Award nominee Patina Miller, who gave her final performance on Sunday, March 18. SISTER ACT, which will celebrate its one-year Anniversary on Broadway on April 20, is playing at the Broadway Theater. BroadwayWorld brings you just-released production shots of Raven in action below!

Newsies, the new American musical, which is currently in performances at Broadway's Nederlander Theatre (208 W 41st St) was featured on ABC's 'Good Morning America' this morning, April 16. For the second installment in their series 'Cam's Cam-eo,' the 'Good Morning America' cameras were there as correspondent Cameron Mathison made a series of cameos in a recent performance of Newsies, after spending the day with the company learning how to be a newsie. Go behind the scenes of his appearance below!

Broadway In Chicago recently announced the complete 2012-2013 season, bringing old favorites, as well as new ones to Chicagoan theater-goers. The upcoming season will include I LOVE LUCY LIVE ON STAGE, KINKY BOOTS, SISTER ACT, DR. SEUSS' HOW THE GRINCH STOLE CHRISTMAS! THE MUSICAL, and WAR HORSE. In addition to the shows running during the official season, off-season specials include Stuffed And Unstrung, Rock Of Ages, Rain: A Tribute To The Beatles and Les Miserables. The complete season line-up, including performances dates and venues, is as follows:

The Drama League has announced Drama League nominee Megan Hilty (9 To 5, "Smash") and Justin Long (Seminar) will co-host the announcement of the The 2012 Drama League Nominees for Distinguished Production of a Play, Distinguished Production of a Musical, Distinguished Revival of a Play, Distinguished Revival of a Musical, and the much coveted Distinguished Performance Award on Tuesday, April 24, 2012 at 11:00 a.m. at Sardi's. As in years past, the nominations ceremony will be broadcast worldwide via live stream right here on BroadwayWorld!

California Musical Theatre announces the 2012-13 Broadway Sacramento season at Community Center Theater, featuring Tony Award-winning new Broadway musicals as well as heart-warming family favorites. Memphis, which won four 2010 Tony Awards and is still playing on Broadway, kicks off the season, followed by Peter Pan, starring Cathy Rigby, Rock of Ages, Disney's Beauty and the Beast, and multi-Tony Award winner Billy Elliot the Musical. The final show of the season is a Broadway Mega-Hit that can't be revealed until August due to contractual obligations. That show is a brand new production of one of the most beloved and popular Broadway musicals ever, and has been highly praised by critics and audiences alike throughout its wildly successful tour.

Newsies, the new American musical, which is currently in performances at Broadway's Nederlander Theatre (208 W 41st St) will be featured on ABC's "Good Morning America" Monday, April 16 in the 8:00am hour. For the second installment in their series "Cam's Cam-eo," the "Good Morning America" cameras were there as correspondent Cameron Mathison made a series of cameos in a recent performance of Newsies, after spending the day with the company learning how to be a newsie. "Good Morning America" airs nationally on ABC from 7:00 - 9:00a.m.

Newsies opened March 29th, at Broadway's Nederlander Theatre for a limited run following its critically-hailed stint at Paper Mill Playhouse last fall. The musical, featuring a score by Alan Menken and Jack Feldman and a book by Harvey Fierstein, played its first Broadway preview on March 15th; the final performance is scheduled for August 19th. Newsies, produced by Disney Theatrical Productions, is directed by Jeff Calhoun and choreographed by Christopher Gattelli. eremy Jordan (Jack) recently chatted with 'Good Morning America' about the new show, and you can check out the full interview here!

Performances for LEAP OF FAITH began on Tuesday, April 3, at The St. James Theatre. Four-time Tony nominee Raúl Esparza leads the company along with Jessica Phillips, Kendra Kassebaum, Kecia Lewis-Evans, Leslie Odom, Jr., Krystal Joy Brown and Talon Ackerman. Opening night is Thursday, April 26. Production photos have just been released and BroadwayWorld brings you a look at the onstage action below!

Legendary Broadway composer Stephen Schwartz will participate in an exclusive post-post-show audience talkback immediately following the Thursday, April 24 performance of the new hit revival of GODSPELL at Circle in the Square Theatre (1633 Broadway at 50th Street).

Jessica Phillips, star of Broadway's Leap of Faith, sat down with ABC News 10's What's the Buzz to talk about the show. Watch the video below!

Watch the cast of Disney's NEWSIES perform 'King of New York' on Broadway here on BroadwayWorld.com! The video features an enormous amount of tap dancing and singing.

The answer to the question we have been waiting eight weeks to be answered finally arrived last night on GLEE: Quinn is still standing - well, more or less. And, she's singing, too! Duetting on Elton John's ear-worm 80s up-tempo classic with similarly wheelchair bound Artie (Kevin McHale), Quinn (Dianna Agron) acted as last night's GLEE's moral figurehead of the hour, while guest star Matt Bomer provided some serious skills in the dramatic and musical fronts in the form of two tremendous duets with brother Blaine (Darren Criss). Besides Blaine's big brother and Quinn's quick recovery from her potentially fatal crash on the mid-season finale back in February, GLEE's "Big Brother" return showed GLEE back in fine form and remaining as outrageous, outlandish, hilarious, spontaneously brilliant and always invigorating as always and how we have come to expect it to be over the course of the uneven three seasons of the series so far. The winning streak continues, and the uniformly strong Season Three barrels on and cements its place as the show's strongest season overall so far. If this episode didn't have enough implicit excitement in evidence already, Bomer and Criss covered one of the biggest songs of 2012 by taking on Australian rising star Gotye's hypnotic pop anthem "Somebody That I Used To Know" in dual-bro mode - instantly becoming an of-the-moment GLEE cultural meta-musical mini-masterpiece to stand proudly with Lea Michele and Jonathan Groff's reinvention of Adele's "Rolling In The Deep" and Michele and Menzel's reworking of Lady Gaga's "Poker Face" from previous seasons. GLEE tells stories in a wholly unique way, and, in moments like this, we are reminded why it will remain appointment TV for fans of musical storytelling as long as it remains as relevant, pertinent and surprisingly profound as it often is - more often than not, as we have seen throughout this season. While hot button, water cooler entertainment of the freshest and hottest manner it may not always be anymore, GLEE is a well-oiled machine that fans can rely on to deliver what they want - and, given the proposed revolutionary Season Four concept devised by series mastermind Ryan Murphy, GLEE may reclaim its place as the most must-see show on TV once again. As it is, roughly sixty episodes in, it remains consistently surprising and uniformly entertaining, anyway - perhaps not even halfway through what we can predict its eventual total episode tally may be. But, before Season Four in September, let's discuss the first of the back 8 episodes of GLEE Season Three.