Andrew Jackson News

Lenny Bruce used to say that if you used a hurtful word often enough it would lose its meaning and its power to harm.  I think Broadway has reached that point with the F-word.  You know the F-word I'm talking about.  Flop.

Executive Producer Lou Spisto today announced The Old Globe's presentation of a developmental workshop of Allegiance - A New American Musical.

The Public Theater announced the first Public Forum of the 2011-2012 season, 'The 9/11 Decade: New York and America After the Towers.' Moderated by Alec Baldwin, the discussion will immediately follow the 7:30 p.m. performance of Richard Nelson's Sweet and Sad at The Public Theater on Thursday, September 8. Additional guests to be announced at a later date.

La Jolla Playhouse presents Peer Gynt, by Henrik Ibsen, adapted and directed by David Schweizer, running June 28 - July 24 (media night: Wednesday, July 6 at 7:30 pm) in the Sheila and Hughes Potiker Theatre. Tickets to Peer Gynt are available by calling the Box Office: (858) 550-1010 or online at LaJollaPlayhouse.org.

You might want to take note that Kathy Griffin will be making a guest appearance on Joan Rivers' Fashion Police on E! tonight (Friday, July 22), promising to be inappropriately funny and bitingly incisive while hanging out with Joan, George and either Kelly or Giuliana. Griffin reminded her audience at Tennessee Performing Arts Center's Andrew Jackson Hall of that last night as she engaged in her trademark repartee before an audience filled with her deliriously attentive fans.

Do you ever hear a line in a Broadway show or song that reminds you of ANOTHER Broadway show or song? With thousands upon thousands of Broadway cast albums, there are many themes, lyrics and song titles that are reminiscent of each other. More and more, I'm finding myself drawn to them. I find myself amazed and amused by the similarities, and that is how the twitter hashtag #BwaySongMashup came to be.

Shaina Taub plays a concert at Ars Nova on Thursday July 21st at 8 PM, featuring a ten-piece band of musicians and vocalists in an evening of all original music.

Don't tell the evangelical theater folks in Pigeon Forge, but Kathy Griffin's headed back to Tennessee and, this time, who knows whom she'll be telling to 'suck it'? Just a simple girl with a simple dream: the outspoken and outrageous comedy legend (surely, that will get me the exclusive and private interview I covet) brings her unique brand of comedy back to Nashville this summer for the first time since her last sold-out performance at the Tennessee Performing Arts Center.

Michael Reidel reports in the New York Post this morning that Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson star Benjamin Walker will be back in the New York theater loop when he leads a reading of Bus Stop next month as cowboy Bo Decker. Amanda Seyfried will co-star alongside Walker as Cherie. Shuler Hensley will also participate. Hollywood's Paula Wagner, who owns the rights to the project will produce. Scott Ellis directs. A revival of Bus Stop is reportedly bound for Broadway.

Shaina Taub plays a concert at Ars Nova on Thursday July 21st at 8 PM, featuring a ten-piece band of musicians and vocalists in an evening of all original music.

According to published reports, BLOODY BLOODY ANDREW JACKSON star, Benjamin Walker, and actress Mamie Gummer, daught of Meryl Streep, wed this past weekend in an intimate ceremomy at the home of Streep and husband Don Gummer.

Partial Comfort Premieres Chad Beckim's AFTER from September 7 - October 1 at The Wild Project

Cymbeline is back! Two sold-out weeks last January for Fiasco Theater's production of Cymbeline wasn't nearly long enough to satisfy the demands of a theatre-going public hungry for, as Ben Brantley of The New York Times wrote, 'the comedy, poignancy and unlikely magic of Cymbeline.'

With Griffin coming to Music City USA this week, you can be certain that Lisa Marie Wright will be asked to sign more autographs than normal, dodging the glare of television cameras and trying to elude the paparazzi. Luckily, she agreed to an interview with us from an undisclosed location where she whiles away her time eating bon-bons and reading movie magazines...either that, or she was at work, we forget...

Due to overwhelming demand, the producers of SILENCE! The Musical today put a new block of tickets on sale through August 27th.

The Open Fist Theatre Company presents their third FIRST LOOK FESTIVAL OF NEW PLAYS, with new works written by D. Tucker Smith, Shoshana Bean, Eydie Faye, Laura Richardson, Rebecca Sue Haber, Philip William Brock, Richard Manley, Jesse Bernstein, Jim Bontempo.

For the sixth consecutive year, The Public Theater (Artistic Director Oskar Eustis; Interim Executive Director Joey Parnes) will present Summer ShakeUp, a special workshop on Shakespeare for New York City students, presented for free as a part of The Public Theater's Shakespeare Initiative.