Ben Brantley News

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.

Ben Curtis stars in the upcoming production of 'Take Me Out' by Richard Greenberg and directed by Robert OHara at Tisch Drama Stageworks 2010 - 2011

The talented cast and crew of Disney's THE LION KING and BILLY ELLIOT THE MUSICAL join together to present CITY OF HOPE: CHICAGO CARES - a concert featuring song, dance, and spoken word.

The Tony Award-winning AVENUE Q celebrated its first anniversary at New World Stages yesterday, October 21, 2010. After a triumphant, six-year run on Broadway, AVENUE Q continued its record of unexpected accomplishments last fall when the show's producers made the surprise announcement on the musical's Broadway closing night that they were, in fact, moving AVENUE Q to New World Stages, a mere five blocks away from the Golden Theatre, where the show had delighted audiences of all ages for more than 2,500 performances on Broadway. AVENUE Q began preview performances at New World Stages on October 9, 2009, officially opened on October 21, and continues to play to large and happy audiences one year later. BroadwayWorld was on hand for the anniversary celebration and brings you photo coverage below.

The talented cast and crew of Disney's THE LION KING and BILLY ELLIOT THE MUSICAL join together to present CITY OF HOPE: CHICAGO CARES - a concert featuring song, dance, and spoken word.

The Tony Award-winning AVENUE Q will celebrate its first anniversary at New World Stages (340 W. 50 St.) in Manhattan on October 21, 2010.

Alice Ripley, who received the 2009 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical for her performance in the Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning Next to Normal, will reprise her acclaimed performance in the musical's 36-week multi-city North American tour, launching November 23 with a six-week engagement at the Center Theatre Group/Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles. Following the premiere, the tour has confirmed engagements in Denver, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, Des Moines, Providence, Hartford, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, Chicago, St. Paul, Cleveland, Philadelphia, Charlotte, Washington, DC, and Toronto.

The Tony Award-winning AVENUE Q will celebrate its first anniversary at New World Stages (340 W. 50 St.) in Manhattan on October 21, 2010. After a triumphant, six-year run on Broadway, AVENUE Q continued its record of unexpected accomplishments last fall when the show's producers made the surprise announcement on the musical's Broadway closing night that they were, in fact, moving AVENUE Q to New World Stages, a mere five blocks away from the Golden Theatre, where the show had delighted audiences of all ages for more than 2,500 performances on Broadway. AVENUE Q began preview performances at New World Stages on October 9, 2009, officially opened on October 21, and continues to play to large and happy audiences one year later.

The Tony Award-winning AVENUE Q will celebrate its first anniversary at New World Stages (340 W. 50 St.) in Manhattan on October 21, 2010.

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.

Billy Elliot The Musical has officially taken over Durham, NC. The lobbies on all three floors of the Durham Performing Arts Center are littered with electric cables, costumes, props and even a specially installed dance floor for rehearsals. The President's Club has been transformed into a school room for the 21 children appearing in the musical who, when they aren't rehearsing, are being instructed by three tutors. The magnificent theatre itself is strewn with papers, lighting gels, and electric and sound equipment. There is a palpable sense of creation in the air as Billy Elliot prepares to open in Durham at the end of the month.

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?

Italy's Dario D'Ambrosi, a radical innovator of the theater and founder of the movement called Teatro Patologico (Pathological Theater), will direct his newest play, 'Bong Bong Bong against the Walls, Ting Ting Ting in our Heads,' as the opening production of 'La MaMa Puppet Series IV--Built to Perform.'

Alfred Hitchcock's THE 39 STEPS , Off-Broadway's smash-hit comedy thriller based on the beloved Hitchcock film, is proud to be a sponsor of the 2010 Avon Walk for Breast Cancer New York.

IN THE HEIGHTS, winner of four 2008 Tony Awards® and the 2008 Grammy® Award for Best Musical Show Album, is coming to the Sacramento Community Center Theater, 1301 L Street, from November 3-14, 2010. Tickets are now on sale for the Broadway Sacramento presentation. Advance tickets are available through the Wells Fargo Pavilion Box Office, 1419 H Street, the Community Center Theater box office, 1301 L Street, by phone at (916) 557-1999 or (916) 808-5181 or online through Tickets.com.

IN THE HEIGHTS, winner of four 2008 Tony Awards® and the 2008 Grammy® Award for Best Musical Show Album, is coming to the Belk Theater in Charlotte, NC from Feb. 15-20. Tickets go on-sale today.

Rehearsals are now underway for the Playwrights Horizons (Tim Sanford, Artistic Director; Leslie Marcus, Managing Director) New York premiere of Edward Albee's ME, MYSELF & I, a new play by the three-time Pulitzer Prize and three-time Tony Award winner (A Delicate Balance; Seascape; Three Tall Women; Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?; The Goat or, Who Is Sylvia?). The production opens the theater company's 40th Anniversary Season, in which Mr. Albee will be making his Playwrights Horizons debut. The play is Mr. Albee's 30th.

The talented cast and crew of Disney's THE LION KING and BILLY ELLIOT THE MUSICAL join together to present CITY OF HOPE: CHICAGO CARES - a concert featuring song, dance, and spoken word. Celebrating the inspiration, awareness, change and new horizons that live performance can achieve, this very special one-time event will be held on Monday, October 25 at 7:00PM at The Royal George Theatre 1641 N. Halsted Street Chicago, IL. Tickets are currently on sale for $40 General Admission and $75 for VIP Seating and a post show reception sponsored by Grey Goose Vodka and Sweet Miss Giving's Bakery with members of the casts of CITY OF HOPE, BILLY ELLIOT and THE LION KING.

Following a London West End run in December 2007, a sold-out limited engagement at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in March 2008, and a subsequent eight-week run on Broadway, director Rupert Goold's gripping stage production of Macbeth was filmed for television at the end of 2009.

If you've ever wondered what the Enron scandal was all about, now's your chance to have an entertaining history lesson at the Zeitgeist Stage Company. Hold onto your wallet!