Ben Vereen News

The South Orange Performing Arts Center (SOPAC) today announced key attendance statistics for its sixth season. SOPAC's 2011-2012 Season featured 65 performances which drew a cumulative total of 17,305 attendees (an increase of about 23.65 percent) including six total sellout shows.

Just moments before the curtain went up on the 80th Anniversary performance of BCP's THE MUSIC MAN, director Larry Landsman hopped on stage to share a heartfelt, congratulatory note he had just received from BCP alum and CHAPLIN star Rob McClure. It is clear from his sentiments that the Broadway actor has not forgotten his roots

Kean Stage's 2012-2013 performing arts season announces a lineup of performances in six different venues all across its campus.

Vy Higginsen's Mama Foundation for the Arts presents two musical matinees, Mama I Want To Sing: The Next Generation and Sing, Harlem, Sing!, every Saturday afternoon (performances resume on Saturday, October 6th, 2012) at The Dempsey Theater, located at 127 West 127th Street, between Lenox and 7th Avenues. Tickets for both musicals are priced from $20 - $35, and are available via SmartTix.com (212-868-4444) or by calling the Mama Foundation for the Arts at 212-280-1045.

Signature Theatre will be hosting a special one-night performance and book-signing featuring Broadway star and Helen Hayes Award winner Ed Dixon (Signature's Sunset Boulevard). Tonight, August 27 at 8:00PM, Mr. Dixon will be performing original compositions as well narrate behind-the-scenes stories from his recent memoir Secrets of A Life On Stage…And Off. Copies of the book will be available to purchase, and a book-signing will take place following the performance, which will take place in Signature's intimate ARK Theatre.

The newlywed is playing a high schooler in his 4th Bway show, which arrived in NYC for a limited engagement after a national tour.

The Ensemble Theatre celebrates its 36th uninterrupted season as Houston's premier African American performing arts institution with a gala themed: An Evening Full of Bright Lights and Electrifying Entertainment, tonight, August 25, 2012, 6:30PM at the Hilton Americas-Houston. Ben Vereen will receive The Ensemble Theatre's Lifetime Achievement Award.

Broadway's new musical CHAPLIN begins previews tomorrow at 8pm and opens September 10 at the Barrymore Theatre (243 West 47th Street). Meet the cast below!

The Smith Center for the Performing Arts regrets to announce that Anita Baker's previously scheduled performance as part of the Fall 2012 season in Reynolds Hall on November 29, 2012 has been cancelled.

Civic leaders and a star-studded cast will perform a one-night- only reading of "8, The Play," with Public Theatre of Southern California, with license from the American Foundation for Equal Rights (AFER) and Broadway Impact. "8, The Play," chronicles the historic trial in the federal constitutional challenge to California's Proposition 8, written by Academy Award-winning screenwriter and AFER Founding Board Member Dustin Lance Black. The performance will take place at 8 p.m. on Friday, September 21st at The Ernest Borgnine Theater, located at 855 Elm Avenue in downtown Long Beach.

Award-winning producers Michael & Barbara Ross will present Tony Award-winning actress Tonya Pinkins in Larry Parr's ETHEL WATERS: HIS EYE IS ON THE SPARROW at Luna Stage in West Orange, New Jersey, for a limited run, tonight, August 16 - September 2, 2012. The production will be directed by award-winning director Dennis Courtney, with musical direction by Barry Levitt.

FEINSTEIN'S AT LOEWS REGENCY, the nightclub proclaimed "Best of New York" by New York Magazine and "an invaluable New York institution" by The New York Post will present a special concert engagement of television and film star TAMARA TUNIE as part of the Fall 2012 Season.

Michele Riggi, President of the National Museum of Dance and Hall of Fame announced that Broadway legend, dancer, singer and actor Ben Vereen will be honored today, August 11th with an induction ceremony and gala launching him into the National Museum of Dance's Hall of Fame.

At BroadwayWorld we pride ourselves in showcasing theater content from all corners of the globe. Our regional contributors do an amazing job each day of bringing you the latest theater news in their cities and countries and to acknowledge this, we are launching a new weekly column called 'Around BWW: Regional Highlights of the Week'. Read on for this week's edition of BWW's regional highlights!

Musicals galore fill the schedule of the annual Summer Festival of Shows, August 10-19th, at the Centenary Stage Company Young Performers Workshop (YPW), with a cast of talented young thespians from Morris, Warren, Hunterdon and Sussex counties. The festival will feature the musicals "Over The Moon" by fiction writer Jodi Picoult, Jake Van Leer, and Ellen Wilber; Bob Fosse's "Pippin", Neil Simon's "They're Playing our Song" (with music by the late Marvin Hamlish), "The Roundabout Inn", and The One Act Playhouse. Performances will be held in Little Theatre on the campus of Centenary College at 400 Jefferson Street, Hackettstown, NJ. The YPW is led and directed by Broadway, film and television veteran, Michael Blevins.

Musicals galore fill the schedule of the annual Summer Festival of Shows August 10-19th at the Centenary Young Performers Workshop with a cast of talented young thespians from Morris, Warren, Hunterdon and Sussex counties.

Signature Theatre will be hosting a special one-night performance and book-signing featuring Broadway star and Helen Hayes Award winner Ed Dixon (Signature's Sunset Boulevard). On Monday, August 27 at 8:00PM, Mr. Dixon will be performing original compositions as well narrate behind-the-scenes stories from his recent memoir Secrets of A Life On Stage…And Off. Copies of the book will be available to purchase, and a book-signing will take place following the performance, which will take place in Signature's intimate ARK Theatre.

The Ensemble Theatre celebrates its 36th uninterrupted season as Houston's premier African American performing arts institution with a gala themed: An Evening Full of Bright Lights and Electrifying Entertainment, Saturday, August 25, 2012, 6:30PM at the Hilton Americas-Houston. Ben Vereen will receive The Ensemble Theatre's Lifetime Achievement Award.