Chita Rivera News

Broadway Icon and nine time TONY Award winner, Tommy Tune, hosted The Actors Fund's 17th Annual Tony Awards Viewing Party at the Taglyan Cultural Complex on Sunday, June 9th, 2013. Produced and written by David Rambo and directed by Luke Yankee, the event featured the only approved live TONY Award feed direct from New York to California, allowing guests of the Actors Fund to view the awards before the rest of West Coast viewed the delayed broadcast.

This afternoon, I was given the opportunity to speak with Broadway veterans Angie Schworer and Sara Gettelfinger, stars of Reagle Music Theatre's upcoming production of CHICAGO, about their introduction to the world of acting, their experiences with the greats of Broadway, and their complete love and devotion to the theatre world.

Bay Area Cabaret concluded its 2012-2013 season by honoring the memory and legendary career of composer Marvin Hamlisch on June 2, 2013. Selections from his work (A Chorus Line, The Way We Were, They're Playing Our Song) were performed by special guests, including Broadway stars Lisa Vroman (The Phantom of the Opera, Sweeney Todd) and Karen Mason (Mamma Mia!, Sunset Boulevard), Grammy Award winner Billy Stritch, 2012 Bay Area Teen Idol winner Bobby Conte Thornton, Academy Award-winning songwriters Alan and Marilyn Bergman, and more. Scroll down for photos from the celebration!

The Bolshoi's production of Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet is, in the words of Rodgers and Hammerstein, 'A Puzzlement.' Big, sprawling, clashing swords, crying on the floor, it just fails to come to life.

Joanna Gleason won the Tony Award for her leading role of the Baker's Wife in Into The Woods, by Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine. She launches this season's Broadway @ The Art House season in Provincetown on June 28 and 29 with An Evening with Joanna Gleason. Each performance will combine the East Coast premiere of a the hilarious and moving one act play Bloom, written for her by Emmy and Golden Globe winning writer Michael Patrick King (creator of Sex and The City & Two Broke Girls) with a second act of songs featuring special guests Well-Strung, and hosted by pianist/host Seth Rudetsky. For tickets, please visit www.ptownarthouse.com or call 800-838-3006.

Trinity Repertory Company previously announced that three local Rhode Island residents would be receiving Pell Awards this year in addition to Kate Burton, the recipient of the 2013 Pell Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Arts. The 17th annual Pell Awards will be held tonight, June 10, 2013 at Trinity Rep with a reception to follow next door at the Providence Public Library.

Today we are concluding BroadwayWorld's 2013 Tony Awards Clip Countdown with a special spotlight focused on Broadway's favorite leading lady, who continues to provide inspiration for divas new and old nearly fifty years after her Broadway debut, the one and only Liza Minnelli.

The national tour of Roundabout Theatre Company's ANYTHING GOES, the new Broadway revival of Cole Porter's timeless classic musical theatre masterpiece, will make its Orange County premiere September 24 - 29 at Segerstrom Center for the Arts as part of the Curtain Call Series.

In a special addition to Lyric Theatre of Oklahoma's summer shows, theatre legend Tommy Tunewill perform for two nights only at the Plaza Theatre, July 18 and 19 at 8 p.m. In his show TAPS, TUNES AND TALL TALES, Broadway's tallest tapper dances, sings and tell-tales through 50 years of big time showmanship.

I hardly know where to begin with this review of the Bohemian Theatre Ensemble's gutsy, stripped-down and yet somehow epic production of “Kiss of the Spider Woman,” the musical by John Kander, Fred Ebb and Terrence McNally that is running at Theatre Wit through June 30, 2013. There, I guess I just began. I'm a jumble of thoughts and feeling right now. Come to think of it, so are the three principal characters.

Today in 1975, Chicago opened at the 46th Street Theatre (now the Richard Rogers Theatre), where it ran for 936 performances. Chicago is a musical set in Prohibition-era Chicago, with music is by John Kander with lyrics by Fred Ebb and a book by Ebb and Bob Fosse. The story is a satire on corruption in the administration of criminal justice and the concept of the 'celebrity criminal'. The original cast starred Chita Rivera as Velma Kelly, Gwen Verdon as Roxie Hart, Jerry Orbach as Billy Flynn and Barney Martin as Amos Hart.

Bay Area Cabaret will conclude its 2012-2013 season by honoring the memory and legendary career of composer Marvin Hamlisch. Selections from his work (A Chorus Line, The Way We Were, They're Playing Our Song) will be performed by special guests including Broadway stars Lisa Vroman (The Phantom of the Opera, Sweeney Todd) and Karen Mason (Mamma Mia!, Sunset Boulevard), Grammy Award winner Billy Stritch, 2012 Bay Area Teen Idol winner Bobby Conte Thornton, Academy Award-winning songwriters Alan and Marilyn Bergman, and other guest artists to be announced. Having performed with Bay Area Cabaret for the grand re-opening of the Venetian Room in 2010, Mr. Hamlisch will always hold a special place in Bay Area Cabaret's history. This tribute to his legacy will take place on the late composer's 69th birthday, tonight, June 2, 2013, at 8pm in the historic Venetian Room of the Fairmont San Francisco (950 Mason Street). Tickets ($75 - $100) are available at www.bayareacabaret.org or by phone at City Box Office (415) 392-4400.

Today we are continuing BroadwayWorld's 2013 Tony Awards Clip Countdown with a special spotlight focused on one of the biggest battles in Tony Awards history - 1976 and A CHORUS LINE versus CHICAGO.

Snap-Two Productions, Inc. and LimanAde Productions in association with Issembert Productions, Inc. will present a staged reading of the new drama with music, Signs of Life, at American University in the Katzen Arts Center Studio Theatre tonight, June 1 at 7:00 P.M. and June 2 at 1:00 P.M. The performances will feature American University alumni, current students and a student from BRAVO@KAT, the children's wing of Kensington Arts Theatre. This is the first academic production of Signs of Life.

MeLu Communications Group announces the release of 'American Mambo'... the exciting new CD by Lucio Fernandez a.k.a. 'The Cuban Kid'. A feel good production... from dance tracks, to boleros, to hard driving ballads... this is 'American Mambo'.

'Motown' is Jesse's 2nd Bway show this season after a five-year hiatus he spent focused on his Broadway Boys concert group.

BroadwayWorld's Richard Ridge was thrilled to sit down and speak with nearly all of this year's Tony Award nominees at the official Tonys Meet & Greet on May 1, 2013, and we will be bringing you special coverage on all of them throughout the awards season. Today we bring you Scott Ellis, a nominee for Best Direction of a Musical for The Mystery of Edwin Drood. Check out what he had to say below!