Cole Porter News

All aboard for laughs when Cole Porter's Anything Goes sets sail at Music Circus July 26-31. With mistaken identities, long-lost loves, and a bevy of tap dancers aboard a luxury cruise liner, Anything Goes is a guaranteed good time.

The cast of Torchwood was on hand during a press panel at Comic Con 2011. The panel was held on July 23rd in San Diego, and at the event, stage veteran John Barrowman sang 'Happy Birthday' to a fan and ended the song with a big smooch. Click below to check it out!

You forget just how good the Golden Age of Musical Theatre is when you are saturated by contemporary shows in today's evolving theatre world. Tonight, however, The Production Company's revival of Cole Porter's Anything Goes reminds us of how the foundations of the modern musical were formed and just how strong these foundations were. Anything Goes is a show filled with moments. Moments of love, moments of hilarity, family and comradeship all of which crescendo towards the happy ever after that we are longing for. To get there however, takes great skill. Enter the cast. An all-star cast of Australian musical Theatre royalty is at hand to land each and every one of the desired moments. Todd Mckenny's over-enthusiastic Lord Evelyn Oakleigh is so completely embodied that an initial feeling of 'too much' is soon proven to be a whole heartedly secure character choice. Wayne Scott Kermond as Moonface Martin was dynamic, and full of tricks that had the audience craving more. Further, John O'May and Anne Wood as Elisha Whitney and Evageline Harcourt compliment the show with their experience and poise.

Pride Films and Plays is delighted to announce that 21 writers have been named semi-finalists in Women's Work. Nine plays and 12 screenplays with lesbian themes or characters have been selected as semi-finalists in the Sapphics on Stage and Sapphics on Screen categories.

Talented high school and college-age actors and musicians from across New Jersey will breathe new life into Cole Porter's Tony-award winning musical comedy Kiss Me, Kate this July, this summer's annual musical collaboration between the New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC) and the New Jersey Youth Theatre (NJYT).

BoHo Theatre presents Edwin Sanchez's Icarus, a poetic, character-focused tale about stripping away the artifice of the modern world to discover the beauty within.

Today we are talking to an international recording superstar who ushered in the new era of rock and roll with her songs and performance style in France in the early 1960s and created an unparalleled entertainment legacy reaching its apotheosis in 2010 with the release of her finest album to date, SOLEIL BLEU - the one and only celebrated chanteuse herself, Sylvie Vartan. Predominantly performing material from this stupendous recent album as well as from her vaunted back catalogue, Vartan will take the stage of Feinstein's At The Regency for two nights next week - Tuesday, July 26 and Wednesday, July 27, both at 8:30 PM. Be sure to take a listen to SOLEIL BLEU if you have not heard it and if you cannot manage to score a ticket to either of Sylvie's sold-out shows at Feinstein‘s, well... c'est la vie! In this career-spanning conversation we touch on working extensively with everyone from The Beatles to Carla Bruni to Charles Aznavour to what's next for her and much, much more! Playing to a gigantic arena for a three-week engagement sharing the stage with The Beatles themselves was Sylvie Vartan's entrée into the entertainment industry - and what an introduction! Bringing a sexy, swingin' style and hip dance moves to go along with her funky, rock n roll swagger and smoky vocals, Vartan virtually created the modern day pop/rock diva in the later mold of Stevie Nicks, Pat Benatar and many of the great lady rock icons we have known since. Through countless stage shows, concert spectaculars, albums, films, television appearances and magazine cover stories, Vartan has firmly established herself as one of the foremost women in the French entertainment realm. Case in point: the First Lady of France herself, Carla Bruni, even contributed songs to Sylvie's newest album, the career-defining SOLEIL BLEU. Tacking on all of these topics as well as many more - most importantly: what we can expect to hear from her at Feinstein's next week and the charity closest to her heart - Vartan and I shed some light on her impossibly accomplished and fascinating career - such as selling 40 million records, committing 1200+ songs to record and giving more than 2500 onstage performances in her five-decade-spanning career - and, we also take a look ahead to her very bright future.

The award-winning York Theatre Company (James Morgan, Producing Artistic Director) announces casting for Academy, the next offering in its acclaimed Developmental Reading Series. For more information on the Series, visit: www.yorktheatre.org.

Minnetonka Theatre is taking it to the high seas this July as they present the zany romantic adventure Anything Goes on the Arts Center on 7's Main Stage. This production marks the on-stage reunion of two Twin Cities musical theatre favorites-Jody Briskey as Reno Sweeney, the evangelist-turned-nightclub singer, and Tod Petersen as Sir Evelyn Oakleigh, the wealthy and soon-to-be wed Englishman.

Shakespeare & Company Artistic Director Tony Simotes proudly announces the benefit performance of Broadway in the Berkshires Monday, August 15th at 6:00pm, Founders' Theatre, 70 Kemble Street , Lenox , MA . Proceeds will go to Shakespeare & Company's internationally-acclaimed Education and Training Programs. Producer and Company member, Deborah Grausman (actor and founder of Berkshire Musical Theater Workshop) has assembled an all-star cast and first-rate creative team for this spectacular, not to be missed, one-night event. Broadway's Chip Zien (Into the Woods-the original Baker, Les Miserables, The Country Girl, People in The Picture, Falsettos, Grand Hotel, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, The Boys from Syracuse, etc.) will host. Director Sam Scalamoni (Disney's Beauty and the Beast, Lestat) and Music Director Paul Staroba (A Little Night Music, Next to Normal, Grey Gardens) will head up the creative team.

Ann Hampton Callaway, platinum-selling, award-winning singer/songwriter, will present her new show, 'Two for the Road' when she returns for her second summer engagement at Bob Egan's in New Hope, Friday, August 12 and Saturday August 13.

All aboard for laughs when Cole Porter's Anything Goes sets sail at Music Circus July 26-31. With mistaken identities, long-lost loves, and a bevy of tap dancers aboard a luxury cruise liner, Anything Goes is a guaranteed good time.

There are singers...and then there are great singers, the best singers...like soul, R&B legend Freda Payne. This lady is not only a sensational vocalist but on top of that, intelligent, warm and beautiful. Her 'Band of Gold' was a # 1 Bestseller and gold record back in 1970, but what many do not realize is that Freda Payne can scat and sing Ella...Fitzgerald, that is, Sarah Vaughn, Dinah Washington...and Lena Horne. Payne's a great pop vocalist, yes, but it is in these areas of jazz and the unforgettable standards of the Great American Songbook where she truly excels. In her hour, forty-five minute set at the Catalina Jazz Club on Sunday evening July 17, she payed a glowing tribute to Ella, Sarah and Lena, showing the way Freda is now, wisely leaving her own hit tunes as encores and memories of what she used to be.

On Saturday, July 16th, Colin Donnell and Laura Osnes performed 'It's De-lovely' on CBS' 'The Early Show' on channel 2 in New York. Colin Donnell also performed a special arrangement of 'I Get A Kick Out of You.' Click below to watch Donnell and Osnes' performance!

No need to travel to New York's central theatre district. The songs from Broadway's Tony Award-winning musicals are as close as Northwestern University's Evanston campus this summer.

Connecticut Repertory Theatre (CRT), concludes its 2011 Nutmeg Summer Series with My Fair Lady, closing July 17 in the Harriett S. Jorgensen Theatre (lower Jorgensen Auditorium) on the UConn Storrs campus.

ANYTHING GOES cast members Colin Donnell and Laura Osnes recently performed 'Delovely' on CBS's 'The Early Show.' Click here to watch their performance!