Friars Club News

NextStop Theatre Company has announced their brand new outdoor concert series called a?oeThe Parking Lot Concerts,a?? being performed on Saturday evenings at 7:30pm from September 26th to October 31st.

Award winning singer Marieann Meringolo presents a Facebook Live concert this Friday.

Eisemann Center will present comedian Tom Cotter at the Eisemann Center, 2351 Performance Drive in Richardson, Texas on Friday, March 13 at 7:30 pm in the Bank of America Theatre. Comedian Tom Cotter has taken the comedy scene by storm since finishing as runner-up and becoming the Breakout Star from Season 7's 'America's Got Talent.' He lost to a dog act, but don't hold that against him; Tom was the first comedian ever to be a finalist on the show and was the highest finishing human being on the show that year.

Talented women over 40 will show their stuff in the upcoming trial round of a?oeTomatoes Got Talenta?? on Saturday March 7, twelve of whom will move on to the exciting finals at The Triad Theatre, 158 West 72nd Street, on Monday April 6 at 7pm. Co-produced by Cheryl Benton and Randie Levine-Miller, who hosts the high-spirited juried contest, this year's a?oeTomatoes Got Talenta?? will feature a blue-ribbon jury consisting of theatre luminaries Tony winner Donna McKechnie, Tony nominee Lee Roy Reams and the Emmy-winning NY1 anchor and theater critic Roma Torre. The show's music director is Paul Chamlin.

Ring in the New Year with a stand up special! This night of comedy will feature three headliners: Sandy Ehlers, John McClellan, and Chip Ambrogio. Black Box PAC and J. Irwin Productions, the team that brought Gilbert Gottfried and Uncle Floyd stand up specials to Bergen County, are excited to present this fun and comedic New Years Eve night! This event will kick off a series of high level comedy acts at Black Box PAC in 2020, brought to you through their partnership with J. Irwin Productions.

Some Radio and TV Stations may be refusing to play Frank Loesser's Academy Award-winning song, but Deana Martin and Steven Maglio sang it last night at the Friars Club to a jam packed room of gloriously festive and politically incorrect Friars. They joined the ranks of celebrities who have recorded the tune such as, Idina Menzel & Michael Buble', Esther Williams & Ricardo Montalban, Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Jordan, Margret Whiting & Johnny Mercer and the composer Frank Lesser and his wife Lynn Garland.

The hits of Gary U.S. Bonds were and still remain an irresistible invitation to an instant party!. On Monday night the Legendary Friars Club's dining room turned into a huge party. Among the party goers were  Rock N Roll royalty Steven Van Zandt and his beautiful wife Maureen.  On stage Gary was accompanied by guitarist Mark Leimbach and on vocals, “Big Mama” Laurie Anderson and daughter Laurie Anderson Tobias.  Through out the evening his biographer Stephen Cooper guided  Gary down memory lane.

Twenty years after her sharp, seminal first book Sex and the City reshaped the landscape of pop culture and dating with its fly on the wall look at the mating rituals of the Manhattan elite, the trailblazing Candace Bushnell delivers a new book on the wilds and lows of sex and dating after fifty. 

Last night, celebrities, sports icons, family, and friends gathered at the Mariano Rivera Foundation Gala to benefit The New Learning Center For Children in New Rochelle, NY.

The Board of Governors of the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences New York Chapter announced this week the induction of eleven individuals into its Gold and Silver Circles, including two women theater journalists: Susan Haskins-Doloff, executive producer, co-creator, and co-host of the long-running television series 'Theater Talk' and Roma Torre, theater critic and news anchor of Spectrum News NY1. Both have been awarded entry into the organization's Silver Circle in recognition of 25 years of distinguished contribution to New York television.

The Friars Club remembered a dark time in American history yesterday afternoon with a panel discussion led by Christine Pedi exploring the Hollywood Blacklist and McCarthyism in America.

If these (Friar) walls could talk you would hear music and conversation from show biz legends of the past. Irving Berlin was a Friar who together with Friar George M. Cohan wrote many musical reviews called Friars Frolics to entertain their fellow Friars. Last night the Friars Club presented “An Evening With Irving Berlin” to celebrate the publication of Irving Berlin: New York Genius by bestselling author and Award Winner James Kaplan.

Mallory Portnoy (who plays Gertie Cummings in Daniel Fish's Tony Award © winning revival of Rodgers & Hammerstein's Oklahoma! at Circle in the Square) and actor-playwright Matthew-Lee Erlbach (Steppenwolf's The Doppelgänger, starring Rainn Wilson and directed by Tina Landau), have created Human Interest, a character-based dry comedy moc doc series inspired by real people, which lovingly turns the camera on the eccentric outliers of New York City and explores, loneliness, community, and our relationship to technology.  Written and directed by Erlbach, the short-form series introduces us to everyone from competitive whistlers and professional cuddlers to neo-luddites and sex robot romantics. The series, which recently won Best Digital ShortSeries at Series Fest, includes actors Michael Cyril Creighton (The Amateurs, High Maintenance, Spotlight), Max Jenkins (The Mysteries of Laura, High Maintenance, Dead to Me), Ryan Spahn (Gloria, Moscow Moscow Moscow…, He's Way More Famous Than You) and Deb Lapidus. It is produced by Erlbach, Portnoy, Anne Troup, Hannes Otto and Gabriel Long.

Some of Broadway's leading women producers lunched at the Friars Club today followed by a panel discussion moderated by Friar and Broadway producer Jamie deRoy.  Ms. deRoy who happens to be the 8th woman inducted into the Friars (back in the day), guided the discussion of the distinguished Tony Award Winning group which included Susan Gallin (Other People's Money, Angels in America), Robyn Goodman (Avenue Q, Rodgers & Hammerstein's Cinderella), Mara Isaacs (Hadestown, McCarter Theater), Nelle Nugent (Latin History for Morons, For Colored Girls), and Daryl Roth (Kinky Boots, Indecent).

NiCori Studios & Productions announces a new installment of the monthly concert series, 'Music at the Mansiona??, on Sunday, October 27, at 3pm at the Oakeside Bloomfield Cultural Center in Bloomfield, NJ.  Performers include Ilene Angel, Steven Carl McCasland and Randie Levine-Miller .  The Young Musician Moment performer will be Bethany Duffy.

Billy Crystal, who has a new mobile app called 'Roast 'Em,' stopped by 'The Late Show With Stephen Colbert' to remember some wild times at Friars Club roasts in the good-old-days. Watch the clip below!

The White Plains Performing Arts Center (WPPAC) is proud to announce an exciting fall season featuring AIDA, NEWSIES, Lainie Kazan, and more!

Tickets are now on sale for Playhouse on Park's Comedy Night Series, beginning on October 19 at 8pm. Missy Hall and Sean Morton will co-headline.

In the theater community Jamie deRoy is a well known Broadway producer but in the Friars community she is also acclaimed as an entertainer. Friar Jamie deRoy furthermore has the distinction of being the 8th woman to become a Friar subsequent to the men's only club changing it's rules in 1988. Jamie deRoy who is usually the earliest to spot an opportunity had to wait behind the likes of Liza Minnelli, Joan Rivers Gloria Allred, and Brooke Shields who were also among the first to join the Friars Club.