Ira Gershwin News

HIGHLIGHTS OF THE WEEK: Cumming takes on MACBETH, Broadway plays Bryant Park, ALADDIN opens at the Muny, and so much more!

Yesterday, July 12th, Sardi's unveiled a caricature for the Tony Award-winning star of Nice Work If You Can Get It, Michael McGrath. BroadwayWorld was there for the festivities, and we bring you photos from the event below!

Smuin Ballet (Celia Fushille, Artistic & Executive Director) will perform a special New York City engagement this summer, August 13th - 18th, 2012 at The Joyce Theater, 175 Eighth Avenue (at 19th Street).

Feinstein's at Loews Regency which opened in 1999, has presented the top talents of pop and jazz, including Rosemary Clooney, Steve Tyrell, Barbara Cook, Glen Campbell, Diahann Carroll, Jane Krakowski, Lea Michele, Cyndi Lauper, Jason Mraz and Alan Cumming amongst hundreds of other performers. The venue's namesake Michael Feinstein appears there for a sold-out holiday engagement every year and had previously said that 'Feinstein's at Loews Regency is the perfect place to hear the greatest and most exciting interpreters of American popular song. I'm proud to call it my home.'

Four Seasons Theatre has announced its 8th season, which will feature She Loves Me, The Gershwin Songbook, and Avenue Q.

For the first time ever, Cape May Stage presents two-time Tony-winning Christine Ebersole and jazz violinist Aaron Weinstein on Monday, July 30 at 8 p.m. for an evening showcasing new arrangements of classic songs by Fats Waller, Cole Porter, Johnny Mercer, and Cannonball Adderley.

Southwark Playhouse presents a major revival of the Jerry Herman/Michael Stewart Hollywood musical, Mack and Mabel, starring Norman Bowman as Mack and Laura Pitt-Pulford (who received rave reviews as Lucille Frank in Parade) as Mabel, directed by Thom Southerland and produced by Danielle Tarento. The show will run for an 8-week season at The Vault at Southwark Playhouse, now through Saturday, August 25. Press night is tomorrow, July 11 at 7.30pm. Get a first look at the revival in the production photos below!

Broadway vet Christine Ebersole will star in TBS's new workplace comedy SULLIVAN AND SON, premiering Thursday, July 19, at 10 p.m. (ET/PT). The actress will portray 'cougar' Carol on the series. Joining Ebersole in the cast is comedian Steve Byrne, Jodi Long, Vivian Bang, Owen Benjamin, Valerie Azylnn, Dan Lauria and Brian Doyle-Murray.

Segerstrom Center for the Arts' free Movie Mondays are a perennially popular tradition in Orange County.

Bramwell Tovey leads the New York Philharmonic at Bethel Woods Center for the Arts in a program of works by Bernstein, Gershwin, and Tchaikovsky, tonight, July 7, 2012, at 8:00 p.m. Canadian soprano Tracy Dahl will be the soloist in the coloratura aria, "Glitter and Be Gay" from Bernstein's Candide, along with songs by Gershwin, including "The Man I Love" and "Fascinatin' Rhythm," arranged by Mr. Tovey. Also on the program are Three Dance Episodes from Bernstein's On the Town, and two works by Tchaikovsky: music from Act IV of Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake, and the 1812 Overture.

The creative team behind last summer's sold-out, acclaimed Southwark Playhouse musical, Parade - long-listed for The Ned Sherrin Award for Best Musical in the 2011 Evening Standard Awards - are returning to the venue for a major revival of the Jerry Herman/Michael Stewart Hollywood musical, Mack and Mabel. The show runs tonight, July 5 - August 25.

As BroadwayWorld reported yesterday, Audra McDonald, the five-time Tony winning star of PORGY & BESS, will indeed be returning to the show today following a 2-week doctor-mandated hiatus.

On June 28, Tony's di Napoli Restaurant in Times Square added a new portrait to their outstanding Broadway Wall of Fame honoring the cast of the new Broadway musical, Nice Work If You Can Get It, starring Matthew Broderick, Kelli O'Hara, Michael McGrath, Judy Kaye, Estelle Parsons, Chris Sullivan and Jennifer Laura Thompson. Hosts Valerie Smaldone and Bruce Dimpflmaier presented the Dan May portrait to the show's stars in an intimate ceremony, and BroadwayWorld was there for the photo op!

Kristen Beth got to play Reno on Bway and is now understudying three principal roles in the Gershwin Tony winner.

CRAZY FOR YOU quite gloriously translates to the Hale Center Theater Orem's small stage with Wunderkind director-choreographer Dave Tinney at the helm and an exuberant all-singing, all-tapping cast.

Producers of The Gershwins' PORGY AND BESS, the 2012 Tony Award winner for Best Revival of a Musical, announced today that Audra McDonald has been ordered on a period of complete vocal rest by her doctor through the end of the month. As a result of performing with a respiratory infection last week, her vocal cords have become inflamed to a point where she cannot sing. She is scheduled to return to the production on Tuesday, July 3, 2012.

Segerstrom Center for the Arts' free Movie Mondays are a perennially popular tradition in Orange County.