James Earl Jones News

North Carolina Theatre (NCT), the region's premier producer of professional Broadway musicals, in association with Broadway Series South, is excited to announce that casting has begun for their February 2014 production of LES MISERABLES directed by Dave Clemmons which will play at Raleigh Memorial Auditorium in the Duke Energy Center for the Performing Arts. This will be the theatre's first time producing this timeless classic.

On the next episode of CBS's THE BIG BANG THEORY titled 'The Convention Conundrum,' after the guys can't get Comic-Con tickets, Sheldon tries to hold his own convention and winds up spending a wild night with James Earl Jones.

Following a critically acclaimed reading at 2013's Pride Performing Arts Festival, Second Thought Theatre Associate Artist Alex Organ will direct the first play in STT's 10th anniversary season, Cock, by Mike Bartlett. Cock, a wildly comic exploration of identity and sexuality, will begin with previews today, January 29 and will run through February 22 at Bryant Hall on the Kalita Humphreys Campus.

In a feature discussing upcoming HD broadcasts of theatre productions around the world, The New York Times revealed that Ed Greenberg and Lee deBoer's Broadway Near You is planning to distribute the recent Australian production of DRIVING MISS DAISY, starring Angela Lansbury and James Earl Jones, to cinemas this spring. The show also has first-look deals with producers, including the Lincoln Center Theater. Still no word on a possible Broadway production.

Amas Musical Theatre, New York City's award-winning pioneer in diversity and multi-ethnic casting in the performing arts since 1968, will celebrate its 45th Anniversary at a gala benefit on Monday, March 31st, 2014 at the Baruch Performing Arts Center (East 25th Street between Lexington and 3rd Avenues). Honorary Chair for the event is veteran Broadway virtuoso Maurice Hines.

Bucks County Playhouse (BCP) has announced the launch of a 2014 winter concert series, kicking off with the World Premiere of JUSTIN GUARINI LOVESICK, a new show from Justin Guarini and directed by Gordon Greenberg.

Could Book of Mormon's Bobby Lopez be next in line to join the elite circle of entertainers?

Philly audiences are treated to the magic of this classic before it rides off on a National Tour.

The Screen Actors Guild Foundation has released the newest video to its children's literacy website Storyline Online (storylineonline.net): I Need My Monster, written by Amanda Noll, illustrated by Howard McWilliam and read by legendary actress, singer and author Rita Moreno.

The Grammy-winning Ladysmith Black Mambazo will stop in Storrs on a U.S. tour with its latest album Always With Us Saturday, Feb. 1, 2014. The group with the Zulu sound of a single voice despite a thick stack of harmonies, made popular on this continent three decades ago via Paul Simon's Graceland album, will also deliver a tribute to Nelson Mandela in its 8 p.m. performance at Jorgensen.

Today in 1931, Broadway veteran James Earl Jones was born. He has won Tony awards in 1969 for The Great White Hope and in 1987 for Fences. He has acted in many Shakespearean roles: Othello, King Lear, Oberon in A Midsummer Night's Dream, Abhorson in Measure for Measure, and Claudius in Hamlet. On April 7, 2005, James Earl Jones and Leslie Uggams headed the cast in an African-American Broadway revival version of On Golden Pond, directed by Leonard Foglia and produced by Jeffrey Finn. In February 2008, he starred on Broadway as Big Daddy in a limited-run, all-African-American production of Tennessee Williams's Pulitzer Prize-winning drama Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, directed by Debbie Allen and mounted at the Broadhurst Theatre. In October 2010, Jones returned to the Broadway stage in Alfred Uhry's Driving Miss Daisy along with Vanessa Redgrave at the Golden Theatre. In November 2011, Jones starred in Driving Miss Daisy in London's West End, and on November 12 Jones received his honorary Oscar in front of the audience at the Wyndham's Theatre, which was presented to him by Ben Kingsley.

Morgan Freeman will present the SAG 50th Life Achievement Award to Rita Moreno at the 20th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards

Following a critically acclaimed reading at 2013's Pride Performing Arts Festival, Second Thought Theatre Associate Artist Alex Organ will direct the first play in STT's 10th anniversary season, Cock, by Mike Bartlett. Cock, a wildly comic exploration of identity and sexuality, will begin with previews on January 29 and will run through February 22 at Bryant Hall on the Kalita Humphreys Campus. Tickets to Cock are on sale now.

Led by founder and leader Joseph Shabalala, Ladysmith Black Mambazo now celebrates more than 50 years of joyous and uplifting music that marries the intricate rhythms and harmonies of their native South African musical traditions to the sounds and sentiments of Christian gospel music. In those years, the a cappella vocal group has created a musical and spiritual alchemy that has touched a worldwide audience representing every corner of the religious, cultural, and ethnic landscape. Their musical efforts over the past five decades have garnered praise and accolades within the recording industry, but also solidified their identity as a cultural force to be reckoned with.

Casting has been announced for the upcoming national tour of Green Day's AMERICAN IDIOT, the explosive Broadway hit, which makes its Washington premiere February 18 - 23 at National Theatre as part of the Broadway at the National subscription series.

Grammy award-winning South African a cappella group, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, will perform traditional songs and gospel inspired music of peace, love and harmony, at the Byham Theater on Wednesday, January 29, 2014, at 7:30 p.m.

The most recent version of the famous and often controversial opera, PORGY AND BESS by George Gershwin, DuBose and Dorothy Heyward and Ira Gershwin, re-titled as THE GERSHWINS' PORGY AND BESS, is now playing at DC's National Theatre through Dec. 29, 2013. The opera, which has garnered scores of awards since its first performance in 1935, has been re-mounted by the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge with a creative team including Pulitzer-prize winning playwright Suzan-Lori Parks, who adapted the book, and Dierdre L. Murray, who adapted the musical score. THE GERSHWINS' PORGY AND BESS opened on Broadway in 2011.

Tony and Emmy Award-winning actress, singer, and recording artist Leslie Uggams (Roots, King Headley II, Hallelujah, Baby!) is ringing in the holidays with the release of a new single 'Wishing You a Happy New Year' written by renowned film, television, and concert composer-orchestrator Curtis McKonly. Available online at iTunes, Amazon.com, CD Baby and other major digital music outlets, this elegant new tune features the 41-piece Curtis McKonly Orchestra. Click below to watch a behind-the-scenes video of Uggams in the recording studio!

Tickets for The National Tour of THE GERSHWINS' PORGY AND BESS, winner of the 2012 Tony Award for Best Musical Revival, are now on sale. Part of the BROADWAY PHILADELPHIA season, presented by the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts and the Shubert Organization, THE GERSHWINS' PORGY AND BESS arrives at the Academy of Music for a limited engagement beginning Feb. 18 - 23. The official press opening is Tuesday, Feb. 18 at 7:30 p.m.