Joe Mantello News

Stephen Sondheim turns 80 on Monday, March 22nd, 2010 and he will celebrate this landmark event with Roundabout Theatre Company at a special performance of Sondheim on Sondheim and star-studded tribute at Roundabout's 2010 Spring Gala: Sondheim 80.

The all new 20th Anniversary Season of Broadway Beat has begun! This week catch up with Broadway Beat at MCC's new production, 'The Pride' as well as a look back at the shows which closed this January.

MCC Theater (Robert LuPone, Bernard Telsey, Artistic Directors; William Cantler, Associate Artistic Director; Blake West, Executive Director) has announced complete casting for the company's third and final production of their 2009-2010 season, Beth Henley's Family Week, directed by Jonathan Demme.

With music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz (Godspell, Pippin, Academy Award-winner for Pocahontas and The Prince of Egypt) and book by Winnie Holzman ('My So Called Life,' 'Once And Again' and 'thirtysomething'), WICKED, the untold story of the witches of Oz, is directed by two-time Tony Award winner Joe Mantello (Take Me Out, Love! Valour! Compassion!, The Vagina Monologues, 9 to 5) and features musical staging by Tony Award winner Wayne Cilento (Aida, The Who's Tommy, How To Succeed...).

Roundabout Theatre Company in association with Long Wharf Theatre is pleased to announce the full company for Tennessee Williams' play The Glass Menagerie, directed by Gordon Edelstein with Patch Darragh (Tom Wingfield), two-time Tony® Award winner Judith Ivey (Amanda Wingfield), Keira Keeley (Laura Wingfield), Michael Mosley (Jim O'Connor).

The national tour of WICKED is set to land on the Civic Center's Crouse-Hinds Theater's stage for a three week engagement beginning January 13 to 31.

"I am delighted to announce our Fantastic 58th Season of Musicals," states Christopher B. Manos, Producer of Theater of the Stars. "We have some wonderful world-class entertainment in store for 2010, from old-fashioned fun to brand new shows that are sure to dazzle. We are excited to bring the incomparable Melissa Gilbert to Atlanta in the new stage version of Little House on the Prairie, The Musical, to bring back Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera, and to welcome the Blue Man Group for the very first time to our season. We've been asked for a long time to get The Sound of Music on our series and I'm pleased to say that we have it, along with the absolutely beautiful national touring production of Irving Berlin's White Christmas. Lastly, we'll add some comic relief with 9 TO 5: The Musical based on the smash hit movie with Music and Lyrics by Dolly Parton."

The national tour of WICKED is set to land on the Civic Center's Crouse-Hinds Theater's stage for a three week engagement beginning January 13 to 31.

Whatsonstage.com is reporting that the award-winning off-Broadway Musical, A Man of o Importance created by the writers of Ragtime, will get West End treatment when The Union Theatre's celebrated fringe production transfers to the Arts Theatre next month. The production will run in a limited engagement from 9 February (preview) to 27 February 2010.

MCC Theater will present Alexi Kaye Campbell's The Pride, under the direction of Joe Mantello (Glengarry GLen Ross, Take Me Out) in a limited engagement at the Lucille Lortel Theatre from January 27 through March 20. Opening Night is February 16. The show's stars, Hugh Dancy (Adam, Journey's End), Andrea Riseborough (Happy Go Lucky), Ben Whishaw (Bright Star, Brideshead Revisited), and Adam James(Last Chance Harvey) met the press yesterday as they gear up for the start of productions in a few weeks. BroadwayWorld was on hand and brings you the shots here!

After breaking box office records and selling out in record time in 2006 and 2007, the smash-hit musical WICKED returns to the David A. Straz, Jr. Center for the Performing Arts (formerly the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center), February 3-28. Tickets are on sale now.

Alley Theatre presents the world premiere of the new musical Wonderland about Alice, a children's book writer in Manhattan who is suffering through a creative block, estranged from her husband and alienated from her daughter. It takes a trip to a strange-yet-familiar Wonderland for her to regain her life's balance and again find the love and everyday magic that reside in us all - if we know how to look. With a book by Alley Theatre Artistic Director Gregory Boyd and Jack Murphy (The Civil War), lyrics by Jack Murphy, music by Frank Wildhorn (Jekyll & Hyde, The Scarlett Pimpernel, The Civil War), and directed by Gregory Boyd, Wonderland begins previews Friday, January 15, opens officially Wednesday, January 20 and runs through Sunday, February 14.

Roundabout Theatre Company (Todd Haimes, Artistic Director) is pleased to announce Terrence McNally's comedy Lips Together, Teeth Apart will star Megan Mullally (Chloe Haddock), Patton Oswalt (Sam Truman) and Lili Taylor (Sally Truman).

Recently named 'Best Musical of the Decade' by Entertainment Weekly, the hit musical WICKED at London's Apollo Victoria Theatre enjoyed its highest grossing year to date in 2009, grossing an incredible £27,333,991 at the Box Office (up almost £100,000 from 2008).

For the third time in just six weeks, the Broadway smash WICKED has grossed over $2 million for one week of performances.

Despite the acclaimed revival's premature closing, Michael X. will soldier on in this biz, as he has for 30-plus years.

Downstage @ New Rep is reviving David Sedaris' hilarious autobiographical show, The Santaland Diaries. This one-man comedy that satirizes everything we love to hate about the holidays opens for the press on Wednesday, December 16, 2009 at 7:30pm and plays through Sunday, January 3, 2010 in the Black Box Theater at the Arsenal Center for the Arts.

The dynamic combination of beloved humorist David Sedaris with one of Portland's favorite performers Wade McCollum has lead to an unprecedented decision from Portland Center Stage: with most performances sold out two weeks before opening night, The Santaland Diaries will be extended through January 2nd, 2010.

With the strains of 'Auld Lang Syne' mere moments away, minds are apt to be caught up in reflection, remembering the year now ending as a new one awaits just over the horizon. Certainly that's what I've been doing lately, looking back over the past year in Nashville theatre as I pencil in dates in my new 2010 (Here's a question to ponder: Is it 'two thousand ten' or 'twenty ten'...think about it and get back to me) calendar for the shows set to open in the months ahead.

One of Cleveland's most popular musicals, WICKED, will return to PlayhouseSquare November 18 - December 13, 2009 as part of the U.S. Bank Star Performance Series at PlayhouseSquare. Tickets for the return engagement go on sale to the public Friday, August 21.