John Gardiner News

Today's top stories: Freestyle Love Supreme begins previews on Broadway, and more!

SUMMER: The Donna Summer Musical is hitting the road!  The musical will kickoff  a national tour at RBTL's Auditorium Theater in Rochester, NY (October 1-6, 2019) prior to the official tour press opening at the Connor Palace in Cleveland, OH (October 8-27, 2019). A list of tour dates for the 2019-2020 season is below. Casting will be announced later.

On Wednesday, September 11, the national tour of SUMMER: The Donna Summer Musical gave a preview performance, and met the press!

According to the Scottish Sun, John Barrowman will replace judge Jason Gardiner on Dancing on Ice.

The award-winning Monteverdi Choir and Orchestras (MCO) look forward to launching another ambitious season, this time featuring four major international tours and two new recordings on their SDG label.

Full casting has been announced for the North American Tour of SUMMER: The Donna Summer Musical.

If it's possible to be nostalgic for a time and place in which you've never lived, you will experience that feeling in A Bronx Tale.

Today's top stories: Little Shop of Horrors returns off-Broadway, Britney Spears musical postponed, and more!

Broadway in Bryant Park is back! 106.7 LITE FM's popular series will bring the best of Broadway and Off-Broadway together for FREE performances, for six consecutive weeks, continuing today, July 18, to Thursday, August 15. New Yorkers and visitors to the Big Apple are invited to come at 11 a.m. every Thursday, beginning July 11 through August 15, with performances running from 12:30 p.m. EST - 1:30 p.m. EST on the Bryant Park Stage.

Week Two's performances included Waitress, Come From Away, Beetlejuice, Chicago, and Jersey Boys!

Today's top stories: go behind the scenes of the upcoming Cats film, Beautiful will end its run in October, all new Moulin Rouge! photos, and more!

Broadway in Bryant Park is back! 106.7 LITE FM's popular series will bring the best of Broadway and Off-Broadway together for FREE performances, for six consecutive weeks, continuing today, July 18, to Thursday, August 15. New Yorkers and visitors to the Big Apple are invited to come at 11 a.m. every Thursday, beginning July 11 through August 15, with performances running from 12:30 p.m. EST - 1:30 p.m. EST on the Bryant Park Stage.

This week's performances will feature the casts of WAITRESS (Shoshana Bean, Brandon Kalm, Charity Angel Dawson, Dayna Dantzler, Jessie Hooker-Bailey, Max Kumangai, Tyrone Davis Jr.); CHICAGO (Lana Gordon, Desi Oakley, Eddie Bennett, Gary Cooper, Jessica Ernest, Dan Gutierrez, Mary Claire King, Barrett Martin, Pilar Millhollen, Drew Nellessen, Beth Nicely, Rachel Schur, Colt Weiss); BEETLEJUICE (Alex Brightman, Sophia Anne Caruso, Natalie Charle Ellis, Sean Montgomery); COME FROM AWAY (Josh Breckenridge, Petrina Bromley, Holly Ann Butler, De'Lon Grant, John Jellison, Tony LePage, Julie Reiber, Pearl Sun, Astrid Van Wieren, Jim Walton); JERSEY BOYS (Austin Colby, Aaron de Jesus, Mark Edwards, John Gardiner, Dianna Barger, Amanda Dela Cruz, Olivia Valli).

The Monteverdi Choir and Orchestras (MCO)'s innovative Monteverdi Apprentices Programme offers emergent young string players the opportunity to perform, tour, and train with the Orchestre Revolutionnaire et Romantique (ORR) and John Eliot Gardiner next season. Up to eight successful applicants will be fully integrated into the period-instrument orchestra's 2019-20 schedule, performing alongside the ORR in concerts at home and on tour in a wide range of repertoire, as well as receiving dedicated coaching, workshops, and mentorship. As a primary focus of the yearlong program, the young apprentices will perform complete Beethoven symphonic cycles with Gardiner and the orchestra at prominent destinations, including London's Barbican Hall and Barcelona's Palau de la Musica. After completing the program, the apprentices will be considered for further professional engagements with the ORR. The orchestra is accepting applications until July 29; click here for more information.

Performing Arts Fort Worth proudly presents the first national tour of the hit Broadway production, A BRONX TALE, at Bass Performance Hall July 23-28. The show is part of Performing Arts Fort Worth's 2018-2019 Broadway at the Bass series. Tickets start at $44 and are on sale now!

MCO's Berlioz Series 2018 at the Ope ra Royal, Versailles Each summer since 2015, the Orchestre R volutionnaire et Romantique (ORR) and John Eliot Gardiner have featured the music of Hector Berlioz in their annual appearances at London's famed BBC Proms festival. This year marks both the orchestra's 30th anniversary and the 150th anniversary of the French composer's death. To honor these twin milestones, Gardiner and the ORR return to the Royal Albert Hall to conclude their five-year commitment to Berlioz's music with a staged account of his first opera, Benvenuto Cellini, on September 2. Anchored by the Monteverdi Choir, with Michael Spyres in the title role, the Proms performance announced just today crowns the ensembles' high-profile European tour of the opera this summer. Also taking in the annual Festival Berlioz in the composer's birthplace, La C te-Saint-Andr (Aug 29), the Berliner Festspiele (Aug 31), and the Palace of Versailles (Sep 8), the tour represents the work's first modern performances on period instruments and provides a fitting sequel to the ensembles' transatlantic Berlioz Series 2018 tour, which after the London Proms performance prompted the Financial Times to marvel: Berlioz has no idea what he missed.

Two iconic stars made a surprise appearance at last night's performance of A Bronx Tale in Boston. The show's creator, Chazz Palminteri, and co-director Robert DeNiro (who also directed, and starred in, the film) took the stage following curtain call to give a speech.

The North American tour of A BRONX TALE doo-wops its way into the Citizens Bank Opera House through April 14th as part of the 2018-2019 Lexus Broadway In Boston Season. It is at once a nostalgic stroll down memory lane with an original rock 'n' roll score, a gritty depiction of urban turf wars, and a well-told story about loyalty, love, and family. Based on Chazz Palminteri's 1989 one-man Off-Broadway play that inspired a 1993 film, the musical reunites the author with his directors, Jerry Zaks and Robert DeNiro, and they are joined by composer Alan Menken, lyricist Glenn Sater, and choreographer Sergio Trujillo. Like other musicals that have come before it (HAIRSPRAY, JERSEY BOYS, WEST SIDE STORY, to mention a few), A BRONX TALE feels familiar as it evokes a time, a place, and a genre that we recognize. It is a good, solid show with great music, performances, and design elements that provides a couple of hours of entertainment and escape.

Sierra Stages has extended its production of the hilariously twisted black comedy "Hand to God" by Robert Askins for an additional weekend through March 23 at the historic Nevada Theatre in Nevada City. The remaining five performances are on Friday March 15 and Saturday March 16 at 8 PM; Thursday March 21 at 7 PM; and Friday March 22 and Saturday March 23 at 8 PM.

A BRONX TALE, the streetwise Broadway musical based on the one-man show and now classic film, will make its Washington, D.C. premiere at the National Theatre for one week only from March 26 through 31, 2019.