Johnny Mercer News

The Songwriters Hall of Fame inducted another batch of legends last night, as it welcomed Steven Tyler, Joe Perry, Mick Jones and Lou Gramm of Foreigner, Holly Knight, JD Souther and Tony Hatch.

Platinum selling country star Hunter Hayes will headline the CMT on Tour: Hunter Hayes' Let's Be Crazy tour this Fall which kicks off October 10 in Knoxville, TN.

Danny Burstein, Eisa Davis, Raul Esparza, Peter Friedman, Judy Kuhn, Martin Moran, Da'Vine Joy Randolph, Anika Noni Rose and Henry Stram will star in Marc Blitzstein's The Cradle Will Rock, the inaugural show of New York City Center's new Encores! Off-Center series, playing for five performances, July 10 - 13 at City Center. The show will be directed bySam Gold and choreographed by Chase Brock; Jeanine Tesori is the Encores! Off Center artistic director. Chris Fenwick is the music director. In keeping with City Center's founding mission to make the arts accessible to all and to younger audiences, the majority of tickets are $25.

By Disney standards the year and a half run of the original Broadway production of The Little Mermaid was a bit of a disappointment.  In theory, a competently created musical based on the hit animated film would probably run for a year and a half based on the title recognition alone.  My opinion of that show was higher than most of my colleagues.  I enjoyed it, but mostly for the vaudevillian pleasure of seeing a cast of terrific Broadway performers each getting a star turn or two.  But after some script revisions and a whole new visual concept, director Glenn Casale's production of the new Mermaid that just opened at Paper Mill is a well-crafted, delightfully designed and performed charmer.

Speaking on tonight's Tonys red carpet, composing team Benj Pasek and Justin Paul revealed that they are writing an original musical to be directed by Michael Greif, as well as crafting a new stage musical for Disney. The duo is nominated tonight for Best Score for A Christmas Story - The Musical, which they say has hopes of returning to Broadway -- or at least New York -- every year for the holiday season.

Scot Albertson (Vocalist - Performer - Producer - Recording Artist) - www.scotalbertson.com) announces his sixth CD release concert, set for Monday June 17, 2013 at 7:30p.m. at Symphony Space Leonard Nimoy Thalia Theatre, located at 2537 Broadway & West 95th Street, New York City, NY.

BLUES IN THE NIGHT uses the great blues and jazz songs of the 1920s and 30s to explore the lives of three women and a saloon singer in a 'cheap hotel' during the course of a long memory-filled evening. The 26 songs celebrate the blues melodies of Bessie Smith, Jimmy Cox, Duke Ellington, Alberta Hunter and songs by Harold Arlen, Benny Goodman, Andy Razaf, Johnny Mercer and others.

JEFF BLUMENKRANTZ and BRETT RYBACK to Co-Star in Second Stage Uptown's MURDER FOR TWO

Platinum selling country star Hunter Hayes will headline the CMT on Tour: Hunter Hayes' Let's Be Crazy tour this Fall which kicks off October 10 in Knoxville, TN. With 24 shows in 21 cities

From June 23 to June 29, 14 emerging professional songwriters will participate in The Johnny Mercer Foundation Songwriters Project at Northwestern University -- an intensive weeklong program on the Evanston campus that has produced 2013 Tony Award-nominated songwriters Benj Pasek and Justin Paul (nominated for 'A Christmas Story, The Musical'), Fred Ebb Award-winner Sam Willmot, and Latin Grammy Award-winners Obed Bermudez and Jennifer Pena.

Petruchio and Katherine backstage. Romeo and Juliet on a fire escape. From Kiss Me, Kate to West Side Story, Shakespeare has left his mark on the American Songbook. Tony Award-nominated director Mark Lamos (Cymbeline, Seascape) makes his Lyrics & Lyricists debut revealing the ties between Stratford-on-Avon and Shubert Alley in the 2013 season closer, Brush UpYour Shakespeare: The Bard and the Broadway Musical, tonight, June 1 and June 2 & 3.

BroadwayWorld's Richard Ridge was thrilled to sit down and speak with nearly all of this year's Tony Award nominees at the official Tonys Meet & Greet on May 1, 2013, and we will be bringing you special coverage on all of them throughout the awards season. Today we bring you Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, nominees for Best Score for A Christmas Story. Check out what they had to say below!

Following nine months of intensive training and exposure to the Great American Songbook and American musical theater with artist/teachers in residence under the direction of Victor Burks, NJPAC, one hundred students from four New Jersey schools collaborated on the creation of a new musical which they performed for the first time all together at NJPAC last week. Scroll down for photos from the show!

Pasek and Paul - along with Lindsay Mendez, Derek Klena and other original cast members - will also appear at an in-store performance and CD signing at Barnes & Noble on the Upper East Side (150 East 86th Street, between Lexington and Third Avenues) tonight, May 23 at 7:00 PM. Call (212) 369-2180 for details.

Petruchio and Katherine backstage. Romeo and Juliet on a fire escape. From Kiss Me, Kate to West Side Story, Shakespeare has left his mark on the American Songbook. Tony Award-nominated director Mark Lamos (Cymbeline, Seascape) makes his Lyrics & Lyricists debut revealing the ties between Stratford-on-Avon and Shubert Alley in the 2013 season closer, Brush UpYour Shakespeare: The Bard and the Broadway Musical, on June 1, 2 and 3. Lamos is joined by vocalists Christine Andreas, Daniel Breaker, Britney Coleman, Max Von Essen, and Heather Jane Rolff.

Two-time Tony Award-winning singer/actress Christine Ebersole joined jazz violinist Aaron Weinstein and his trio for Strings Attached, a special late-afternoon performance at 92nd Street Y oyesterday, May 16 at 4 pm. Ebersole and the trio showcased classics standards from the '20s and '30s by Fats Waller ('Jitterbug Waltz'), Cole Porter 'Ev'ry Time We Say Goodbye'), Johnny Mercer ('This Time the Dream's on Me') and George Gershwin ('Shall We Dance'). Strings Attached debuted in November 2011 at a sold-out engagement at Birdland Jazz Club; this performance is 92Y's annual Kathryn W. Stein Memorial Concert. Check out photos from the event below!

Don Stitt, a critically-acclaimed TV, stage and film actor; comic; singer and playwright, will be performing the songs of legendary American lyricist, composer and co-founder of Capitol Records, Johnny Mercer in his one-man show 'Too Marvelous! The Songs of Johnny Mercer.'

Two college veterans are friendly trumpet rivals looking for spots in Artie's Shaw's big band in this hilarious musical comedy, SECOND CHORUS (1940), available in a DVD/Blu-ray combo pack today, May 14 from Film Chest on the HD Cinema Classics label.