Marilyn Monroe News

Following two successful Off-Off Broadway runs this past year (2011), SIREN'S HEART - Norma Jean & Marilyn in Purgatory ~ Norma Jean Sings Songs Marilyn Never Sang, will begin performances on Sunday, August 5th at 2pm at Actors Temple Theatre. The producer, ASCOLS, LLC, have set the opening for 7pm, August 5th (that same night), 50 years to the day, that Marilyn Monroe died.

Les Michaels Sundays In Summer at the Arthur Newman Theater in Palm Desert will present the multitalented impressionist Bethany Owen direct from the Rio Hotel in Las Vegas.

THE MIDTOWN INTERNATIONAL THEATRE FESTIVAL will premiere two exciting new plays

The countdown to Profiles in History's July auction begins. Run by Joe Maddalena, Profiles in History has announced that costumes from Whitney Houston, Britney Spears and Jennifer Lopez will be in attendance. Taking place in Los Angeles, The Dreier Collection will be auctioned off on July 28th, the Animation Auction will be July 29th and the Treasures from the Hollywood Vaults auction has been moved to July 30th and July 31st.

Broadway's Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman, who co-write the music for NBC's hit musical drama SMASH, reacted to this morning's news that they received an Emmy Award Nomination for Outstanding Original Music and Lyrics for the show.

FEINSTEIN'S AT LOEWS REGENCY will continue its Summer 2012 season with the return of jazz vocalist REBECCA KILGORE in her new show "The Jazzy Side of Judy Garland."

Outrageous in design and color, choreography verging on the acrobatic, spectacle, great singing, offbeat, risque humor and miles of heart are certainly enough attributes to call La Cage Aux Folles top-notch.

Cinema at the Square returns to PlayhouseSquare for its fifteenth year of bringing classic films back to the BIG screen in Cleveland August 2-19.

The New York Music Theater Festival can easily be considered a harbor for the freshest talents in musical theater. Over a period of several weeks, an astonishing number of musical productions are presented on vest pocket stages throughout New York City. As is often the case with harbors, there is a confluence of talent feeding into it. Not only is this talent from all over the nation, but it ranges from the youngest to the most experienced and they all converge on the city for this event.

The cast of TROUBLE THE MUSICAL, a new rock musical being presented in the 2012 New York Musical Theatre Festival, will feature DANIEL QUADRINO (Broadway's Bye Bye Birdie), SARA KAPNER (Broadway's Hollywood Arms), JUSTIN STEIN (Camelot at Lincoln Center), MATTHEW J. RIORDAN (Smile: A New Rock Musical), DAVI SANTOS (ABC's Don't Trust The B- In Apartment 23), WESLEY TUNISON (Freckleface Strawberry), KATIE MACK (Theatre 202's Comedy of Errors) and ABBE TANENBAUM (Theatreworks/USA's If You Give A Mouse A Cookie...). See the full cast in the photos below!

Dieser Mann ist ein Phänomen und ein wahres Chameleon noch dazu. In seiner langen Karriere hat Reginald Kenneth Dwight unzählige Alben aufgenommen, Duette mit Weltstars gesungen, Musicals komponiert und viele Preise entgegen genommen. Der Mann, den wir alle nur als Elton John kennen begeisterte mit einem rund zweieinhalb stündigen Konzert in der ausverkauften Oberhausener König-Pilsner-Arena. Dass er auch nach seinem bewegten Leben, welches alles andere als skandalfrei und gesundheitsfördernd war, immer noch mit starker Stimme und Präsenz begeistern kann liegt der Tatsache zu Grunde das hier ein wahrer Star auf der Bühne steht.

The cast of TROUBLE THE MUSICAL, a new rock musical being presented in the 2012 New York Musical Theatre Festival, will feature DANIEL QUADRINO (Broadway's Bye Bye Birdie), SARA KAPNER (Broadway's Hollywood Arms), JUSTIN STEIN (Camelot at Lincoln Center), MATTHEW J. RIORDAN (Smile: A New Rock Musical), DAVI SANTOS (ABC's Don't Trust The B- In Apartment 23), WESLEY TUNISON (Freckleface Strawberry), KATIE MACK (Theatre 202's Comedy of Errors) and ABBE TANENBAUM (Theatreworks/USA's If You Give A Mouse A Cookie...). See the full cast in the photos below!

Rover Dramawerks will present the comedy Love in E Flat by Norman Krasna at the Courtyard Theater, 1509 H Avenue in Plano. Performances are July 12-28, with shows on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays at 8:00 p.m., with an additional matinee performance on Saturday, July 21 at 2:00 p.m.

A memorial to honor the life and career of Tony Award-winning composer-lyricist Richard Adler will be held today, June 27th.

A memorial to honor the life and career of Tony Award-winning composer-lyricist Richard Adler will be held on Wednesday, June 27th.

The cast of TROUBLE THE MUSICAL, a new rock musical being presented in the 2012 New York Musical Theatre Festival, will feature DANIEL QUADRINO (Broadway's Bye Bye Birdie), SARA KAPNER (Broadway's Hollywood Arms), JUSTIN STEIN (Camelot at Lincoln Center), MATTHEW J. RIORDAN (Smile: A New Rock Musical), DAVI SANTOS (ABC's Don't Trust The B- In Apartment 23), WESLEY TUNISON (Freckleface Strawberry), KATIE MACK (Theatre 202's Comedy of Errors) and ABBE TANENBAUM (Theatreworks/USA's If You Give A Mouse A Cookie…).

As BroadwayWorld reported last week, composer-lyricist and Broadway legend, Richard Adler, died Thursday, June 21st at his Southampton, New York home. He was 90. We celebrate the composer with a photo tribute below!

With her bright and beautiful belt, brilliant, quirky singer-songwriter, Amanda Taraska will present her first solo show at Manhattan's acclaimed Laurie Beechman Theatre. The hour-long concert, featuring musical direction by Wicked's Walter Thompson, will showcase original work by up-and-coming writers Nick Blaemire, Jeff Bowen, Rob Hartmann, Natalie Lovejoy, Robby Sandler and Daniel Green, Dustin Sullivan and Elyssa Samsel, and David Alan Thornton and by beloved musical theatre luminaries Jason Robert Brown, Pasek and Paul, and Stephen Sondheim. Additionally, Miss Taraska will duet with special guests David Alan Thornton, Dustin Sullivan and Nikki MacCallum and debut selections from her own musical catalogue.

On Thursday, three-time Tony Award-winning Broadway composer Richard Adler passed away at the ripe old age of 90. Responsible for two of the biggest Broadway smash hits of the 1950s, THE PAJAMA GAME and GAMN YANKEES, Adler never quite managed to equal his career-high double-hitter of that era, yet his earlier work with Tony Bennett ('Rags To Riches'), Doris Day ('Everybody Loves A Lover') and Marilyn Monroe (the iconic 'Happy Birthday, Mr. President') surely shall solidify his place in the firmament of entertainment history along with his two classic musicals from the Golden Age. Winning both Best Score and Best Musical for both THE PAJAMA GAME and DAMN YANKEES, Adler's partnership with lyricist Jerry Ross - which began on Broadway in 1953 with JOHN MURRAY ANDERSON'S ALMANAC - was tragically cut short just months after the DAMN YANKEES premiere when Ross was diagnosed with lung disease and passed away soon thereafter. Yet, thanks to the beloved film versions of THE PAJAMA GAME and DAMN YANKEES and continued interest in the entities as expressed in the revivals and reappraisals of both onstage from Broadway to Biloxi to Bombay year after year, the snappy, snazzy tunes of Adler and Ross live on eight times a week all around the world - even now, more than fifty years after they premiered. Unfortunately, Adler's subsequent shows with other collaborators post-1955 failed to capture the early magic of his previous projects with Ross and his earlier musical and theatrical endeavors in the pop arena, with the racially charged KWAMINA flopping on Broadway in 1961 (though he took home a Best Composer Tony Award for his efforts anyway) and the awkwardly titled MUSIC IS failing to recreate the magic of its source material, Shakespeare's TWELFTH NIGHT, in 1976. A MOTER'S KISSES, starring Bea Arthur and a young Bernadette Peters, died on the road, as well. In the intervening years, Adler attempted musical adaptations taken from a number of intriguing sources - OF HUMAN BONDAGE and others among them - though only his ballet scores seemed to reach an audience; particularly his last, commissioned for a new production of Lorca's THE HOUSE OF BERNARDA ALBA in 1998. Of course, THE PAJAMA GAME has had two Broadway revivals - most recently the rapturously received Kathleen Marshall-directed production starring Harry Connick, Jr. and Kelli O'Hara; and DAMN YANKEES famously returned to the Great White Way with much ado in 1994 starring Victor Garber. Now seems particularly ripe for remounting YANKEES, as we approach twenty years in its absence - especially given the musical's seriously smashing showing at Encores! in 2007. Who knows, perhaps some risky producer will even take a chance on a new production of KWAMINA, MUSIC IS, A MOTHER'S KISSES or one of the bottom drawer shows someday soon to see if they possess any of the limitless potential shown by Adler's earlier work. Or maybe a stage treatment of his TV musical GIFT OF THE MAGI (originally composed for then-wife Sally Ann Howes)? Or, better yet, how about a revue? What a stupendous songstack Adler created over the course of his career - 'Whatever Lola Wants' to 'Hey There' to 'Hernando's Hideaway' to 'You Gotta Have Heart' to 'Steam Heat' to the aforementioned Bennett, Day and Monroe standards and so many more chestnuts.