Neil Simon News

BEHIND THE MUSIC-AL: ROCKS! Mon, Jan 31, 8 pm, $15

Executive Producer Lou Spisto today announced that Jane Austen's Emma - A Musical Romantic Comedy with music, lyrics and book by Tony Award nominee Paul Gordon will fill the final slot of the 2010-11 Winter Season.

Skyline Theatre Company is presenting a unique theatre event and continuing to bring professional theatre to Bergen County.

Act II Playhouse presents the second of two wintertime special events when Barrymore Award winner and Act II favorite Tony Braithwaite hosts Heeere's Tony!, an original talk-show comedy. Braithwaite's performance is on stage at Act II Feb. 2-20, 2011.

The Open Fist Theatre Company is thrilled to announce the first production of its 2011 Season.

Producers Jed Bernstein and Adam Zotovich announced today that Driving Miss Daisy will host a series of post-performance talk-backs, the first of which will take place immediately following the 8:00 PM performance on Martin Luther King Day (Monday, January 17).

From February 15 to March 13, we shuffle off to 1950's Buffalo with Over the Tavern, Tom Dudzick's autobiographical play about his childhood and growing up in his family's small apartment over his father's bar and grill.

On Monday, January 24th at 6pm producer/director Rick McKay, the award-winning filmmaker responsible for the "Broadway: The Golden Age" films, will interview Tony Award-winning actress Elizabeth Ashley at the Bruno Walter Auditorium at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts (65th Street and Amsterdam

The Way Off Broadway Children's Theatre first opened in 1996 and since then has become a popular entertainment destination for families looking for a fun weekend activity, it has also become a great spot for birthday parties and school trips. Each show that has appeared on the stage has been an original musical adaptation of a popular children's story or fairytale written specifically for Way Off Broadway. With the first show of the 2011 Season, things will be changing in The Children's Theatre. For the first time, a Disney production will come to life on the Way Off Broadway stage when Disney's 101 Dalmatians Kids opens on January 29th kicking off the new season.

Celebrated actress and two-time Tony Award-winner Frances Sternhagen will be joining the confluence of artists and audiences for Florida Stage's 5th Annual 1st Stage New Works Festival. Ms. Sternhagen will be featured in a staged reading of legendary playwright Israel Horovitz' new play Beverley on Saturday, February 5, 2011. On Friday, February 4, in place of the Festival's usual Keynote speech, Ms. Sternhagen will take part in what is being called 'A Conversation with Frances Sternhagen.' Florida Stage Producing Director Louis Tyrrell will conduct a public interview with Sternhagen on stage in the Persson Hall at the Kravis Center for the Performing Arts. The Florida Stage 1st Stage New Works Festival takes place February 3-6, 2011. Tickets and packages for all Festival events are available online at www.floridastage.org or by calling the box office at (561) 585-3433.

One of the most famous stage comedies in American history, Neil Simon's 'The Odd Couple,' comes to the Norris Center for the Performing Arts, January 28 - February 13. The hit comedy about mismatched roommates premiered on Broadway over 40 years ago, became an instant success, and won the 1965 Tony Award for Best Play.

Joe DeMita, Founder, President and Artistic Director of the Friends United Developing Genuine Entertainment or F.U.D.G.E. Theatre Company, has indeed found the most beautiful and absolutely funniest actors in Boston. And not a minute too soon. His no-holds-barred version of BAREFOOT IN THE PARK, Neil Simon's longest-running, award-winning Broadway smash hit about a marriage between a stunning, vibrant twenty-four year old New York woman with an unquenchable lust for life and a drop-dead handsome, Harvard-educated lawyer with a very sensible approach to everything on earth, opens at The Arsenal Center For the Arts (321 Arsenal Street, Watertown, MA.) on Friday, January 28 and continue to delight audiences through Saturday, February 5.

Last month, on a quest to find out how Broadway Moms balance the demands of parenthood with the demands of a busy show schedule, I interviewed Supermom/Actress Marissa Jaret Winokur. Marissa provided a lot of validation and a ton of inspiration, but I was still left wondering how NY actors do it. Marissa found a terrific solution....move to Hollywood and become a TV star. While that option sounds very appealing, I think my voicemail must be broken because I haven't gotten a single message from any of the networks asking me to star in their next primetime series. Don't you just hate AT&T?

Today, in a rare moment of Broadway synchronicity between several theater owners and producers, deals were struck to move two Broadway shows to alternate theatres for mutual benefit. The five-time Tony Award nominated musical ROCK OF AGES will move from The Brooks Atkinson Theatre to the Helen Hayes Theatre in March 2011 and the acclaimed Beatles concert RAIN - A Tribute To The Beatles on Broadway at The Neil Simon Theatre will move to The Brooks Atkinson Theatre and begin performances on February 8, 2011. In their current homes, ROCK OF AGES will play its final performance on Sunday, January 9, 2011 and RAIN, which has now been extended twice, will play its final performance on Saturday, January 15, 2011.

According to Telecharge.com, Ethan Hawke, Julia Stiles, Billy Crudup, Wallace Shawn, Louie CK, Alessandra Nivola, Mario Cantone, Emily Mortimer and Jonathan Marc Sherman are set to star in a reading of THE ODD COUPLE at Cherry Lane Theatre. The event will benefit PS 3 and will take place on January 9 at 7 PM.

Playwrights Horizons (Tim Sanford, Artistic Director; Leslie Marcus, Managing Director) presents the World Premiere of A SMALL FIRE, a new play by Obie Award winner Adam Bock (The Drunken City at PH, The Receptionist, The Thugs, Swimming in the Shallows).

Multi-talented stage and screen personality Jenifer Lewis will perform in a very special 'one night only' event scheduled at state-of-the-art Nate Holden Performing Arts Center.

Without question, the most popular show of the season is The Way Off Broadway Dinner Theatre's holiday production. More often then not, many of the scheduled performances sell out before the show even opens.

According to Telecharge.com, Ethan Hawke, Julia Stiles, Billy Crudup, Wallace Shawn, Louie CK, Alessandra Nivola, Mario Cantone, Emily Mortimer and Jonathan Marc Sherman are set to star in a reading of THE ODD COUPLE at Cherry Lane Theatre. The event will benefit PS 3 and will take place on January 9 at 7 PM.

McCarter Theatre (Emily Mann, Artistic Director; Timothy J. Shields, Managing Director) is pleased to announce that Academy Award, Tony and Obie Award winner Mercedes Ruehl will star in the two-character world premiere of Sarah Treem's The How and The Why. Directed by Emily Mann, the cast will also feature New Jersey native Bess Rous.