Richard Rodgers News

TriArts Sharon Playhouse, under the leadership of Executive Director Alice Bemand, kicks off its 2012 summer season with the smart, sexy, and foot-stompin' Tony Award-winning musical comedy, The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas from June 28 through July 15.

BroadwayWorld.com's SHOW BIZ: Rush, Lottery & Standing Room Only Ticketing Policies - updated on 6/22/2012.

Composer-lyricist and Broadway legend, Richard Adler, died Thursday, June 21st at his Southampton, New York home. He was 90.

Producers of The Gershwins' PORGY AND BESS, the 2012 Tony Award winner for Best Revival of a Musical, announced today that Audra McDonald has been ordered on a period of complete vocal rest by her doctor through the end of the month. As a result of performing with a respiratory infection last week, her vocal cords have become inflamed to a point where she cannot sing. She is scheduled to return to the production on Tuesday, July 3, 2012.

Second Stage Theatre will present the world premiere musical, DOGFIGHT. Previews begin June 27 in anticipation of a July 16 opening. The cast features Nick Blaemire (Godspell), Annaleigh Ashford (Rent, Wicked, Legally Blonde), Becca Ayers (The Addams Family, Avenue Q), Steven Booth (Glory Days), Dierdre Friel (Leap of Faith), Adam Halpin (Glory Days), F. Michael Haynie (Carrie), Derek Klena (Carrie), Lindsay Mendez (Godspell, Second Stage's Everyday Rapture), James Moye (Million Dollar Quartet), and Josh Segarra (Lysistrata Jones). Check out the lastest backstage at DOGFIGHT with Annaleigh Ashford, Josh Segarra and more below!

Hale Centre Theatre West Valley's production of The Sound of Music is an homage to the beloved 1965 film, which won an Academy Award for Best Picture.

The Bucks County Playhouse (BCP) in New Hope, Pennsylvania, has announced the extension of its first production of the summer, Rodgers & Hammerstein's A Grand Night for Singing. Performances begin Monday, July 2 at 8:00 p.m. and will now run an additional week, through Sunday, July 29.

Today in 1978, The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas opened at the 46th Street Theatre (now the Richard Rodgers Theatre), where it ran for 1584 performances. The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas is a musical with a book by Texas author Larry L. King and Peter Masterson and music and lyrics by Carol Hall. It is based on a story by King that was inspired by the real-life Chicken Ranch in La Grange, Texas. The original Broadway production was directed by Peter Masterson and Tommy Tune and choreographed by Tune and Thommie Walsh.

Hans Christian Andersen's classic fairytale, "The Princess and the Pea," comes to the stage as a musical comedy in Once Upon a Mattress tonight, June 19 - August 5 at the Coterie Theatre in Crown Center.

The Tony Award-winning writer and a starring cast member of Broadway musical In The Heights, Lin-Manuel Miranda recently spoke at the 2012 ASCAP 'I Create Music' Expo about his songwriting background in musical theater and the songwriting process. Check out what he had to say below!

This morning Olney Theatre Center Artistic Director Martin Platt announced the Theatre's 75th Anniversary Season. The award-winning Theatre's season will emphasize 20th-century American classics, new works, reinterpretations of classics and musical theater.

MAC Award nominated songwriters Sam Carner & Derek Gregor (Unlock'd) and Drew Fornarola (COLLEGE The Musical) team up for AWKWARD THREESOME: Carner & Gregor and also Fornarola at The Duplex Thursday, June 28 at 9:30pm. They will be joined by some of Broadway's top young performers. The songwriters will present selections from their shows, as well as debuting a new song co-written by all three of them. The evening will be directed by Marlo Hunter with music direction by Gregor and Emily Whitaker. Scheduled to perform are Claybourne Elder (Bonnie and Clyde); Ali Ewoldt (Les Miserables); Alyssa Fox (Wicked - SF); Julie Reiber (Wicked); A.J. Shively (La Cage Aux Folles); Brian Sills (The Lion King Tour); Sarah Stiles (Avenue Q); and Dashaun Young (The Lion King).

Chicago's non-Equity Bohemian Theatre Ensemble has undertaken Adam Guettel and Tina Landau's 1996 off-Broadway masterpiece (or close to it) and put it on at Theater Wit on West Belmont Avenue for the next month (through July 25, 2012). If you have imagination enough to meet the company halfway, somewhere between the hardscrabble Kentucky soil and the cave beneath it where the real Floyd Collins met his doom in 1925, you will come away with a musical and theatrical experience you are unlikely to repeat anytime soon, anywhere else.

BroadwayWorld Chicago contributor Paul W. Thompson, author of the popular weekly column, THE SHOWTUNE MOSH PIT, will be performing his 2012 solo show, SONGS I'VE NEVER SUNG BEFORE, on the afternoons of June 21 and June 28 (both Thursdays). Both concerts last about an hour, and both concerts are FREE!!

BroadwayWorld.com's SHOW BIZ: Rush, Lottery & Standing Room Only Ticketing Policies - updated on 6/15/2012.

According to the Daily Mail, RAGTIME's Rosalie Craig will join the new stage musical Finding Neverland, about J.M. Barrie's encounter with the Lewelyn Davies family, which inspired him to write Peter Pan.

Lyric Stage presents Rodgers & Hammerstein's OKLAHOMA!, with music by Richard Rodgers, book by Oscar Hammerstein II, lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II and original Dances by Agnes De Mille, based on the play GREEN GROW THE LILACS by Lynn Riggs. The show runs June 15-24, 2012 in the Irving Arts Center's Carpenter Performance Hall, 3333 N. MacArthur Blvd., Irving, Texas. Performances are tonight, June 15 and June 16, 21, 22 & 23 @ 8:00 PM and June 17 & 24 @ 2:30 PM. Tickets are available online @ www.lyricstage.org or by calling the box office @ 972-252-2787.

The Way Off Broadway Dinner Theatre is cutting loose this summer with the dance musical Footloose. The stage production, based on the Paramount Pictures film, opens at the Frederick theatre tonight, June 15th and run through August 25th.

Welcome to THE FRIDAY SIX: Q&As With Your Favorite Broadway Stars. Want to know what hooked them to a career in the theater? Their dream roles? Their Broadway crushes? Read on! In this next edition, we caught up with NaTasha Yvette Williams, who is starring as 'Mariah' in THE GERSHWINS' PORGY & BESS- currently playing at the Richard Rodgers Theatre!