Rita Moreno News

Broadway stars past, present and future will be honored at this year's Industry Dance Awards. 

Good morning, BroadwayWorld! Because we know all our readers eat, sleep and breathe Broadway, what could be better than waking up to it? Today's big news: MERCURY FUR and DROP DEAD PERFECT start off-Broadway, OCTOBER SKY hits the Windy City stage, and the Industry Dance Awards recognize Broadway talent!

This summer, Museum of the Moving Image will present See It Big! 70mm, every weekend from August 7 through 30, featuring eight films made between 1961 and 2014 -- all of them shot in 70mm and to be shown in 70mm prints in the majestic Sumner M. Redstone Theater.

This summer, Museum of the Moving Image will present See It Big! 70mm, every weekend from August 7 through 30, featuring eight films made between 1961 and 2014 -- all of them shot in 70mm and to be shown in 70mm prints in the majestic Sumner M. Redstone Theater.

Lines are blurring. Gender-bending is seemingly everywhere these days, from high fashion ads to news coverage to I AM CAIT, Queen Latifah as The Wiz and beyond. Furthermore, one of the most provocative and popular stories of last week was the news of a Canadian regional production of A CHORUS LINE casting a male actor in the leading role of Cassie, renamed Casey. With the additional angle of Broadway currently being abuzz with the appearance of stage and screen star Taye Diggs stepping into the iconic high heels of the titular character in the recently multi-Tony Award-winning musical HEDWIG & THE ANGRY INCH - itself centered on a transsexual character - it seems as though now would be the ideal time to consider some other musical theatre mainstays and how they could be re-purposed and refreshed with a gender-bended twist. Although certain roles seems tailor-made to such treatment, it is illuminating to consider the rich possibilities that could potentially be afforded in the experience of witnessing the right performer of perhaps the perceivably wrong sex tackling a role normally associated with the opposite gender. Who knows, maybe a female Phantom or a make Elphaba are not that wildly spurious or far-fetched to consider given the compelling performances that have been given by unlikely actors in roles traditionally portrayed in a certain way. Theatre is nothing without reinvention and these are my top 10 picks for musicals I would like to see taken on with fresh eyes and a new outlook.

Broadway stars past, present and future will be honored at this year's Industry Dance Awards. 

Good morning, BroadwayWorld! Because we know all our readers eat, sleep and breathe Broadway, what could be better than waking up to it? Today's big news: Taye Diggs steps into HEDWIG's stilettos, AMERICAN IDIOT and SONGS FOR A NEW WORLD open in London, JOHN begins off-Broadway, Valerie Harper returns to the stage, and more!

THE BLACK BOX, downtown Franklin's new theater, music, and event venue, presents two evenings of great jazz to kick off the first annual Summer Concert Series.

With breaking news arising late last week of Glenn Close being considered for a return to her Tony Award-winning role in Andrew Lloyd Webber, Don Black and Christopher Hampton's Tony Award-winning Best Musical SUNSET BOULEVARD as well as the show's anniversary of its original West End world premiere opening on July 12, now is an absolutely opportune time to turn back the clock to 1993 and see what precisely makes SUNSET BOULEVARD so spectacular - and muse on some of the major talent that could bring the type of big-time attention that would warrant a major revival of the musical, whether on Broadway, the West End or even the silver screen. Given that the original Billy Wilder film was penned with Gloria Swanson in mind and ultimately became a roman a clef of sorts for the unique star as well as considering the sordid history of original lead Patti LuPone and her odyssey in starring in the show, not to mention the victorious and memorable highs achieved by the leading ladies who have headlined the show - which, post-Close, included Betty Buckley, Rita Moreno, Diahann Carroll, Elaine Paige and more - the role is ripe for a star of epic proportions to introduce one of Andrew Lloyd Webber's most acclaimed musicals to a new generation. And, the time is now. The possibilities are virtually endless, but here are some particularly delectable ideas as we begin to consider who would be absolutely ideal for a new Norma Desmond fit for 2015.

Good morning, BroadwayWorld! Because we know all our readers eat, sleep and breathe Broadway, what could be better than waking up to it? Today's big news: AMAZING GRACE sails to Broadway, SOMETHING ROTTEN! gathers at B&N and more! 

THE BLACK BOX, downtown Franklin's new theater, music, and event venue, presents two evenings of great jazz to kick off the first annual Summer Concert Series.

THE NATIONAL HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL THEATRE AWARDS (NHSMTA)/JIMMY AWARDS just announced that 52 high school students from across America will compete for the Jimmy Award for Best Performance by an Actor and Actress at the seventh annual awards ceremony. The presentation will take place on Monday, June 29th at 7:30PM at the Minskoff Theatre, 200 West 45th Street in Manhattan. Tickets can be purchased by visiting NHSMTA.COM or TICKETMASTER.COM and range from $39 to $79. Premium seats are $175.

If your favorite musical ever had a favorite musical it would always inarguably be WEST SIDE STORY! With the book written by Arthur Laurents, original music by Leonard Bernstein, lyrics by the masterful Stephen Sondheim, and the entire original production directed and choreographed by the incomparable Jerome Robbins, I don't even have to tell you how meteoric and magical this musical was and still is.

HAMILTON and IN THE HEIGHTS creator and star Lin-Manuel Miranda will receive the Nuestro Orgullo Award during this year's Puerto Rican Day Parade. Fellow Puerto Rican theater star Rita Moreno will be this year's grand marshall at the parade.

The Washington engagement of Disney's NEWSIES, the Tony Award-winning smash hit musical, will play an exclusive two-week engagement at National Theatre. The production begins performances tonight, June 9, for a limited two-week engagement through June 21.

A panel of nationally recognized judges, including Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony Award-winner, Rita Moreno; choreographer and Broadway dancer Michael Balderrama; director Michael Donovan; and producer, director and choreographer Andy Ferrara, announced the 2015 winners of The Rita Moreno California High School Musical Honors - formerly called The California High School Musical Honors - at San Jose's Center for the Performing Arts. Sponsored by Children's Musical Theater San Jose and Broadway San Jose, a Nederlander Presentation, this yearly regional awards competition recognizes outstanding achievement in high school musical theatre in the greater California region.

The Film Society of Lincoln Center and the Metropolitan Opera announced that they are co-presenting a free outdoor screening of Jerome Robbins & Robert Wise's Academy Award-winning film West Side Story on the Lincoln Center Plaza in front of the opera house on Friday, August 28 at 7:45pm.

The Metropolitan Opera's annual Summer HD Festival, which presents free outdoor screenings of operas on Lincoln Center Plaza each summer, will return with 10 screenings of performances featuring the company's leading artists in a varied selection of operas by Bartók, Bizet, Gounod, Mozart, Offenbach, Puccini, Tchaikovsky, and Verdi, running on consecutive nights from August 29 through September 7.

The rich history of entertainment and laughter are revealed in the half-hour documentaryTreasures of New York: Friars Club, tonight, May 22 at 10 p.m. on THIRTEEN.

The rich history of entertainment and laughter are revealed in the half-hour documentaryTreasures of New York: Friars Club, premiering on Thursday, May 21 at 10 p.m. on WLIW21 and Friday, May 22 at 10 p.m. on THIRTEEN.