Tom Sawyer News

For the first time, an actor will arrive direct from a Broadway production to appear in the same role on the PSF main stage: William Michals, who played Emile de Becque in South Pacific at Lincoln Center will perform the role in PSF's production.

The opening production of the Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival's 20th season, South Pacific, features several historic firsts

The 2011 Tony Award nominees were announced live from the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts in New York City on Tuesday, May 3, 2011. The next day, proud nominees gathered at the Millenium Hotel in Times Square to celebrate and meet the press. Broadway Beat was on hand, of course, to speak with all of the proud nominees. In anticipation of Tony night on June 12, 2011, BroadwayWorld will be bringing you new clips of the stars in conversation each week so be sure to check back! Below, we bring you Nikki M. James, Best Featured Actress in a Musical for The Book of Mormon. James has additionally appeared on Broadway in All Shook Up and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.

Director Kate Adams-Johnson, aka Nashville's busiest choreographer, is putting yet another cast through its paces in preparation for yet another opening night. Only this time, she's serious. Very serious. The show she's helming this time, you see, is every dancer's holy grail: A Chorus Line. In the cast, you'll find a blending of familiar faces and newcomers. During the run-up to the show's June 9 opening night, we'll introduce you to Kate's cast - and, as you'll see, some of them have much to learn about being interviewed by 'Nashville's favorite theater critic.' Next up is Donna 'The Pride of Irvine' Driver...obviously, this ain't her first time at the rodeo...

Travel down the mighty Mississippi with Huckleberry Finn and company in BIG RIVER at the Roxy Regional Theatre, beginning Friday, May 20, at 6pm.

Creators of theater for young people in the Netherlands are recognized worldwide for being particularly daring, artistic and challenging. To introduce New York audiences to some of the Dutch companies creating this acclaimed work, The New Victory Theater will kick off the second half of its 2011-12 Season with Zoem! New Dutch Theater. The program, which includes four U.S. premieres all performed in English, will run from January 6 through January 29, 2012.

Pulitzer Prize-winning Playwright August Wilson's Gem of the Ocean will be open May 12 at Hartford Stage, the final play in the Tony Award-winning theatre's 47th season.

Travel down the mighty Mississippi with Huckleberry Finn and company in BIG RIVER at the Roxy Regional Theatre, beginning Friday, May 20, at 6pm.

Hartford Stage's Board of Directors, under the leadership of President Paul Bourdeau and Vice-President and search committee chair Jill Adams, announced today the appointment of Darko Tresnjak as the Tony Award-winning theatre's new Artistic Director, succeeding Michael Wilson.

Eric Rosen has announced his selections for Kansas City Repertory Theatre's 2011-12 season, his fourth as the theatre's artistic director.

Pulitzer Prize-winning Playwright August Wilson's Gem of the Ocean will be open May 12 at Hartford Stage, the final play in the Tony Award-winning theatre's 47th season.

Nominations in 26 competitive categories for the American Theatre Wing's 65th Annual Antoinette Perry 'Tony' Awards were announced May 3, 2011 by Tony Award winning actor Matthew Broderick and Tony Award winning actress Anika Noni Rose, at the Tony Award Nominations Announcement sponsored by IBM.

They've been called the most beautiful ensemble on Broadway...and we hear from one of them.

The Laguna Playhouse Youth Theatre is pleased to present the swashbuckling theatrical adventure Treasure Island, April 22 - May 1 at the Laguna Playhouse. The production is directed by Donna Inglima and features members of the Laguna Playhouse Youth Conservatory as well as adult actors.

Director Eric Link leads a cast of accomplished local actresses in Lakewood Theatre Company's 31st season's production of The Dixie Swim Club, a comedy by Jessie Jones, Nicholas Hope, and Jamie Wooten. According to Link - who is vice president of Lakewood Theatre Company and is the recent winner of its Lakie Award for best lead actor of 2010 for his role in Jones/Hope/Wooten's Southern Hospitality - The Dixie Swim Club focuses on five Southern women (whose friendships began many years ago on their college swim team), who set aside a long weekend every August to recharge those relationships. Free from husbands, kids and jobs, they meet at the same beach cottage on North Carolina's Outer Banks to catch up, laugh and meddle in one another's lives. The Dixie Swim Club focuses on four of those weekends and spans a period of thirty-three years.

The inaugural performance by Deviant Septet--a new collective of the country's foremost contemporary music players modeled after Igor Stravinsky's favored instrumentation of violin, bass, clarinet, bassoon, trumpet, trombone, and percussion--will present an eclectic evening centered around the virtuosic piece that inspired their ensemble, Stravinsky's l'Histoire du Soldat (A Soldier's Tale), on May 26th at New York City's Greenwich Music House.

Roundabout Theatre Company announced the full company of the new musical Death Takes A Holiday, with a book by Peter Stone & Thomas Meehan, music & lyrics by Maury Yeston, directed by Doug Hughes. The cast will include Linda Balgord (Contessa Danielli), Matt Cavenaugh (Eric Fenton), Mara Davi (Alice), Joy Hermalyn (Cora), Jay Jaski (Lorenzo), Simon Jones (Dr. Dario Albione), Rebecca Luker (Duchess Lamberti), Patricia Noonan (Sophia), Julian Ovenden (Prince Sirki / Death), Jill Paice (Grazia), Michael Siberry (Duke Lamberti), Alexandra Socha (Daisy Fenton), Don Stephenson (Fidele), Max Von Essen (Corrado Montelli).

The Laguna Playhouse Youth Theatre is pleased to present the swashbuckling theatrical adventure Treasure Island, April 22 - May 1 at the Laguna Playhouse. The production is directed by Donna Inglima and features members of the Laguna Playhouse Youth Conservatory as well as adult actors.

Barefoot Theatre Company - an Off-Broadway theater company now in its 12th season - will present the New York premiere of Joseph Sousa's play TEETH OF THE SONS, with previews beginning April 20 prior to an official press opening of April 22 at Cherry Lane Studio Theatre (38 Commerce Street) in Manhattan. Nicole Haran directs.

Anyone who watches the television shopping networks is familiar with QVC's Rick Domeier. The self-proclaimed 'Captain Midnight' is usually on in the late night hours and has more energy than a classroom full of kindergartners. His staccato laugh can be likened to the tommy guns that are seen in gangster movies, only Domeier isn't shooting down thugs with his laugh; he's setting sales records-and winning the hearts of millions of women in the process. He jokes with people who call in to testify about their purchases, he trades quips with Joan Rivers as he sits beside her during jewelry shows, he dances his goofy dance steps to the delight of his viewers and he shows genuine compassion to a woman on the phone who breaks down in tears when talking about the recent demise of her pet dog. At all times he is what Business 2.0 Magazine calls 'a whirlwind of energy'.