Ventriloquist Nina Conti got her break when Ken Campbell specially devised Let Me Out!!! for her in 2001, and she's since won numerous awards, headlined shows, appeared in Christopher Guest's For Your Consideration. She's now on a major UK tour with improvised show In Your Face, which sees audience members donning masks and becoming live semi-puppets. The show comes to New Wimbledon Theatre on 3 October.
Today, John Treacy Egan speaks with BWW about revisiting the role of this Nazi-loving, Broadway-crazed nutjob!
Performance artist Brian Lobel has spent 12 years creating innovative work out of difficult personal experiences and tough topics. He's now joined forces with Bryony Kimmings and Complicite to create the highly anticipated new musical A Pacifist's Guide to the War on Cancer, which premieres at Manchester's HOME on 20 September, then plays Exeter Northcott and the National Theatre.
Today, Marissa Jaret Winokur shares her fondest memories from the show and explains why HAIRSPRAY is 'the gift that keeps on giving!'
Things are not always as they seem in Investigation Discovery's (ID) all-new series BETRAYED, which revisits heart-pounding cases of deception that ended in murder at the hands of a trusted family member, co-worker, lover, or friend.
Things are not always as they seem in Investigation Discovery's (ID) all-new series BETRAYED, which revisits heart-pounding cases of deception that ended in murder at the hands of a trusted family member, co-worker, lover, or friend.
'We are excited to have the audience open its eyes to some sunshine. [Artistic Director] Curt Dale Clark and I were just saying this morning that this has been an intense season so far, and Fiddler on the Roof and Evita cannot let in much sun. But we stream that light in Mamma Mia, and we hope it will provide a chance to breathe in the joy of the Greek Isles. If we do it right, we will all feel an uplift.'
Director/choreographer Mark Martino is waxing eloquent about his latest project and one which constitutes his Maine State Music Theatre debut: a new production of the 2001 Broadway smash it musical Mamma Mia, based on the songs of ABBA. Martino has what he calls 'a very short history' with the show, having mounted a production for the first time in June of this year at the Theatre Aspen. 'The two will be staged very differently,' he explains. 'Aspen is a 200-seat thrust stage, and here they have a 600-seat proscenium theatre. The Pickard Theater gives me an opportunity to expand the show. Our cast at MSMT is about one third larger than in Colorado - some twenty-seven actors - which is even a bit larger than the twenty-four in the original Broadway production. The production values are going to be large and lavish, and the cast has a huge amount of energy, so for me it is an opportunity to revisit the show and make different pictures and entirely different choreography.'
As the characters Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne, Mark Edward Lang and Alison J. Murphy seem to be a perfect fit in the play about the famous Broadway actors. Lang and Murphy are married in real life and have been performing together for many years. Recently visiting San Antonio, Texas, BWW had a chance to sit down and chat with them about their roles and about the show LUNT AND FONTANNE 'THE CELESTIALS OF BROADWAY.'
The 70th Annual Tony Awards are this Sunday June 12th at 8/9c hosted by James Corden. It's the biggest award show of the Broadway season and it closes out a long awards season for Broadway and Off-Broadway musicals and plays. We can't help but wonder what chances this year's Best Musical and Best Play nominees have of taking home the ultimate prize.
Destiny's Child pushed for women to be independent in 2001 with Independent Woman, and I am pushing for actors to be independent today with this blog. Independence is a quality few people possess, a quality I am thankful enough to have, and a quality I hope to instill upon people. This quality is useful in almost any situation. But truthfully, I think it can be most useful to actors.
59E59 Theaters will welcome Dillie Keane (from Fascinating Aida) back to Brits Off Broadway with the US premiere of HELLO DILLIE, written by Ms. Keane and Adele Anderson, and directed by Simon Green and featuring Michael Roulston on piano. Produced by Pleasance Theatre Trust Ltd, HELLO DILLIE begins performances on Tuesday June 7 for a limited engagement through Sunday, July 3. Press opening is Tuesday, June 14 at 7:30 PM. The performance schedule is Tuesday - Thursday at 7:30 PM; Friday at 8:30 PM; Saturday at 2:30 PM & 8:30 PM; and Sunday at 3:30 PM. Performances are at 59E59 Theaters (59 East 59th Street, between Park and Madison Avenues). Tickets are $25 ($17.50 for 59E59 Members). To purchase tickets, call Ticket Central at (212) 279-4200 or visit www.59e59.org.
As exhilaratingly in-your-face as only the very best of contemporary theater can deliver, Green Day's American Idiot - now onstage in a startlingly emphatic and exuberant production at Clarksville's Roxy Regional Theatre - exemplifies just how far the company itself has come since its beginnings as a community theater. Now, serving as a training ground for some of the very best of musical theater stars-to-come, The Roxy has more than come into its own, continuing to push the envelope, to challenge audiences to expand their artistic purview and to create theater that is as compelling as any you'll find on a stage anywhere in the good ol' US of A.
Hear ye, hear ye…Music City Confidential is back! Which means, of course, that I've heard an awful lot of scuttlebutt since last week's column went live on the interwebs - or, more likely, that I am trying to avoid boring and mundane stuff like packing - I'll let you decide what my motivation truly is...
Longtime CBS/NBC TV news reporter-critic David Sheehan, who is hosting a new internet Oscar special 'AND THE WINNERS ARE...' says what he calls the 'about time' syndrome makes Leonardo DiCaprio the only sure thing at tonight's Academy Awards.
At first blush, the idea to dramatize the investigation into the Catholic Church's widespread sexual abuse scandal in Boston seems like a daunting, unpleasant proposition; and while the subject matter is both frustrating and sickening, the final product, the Academy Award-nominated SPOTLIGHT, has become a reminder for many of the importance of a very specific type of journalism.
Throw on some makeup, grab your highest heels, and hold on to your wigs because something fabulous is strutting into New Orleans tomorrow that you won't want to miss! KINKY BOOTS is a fairly new, Tony Award-winning musical production brought to you by creative dream team Jerry Mitchell, Cyndi Lauper, and Harvey Fierstein. Inspired by the true-life events of Steve Pateman, it tells the story of a young man who inherits his family's failing shoe factory.
To millions of fans around the world, Nathan Lee Graham is known for playing a man very comfortable in the fabulous clothes; whether that is as Wardrobe Supervisor Peter, opposite Lisa Kudrow in the first season of THE COMEBACK; as Reese Witherspoon's fashion mentor Frederick Montana in SWEET HOME ALABAMA; or as designer Jacobim Mugatu's latte-fetching assistant Todd in the ZOOLANDER films. While Graham's real life does not involve serving at the pleasure of a demented, homicidal fashion designer he does lead an existence filled with fashion and excitement.
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: THE WEDGE HORSE opens off-Broadway and SIDE SHOW stars Alice Ripley and Emily Skinner reunite in concert this evening!
Broadwayworld.com interviewed Phil Geoffrey Bond, Producer of 'Simply Streisand' at NJPAC on 2/6.
Asolo Rep continues its 2015-16 season with quintessential American playwright Eugene O'Neill's sentimental comedy AH, WILDERNESS!, directed by Greg Leaming, associate artistic director of Asolo Rep and the director of the FSU/Asolo Conservatory for Actor Training. The Tony Award, Pulitzer and Nobel Prize winner's sole comedy opens tonight, January 22 at 8pm and runs in rotating repertory through Sunday, April 10 in the Mertz Theatre, located in the FSU Center for the Performing Arts.
Asolo Rep continues its 2015-16 season with quintessential American playwright Eugene O'Neill's sentimental comedy AH, WILDERNESS!, directed by Greg Leaming, associate artistic director of Asolo Rep and the director of the FSU/Asolo Conservatory for Actor Training. The Tony Award, Pulitzer and Nobel Prize winner's sole comedy previews tonight, January 20 and Thursday, January 21 at 8pm, opens Friday, January 22 at 8pm and runs in rotating repertory through Sunday, April 10 in the Mertz Theatre, located in the FSU Center for the Performing Arts.
At the end of every 'backstage' interview, BroadwayWorld's Richard Ridge asks his guest, 'What is the best bit of advice that you've been given that you still live by?' Below, we've rounded up all the sage responses from the stars of 2015!
Asolo Rep continues its 2015-16 season with quintessential American playwright Eugene O'Neill's sentimental comedy AH, WILDERNESS!, directed by Greg Leaming, associate artistic director of Asolo Rep and the director of the FSU/Asolo Conservatory for Actor Training. The Tony Award, Pulitzer and Nobel Prize winner's sole comedy previews on Wednesday, January 20 and Thursday, January 21 at 8pm, opens Friday, January 22 at 8pm and runs in rotating repertory through Sunday, April 10 in the Mertz Theatre, located in the FSU Center for the Performing Arts.
“Often when I tell people I'm doing a new production, the first question they ask is: 'What time period are you going to do it in and where?' I think that's a superficial approach, almost a cliche,” says Tomer Zvulun, General and Artistic Director of the Atlanta Opera. “The first thing I ask myself is: Why am I telling this story now? Why would the audience care? And, how would I connect with them in the most effect way while respecting the piece?”
But that's not Tvulun's point of view.
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