Something Good 2002 - Articles Page 9

Tim Robbins truly relishes the value and reach of theatre; and he persistently works to disseminate it throughout the world. We got a chance to talk with Tim, co-founder of The Actors' Gang and its current Artistic Director, the day after his latest directorial project ORWELL'S 1984 opened. See any of the productions Tim has directed and be challenged only not to be entertained, but thinking about what the play is saying.

Wedding bells are ringing! Broadway couple Andrew Samonsky (The Bridges of Madison County) and Kate Reinders (Something Rotten!) just got engaged. BroadwayWorld sends our congratulations to the happy couple!

Interested in some other fun facts about theatre in our schools? Below, celebrate the next 31 days of Theatre in Our Schools month with 31 factoids that you never knew!

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: Wayne Brady honors Jon Viktor Corpuz, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, Nellie McKay and more at Lincoln Center's Emerging Artist Awards!

Second Stage Theatre will present the world premiere of Sofia Alvarez's FRIEND ART, directed by Portia Krieger, and the New York premiere of Lucy Teitler's ENGAGEMENTS as part of the company's fourteenth annual SECOND STAGE THEATRE UPTOWN SERIES this summer.

The Cape Cod Theatre Company, home of the Harwich Junior Theatre, brings a stunning production of Shrek: The Musical to a Cape Cod stage and does an absolutely fine job of making sure audiences will see all the wonder to be found in this show. I am like a broken record when it comes to my praise of this group, but even at the risk of being redundant and sounding like a lovesick theater child will I once again say that CCTC has impressed me from the very beginning and continues to do so.

One more BOHEME? Yet another TOSCA? How about BARBIERE redux? Sometimes the standard repertoire of opera companies seems too standard. That's why it was good to hear that the Met was mounting Bizet's LES PECHEURS DE PERLES for the first time in a century, as a showcase for one of its top divas, Diana Damrau with tenor Matthew Polenzani, one of the company's secret treasures.

The legendary song and dance man, Tony Award-winning triple-threat Ben Vereen will be performing his solo cabaret act Steppin' Out with Ben Vereen at Catalina Jazz Club on December 18 and 19. In our talk, he comments about the show and shares memories from many of the shows he's done during his illustrious career.

Can YOU feel a brand new day? We're gearing up to ease on down the road with powerhouse newcomer Shanice Williams and the rest of the gang from Oz, when THE WIZ LIVE! premieres Thursday, December 3, at 8pm on NBC.  Of course, as was the case in 2013's THE SOUND OF MUSIC LIVE! and last year's PETER PAN LIVE!, the cast is certainly not short on big-name talent — and most come with Broadway or theatrical credits, no less. As if you didn't already know, be sure to look out for Queen Latifah (of 2002's CHICAGO and 2007's HAIRSPRAY), Elijah Kelley (also of 2007's HAIRSPRAY), Uzo Aduba (of CORAM BOY and 2011's GODSPELL), and David Alan Grier (2012's PORGY AND BESS). 

Award-winning stage and screen star Stephen Lang brings BEYOND GLORY, his one man show that tells the stories of eight medal of honor recipients, to Houston, TX on Saturday, November 21, 2015. Lang has a long list of notable performances on and off Broadway, in Hollywood, and has taken his stage play BEYOND GLORY across the globe. Lang is best known for portraying Col. Miles Quaritch in James Cameron's AVATAR, Ike Clanton in TOMBSTONE, Increase Mather in the hit television series SALEM, and Commander Nathanial Taylor in TERRA NOVA.

Musical Theater Heritage (MTH) will present Urinetown: The Musical, by Mark Hollman and Greg Kotis, winner of three 2002 Tony Awards.  Performances will take place Todays at 7pm, Fridays @ 8pm, Saturdays @ 2pm & 8pm, and Sundays @ 2pm, November 5-22.  All performances will be held in the main stage at Musical Theater Heritage in the Crown Center Shops.

The Fox Cities Performing Arts Center is excited to present unique performances during November and December that bring music, comedy, history and the holidays to the forefront. Whether it's a fancy evening, a girls getaway or a family outing, there's something for everyone before the year is through!

The Fox Cities Performing Arts Center is excited to present unique performances during November and December that bring music, comedy, history and the holidays to the forefront. Whether it's a fancy evening, a girls getaway or a family outing, there's something for everyone before the year is through!

When singers seem to come out of nowhere, it's usually not the case at all, but the culmination of years of hard work. But for Russian soprano Olga Peretyatko--the Met's current Gilda in the lively 'Ratpack' production of Verdi's RIGOLETTO--it certainly seemed like it.

ayo Performing Arts Center gets into the spirit of the season with two delightful treats for people who enjoy celebrating Halloween. For those who enjoy ghoulish fun, MPAC unleashes the mayhem and madness of EVIL DEAD - THE MUSICAL tonight, October 28, 2015 at 8 pm.

Musical Theater Heritage (MTH) will present Urinetown: The Musical, by Mark Hollman and Greg Kotis, winner of three 2002 Tony Awards.  Performances will take place Thursdays at 7pm, Fridays @ 8pm, Saturdays @ 2pm & 8pm, and Sundays @ 2pm, November 5-22.  All performances will be held in the main stage at Musical Theater Heritage in the Crown Center Shops.

With its initial working title called 'Phantasmagoria,' L. Ron Hubbard created what literary historian David Hartwell referred to as 'one of the foundations of the contemporary horror genre, widely influential, and powerfully effective.... From Ray Bradbury to Stephen King, a literary debt is owed to L. Ron Hubbard for 'Fear.' In classic Hubbard style, it is a story about ordinary people in an ordinary setting, who experience something out of the ordinary, something that irrevocably changes them and the world around them. The story's impact is in the suggestion the author leaves behind that it could happen to anyone. Ray Bradbury acknowledged that 'Fear' 'deeply influenced me when I was twenty years old' and was a 'landmark novel in my life.' And Stephen King called it, 'a classic tale of creeping, surreal menace and horror.... This is one of the really, really good ones.' In celebration of its 75th anniversary, Galaxy Press will host a special tribute to 'Fear' on October 31st-Halloween-at the L. Ron Hubbard Theatre as part of the performance of Hubbard's supernatural thriller 'Borrowed Glory.' The doors open at 7:00 PM and event begins at 7:30 PM. For event details and to reserve seats, go to http://bit.ly/1EnmMD9 'Fear,' a suspense thriller with a dark twist, is available at Amazon.com and www.galaxypress.com. Established in 2002 to meet the growing demand for the fiction works of bestselling author L. Ron Hubbard, Galaxy Press is the United States, Canada and Latin America publisher and distributor for Mr. Hubbard's complete fiction library, including perennial and New York Times bestsellers such as Battlefield Earth, Mission Earth, Final Blackout and To the Stars, and the collection of 153 novelettes and short stories released in 80 volumes as the Stories from the Golden Age. For more information go to www.galaxypress.com.

Mayo Performing Arts Center gets into the spirit of the season with two delightful treats for people who enjoy celebrating Halloween.  For those who enjoy ghoulish fun, MPAC unleashes the mayhem and madness of EVIL DEAD - THE MUSICAL on Wednesday, October 28, 2015 at 8 pm. Tickets are $29-$59. For people who like their Halloween fun to be a little 'wicked,' BEWITCHED BROADWAY features four former stars of Wicked performing the greatest Broadway hits that audiences love to hear on Friday, October 30, 2015 at 8 pm. Tickets are $29-59.

After an exciting summer season, Harwich Junior Theater, now a part of the Cape Cod Theatre Company, continues its sixty-forth season with a revival of its start-of-summer hit, The Great American Trailer Park Musical, bringing back a majority of its original cast that once made (and hereby continues to make) this show quite the adventure to embark on. To call it a revival, though, really does not do what is currently happening on that stage justice, as the cast and creative team has thus come together again to create a show that is even more powerful and more hilarious than what I remember; it is essentially a new show. The success and beauty of the first production, though, made me more than happy to provide a second review of the show, but the prospect of sitting through it again (even though I am now pretty familiar with the show) made me quite willing to make my way to CCTC once again.

There is something noble about earnestly attempting to do good, despite the overwhelming evidence that what you are embarking upon is almost certainly doomed to disappoint. Not only is that sentiment at the center of CARRIE THE MUSICAL, which Clandestine Arts is premiering in Central Florida through August 30th at the ME Theatre, but it also accurately describes the undertaking of performing this infamous piece of musical theatre history. Like Carrie's senior prom, unless everything goes unbelievably perfectly, the musical is likely going to be a substantial let-down. While Clandestine has put together an impressively talented group of young performers, especially in the show's four leads, the uneven and sloppy production undermines whatever power the piece might otherwise have had.

Boe just began rehearsals for his Broadway comeback, and he checked in with BroadwayWorld after Day 1. In the full interview below find out how he feels about being Britain's favorite tenor, what his memories are of the 25th Anniversary concert and so much more!

As part of a very impressive sixty-forth summer season, Where the Mountain Meets the Moon makes its Cape Cod premiere with Harwich Junior Theater's current production…and what a clever idea it was to bring such a heartwarming story to its stage! Written by Grace Lin, adapted by Jeannine Coulombe and directed by the magnificent Jane Staab (an HJT alumna herself), the one word that came to mind when thinking of how Where the Mountain Meets the Moon can be described is "majestic." Telling the story of a young girl who embarks on a quest to find the mystical, omniscient being who can reveal to her the secret of wealth, this Newbery-honored novel is transformed into something Staab has made beautiful to behold on stage.

Bravo to Chance Theater for taking on this mainstream hit and making it actually feel like a fresh, awesome little indie. Now playing through August 9, the latest offering from Orange County's bold, award-winning regional theater company is their own 'intimate' theater re-staging of HAIRSPRAY, the 2002 hit Tony Award-winning musical comedy. The results? Quite simply a more compact production that is an absolutely undeniable, all-around rousing winner. Under the direction of Kari Hayter, the celebratory production's immersive, semi-theater-in-the-round minimalist approach actually thrusts the show's outstanding music and comedy out front, wonderfully blanketing the audience in the show's pro-integration, pro-acceptance storyline about a rotund young lady with big hair and big dreams who sets off to change the world.

Mickey R. Mullen's 2002 book ' The Way The Truth and The Life' (published by Trafford Publishing) by Mickey R. Mullen is receiving new marketing materials touting its recent inclusion in the Trafford Publishing Gold Seal program, which recognizes excellence in writing and overall potential.

Ever since I attended my first production at the wonderful Harwich Junior Theater a few months ago, I have consistently been amazed by what has appeared on that stage then and thereafter. The shows never disappoint, and I never cease to be impressed by how talented the involved actors of all ages prove themselves to be. Stumbling upon this theater and its magnificent productions has really given that extra spark that not all theatergoers and reviewers alike may receive when attending live productions, and it is always an unequivocal pleasure to find this out for oneself. So saying, HJT's current children's production of Aladdin is yet another beauty of a show that will have audiences of all ages captivated by the tale of Aladdin and his quest to become someone great. Even though most of actors involved in the production are 'small,' there is nothing of that nature in this extremely well done and entertaining retelling of the Aladdin audiences may not know much about.