Once is Enough 1938 - Articles Page 2

From SOUTH PACIFIC to THE KING AND I to FIDDLER ON THE ROOF and now MY FAIR LADY, director Bartlett Sher has been spending the better part of this young century perfecting his method of mounting ravishing, emotionally stimulating productions of classic 20th Century musicals.

Catch MOTOWN THE MUSICAL before it races away from the Hippodrome in Baltimore. If you missed it in 2016, flag it down before it's gone. If you caught it before, it's had a tuneup and is plenty worth watching again. Surely someone you love should see it with you.

Will Geer's Theatricum Botanicum is back with an exciting summer line-up of socially conscious theater, music and performance. The Summer 2018 Season, including five plays set to open in rapid succession and perform in repertory throughout the summer together with a host of satellite events, will open June 2 and continue through mid-October in the company's breathtakingly beautiful outdoor Topanga setting.

Ellen Wedner, Vice President of Arts & Culture at Mandel JCC, today invited book buffs to several literary events next month at which authors will discuss his/her work and respond to comments and questions from the audience.

Ellen Wedner, Vice President of Arts & Culture at Mandel JCC, today invited book buffs to several literary events next month at which authors will discuss his/her work and respond to comments and questions from the audience.

Ellen Wedner, Vice President of Arts & Culture at Mandel JCC, today invited book buffs to several literary events next month at which authors will discuss his/her work and respond to comments and questions from the audience.

Midtown Direct Rep (MDR) launches its 2017-18 reading series, Theater at The Woodland, with a free presentation of SOMETHING TO LIVE FOR, a new play with music, written by Rob Zellers, directed by Billy Porter, with music supervision by Zane Mark and musical direction by Darryl Ivey. 

Even if you've never heard a note sung by Ella Fitzgerald (and if that's the case, you should stop reading this review immediately and look up some of her recordings on YouTube) Andrea Frierson's duo-bio solo show, ME & ELLA, can be related to by anyone whose life was influenced by a popular artist they've never met.

New York Theatre Ballet, the foremost chamber ballet company in the United States, will return to Tarboro, North Carolina on March 30, 2017 at 7:30pm to perform in the Edgecombe Community College Performing Arts Series, bringing a program of mixed repertoire. NYTB has performed in the series annually for the past four years.

The Lakewood Playhouse is proud to announce its 79th Season of Shows! It's a season filled with Laughter, Mystery, Literature, and Stories That Touch the Heart. This year includes Five Premiers that have never been seen at the Lakewood Playhouse!  

The cast of Raven Theatre Company's premiere of Tennessee Williams' Not About Nightingales has been announced, with Raven Founding Artistic Director Michael Menendian directing. The play's action revolves around the tyrannical prison warden Boss Whalen's inhumane treatment of the inmates in his island prison.  Deciding they have had enough, and inspired by their de facto leader Butch, the inmates of Hall C fight back by waging a hunger strike. When it garners media attention, Boss Whalen responds with torture.  All the while, Whalen's inmate assistant Jim and new secretary Eva struggle with the moral dilemma of either exposing the strike and losing their jobs or assisting Whalen in keeping it under wraps. 

Nothing in the press release prepared me for the power and beauty of THE MAR VISTA, an ambitious autobiographical theater-dance piece by Brooklyn-based Yehuda Hyman which ranges over four countries on two continents in 90 years. This is no one's fault (though a tissue alert would have been nice), as the collaboration between Hyman's Mystical Feet Company and LABA: The Laboratory of Jewish Culture does not lend itself to neat description. A brief review of Hyman's artistic background--choreographer, playwright, poet, translator of poetry, and teacher of dance at Sarah Lawrence (from which he earned his M.F.A), Princeton, NYU, Barnard, and USC, among others-would best, perhaps, indicate the play's epic sweep, both emotionally and historically.

Perhaps the most epic choral work ever composed, Beethoven's monumental Ninth Symphony, which includes the famous last movement, “Ode to Joy,” has filled concert venues around the world for close to two centuries, yet has never lost its ability to thrill. A musical wonder considered by many to be Beethoven's greatest work, his massive and majestic Ninth fills Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre with pure radiance during Pacific Symphony's second concert of Summer Festival 2016. Led by Music Director Carl St.Clair, this crown jewel of the season boasts a huge orchestra, full chorus and a spine-tingling vocal quartet. The heart-welling program also includes a number of other beloved and moving pieces including Aaron Copland's “Fanfare for the Common Man,” Samuel Barber's “Adagio for Strings,” John Williams' “Liberty Fanfare” and his “Hymn to the Fallen” from the film “Saving Private Ryan.”

Perhaps the most epic choral work ever composed, Beethoven's monumental Ninth Symphony, which includes the famous last movement, “Ode to Joy,” has filled concert venues around the world for close to two centuries, yet has never lost its ability to thrill. A musical wonder considered by many to be Beethoven's greatest work, his massive and majestic Ninth fills Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre with pure radiance during Pacific Symphony's second concert of Summer Festival 2016. Led by Music Director Carl St.Clair, this crown jewel of the season boasts a huge orchestra, full chorus and a spine-tingling vocal quartet. The heart-welling program also includes a number of other beloved and moving pieces including Aaron Copland's “Fanfare for the Common Man,” Samuel Barber's “Adagio for Strings,” John Williams' “Liberty Fanfare” and his “Hymn to the Fallen” from the film “Saving Private Ryan.”

The national tour stop of MOTOWN at the Capitol Theatre is another in a series of historic events for Broadway in Utah (recently dubbed Broadway at the Eccles, after its new home). Immediately following its final Salt Lake City performance, the entire production will pack up and move to the Nederlander Theatre in New York City for a limited 18-week Broadway engagement, starting July 12. This means that the performers you see here will also be starring in the show on Broadway, on the same set and wearing the same costumes. It is quite literally Broadway in Utah.

Eagle Theatre will pay homage to the Greater Delaware Valley with a groundbreaking production of Thornton Wilder's Tony Award, Drama Desk Award, and Pulitzer Prize Winning play, OUR TOWN.

In their new City Center home, the Mint presents the American premiere of the Irish playwright's workplace drama.

Donmar Warehouse Announces the 2016 Spring Season!

Mint Theater (Jonathan Bank, Producing Artistic Director; Jen Soloway, Managing Director) today announced that the next production, Women Without Men, will begin performances January 30th and continue through March 26th at New York City Center Stage II (131 West 55th Street). The play explores the clash of conflicting natures and petty competitions that erupt amongst the cloistered teaching staff of an all-girls boarding school.

Sometimes it seems there is so much theater happening that it's difficult to keep track of it all. From personal experience, despite all the datebooks, smart phones, tablets, desktop computers and laptops...it's hard to keep everything straight in this wacky business of the show.

Appropriately enough, the supposedly haunted Plummer Auditorium in Fullerton is currently playing host to the happy spooks of 3-D Theatricals' regional production of THE ADDAMS FAMILY, which continues performances at this historic theater through October 25 before migrating south to the Redondo Beach Performing Arts Center for shows October 31 - November 8. Filled with gleeful, cheese-tastic one-liners and catchy, cleverly written tunes from Andrew Lippa (The Wild Party, Big Fish), this seemingly underrated stage musical gem is a lively, highly-amusing little comedy that celebrates individual uniqueness while poking lots of giddy fun at fragile family dynamics, pointing out that even the most creepy, kooky, mysterious, and spooky beings among us face the same kinds of OMG-drama that so-called 'normals' do. As an added bonus, 3DT's production features a stellar cast led by TV's Bronson Pinchot as Gomez and Broadway vet Rachel York as Morticia.

One of Stephen Schwartz's failures The Baker's Wife, which toured extensively across the US in 1976 but never made it to Broadway, had a cast recording with Patti LuPone, Paul Sorvino and Teri Ralston and has had a few revivals including the UK. Why did it bomb? It's a simple, sweet show with a lovely message about human connection and a few pretty ballads, especially the hit 'Meadowlark', but there's a spark missing, nothing really exciting to get people into the seats; it's most definitely not commercial enough for Broadway. Based on the 1938 French film La Femme du Boulanger, that may be the main reason that the show is rarely performed. Now onstage at Actors co-op, Baker's Wife is mounted scrumptiously with terrific direction from Richard Israel and a superlatively cast ensemble.

It was 'out with the old, in with the new' for another of the Franco Zeffirelli productions that were once the Metropolitan Opera's bread and butter, designed for audiences to cheer for the scenery even when the cast might not have been top drawer. This time, the victims of changing times (and administrations) were the twin bill of Mascagni's CAVALLERIA RUSTICANA and Leoncavallo's PAGLIACCI.

The Program Launch for the second half of 2015 shows that the Independent Music Theatre team comprising Luckiest Productions (David Campbell, Lisa Campbell and Richard Carroll), Neglected Musicals (Michelle Guthrie), and Neil Gooding Productions, the driving force behind Hayes Theatre Company, have no intention of slowing down are staying true to their vision to provide a permanent home for small-scale musical theatre and cabaret.

In the 2015-16 season, David Mirvish will present 14 shows in Toronto, consisting of seven shows in the Mainstage Subscription Series, three in the Off-Mirvish Subscription Series and four shows off-subscription.