Kids 'N Comedy, New York's leading presenter of young comic talent, will present 'Christmakwanzukah,' their holiday show, tonight, December 16 at Gotham Comedy Club, 208 West 23rd Street.
Additional casting has been announced for LUCKY GUY on Broadway. The production stars two-time Academy Award-winner Tom Hanks, making his Broadway debut, in a new play by three-time Academy Award-nominee Nora Ephron and directed by two-time Tony Award-winner George C. Wolfe.
The success of RABBIT HOLE, which won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and was adapted into a film starring Nicole Kidman, made David Lindsay-Abaire more than a blip on radars within and outside of the arts community. As a playwright, David Lindsay-Abaire is best known for writing about real people unraveling in difficult situations. His 2000 Play KIMBERLY AKIMBO, being presented by Mildred's Umbrella Theater Company lives up to this reputation, ensuring the audience laughs as much as they are devastated.
Progressive rock fans worldwide are buzzing with excitement about the forthcoming release of a new covers CD by music legends Nektar called "A Spoonful Of Time", featuring an all-star guest line-up.
The Colony Theatre previously announced that it has achieved the first goal of its emergency "Save the Colony" campaign by raising $49,000 in ten days so that it can open THE MORINI STRAD as scheduled tonight, November 17th. However, the award-winning theatre company still must raise $500,000 by year's end to continue serving the region.
Kids 'N Comedy, New York's leading presenter of young comic talent, will present 'Christmakwanzukah,' their holiday show, December 16 at Gotham Comedy Club, 208 West 23rd Street.
The Colony Theatre today announced that it has achieved the first goal of its emergency "Save the Colony" campaign by raising $49,000 in ten days so that it can open THE MORINI STRAD as scheduled on November 17th. However, the award-winning theatre company still must raise $500,000 by year's end to continue serving the region.
Following is the unofficial transcript of a FIRST ON CNBC interview with Former NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani tonight on CNBC's THE KUDLOW REPORT (M-F, 7-8PM ET).
Progressive rock fans worldwide are buzzing with excitement about the forthcoming release of a new covers CD by music legends Nektar called "A Spoonful Of Time", featuring an all-star guest line-up.
2012 Academy Award winner Christopher Plummer recreates his Tony Award winning role in the film adaptation of BARRYMORE, directed & adapted by Érik Canuel, which will be theatrically released jointly by BY Experience and Image Entertainment beginning Thursday, November 15 in New York and Los Angeles. BARRYMORE is based on the play by William Luce.
NBC has announced the cast of the upcoming CELEBRITY APPRENTICE ALL-STAR season. The fourteen returning contestants, who were revealed on NBC's Today show this morning, includes former winner Bret Michaels
ANNIE, the new production of the Tony Award-winning musical, went into rehearsal today in New York City with its full company. The production begins previews October 3, 2012 and opens November 8, 2012 at the Palace Theatre (Broadway at 47th Street). Meet the full cast below!
BBC AMERICA to premiere its new original series from Executive Producer Jamie Oliver, CHEF RACE: U.K. vs. U.S., with two back-to-back episodes on Tuesday, October 2. Ahead of the premiere, BBC AMERICA will present a special preview of the first episode on Saturday September 29, 10:00pm ET, following the mid-season finale of Doctor Who.
BBC AMERICA to premiere its new original series from Executive Producer Jamie Oliver, CHEF RACE: U.K. vs. U.S., with two back-to-back episodes on Tuesday, October 2. Ahead of the premiere, BBC AMERICA will present a special preview of the first episode on Saturday September 29, 10:00pm ET, following the mid-season finale of Doctor Who.
Yesterday, August 22, Liz Lochhead launched Poetry in the Persian Tent at the Festival of Spirituality and Peace in Edinburgh, UK, to raise money for Oxfam project Old MacDonald Had a Farm for Africa. In the first of five Poetry in the Persian Tent readings with music, poets Liz Lochhead, John Glenday, Ryan Van Winkle, and Stephanie Green performed their verse accompanied by John Sampson on wind instruments.
ANNIE, the new production of the Tony Award-winning musical, went into rehearsal today in New York City with its full company. The production begins previews October 3, 2012 and opens November 8, 2012 at the Palace Theatre (Broadway at 47th Street). Meet the full cast below!
The cast of DANCING WITH THE STARS: ALL STARS has just been announced. The show will premiere Monday, September 24, 8:00-10:00 p.m., ET/PT on the ABC Network. The All-Stars cast will feature Gilles Marini, Pamela Anderson, Kelly Monaco, Shawn Johnson, Melissa Rycroft, Joey Fatone, Helio Castroneves, Drew Lachey, Bristol Palin, Apolo Anton Ono, Kirstie Alley and Emmit Smith.
This Cinco de Mayo, boxing superstar and seven-time World Champion Floyd "Money" Mayweather will take on current WBA Super Welterweight World Champion Miguel Cotto in the big screen event, Ring Kings: Mayweather vs. Cotto Fight Live tonight, May 5 at 9:00 p.m. ET/6:00 p.m. PT. Broadcast in high definition to nearly 440 movie theaters nationwide from the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, the highly anticipated match-up will give fans a ringside seat as Mayweather steps up in weight to challenge Cotto for the super welterweight championship. Also featured on this blockbuster card, will be young superstar Canelo Alvarez facing six-time World Champion Sugar Shane Mosley.
Forget "Rock Of Ages." That 21st century musical about the 1980s has nothing on the real thing. "Cats," the show that set much of the look and tone of musical theater for the next decade or so when it opened in London in 1981 and in New York in 1982 (and began continuous touring in 1984, a record unmatched in theater history) is on display for this week only (sorry, "Now And Forever") at Chicago's Cadillac Palace Theatre. Forget "Rock Of Ages." That 21st century musical about the 1980s has nothing on the real thing. "Cats," the show that set much of the look and tone of musical theater for the next decade or so when it opened in London in 1981 and in New York in 1982 (and began continuous touring in 1984, a record unmatched in theater history) is on display for this week only (sorry, "Now And Forever") at Chicago's Cadillac Palace Theatre. And I, who saw the original Broadway production twice during that heady decade and have not seen the show in any form since then, was eager to go and see what the fuss was, and is, all about. So I went, Tuesday night.
If you've never seen this show, if you kids have never seen it, or if you want to experience the magic of this unique theatrical masterpiece one more time, then this is a great opportunity to do so, as this is the only remaining North American production to (somewhat) accurately replicate the award-winning, record-setting British musical that took America and the world by storm thirty years ago. This tour of non-Equity performers, with its usual orchestra of five beefed up to eight for a weeklong stand (May 1-6) in a major theatrical market, has enough going for it that I highly recommend it. It's a little like entering a time machine, and there's a lot of sleight of hand, but it works. Let me explain.
What is "Cats?" Much maligned by insiders, derided as dated by visual artists, underrated by dance teachers and ignored by voice teachers (save for its megahit song, "Memory," which is heard twice, but never in the sheet music version everything has heard and claims to know), it is in many ways a dichotomy. It's a dance show (choreography by Gillian Lynne) written by a singer's songwriter (Andrew Lloyd Webber), as well as a British song cycle based on poems written by a St. Louis-born English poet (T. S. Eliot) who never intended his work ("Old Possum's Book Of Practical Cats," and other snippets) to be either musicalized or staged.
Its plot, slight though it is, is also the subject of much derision, but to this observer is very reminiscent of "A Chorus Line," a universally revered work that does include dialogue and more depth of character, but also honors unity of time and place. However, there are indeed works that dispense with plot entirely, and which people unabashedly love (you know, revues--"Ain't Misbehavin'" comes to mind), and even shows like "Forever Plaid" and Lloyd Webber's "Starlight Express" feature heaven-going as a climax that is not entirely a surprise. So, enough complaining about there being no dramatic tension, already.
But the spectacle! Is it a rock concert with dance, a dance concert with character, a makeup and hair extravaganza with arena-style lighting (still thrilling, the work of David Hersey, as recreated by Rick Belzer), a radio-friendly cast album with a decidedly British keyboard-rock spin, an intellectual set of inscrutable poems with earworm melodies, an environmental theater piece that's fun for all ages (an unmistakeable set and costume design by the remarkable John Napier)--what exactly is going on? The answer, of course, is all of the above. Oh, and it owes a lot to the English music hall tradition and to contemporary classical music, too, not to mention Puccini. Name another show that encompasses so much.
Not to mention that original marketing campaign. Aside from his immature works (the children's show "Joseph And The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" and others), Lloyd Webber's previous shows written with Tim Rice (the two nominated for the Best Revival of a Musical Tony Award this year, "Jesus Christ Superstar" and "Evita,") were both introduced to the world via record albums and marketing campaigns that featured a logo rather than a star name and image. But "Cats" seemed to take that even further, dispensing with the concept album and zeroing in on the show AS the star. Indeed, this show has no leading roles. Really.
But who can forget that moon/cats' eyes/dancer silhouette logo, and the letters of the title in color-coordinated graffiti (echoing the oversized junkyard scene design). It was exciting and revolutionary at the time, and the only shows that have done it better since then (Lloyd Webber's "The Phantom Of The Opera" and director Trevor Nunn's "Les Miserables," all three produced by wunderkind Cameron Mackintosh) are the only ones that have run longer in London and New York, due to the lessons they learned from the feline juggernaut before us now. It was "the birth of the musical spectacular," as Broadway In Chicago's promotional materials tell us.
This particular edition of the endless "Cats" tour, directed and choreographed by Richard Stafford and featuring mostly young, recent graduates of top U.S. musical theater and dance schools, is indeed "cut down" from the total makeover that the Winter Garden Theatre in New York displayed for the 18 years it played there (1982-2000). But the "Christmas lights" that once ringed the audience do indeed extend past the proscenium arch, and the cast makes several trips out into the aisles, a nice touch. The back wall of the set does not swing down to reveal the ship's set needed for the "Growltiger's Last Stand" sequence--they use drops and a false proscenium downstage center here, and I almost liked it better. The set as a whole is not as detailed and certainly not as deep as it once was, but if you haven't seen the video of the London production, or the show as it played in the early '80s, you would be none the wiser.
Sound-wise, I have to give credit to sound designer Duncan Robert Edwards, musical supervisor Kristen Blodgette and music director J. Michael Duff. I swear the show sounds better than ever, even with a smaller orchestra than originally employed. And I could understand the lyrics! The costumes and makeup design look simplified to me, though, but again, a newcomer to the proceedings wouldn't know. And do I care of part of the set is inflatable, as rumor would have it? I don't care how they get it from city to city, or how quickly they do it, but somebody does care, and they figured out a way to make it work! The floating tire and the thing that comes down from the fly space (spoiler alert?) look great, absolutely. Absolutely.
The cast is led by Melissa Grohowski as Grizabella, the role made famous by Elaine Paige and Betty Buckley and carrying with it, shall we say, a certain expectation of a certain money note. Boy, does Ms. Grohowski deliver! Three people stood during the applause for the number. Bravo to Clemmons/Dewing Casting, I say! The two singing roles for the men, Old Deuteronomy and Gus/Growltiger/Bustopher Jones, are essayed here by Nathan Morgan and Christopher E. Sidori, who both acquitted themselves well and were very effective theatrically, whatever their actual ages. Among the dance roles, Daniel J. Self as the narrator Munkustrap, Chris Stevens as Rum Tum Tugger and especially Chaz Wolcott as Mistoffelees were crowd pleasers: Self with his movement detailing, Stevens with his Elvis impersonation and Wolcott with his amazing fouette turns.
The cast of two dozen or so performers dances uniformly well, and sings very well, too, save for a few minor quibbles with single lines here. And there or some missing low notes that older performers would probably have no trouble with. But these are easily forgiven. Who cares if the leading lights of Broadway (Harry Groener, Terrence Mann, Anna McNeely and of course Ken Page) have been replaced in these roles by recent graduates of Wright State, SUNY-Purchase and Oklahoma City University? These energetic, disciplined performers are working their tails off (pun intended), singing like people who can't dance a lick and are basking in the glow of theater history with every city they visit.
Yes, the show has moments that seem a little longwinded, and sure, it doesn't challenge your intellect as much as it challenges your wallet and your caffeine intake (it takes place at night, and everybody is dressed like a cat!). But I challenge you to remain unmoved when Grizabella begs for physical contact, when old Gus relives his moment of youthful theatrical triumph, when assorted junk becomes the train that Skimbleshanks loves, and when the sopranos of the ensemble soar on the words, "'Round the cathedral rang 'Vivat!" Come on! It's "Cats." It's eye and ear candy galore. I don't even like cats, but I do like "Cats." Very much.
"Cats" plays this week only, Tuesday night through Sunday night, with additional matinee performances on Saturday and Sunday, at the Cadillac Palace Theatre, 151 W. Randolph Street in Chicago. Tickets are available at all Broadway In Chicago box offices, the Ticket Kiosk at Water Tower Place, all Ticketmaster retail outlets, by phone (800.775.2000) and online at www.BroadwayInChicago.com.
Photos: Melissa Grohowski; The Cast
On Saturday, April 21st, Warner Bros. Records will have a special series of vinyl albums and singles available in honor of the 5th annual Record Store Day - a celebration of the unique culture surrounding over 700 independently owned record stores in the USA, and hundreds of similar stores internationally. Warner Bros. Records is an official sponsor of Record Store Day.
On Saturday, April 21st, Warner Bros. Records will have a special series of vinyl albums and singles available in honor of the 5th annual Record Store Day - a celebration of the unique culture surrounding over 700 independently owned record stores in the USA, and hundreds of similar stores internationally. Warner Bros. Records is an official sponsor of Record Store Day.
Peter Gill, returns to his native city with a portrait of provincial life in 1890s Russia. Based on Chekhov's short story, A Provincial Life follows one young man's struggle to exchange his privileged position for the life of a worker.
After premiering at the Toronto Film Festival in September 2011, the acclaimed film BARRYMORE starring Academy Award® winner Christopher Plummer, directed & adapted by Érik Canuel, will be shown at select cinemas in Canada beginning in May 2012 and throughout the United States, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and other countries in October 2012.
The 2012 Tribeca Film Festival (TFF), presented by American Express®, today announced the World Narrative and Documentary Competition film selections, along with selections for the out-of-competition Viewpoints section-the program established last year that highlights personal stories in international and independent cinema. Forty-six of the 90 feature-length films were announced. The 11th edition of the Festival will take place from April 18 to April 29 at locations around New York City.
The April 2012 at the B. B. King Blues Club and Grill, NYC, has been announced, featuring Melanie and Oleta Adams.
| 2000 | Off-Broadway |
Off-Broadway |
| Year | Ceremony | Category | Nominee |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2001 | Drama Desk Awards | Outstanding Set Design of a Play | Thomas Lynch |
| 2001 | The Lortels | Outstanding Costume Design | Jane Greenwood |
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