As You Were 1918 - Articles Page 4

The National WWI Museum and Memorial's February offerings include a lecture on the role of the United States military in Siberia during WWI, a screening of the French film See You Up There, which retells the stories of two friends in post-WWI France, and a presentation discussing the racial tensions among soldiers fighting alongside each other in Vietnam.

The Actors Fund, the national human services organization for everyone in performing arts and entertainment, will hold its Annual Gala on Monday, April 6, 2020. The evening will celebrate Tony Award-winning actor Matthew Broderick and Emmy Award-winning actor, producer and designer Sarah Jessica Parker; Tony Award-winning actor and Chairman of The Actors Fund Brian Stokes Mitchell; Academy Award-winning producer, co-owner of the New York Football Giants, and philanthropist Steve Tisch; and American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) President Richard L. Trumka as they receive The Actors Fund's Medal of Honor.

Recording Academy® President/CEO Deborah Dugan alongside Academy Chair of the Board of Trustees and renowned record producer Harvey Mason Jr., as well as GRAMMY Awards® host Alicia Keys and past two-time GRAMMY® nominee Bebe Rexha, today revealed nominees for the 62nd GRAMMY Awards in select categories. This year's nominees reflect a melting pot of artistic innovation that defined the year in music, showcasing the unparalleled craftsmanship of established artists and the industry-shifting impact of rising music creators. Leading nominees Lizzo (8), Billie Eilish (6) and Lil Nas X (6) not only topped the charts but ignited a cultural conversation around their genre-bending hits. As the only peer-selected music award, the GRAMMY Awards are voted on by the Recoding Academy's membership body of music makers, who represent all genres and creative disciplines, including recording artists, songwriters, producers, mixers and engineers.

The first clue that ANASTASIA was going to be different than what I expected was a note on the title page reading, “Inspired by the Twentieth Century Fox Motion Pictures.” Plural? A savvy journalist, I quickly asked Siri to bring up the imdb page for “Anastasia”. Turns out Fox made ANASTASIA twice, the 1997 animated off-brand Disney princess movie and a 1957 film that scored Ingrid Bergman's second Oscar and marked Helen Hayes' transition to the big screen. And it turns out the musical version has more in common with LES MISERABLES and RAGTIME than BEAUTY AND THE BEAST. Gone is the hell-wizard Rasputin, his talking fruit bat sidekick, and the singing demon caterpillars. At intermission, I asked my third grade niece, Adalyn, how she was liking it. “It's awesome…it's real people, like no Beast or anything. No animals.” We decide that Disney staged musicals are great but more it's more impressive when you can achieve the magic without a story that departs from reality. ANASTASIA is historical fiction hypothetical. It poses a “what if…?” that a daughter of the last czar of Russia (The Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna) escaped when the czar's family was executed in 1918. Rumors persisted for decades that Anastasia did, in fact, escape. In 2007, DNA testing confirmed the remains of all four Grand Duchesses were in the Imperial grave. In this version, Terrence McNalley's book follows Anastasia's rediscovery of her identity after surviving the attack on her family and sustaining some plot enabling amnesia. Renamed “Anya” she grows up and makes a life in post-Revolution Russia. Anastasia's grandmother, the Dowager Empress (in a staggeringly moving performance by Joy Franz) has fled to France and offered a cash reward for anyone escorting the rumored alive Anastasia to Paris. The wily duo Vlad (Edward Staudenmayer) and Dmitry (Jake Levy) pull a My Fair Lady style makeover on Anya to collect the Dowager's prize. They are pursued by Gleb (Jason Michael Evans). A Soviet officer drawn to Anya romantically but tasked with finding and eliminating the last Romanov. Anya's memory becomes somewhat coaxed back, but the Dowager has stopped seeing Anastasia claimants after too much heart-break from countless frauds. It sounds dark, but with high-tech digital scenery and inspired performances across the cast it is delightful. Stephen Flaherty (Music) and Lynn Ahrens (Lyrics), responsible for bringing us RAGTIME, ONCE ON THIS ISLAND, LUCKY STIFF, as well as the Oscar nominated songs carried over from the animated film. ANASTASIA is a perfect context for this pair. “Stay, I Pray You” (my favorite song of the evening) is evocative of RAGTIME's “New Music”. The two songs literally race my heart in a strangely specific way. My real test of a National Tour at Gammage is how fast I get the music playing in my car on the way home. At ANASTASIA I was already finding, “Stay, I Pray You” walking through the parking lot. The rest of the score is similarly haunting. Lila Coogan, as Anya/Anastasia, powers through the score with nuance, clarity, and passion. Tari Kelly, as Countess Lily, and Stadenmayer (Vlad) were Adalyn's favorite performances and I have to agree. This incredibly gifted pair take the “triple threat” designation (singer, dancer, actor) and go quadruple with the addition of flawless comic timing. The choreography by Peggy Hickey is masterful. It somehow combines inventive and traditional throughout and the ten-minute slice of “Swan Lake” infused into “Quartet at the Ballet” is the highlight of the second act. It's a fun-size version that gets an under-represented art form onto the plate. This kind of trope often means the plot putting the plot on hold. But here, it is the connective tissue between Anya, Dmitry, the Dowager, and Gleb as they each bring us up to speed heading into the show's climax. Ultimately, the show's success comes from applying a higher artistic standard to the “previously-animated-film-now-theatrically-staged” genre. It cashes in on the name draw of the 1997 film then gives the viewer something much more enriched than what they think they are coming to see.

a??a??a??a??a??a??a??Theater J, a program of the Edlavitch DCJCC and the nation's largest and most prominent Jewish theater, announces readings of five plays during the third year of its signature Yiddish Theater Lab: Golem Stories by Edward Einhorn on October 28, 2019; The Red Beads by Rinne Groff (adapted from a play by Osip Dymov) on December 2, 2019; A Hidden Corner by Peretz Hirschbein, translated by David S. Lifson, on February 3, 2020; One of Those by Paula Prilutski, adapted and translated by Allen Lewis Rickman, on April 6, 2020; and Miriam by Alix Sobler, freely adapted from Peretz Hirschbein's Miriam, date to be determined. Tickets are Pay-What-You-Choose and are available at www.theaterj.org or 202-777-3210. All readings are at 1529 16th Street NW, Washington, DC in

Carnegie Hall today announced the launch of its new online Digital Collections, inviting the general public to search, explore, and download more than 80,000 recently digitized historic items from its archives for the very first time. This initial preview, drawn from the Hall's legacy collections, offers a window into the richly diverse history of events at the Hall since its opening in 1891, with an emphasis on the Hall's earliest decades. It includes Carnegie Hall concert programs from 1891–1925; flyers; photographs; correspondence; newspaper clippings; autographs; booking ledger pages; and a select number of promotional films. The goal of this digital initiative is to provide broader public access to the Hall's archival collections, providing a new way for people to engage with Carnegie Hall's history and share it with others.

BroadwayWorld has learned that real-life married couple Matthew Broderick and Sarah Jessica Parker will come to Broadway in Neil Simon's Plaza Suite following an out of town run at Boston's Colonial Theatre - where the 1968 production also originated, before a 17 week run on Broadway at the Hudson Theatre with previews set to being in March. The production will be directed by John Benjamin Hickey.

What makes a Broadway theatre? Technically any venue with 500 seats or more, located along Broadway in New York City's Theatre District is a Broadway theatre, and the art that is produced in these special places is widely considered the highest form of theatrical entertainment in the world. Today, forty-one theatres are technically Broadway houses, each with their own rich history. Below, we're giving you the scoop on the life of every one of them!

TimeLine Theatre Company, acclaimed for presenting plays that explore today's social and political issues through the lens of the past, announces its 23rd season.

After a successful run at the Jermyn Street Theatre, Billy Bishop Goes to War transfers to the Southwark Playhouse on 13 March. I spoke to director Jimmy Walters about what made Billy Bishop special, and how he's managed to bring Bishop's story to life.

Tony Award nominee Sharon McNight stars as legendary vaudeville entertainer Sophie Tucker, 'the last of the red hot mamas' in 'Red Hot Mama: The Sophie Tucker Songbook,' a bravura performance of one of the great performers of the 20th century.

The Dick Cavett Show Coming To DVD from SMORE Entertainment

On opening night for the Minnesota Opera (MNOP), the audience in attendance became curiously quieter and quieter, silent, when the curtain rose at the Ordway Center on the company's contemporary award winning opera 'Silent Night.' Commissioned by MNOP in 2011, the music by Kevin Putts combined with a libretto by Mark Campbell transported the opera house to Christmas, 1914, the beginning of World War I, Based on Christian Carlson's screenplay for the film 'Joyeux Noel,' the opera travels to a small, bloodied war zone in a tiny Belgium village along the French boarder, which centers the attention while profoundly affecting those in the audience.

The Cincinnati Pops Orchestra announced the November 9 release of its latest album, American Originals: 1918, under the direction of Pops Conductor John Morris Russell. The recording is inspired by America's cultural awakening at the end of the First World War one hundred years ago and the distinctly American musical styles that reflect the country's diversity. This album celebrates and reimagines popular songs of this era that remain fresh and relevant today with acclaimed musical collaborators including Rhiannon Giddens, Steep Canyon Rangers and Pokey LaFarge. The 95th Cincinnati Pops album was recorded live at Cincinnati Music Hall November 10- 12, 2017, and is being released on the Orchestra's label, Fanfare Cincinnati.

Celebrated American pianist George Winston recently released a cancer research benefit album, Spring Carousel, on RCA Records on March 31, 2017 that debuted at #1 on Billboard's Jazz Chart. Spring Carousel features a collection of 15 solo piano compositions written by Winston while in recovery from a bone marrow transplant for Myelodysplastic Syndrome (MDS) at City of Hope, in Duarte, California, near Los Angeles. His doctor, Stephen J. Forman, Chairman of the Hematology Department at City of Hope, is one of the world's four foremost authorities on hematology and bone marrow transplants. Proceeds from sales of Spring Carousel will directly benefit cancer research at City of Hope. George Winston is available for interviews upon request.

The year was 1918. We were four years into World War 1. Anti-German notions swept across the country and preyed upon German-Americans, calling them spies, traitors, and as President Wilson once said, "hyphenated Americans" because their loyalty was divided.

A 1930s comedy for Christmas, Jeannie by rediscovered female playwright Aimee Stuart will open at the Finborough Theatre for a four-week limited season on Tuesday, 27 November 2018 (Press Nights: Thursday, 29 November and Friday, 30 November 2018 at 7.30pm).

Metropolitan Ensemble Theatre (MET), now located in the historic Warwick Theater on Main Street in Kansas City adjacent to the Plaza District presents 'The Orphans' Home Cycle' continuing in repertory until November 18.

The Cincinnati Pops Orchestra announced the November 9 release of its latest album, American Originals: 1918, under the direction of Pops Conductor John Morris Russell. The recording is inspired by America's cultural awakening at the end of the First World War one hundred years ago and the distinctly American musical styles that reflect the country's diversity. This album celebrates and reimagines popular songs of this era that remain fresh and relevant today with acclaimed musical collaborators including Rhiannon Giddens, Steep Canyon Rangers and Pokey LaFarge. The 95th Cincinnati Pops album was recorded live at Cincinnati Music Hall November 10- 12, 2017, and is being released on the Orchestra's label, Fanfare Cincinnati.

Celebrated American pianist George Winston recently released a cancer research benefit album, Spring Carousel, on RCA Records on March 31, 2017 that debuted at #1 on Billboard's Jazz Chart. Spring Carousel features a collection of 15 solo piano compositions written by Winston while in recovery from a bone marrow transplant for Myelodysplastic Syndrome (MDS) at City of Hope, in Duarte, California, near Los Angeles. His doctor, Stephen J. Forman, Chairman of the Hematology Department at City of Hope, is one of the world's four foremost authorities on hematology and bone marrow transplants. Proceeds from sales of Spring Carousel will directly benefit cancer research at City of Hope. George Winston is available for interviews upon request.

The Actors' Gang announced today that the stage adaptation of Academy Award-winning screenwriter Dalton Trumbo's war novel, Johnny Got His Gun, written by Bradley Rand Smith and directed by Tim Robbins, will kick off The Actors' Gang 2018/19 Season from Saturday, October 6th to Saturday, November 10th, 2018. The press opening is Saturday, October 13.

An historic performance of Benjamin Britten's War Requiem by The Bach Choir on October 3rd at Westminster Cathedral will be supported by a cast of three celebrities speaking and reading about the horrors of war. The Requiem was Britten's musical plea for peace. He chose The Bach Choir to perform on the first recording of the work almost 60 years ago and now once more they will be performing the work.

From October 6 to 27 at the Upper East Side's Bohemian National Hall and Jan Hus Church, GOH Productions will present a Centennial Heritage Festival, featuring mainstage marionette theater productions for adults and kids and musical concerts for audiences of all ages. The festival celebrates two auspicious anniversaries: the Centennial Anniversary of the founding of Czechoslovakia (1918) and the Millennial Anniversary of the unification of the Lands of the Czech Crown, under Duke Oldrich (1018).

Jennifer Jewell presents 'Raison d'etre: an Evening of Pirandello,' adapted from selected works by Nobel Prize Laureate for Literature and Italian dramatist, novelist, poet, and writer Luigi Pirandello. 'Raison d'etre: an Evening of Pirandello,' explores the complexity and depth of Pirandello's work by taking his seminal play, 'Six Characters in Search of an Author' and infusing it with characters and themes from two of his notable one-act plays, 'Chee Chee' and 'The Man with the Flower In His Mouth.'