Based on the stories of Rudyard Kipling
How did the Elephant get his trunk?br
How did the Leopard get his spots?br
How did the Rhinoceros get his skin?brbr
In the "Just So Stories," Rudyard Kipling created a magical world as he told his daughter fables of the animal kingdom. In "Just So," George Stiles and Anthony Drewe ("Honk!") have created a new musical that weaves five of Mr. Kipling's most famous tales together into a fanciful lesson about personal courage, individuality and friendship.
La MaMa will present The Fever, a gripping play by Wallace Shawn (My Dinner With André, Vanya on 42nd Street, and Grasses of A Thousand Colors), in a new production directed by Lars Norén, one of Sweden's most prominent playwrights/directors, and featuring acclaimed French-Romanian actress Simona Maicanescu. This powerful dramatic monologue, written between 1985 and 1990 but more relevant now than ever, is a fierce, forensic examination of social inequality and the links between the affluence many take for granted and the poverty and suffering that haunt the lives of millions.
Columbia Records and Legacy Recordings announce the release of She's Got A Way: Love Songs, a new collection of 18 essential love songs drawn from three decades of recordings by music legend and composer/singer songwriter, Billy Joel. This collection comes just in time for Valentine's Day.
Roundabout Theatre Company's Broadway production ofThe Mystery of Edwin Drood began previews on October 19th. The show opens officially tonight, November 13th, 2012 at Studio 54 on Broadway (254 West 54th St.) and plays a limited engagement through February 10th, 2013. Let's see what the critics had to say...
Rainstorm Entertainment has announced that it will produce the biographical documentary IT'S SO EASY AND OTHER LIES, which will be directed and produced by Christopher Duddy ("Cougar Club"). The film will be produced by Steven G. Kaplan ("The Big Empty", "F*CK" and "Sunset Strip") for Rainstorm Entertainment, and by former Guns N' Roses bassist Duff McKagan, whose life story the film is based on. The start date is scheduled for later this year. Executive producers include Daniel Zirilli ("Locked Down"), Joe Mundo ("Sunset Strip"), Christopher Shelburne and Kati Thomson ("Sunset Strip").
There may have been 40 cabaret performers strutting their stuff this past week at the 23rd New York Cabaret Convention at the Rose Theater at Lincoln Center, but the true star of the three-night extravaganza (October 17-19) was the late Donald Smith, the cabaret impresario and guru to the genre's luminaries, who died this past March at 79. Sponsored by the Mabel Mercer Foundation, which Smith founded in 1985, this year's Convention featured numerous homages to Smith from the performers, many of whom had their career's supported and advanced with the help of the colorful and beloved cabaret producer and promoter. Early in Wednesday's Gala Opening Night show, the 'first lady of the American keyboard' Barbara Carroll called her friend Donald Smith 'the quintessential New Yorker,' and when Mark Nadler closed night one with George and Ira Gershwin's 'Our Love Is Here to Stay,' he said, 'Everybody who cares about the myths of these songs are in this room tonight.' Well, it was clear that anyone who cared about Donald Smith was at the Rose Theater for at least one of the three shows.
Broadway is alive and well and living in Las Vegas. The influence of the Great White Way on the Las Vegas Strip is more evident than ever and the word of the day is "QUALITY!" For theatre goers visiting Las Vegas who have digested just about "one Cirque too many" - Caesars Entertainment offers the antidote, producing the finest theatrical experiences in town ranging from a first rate production of JERSEY BOYS to Jerry Mitchell's tantalizing PEEPSHOW to the always surprising PENN AND TELLER, and more. On a recent trip to Sin City I attended five of Caesar's great theatrical offerings and was treated to a feast for the senses at every turn.
BroadwayWorld.com has exclusively learned the cast for an upcoming late October reading of SOAP DISH THE MUSICAL, directed by Rob Ashford, with a book by Robert Harling, music by George Stiles and Lyrics by Anthony Drewe.
The fifth production of the 2012 Hangar season is a true American classic, Horton Foote's The Trip to Bountiful. This intensely moving and riveting story of acceptance and coming home again will be directed by the Hangar's Associate Artistic Director Stephanie Yankwitt (Hangar's Rounding Third) and features a cast of local favorites including Susannah Berryman (Hangar's Penelope of Ithaca, The Chalk Circle, Cabaret, and The Rainmaker) and Jesse Bush (Hangar's Ever So Humble, Disney's Beauty and the Beast). The Trip to Bountiful opens tonight, September 7, and runs through September 15th.
The fifth production of the 2012 Hangar season is a true American classic, Horton Foote's The Trip to Bountiful. This intensely moving and riveting story of acceptance and coming home again will be directed by the Hangar's Associate Artistic Director Stephanie Yankwitt (Hangar's Rounding Third) and features a cast of local favorites including Susannah Berryman (Hangar's Penelope of Ithaca, The Chalk Circle, Cabaret, and The Rainmaker) and Jesse Bush (Hangar's Ever So Humble, Disney's Beauty and the Beast). The Trip to Bountiful will preview September 6, and run September 7 through September 15th.
In preparation for the All-Day Long Island Al Jolson Festival (in Oceanside, NY) on Saturday, August 18, BroadwayWorld.com cabaret columnist Stephen Hanks offers his take on what made the 'World's Greatest Entertainer' so great, and muses about the reasons as to why he is such a devotee of the man who once owned Broadway and starred in the first talking picture.
In preparation for the All-Day Long Island Al Jolson Festival (in Oceanside, NY) on Saturday, August 18, BroadwayWorld.com cabaret columnist Stephen Hanks offers his take on what made the 'World's Greatest Entertainer' so great, and muses about the reasons as to why he is such a devotee of the man who once owned Broadway and starred in the first talking picture.
Today we are talking to Patricia Kelly, the widow of one of the most iconic and influential performers in entertainment history, Gene Kelly, all about her husband's incomparable career on Broadway and in Hollywood, in honor of his centennial. Tracing Gene Kelly's journey from his theatre roots starring in Cole Porter's LEAVE IT TO ME!, Rodgers & Hart's PAL JOEY and William Saroyan's Pulitzer Prize-winning THE TIME OF YOUR LIFE on Broadway to his unforgettable screen appearances in many of the greatest movie musicals ever made - COVER GIRL, SINGIN' IN THE RAIN, THE PIRATE, AN AMERICAN IN PARIS and many more included - Mrs. Kelly gives us a look into the life of one of the most important artists of the twentieth century. In addition to behind-the-scenes stories involving Kelly's frequent collaborators - such as esteemed director Vincente Minnelli, songwriter and producer Arthur Freed, arranger Saul Chaplin and others - Mrs. Kelly also shares candid anecdotes involving her husband's involvement with directing Rodgers & Hammerstein's FLOWER DRUM SONG on Broadway, helming the feature film adaptation of HELLO, DOLLY! starring Barbra Streisand, as well as his appearing in two idiosyncratic movie musicals later in his life, LES DEMOISELLES DE ROCHEFORT (THE YOUNG GIRLS OF ROCHEFORT) for Jacques Demy, as well as his au revoir to movie musicals in form of the Olivia Newton-John roller disco starrer XANADU. Additionally, Mrs. Kelly fills us in on all the details about this weekend's two-night Gene Kelly retrospective celebration, which she leads and narrates, as part of GENE KELLY @ 100 and her future plans for the multimedia presentation - each evening titled AN EVENING OF GENE KELLY and CHANGING THE LOOK OF DANCE ON FILM, respective - as she begins to tour the show across the country. Plus, reflections on SINGIN' IN THE RAIN's 60th anniversary and the recent Fathom HD premiere presentation in theaters, the impact of Kelly's work behind the camera, his choreographic legacy, what a legend is like at home, memories of attending the opening night of THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA (starring HELLO, DOLLY! lead Michael Crawford), what the master would say about GLEE, SMASH, BUNHEADS and today's movie musical renaissance, as well as much, much more!
On June 15 The National Theatre of Scotland production of Macbeth starring the Tony Award-winning Alan Cumming opened at the Tramway Theatre in Glasgow, and the show just transferred to the Lincoln Center Festival on July 3. BroadwayWorld brings you highlights of Cumming in action below!
Glam rock icon Michael Des Barres' CD is released 'Carnaby Street' on Gonzo MultiMedia, UK, today, July 10, 2012.
On June 15 The National Theatre of Scotland production of Macbeth starring the Tony Award-winning Alan Cumming opened at the Tramway Theatre in Glasgow, and the show just transferred to the Lincoln Center Festival on July 3. BroadwayWorld brings you photos of Cumming in action below!
Nigel Redden, Director of Lincoln Center Festival, announced the Festival's line-up, which runs from tonight, July 5 through August 5, 2012. Theater offerings include Mikhail Baryshnikov in Dmitry Krymov's staging of a new play, In Paris, as well as Sydney Theatre Company's acclaimed production of Uncle Vanya directed by Tamas Ascher and adapted by Andrew Upton. The stellar cast includes John Bell, Cate Blanchett, Hayley McElhinney, Richard Roxburgh, and Hugo Weaving.
2011 Tony Award-winning production plays until July 29, 2012
Glam rock icon Michael Des Barres announces his forthcoming CD release 'Carnaby Street' on Gonzo MultiMedia, UK, for July 10, 2012.
At the end of May, theatre fans were treated to an all new trailer for the highly-anticipated LES MIS film, dominated by Anne Hathaway's rendition of 'I Dreamed a Dream' from her role as Fantine. Now Hathaway is speaking out about what is was like to play the iconic role. On singing 'I Dreamed a Dream,' she told NY Magazine: 'I apparently looked like I was ready to face the guillotines. They just kept telling me and the cast to ignore the iconic nature of Les Miz and of the song. I had to sing it as if it had never been sung or heard before.'
The Endangered Species Project's May reading will be Juno and the Paycock by Sean O'Casey. The play was last performed professionally in Seattle at the Bathhouse Theatre in 1985, and through the kind auspices of the Seattle Public Theatre, Juno returns to the Bathhouse there via ESP's May 21 reading, tonight.
When it first came out in 1985, RE-ANIMATOR quickly became a hit among horror fans and established a cult following both for the film and its mad scientist, Jeff Combs, who played Herbert West. Graham Skipper plays West in the musical and is just as fiendish as his film counterpart and funnier than ever in the broadly drawn, extremely eccentric role.
The Endangered Species Project's May reading will be Juno and the Paycock by Sean O'Casey. The play was last performed professionally in Seattle at the Bathhouse Theatre in 1985, and through the kind auspices of the Seattle Public Theatre, Juno returns to the Bathhouse there via ESP's May 21 reading.
Today we are talking to a Broadway superstar beloved from the time of her breakthrough performance in the original cast of Stephen Sondheim's PASSION nearly twenty years ago all the way to two tremendous revivals in the early 00s - KISS ME, KATE and MAN OF LA MANCHA - to her most recent trio of roles on Broadway, first appearing in the straight drama ENRON, then as the troubled lead character of Diana in the Pulitzer Prize-winning NEXT TO NORMAL, and, most recently, as the tortured Margaret White in the long-awaited New York return of CARRIE - the one and only Marin Mazzie. Recalling many memories of working on the original productions of such seminal musicals as INTO THE WOODS, PASSION, RAGTIME, SPAMALOT and NEXT TO NORMAL with some of Broadway's best and brightest talents, Mazzie expresses her sincere appreciation for the unforgettable shows she has been associated with and opens up about her experiences as both an originator of a role, as in the cases of PASSION and RAGTIME, and also as a replacement star and the challenges that that position poses for a performer. Additionally, Mazzie shares her enthusiasm for the words and music of the Tony Award-winning RAGTIME creators Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty, whom she will be saluting alongside a starry assortment of notables on Monday at the NY Pops JOURNEY ON Gala at Carnegie Hall. Plus, Mazzie clues us in on all aspects of her journey with the recent New York reworking and reappraisal of CARRIE and gives us first news on recording the cast album, which is set for a Fall release, as well as news on her second duets album with husband, Jason Danieley and solo album thoughts. All of that and much, much more!
The lineup of people either receiving or presenting honors at the 27th Annual Bistro Awards on Monday, April 23 (at 6:30pm at the Gotham Comedy Club on 208 West 23rd Street) just keeps getting better. The Bistro's will be the place to be that evening because there won't be as much cabaret/nightlife talent in one room, well, since last month's MAC awards.
Nigel Redden, Director of Lincoln Center Festival, today announced the Festival's line-up, which runs from July 5 through August 5, 2012. Single tickets go on sale on April 2. Theater offerings include Mikhail Baryshnikov in Dmitry Krymov's staging of a new play, In Paris, as well as Sydney Theatre Company's acclaimed production of Uncle Vanya directed by Tamas Ascher and adapted by Andrew Upton. The stellar cast includes John Bell, Cate Blanchett, Hayley McElhinney, Richard Roxburgh, and Hugo Weaving.
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