Everybody's Doing It 1912

Maury Yeston and Peter Stone’s TITANIC, winner of five 1997 Tony Awards including Best Musical, sails to Toronto in film form for two showings via Cineplex on November 16th and 19th. BroadwayWorld spoke to Maury Yeston, the show’s award-winning composer and lyricist, in advance of its arrival in Toronto.

TFANA has extended the run of Alice Childress’s Wedding Band, directed by Awoye Timpo, to May 22. (The production, which began previews April 28—postponed from an original date of April 23 due to two COVID-19 cases—was formerly set to close May 15).

TFANA will present Alice Childress’s Wedding Band. Director Awoye Timpo’s new staging, running April 23–May 15, brings Childress’s masterpiece to New York audiences for the first time since 1972, when it made its New York premiere in a production directed by Childress and Joseph Papp.

Good news for Hershey Felder fans and musical theater afficionados everywhere! TheatreWorks Silicon Valley is launching the New Year with three world premiere livestreamed performances in partnership with Hershey Felder Presents Live from Florence. First up is Hershey Felder as Sholem Aleichem in BEFORE FIDDLER, presented live at 5pm PST on Sunday, February 7, 2021. Decades before the beloved musical Fiddler on the Roof first delighted audiences, there was Sholem Aleichem and his beloved character of ‘Tevye the Milkman.’ Long before songs like “Tradition,” “If I Were a Rich Man” and “Sunrise, Sunset” first beguiled audiences, there was klezmer, a music that imitated talking, laughing, weeping, and singing, and where musicians didn’t just make music, they spoke to audiences in song. Acclaimed playwright & performer Felder will play Sholem Aleichem, giving audiences the true story of what happened ‘Before Fiddler.’ He will be joined by Florence’s celebrated Klezmerata Fiorentina, comprised of top musicians from Florence’s world-famous Orchestra of the Maggio Musicale. Filmed partially on location where the events actually took place, this production will feature the stories and characters of Sholem Aleichem, along with authentic klezmer music that is sure to move the soul. For more information and to purchase tickets, please visit www.theatreworks.org. BroadwayWorld spoke with Felder last week from his home in Florence where he’s been based ever since the Covid pandemic hit. As always, Felder is fascinating and delightful to talk to, simultaneously brainy and emotionally transparent, and confident enough in his own talents to be open about his enduring fears.

BWW Reviewer Peter Nason chooses the greatest theatrical works (non-musical) from 1920-2020; see if your favorites made the list!

Nadim Naaman is best known for playing Raoul in The Phantom of the Opera in the West End, though he has also appeared in shows like Sweeney Todd, Titanic and Chess. He has released a solo album, Sides, and has just co-written his first musical with Qatari composer Dana Al Farden. Broken Wings is based on a poetic novel by Khalil Gibran about forbidden love, gender equality and religion in 1912 Lebanon.

The University of SC Department of Theatre and Dance will present Flight, an original drama based on the real histories of women who pioneered the field of aviation, April 22-29 at the Center for Performance Experiment.

Maury Yeston, the composer and lyricist best-known for Nine and Titanic, visited the West End a few months before the West End opening of his new musical, Death Takes a Holiday. Based on a film (which was based on a play) this story tells of how Death changed his perspective. He used to not quite understand why everyone he came to collect was quite so aggrieved to die, until he met a particular woman who allowed him to realise quite what makes life worth clinging to. The side effect of Death's occupation being, though, that he can't collect anyone else while he's so distracted - Death the person and death the concept take a break!  Maury was kind enough to discuss his musical background, some of his better-known works and his latest venture for the stage.

It was the great Marcus Garvey who said 'Be as proud of your race today as our fathers were in days of yore. We have beautiful history, and we shall create another in the future that will astonish the world.'

Obie Award-winning Metropolitan Playhouse revives WITHIN THE LAW, by Bayard Veiller, running today, May 31 - June 29, 2014, directed by Associate Director Michael Hardart at Metropolitan Playhouse (220 E 4th Street). From 1912, a story of a good girl gone bad...all while playing by the rules.

Obie Award-winning Metropolitan Playhouse revives WITHIN THE LAW, by Bayard Veiller, running May 31 - June 29, 2014, directed by Associate Director Michael Hardart at Metropolitan Playhouse (220 E 4th Street). From 1912, a story of a good girl gone bad...all while playing by the rules.

Danny Burstein, the stage door favorite who plays narcissistic Latin Lover Aldolpho in The Drowsy Chaperone, is anything but vain about his theatrical accomplishments