The New Word Revival 1918

Rise and shine, BroadwayWorld! It is November 10, 2023 and it's time to catch up on all of the theatrical happenings you may have missed in the last 24 hours: 

It is safe to say that Carnegie Hall has been the premiere showcase for what is great in American Art and Culture for over 130 years. It is not hyperbole to say that the concert given Monday night by Broadway and television star Lea Michele will be remembered as one of those defining zeitgeist events. Her two-hour intermission-less journey through her career so far was the kind of powerhouse performance that people talk about for years. For the young Millennial set, it is their Judy Garland moment, the thing they will reminisce over cocktails “I was there for…”

Photoville, the Brooklyn-based nonprofit that brings breathtaking photography within reach of New Yorkers in all boroughs—free of charge—will present Photoville NYC 2023 (June 3 - 18).

The Pulitzer Prize Board has just announced that English, by Sanaz Toossi has won the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Other finalists included: On Sugarland by Aleshea Harris and The Far Country by Lloyd Suh.

The City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs (DCA) Performing Arts Division (PERF) launched a new initiative to spotlight and celebrate women who have impacted and redefined the human experience and who epitomize empowerment through the arts, activism, and social justice.

The Joan W. and Irving B. Harris Theater for Music and Dance has announced its 20th anniversary season, bringing pioneering artists from around the globe to Chicago and continuing to champion the world-class ensembles and arts organizations that call the city home.

Wilmington resident and theatre veteran Gerri Weagraff comes to The Playhouse as the Dowager Empress in the national tour of ANASTASIA. Six performances from February 9 – 12. Music and lyrics are by the award-winning team of Flaherty and Ahrens (RAGTIME, SUESSICAL THE MUSICAL and ONCE ON THIS ISLAND) with a book written by Broadway legend Terrance McNally.

Founder and Artistic Director Thomas Crawford leads the American Classical Orchestra (ACO), New York City’s foremost period instrument orchestra, in a program of much-loved Bach cantatas at the beautiful Gothic-style Church of St. Vincent Ferrer in Manhattan on Thursday, March 2, 2023 at 8 pm.

Birthright: A Black Roots Music Compendium is an expansive overview of American Black roots music. Produced by author, professor, and GRAMMY®-nominated music historian Dr. Ted Olson, along with GRAMMY-winning producer, musician, and author Scott Billington, Birthright offers an introduction to the rich and often nuanced world of Black roots music.

When Paul Moravec calls himself as “a sort of Method composer,” in describing his work on A NATION OF OTHERS, commissioned for the Oratorio Society of NY, debuting at Carnegie Hall on Nov. 15, he’s likening his writing to the “Method Acting” technique: getting inside the heads of his characters, understanding their inner motivation and emotions, connecting his own life to theirs.

The American Opera Project (AOP), a Brooklyn based opera think-tank at the forefront of contemporary opera development and collaboration, announces the world premiere of Letters That You Will Not Get: Women's Voices from the Great War, July 29-August 7 at The Space at Irondale.

The American Classical Orchestra (ACO), New York City’s leading period instrument orchestra, has announced its 2022-23 season of four orchestral concerts conducted by Founder and Artistic Director Thomas Crawford, beginning on Thursday, September 22, with the first of three performances at Alice Tully Hall, and continuing through May 18, 2023. The soloists will include soprano Yulan Piao, mezzo-soprano Heather Petrie, tenor Lawrence Jones, bass Joseph Charles Beutel, pianist Petra Somlai, and violinist Rachell Ellen Wong.

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 is currently bringing to the stage the first New York production of Alice Childress's Wedding Band since the show's premiere in 1972. Directed by Awoye Timpo, this American classic will run through May 15. Read an interview with the show's stars.

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.

Multi-awarded cabaret singer Jeff Harnar will make his Feinstein’s at Vitello’s debut with his cabaret act I KNOW THINGS NOW: JEFF HARNAR SINGS SONDHEIM September 30, 2021. With a lengthy resume as an opening act. Jeff has played some of the biggest venues, including Carnegie Hall, all over the world. Had the chance to find out what THINGS Jeff KNOWS NOW.

After spearheading a $3M renovation of Austin’s largest theater, Executive & Artistic Director Bob Bursey has announced his first curated season of music, dance, theater, and performance for Texas Performing Arts. A dozen live productions will mark its 40th Anniversary season in 2021-2022.

Winter Opera Saint Louis rises from its pandemic slumber with a very lovely production of one of Puccini’s more rarely performed works—Suor Angelica.

The song is from Ghost of Vroom's debut album, GHOST OF VROOM 1, out via Mod y Vi Records Friday, March 19. Pre-orders are available now.

On January 31, 2021, the Workers Circle will present a Yiddish Schmooze featuring Zalmen Mlotek, the Artistic Director at the National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene, which presented the award-winning Fiddler on the Roof in Yiddish and whose parents were integral members of the Workers Circle and passionate proponents of Yiddish culture.

Celebrating its 20th anniversary, the Frist Art Museum has announced its 2021 schedule of exhibitions. In the Ingram Gallery, the year begins with Picasso. Figures, an exhibition from the Musée national Picasso-Paris that offers an in-depth look at his career-long fascination with the human body.

The Repertory Theatre of St. Louis will debut a new collection of stories that offer hope, encouragement and perspective in a time of global uncertainty in an exciting new work titled Love and Kindness in the Time of Quarantine. Directed and curated by Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Playwright-in-Residence, Regina Taylor, the program will stream online for free on November 20 at 7 p.m. CST.

When the lockdown started in mid March, theatres all over the country were forced to shut down in a hurry. Nina Dunn, video designer with credits spread all over the West End and Europe, has been documenting the struggle of the industry through chilling photographs of empty theatres where silence dominates. A fundraiser has accompanied her online photo essays, which are now being turned into a book whose proceeds will go straight to charity. We had a chat to discuss her project, the effects of the closures, and dark theatres.

What better way to spend a summer evening than in the company of artistic genius in the form of iconic composer Ludwig van Beethoven as interpreted by renowned musical theater artist Hershey Felder? On Sunday July 12th at 5pm PDT, TheatreWorks Silicon Valley will present a livestream of the hit show Hershey Felder: Beethoven, an intimate and theatrical portrait of the legendary composer. Tickets to the livestream are available on TheatreWorks Silicon Valley's website (www.theatreworks.org) with proceeds to benefit TheatreWorks while the Tony-winning regional theatre remains dark due to the Covid pandemic. Inspired by an account of a Viennese doctor who spent his boyhood by the Beethoven's side, this enchanting musical features masterful performances of some of the composer's greatest works, from a?oeMoonlight Sonataa?? to the a?oeNinth Symphonya?? and the a?oeEmperor Concerto.a?? The enormously popular show's 2017 World Premiere still holds TheatreWorks Silicon Valley's box office record to date. BroadwayWorld recently had the pleasure of speaking with Felder from his home in Florence, Italy where he will be performing the livestream. As cicadas whirred in the background (really!), we had a wide-ranging discussion about Beethoven, Felder's relationship with TheatreWorks, the pandemic and the wonders of Florence. In conversation, Felder is an engaging amalgam of seemingly contradictory qualities, at once erudite and folksy, brainy and empathetic, quick with an arcane cultural factoid or a self-deprecating remark, equally expressive of joy and sorrow.

Austin's theatre community faces this uncertain time with resolve and creativity