Melanie Votaw - Page 2

At the 2018 New York Musical Festival, the show IF SAND WERE STONE tackled the difficult subject of early onset Alzheimer's Disease. With music by Cassie Willson, and book and lyrics by Carly Brooke Feinman, the show was quite stylized and sometimes confusing.

PUMP BOYS AND DINETTES was my first Broadway musical, so it not only holds a special place in my heart, but I still remember most of the lyrics. Running for 577 performances in 1982-83 and earning a Tony nomination for Best Musical, PUMP BOYS was 'the little show that could' with just six cast members and a small set. But the characters and songs captured many fans who came out to relive the experience at Feinstein's/54 Below July 22.

In her new show A HYMN TO HER at Feinstein's/54 Below, Liz Callaway paid tribute to numerous women who have served as her role models.

If you want to know how to act a song, go see Bebe Neuwirth, who recently performed STORIES WITH PIANO, #1 at Feinstein's/54 Below.

For nearly 35 years, I have loved the score of BABY, the Broadway musical that ran for 241 performances from 1983 to 1984 and made Liz Callaway a star. So, it was thrilling to hear the music sung in concert by a stellar cast at Feinstein's/54 Below on March 18, the proceeds of which went to Planned Parenthood.

A LETTER TO HARVEY MILK, THE MUSICAL is set in San Francisco in 1986, when retired Jewish immigrant Harry Weinberg takes a writing class taught by a young lesbian named Barbara, who encourages him to write a letter to someone who has passed away. He chooses to write to his old friend, Harvey Milk.

Tap dancer Savion Glover (BRING IN 'DA NOISE, BRING IN 'DA FUNK, SHUFFLE ALONG) and tanguero Leonardo Suarez Paz (FOREVER TANGO, TANGO ARGENTINO) mixed tap dance and tango music at Feinstein's/54 Below on February 15.

In his latest show at Cafe Carlyle titled HEART TO HEART, John Lloyd Young continues to hearken back to an earlier era in look, sound, and song choice, mostly performing pieces from the 60s and 70s.

Rachel Bloom has no shame, and we're all better for it. Performing original music at Jazz at Lincoln Center's Appel Room on Feb. 11, 2018, along with co-writer Adam Schlesinger, Bloom arrived on stage with guns blazing.

The Thunderbird American Indian Dancers are presenting their latest concert at Theater for the New City February 2-11, 2018. Directed by Crystal Field, the show incorporates live music, storytelling, and traditional dance in full regalia.

The Shanghai Dance Theatre premiered its full-length dance drama SOARING WINGS at Lincoln Center on January 5, 2018. Telling the story of the crested ibis, a rare bird, the visually exquisite piece calls for sustainable development and makes the point that nature and human beings are interdependent.

In the one-man play currently at Soho Playhouse, BRIGHT COLORS AND BOLD PATTERNS, writer and actor Drew Droege brings 80 minutes of classic gay snark, directed by Michael Urie. Droege's character, Gerry, has just arrived in Palm Springs for a same-sex wedding. The title refers to a directive on the invitation that guests refrain from wearing bright colors or bold patterns. Gerry is incensed by this, feeling it's utterly anti-gay to be so 'beige.'

Step Afrika!'s latest show at The New Victory Theater, THE MIGRATION: REFLECTIONS ON JACOB LAWRENCE, is an exciting and moving chronicle of the migration of Africans from their villages to the American south and then to more northern cities like Chicago in the 1920s.

At the National Dance Institute (NDI) headquarters in Harlem Monday night, October 16, 2017, Glenn Close, Norm Lewis, Charlotte d'Amboise, Robert Fairchild, and NDI's young students gave a special benefit performance titled, SONGS I'VE SUNG ON BROADWAY...AND ONE I WISH I HAD.

The latest collaboration between Princess Cruises and Stephen Schwartz is called BORN TO DANCE. On October 7, 2017, press and friends of the creators were treated to a special performance of the show aboard the Regal Princess while ported at the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal.

While the new musical MONEY TALKS isn't of Broadway caliber, there's a lot to like about both the book by Tony-nominated Peter Kellogg (ANNA KARENINA) and the score by Kellogg and David Friedman.

Tony Waag and the American Tap Dance Foundation, Inc. presented a program to Duke Ellington music at Jazz at Lincoln Center's The Appel Room on Friday, July 14, 2017.

TEREZIN, a tragic play written and directed by Nicholas Tolkien, the great-grandson of J.R.R. Tolkien, who wrote THE LORD OF THE RINGS series, is currently being produced by The Steinberg Theater Group at Playwrights Horizons' Peter Jay Sharp Theatre.

Former Rockette Mary Six Rupert hosted, directed and choreographed LEGACY 36 CELEBRATES THE STARS at Columbia University's Miller Theater in New York on Saturday, June 3, 2017. The event honored the Rockettes, as well as Violet Holmes Treimanis, who was director / choreographer for the Rockettes from 1972-1993.

At the beginning of ON ONE CONDITION running through May 26, 2017 at Soho Playhouse, actor Dan Daw arrives on stage in his underwear. He then proceeds to dress himself as we watch. As someone with cerebral palsy, getting dressed is a painstaking process. Immediately, Daw takes us into his world and gives us a little taste of what it's like to be him.