Skip to main content
My Shows
News on your favorite shows, specials & more!
A. Smith Headshot

A. Smith News

BWW Reviews: MOTOWN Brings Big Beat and Big Heat to Heinz Hall

Any long-time theatregoer will have horror stories of audiences that got too enthusiastic at a show with well-known music, especially jukebox musicals made up of mostly pre-existing pop tunes. I've known people to hum or outright sing along, whoop, cheer and scream like they're at a concert, or even get up and dance in the aisles. At most shows, this behavior is frowned upon by other audience members, or suppressed by ushers. However, at 'Motown,' the Berry Gordy bio-musical, this engaged behavior is encouraged- hell, it's part of the show. You see, audiences at 'Motown' fill a triplicate role: first, the traditional audience at a play, watching the events unfold through the fourth wall; second, the (in-world) audience watching a Motown retrospective show; finally, the various real, historical audiences at performances by Motown artists, from Parisians getting to hear the first international performances by The Supremes, to a spontaneously integrated audience in the Deep South, at a Motown show interrupted by gunshots.

Last Chance to Vote for the BroadwayWorld Phoenix Awards

It's your last week to vote for the 2014 BroadwayWorld Phoenix Regional Awards! Check out the latest live stats as of December 26th. Voting closes at the end of the year, in under one week!

Last Chance to Vote for the BroadwayWorld Orlando Awards

It's your last week to vote for the 2014 BroadwayWorld Orlando Regional Awards! Check out the latest live stats as of December 26th. Voting closes at the end of the year, in under one week!

BWW Reviews: ELLINGTON AT CHRISTMAS Brings Holiday Charm to Harlem's Apollo Theater

At the Apollo Theater in Harlem, the arrival of the holiday season is marked by 'Holidays at the Apollo,' which this year includes 'Ellington at Christmas,' a two-act offering of Ellington's 'Nutcracker Suite' and portions of his 'Sacred Music Concerts.' We're re-gifted these Ellington holiday classics in an enjoyable, if not completely flawless performance by Ellington expert David Berger and his Jazz Orchestra, featuring students from the Dance Theater of Harlem School and the Arts High School Advanced Choir of Newark, as well as solos by baritone Norm Lewis, sopranos Lizz Wright and Priscilla Baskerville, and tap virtuoso Jason Samuels Smith.

Sweet Can Productions Presents MITTENS AND MISTLETOE, Now thru 12/28

Savor the season with something a little sweet (but oh so good for you)! The Bay Area's homegrown Sweet Can Productions presents an intimate theatrical circus experience for the holidays with the fifth edition of MITTENS AND MISTLETOE: A WINTER CIRCUS CABARET. MITTENS AND MISTLETOE plays for a limited engagement today, December 19-28 at Dance Mission Theater (3316 24th St. in San Francisco).

HIGH SCHOOL DRAMA: Kaila Wooten

Our series continues this week with our first home-schooled actor, the lovely and talented Kaila Wooten, an amazingly talented and remarkably poised teenager who has been on stages throughout Middle Tennessee for much of her life and in 2013 was named a First Night Honors Most Promising Actor.

Broadway's BEAUTIFUL to Hold National Open Casting Calls This Winter

Producers Paul Blake and Sony/ATV Music Publishing announced today that they will be holding a nationwide open casting call for the most sought-after role on Broadway, the title role in Beautiful -The Carole King Musical, about the early life and career of the legendary and groundbreaking singer/songwriter. The show's casting directors will hold an open call for 'Carole King' at New York City's Ripley Grier Studios (520 Eighth Avenue) on Friday, January 16, 2015 and will also search nationally for Caroles and other cast members for the Broadway, touring and international productions of the smash hit musical.

BWW Review: The ANNIE Remake is Bad, but Not Nearly as Bad as You Think

Full disclosure, I was completely ready to despise everything about the remake of ANNIE starring Jamie Foxx and Quvenzhane Wallis. In fact, I had already written the lede in my head, and let me tell you, it was scathing. But, then I saw the movie, and was pleasantly surprised by how not completely horrible it was. Yes, it will probably still rank as one of the worst big screen musical adaptations of the past decade; just above the disastrous NINE; but there was plenty to appreciate for musical theatre lovers young and old.

  …        107       …    

BroadwayWorld TV


Ticket Central
Hot Show
Tickets From $59
Hot Show
Tickets From $95
Hot Show
Tickets From $59
Hot Show
Buy Tickets