Alfred Drake News

It will indeed be a historic introduction to our 2016 season when Family Musical Theater takes to the stage for their first show of the season, "Kiss Me, Kate". 

Stage Door Records have announced the debut CD release of the albums CAROUSEL and SING THE POPULAR MUSIC OF LEONARD BERNSTEIN on May 27th 2016. The release continues Stage Door's COLLECTOR'S SERIES, a line of limited edition CD products that celebrate Broadway shows and vocalists of the 1950s and 60s.

It will indeed be a historic introduction to our 2016 season when Family Musical Theater takes to the stage for their first show of the season, "Kiss Me, Kate". 

Best friend and host director John Bowab, Charlotte Rae, Janis Paige, critic Sylvie Drake, Peter White, Anne Jeffreys and Marty Wiviott of the Pantages Theatre, were among the select industry elite on hand to celebrate film and Broadway legend and icon, Patricia Morison's 101st birthday this week. Scroll down for photos from the celebration!

What do you get when you combine Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew with Cole Porter's music and lyrics? A musical that is just too darn hot! Follow the backstage story of feuding couples, raging egos, gamblers and gangsters in the beloved Tony Award-winning musical KISS ME, KATE, onstage now through March 27 at the Maltz Jupiter Theatre. Celebrate the joys, madness and rewards of working in the theater -- both onstage and off. Brush up your Shakespeare and don't miss this witty and delightful musical. BroadwayWorld has a first look at the cast in action below!

Parents of a group of teenagers leave to hit the vaudeville circuit. The local sheriff (Joe Gately) threatens to send the kids to a work farm unless they do something productive. So they end up by doing what they do best - putting on a show.

What do you get when you combine Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew with Cole Porter's music and lyrics? A musical that is just too darn hot!

Parents of a group of teenagers leave to hit the vaudeville circuit. The local sheriff (Joe Gately) threatens to send the kids to a work farm unless they do something productive. So they end up by doing what they do best - putting on a show.

It's time to put in your late winter pre-orders! Masterworks Broadway has just announced its slate of releases for Winter 2016, including three classic albums from the archives - SWEET CHARITY (February 12), SALAD DAYS (March 18), and KISMET (April 15). On February 26, Masterworks Broadway releases THE ESSENTIAL STEPHEN SONDHEIM, celebrating the 85th birthday year of the legendary theater composer and lyricist.

Today in 1948, opened at the Shubert Theatre. Kiss Me, Kate is a musical with music and lyrics by Cole Porter. It is structured as a play within a play, where the interior play is a musical version of William Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew. The original production starred Alfred Drake, Patricia Morison, Lisa Kirk and Harold Lang. Kiss Me, Kate was a response to Rodgers and Hammerstein's Oklahoma! and other integrated musicals, and it proved to be his biggest hit and the only one of his shows to run for more than 1,000 performances on Broadway. It won the first Tony Award presented for Best Musical, in 1949.

Relive the Golden Age of Broadway and the magical moments from TV's past with Ethel Merman, Mary Martin, Frank Sinatra, Julie Andrews,Carol Burnett and many more as we look at the history of live TV musicals.

Happy Birthday, Alfred Drake! He is best known for his leading roles in the original Broadway productions of Oklahoma!; Kiss Me, Kate; Kismet; and for playing Marshall Blackstone in the original production of Babes in Arms, (in which he sang the title song) and Hajj in Kismet, for which he received the Tony Award. His 1964 stage performance as Claudius in the Richard Burton Hamlet was filmed live on the stage of the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre. His final stage appearance in a musical was in 1973 as Honore LaChaisse in Lerner and Loewe's Gigi. Two years later he starred in a revival of The Skin of Our Teeth.

In Scene Two of Lynn Riggs' play, Green Grow the Lilacs, farm girl Laurey Williams speaks passionately to her Aunt Eller about the ranch where she grew up:

There are some shows that are ageless. Kiss Me Kate is one of them. The Cole Porter musical, while 67 years young, still entertains with ease, and Texas State University's current production of it showcases all that makes the show great.

DOCTOR ZHIVAGO officially opens at the Broadway Theatre tonight, April 21, 2015. Let's see what the critics had to say...

Martin Sheen and Mischa Barton, stars of the film, Bhopal: A Prayer For Rain, will be among the participants kicking off the Seventh Annual Kat Kramer's Films That Change The World cinema series highlighting socially significant films,

Eric Schaeffer's perfunctory staging of Heidi Thomas' revised script provides more fizzle than fizz.