Anastasia Barzee News

I talk with actor Michael Brian Dunn about VICTOR/VICTORIA, Dick Van Dyke, Meryl Streep, and his experience working on the stage and screen.

BWW: TUTS' VICTOR VICTORY Is A Winning Gem

Good morning, BroadwayWorld! Because we know all our readers eat, sleep and breathe Broadway, what could be better than waking up to it? Today's big news: Barbra and Betty release their new albums today, EVITA opens at the Dominion, TALK RADIO opens at the Chain, and stars take to regional stages across the U.S. tonight!

Theatre Under The Stars (TUTS) presents the disguise surprise musical comedy production of Victor/Victoria tonight, September 16 - 28 at The Hobby Center's Sarofim Hall.

Theatre Under The Stars (TUTS) presents the disguise surprise musical comedy production of Victor/Victoria September 16 - 28 at The Hobby Center's Sarofim Hall.

Coming up this week, 54 BELOW, Broadway's Supper Club, presents some of the brightest stars from Broadway, cabaret, jazz and beyond. To purchase tickets or for more information, visit www.54Below.com or call (646) 476-3551.

UnsungMusicalsCo. (UMC) will present Unsung Bob Merrill hosted by three-time Tony Award nominee Marc Kudisch (9 to 5, Assassins, Millie). Created and directed by Ben West (Unsung Carolyn Leigh, The Fig Leaves Are Falling, Make Mine Manhattan), the intimate evening will play 54 Below tonight, August 5 at 9:30 PM.

Coming up this week, 54 BELOW, Broadway's Supper Club, presents some of the brightest stars from Broadway, cabaret, jazz and beyond. To purchase tickets or for more information, visit www.54Below.com or call (646) 476-3551.

This August and September 54 BELOW presents an exciting lineup of the brightest talent from Broadway and beyond. Located just below the legendary Studio 54 at 254 West 54th Street.

UnsungMusicalsCo. (UMC) will present Unsung Bob Merrill hosted by three-time Tony Award nominee Marc Kudisch (9 to 5, Assassins, Millie). Created and directed by Ben West (Unsung Carolyn Leigh, The Fig Leaves Are Falling, Make Mine Manhattan), the intimate evening will play 54 Below on Tuesday, August 5 at 9:30 PM.

UnsungMusicalsCo. (UMC) continues its 2014 developmental reading series at The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center with a special presentation of I Had a Ball, the 1964 Coney Island musical comedy with a book by Tony Award winner Jerome Chodorov (Wonderful Town) and a score by Stan Freeman & Jack Lawrence. The reading, directed by Ben West (Unsung Carolyn Leigh, The Fig Leaves Are Falling, Make Mine Manhattan), will be held today, July 24 at 2:30 PM in the Bruno Walter Auditorium.

UnsungMusicalsCo. (UMC) continues its 2014 developmental reading series at The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center with a special presentation of I Had a Ball, the 1964 Coney Island musical comedy with a book by Tony Award winner Jerome Chodorov (Wonderful Town) and a score by Stan Freeman & Jack Lawrence. The reading, directed by Ben West (Unsung Carolyn Leigh, The Fig Leaves Are Falling, Make Mine Manhattan), will be held Thursday, July 24 at 2:30 PM in the Bruno Walter Auditorium.

Members from the former Broadway, National Tour and Chicago productions of Billy Elliot the Musical came to the July 10th performance of Ogunquit Playhouse production. Among the cast members pictured from Ogunquit's production are Noah Parets (Billy), Sam Faulkner (Billy), Anastasia Barzee (Mrs. Wilkinson), Armand Schultz (Dad), Joel Blum (George), Dale Soules (Grandma), Stephen Hanna (Older Billy), and Anthony Festa (Tony). The honored guests pictured are Tony Award Winner, Trent Kowalick (original Broadway Billy Elliot) Tommy Batchelor, (Billy, Broadway and the National Tour), Thommie Retter (Mr. Braithwaite, Broadway), as well as Broadway cast members Brianna Fragomenti, Kara Oates, Annabelle Kempf and Chicago's Small Boy, Mark Page.

Electricity courses through Ogunquit Playhouse's stunning production of BILLY ELLIOT, continuing through July 26 at 'America's foremost summer theatre.'

Assembling a stellar cast and creative team, the Ogunquit Playhouse has mounted a powerful production of the Elton John-Lee Hall 2005 musical, Billy Elliot. Based on the 2000 film, both directed by Stephen Daldry with original choreography by Peter Darling, Billy Elliot movingly tells the story of a Yorkshire working class boy who discovers his unlikely passion and talent for ballet and who must win his coal miner father's acceptance for his chosen vocation. Set against the background of the bitter 1984 mining strike which pitted the workers' life and death struggle against Margaret Thatcher's push to close the mines, Billy's discovery of his artistic gift becomes his ticket not only to self-fulfillment, but also to escape from his family's bleak existence.

UnsungMusicalsCo. (UMC) will continue its 2014 Unsung concert series at 54 Below with Unsung Bob Merrill and Unsung Carolyn Leigh, Vol. 2, following its recent sold-out, critically acclaimed Unsung Carolyn Leigh concert for Lincoln Center's American Songbook. The two all-new evenings are created and directed by Ben West (Unsung Carolyn Leigh, The Fig Leaves Are Falling, At Home Abroad) with musical direction and arrangements by Fran Minarik (Unsung Carolyn Leigh, At Home Abroad).

The Ogunquit Playhouse, America's Foremost Summer Theatre, will be one of the first regional theatres in the U.S. to produce the Tony Award winning Billy Elliot the Musical on stage June 25 to July 26. Billy Elliot tells the story of a young boy who discovers his true passion lies in ballet class and not in the boxing ring, and then finds the strength to defy the convention of his small UK mining town to make his dream come true. The Ogunquit production features a cast of Broadway veterans, including Anastasia Barzee, Armond Shultz and Tony Award nominee Joel Blum.

Everything old is new again--and vice versa-at PAST IS PRESENT, up-and-coming lyricist SARAH REBELL's Metropolitan Room debut, which took place on March 24, 2014. Watch the videos below, featuring performances by Teal Wicks (Jekyll & Hyde, Wicked), Autumn Hurlbert (NBC's Sound of Music Live!), Alex Brightman (Big Fish, Wicked), Samantha Massell (Encores! Little Me, Baz Luhrmann's La Boheme) and more!

In the late '70s, Vivian Reed captured a Tony Award nomination and won a Drama Desk Award for her work in the Broadway musical Bubbling Brown Sugar, and although Reed has delivered some critically-acclaimed work in the many years since (a Tony nomination for the 1992 musical The High Rollers Social and Pleasure Club and a star turn in the revue Three Mo' Divas), during the last decade she had gone and stayed away too long, mainly to take care of her ailing mother. Last November, she dipped a toe in the New York nightclub waters, producing a one-night show at 54 Below that was highly praised and offered hints of great things to come. But this past Monday night—the first of what will ultimately be a four-show run of “An Evening With Vivian Reed” (the next three dates are April 14, May 20 and June 19)—this performing powerhouse established her return in earnest. With Reed's still expressive voice tackling musical genres ranging from R & B to Jazz to Great American Songbook standards to Gospel (even a dash of Opera), her electric and passionate show was cabaret/nightclub performing as revival meeting in more ways than one. Reed is not only reviving her singing career, she is inspiring impassioned converts at the same time.

Everything old is new again--and vice versa-at PAST IS PRESENT, up-and-coming lyricist SARAH REBELL's Metropolitan Room debut March 24 at 9:30pm. By turns hilarious and touching, sexy and historical, this concert features Rebell's lyrics paired with the music of promising young composers including DANNY ABOSCH (Fancy Nancy), WILL BUCK (Only Anne), JOSH FREILICH, (The Star Child), ELIZABETH HAGSTEDT (Rose Petals), TERESA LOTZ (The Birds and the Bees) , MADELINE MYERS (Legends and Lore) and WILLEM OOSTHEUYSEN (Prodigy).