Bebe Neuwirth News

American Ballet Theatre celebrated the opening of the 2013 Spring Season at the Metropolitan Opera House with a one-time-only opening night gala performance on Monday, May 13th. Mrs. Michelle Obama, Caroline Kennedy and Blaine Trump served as Honorary Chairs of this special performance featuring all of ABT's Principal Dancers. Scroll down for photos from the gala red carpet!

Christine Baranski, Kelli Barrett, Walter Bobbie, Jeremy Cohen, Dalton Harrod, Randy Skinner, Shonn Wiley, Karen Ziemba,New York City Ballet Principaldancer Joaquin De Luz and American Ballet Theatre principal dancer Irina Dvorovenko will star in Rodgers and Hart's On Your Toes, the final Encores! presentation of the 2012-13 New York City Center season.

Harbor Theatre to present an invite-only reading of The Mask of The Jaguar King, a project written by Stuart Warmflash and directed by Bram Lewis, with lighting by Dennis Parichy and original music by Peter Calo. For more details regarding this project please visit www.harbortheatre.org.

Classic Stage Company, under the leadership of Artistic Director Brian Kulick and Executive Director Greg Reiner, will celebrate the theater's past, present and future at its 45th Anniversary Bash this Friday evening, May 10 at the Edison Ballroom (240 West 47th Street). The evening will include an exclusive sneak peek at works under consideration for the company's future Musical Theatre Initiative productions with performances from Judy Kuhn, Stephen Bogardus and Jeffry Denman-all of whom were featured in this season's critically-acclaimed Passion-as well as Alexander Gemignani, Alexandra Silba, Jenny Fellner and more, directed by Jack Cummings III, with musical direction by Greg Jarrett.

Manhattan Theatre Club will present their annual Spring Gala on Monday, May 20 at Cipriani 42nd Street (110 East 42nd Street). This year's gala, will feature special appearances by MTC stars Judith Light (The Assembled Parties), S. Epatha Merkerson (Come Back, Little Sheba), Bebe Neuwirth (Golden Age), and Jennifer Westfeldt (The Explorers Club).

Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, written by Christopher Durang, today won the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award (NYDCC) for Best Play of the 2012-2013 season. Matilda received the award for Best Musical. The selections were made at the 78th annual voting meeting of the organization today at the offices of Time Out New York in Manhattan.

Classic Stage Company, under the leadership of Artistic Director Brian Kulick and Executive Director Greg Reiner, will present a new production of Bertolt Brecht's The Caucasian Chalk Circle featuring Christopher Lloyd (Azdak), directed by Brian Kulick (who directed Brecht's Galileo last season), and featuring new music by Tony Award-winning singer/songwriter Duncan Sheik (Spring Awakening). The Caucasian Chalk Circle will begin performances tonight, May 3 at CSC (136 East 13th Street) for a limited engagement through Sunday, June 9. The official opening is Thursday, May 30.

Cabaret warhorse Ricky Ritzel pays homage to Broadway legend Elaine Stritch in a hilarious and poignant evening of nonstop fun. From Angel in the Wings to A Little Night Music, Elaine Stitch has introduced and covered some of the greatest songs of the 20th Century. Now, Mr. Ritzel puts his unique spin on them in this loving tribute to one of Broadway's greatest treasures.

Classic Stage Company, under the leadership of Artistic Director Brian Kulick and Executive Director Greg Reiner, will present its annual Monday Night Open Rehearsal Series, this year featuring Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet. On three Monday evenings - May 13, May 20 and June 3 - different actors and directors will explore the text of Romeo & Juliet, giving theater-goers the opportunity to become part of the discovery process, and experience different acting approaches and directorial interpretations of one of Shakespeare's most cherished plays. CSC will open its 2013/2014 season with a new production of Romeo & Juliet starring Elizabeth Olsen. Here is the line-up for this year's Open Rehearsal series.

Cosmopolitan Editor-in-Chief Joanna Coles, Senior Vice President/Publishing Director of The Cosmopolitan Group Donna Kalajian Lagani, President of HBO Documentary Films Sheila Nevins, Broadway League Executive Director Charlotte St. Martin and the late Cosmopolitan Editor-in-Chief Helen Gurley Brown are Women's Project Theater's 2013 Women of Achievement who will be inducted at its 28th Annual Gala Celebration at the Three Sixty°,10 Desbrosses Street, Monday, May 13, at 6:00pm.

The Drama League (Executive Director, Gabriel Shanks) has announced the 2013 Drama League Awards Nominees for Distinguished Play, Distinguished Revival of a Play, Distinguished Musical, Distinguished Revival of a Musical, and Distinguished Performance Award. The nominations were announced at a ceremony hosted by Patina Miller and Michael Urie this morning at Sardi's Restaurant which were streamed live online at www.BroadwayWorld.com.

Following their Friday debut, the new Amazon Originals TV pilots from Amazon Studios, the original film and series production arm of Amazon.com, were the most watched TV shows across Amazon Instant Video over the weekend, making up 8 out of 10 of the most streamed episodes across the video service.

Broadway veteran Bebe Neuwirth stars in the Amazon original musical comedy BROWSERS premiering tonight, April 19, 2013. Check out a preview of the pilot episode premiering tonight!

Cabaret warhorse Ricky Ritzel pays homage to Broadway legend Elaine Stritch in a hilarious and poignant evening of nonstop fun. From Angel in the Wings to A Little Night Music, Elaine Stitch has introduced and covered some of the greatest songs of the 20th Century. Now, Mr. Ritzel puts his unique spin on them in this loving tribute to one of Broadway's greatest treasures.

Christine Baranski, Kelli Barrett, Walter Bobbie, Jeremy Cohen, Dalton Harrod, Randy Skinner, Shonn Wiley, Karen Ziemba,New York City Ballet Principaldancer Joaquin De Luz and American Ballet Theatre principal dancer Irina Dvorovenkowill star in Rodgers and Hart's On Your Toes, the final Encores! presentation of the 2012-13 New York City Center season. Directed and choreographed by Warren Carlyle, On Your Toes will have guest music direction by Encores! founding music director Rob Fisher and will play seven performances, from May 8 - 12 at New York City Center, W. 55th Street (between 6th and 7th Avenues). The "Slaughter on Tenth Avenue" ballet, originally choreographed by George Balanchine, will be staged by Susan Pilarre, who served as a Ballet Mistress of the show's 1983 Broadway Revival.

Classic Stage Company, under the leadership of Artistic Director Brian Kulick and Executive Director Greg Reiner, announced today that acclaimed Tony Award-winning director John Doyle will join the company for its 2013/2014 season as an Associate Director. Doyle, who directed and designed the company's current highly-acclaimed production of Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine's musical PASSION, will develop his own projects for CSC, contribute leadership for CSC's new Musical Theatre Initiative (for which PASSION was the launch production) and consult with Artistic Director Brian Kulick over season planning and other creative aspects of CSC's artistic programming.

Classic Stage Company, under the leadership of Artistic Director Brian Kulick and Executive Director Greg Reiner, will present a new production of Bertolt Brecht's THE CAUCASIAN CHALK CIRCLE featuring Christopher Lloyd (Azdak), directed by Brian Kulick (who directed Brecht's Galileo last season), and featuring new music by Tony Award-winning singer/songwriter Duncan Sheik (Spring Awakening). THE CAUCASIAN CHALK CIRCLE will begin performances Friday, May 3 at CSC (136 East 13th Street) for a limited engagement through Sunday, June 9. The official opening is Thursday, May 30. Tickets are now on sale.

Michigan State University's Department of Theatre will conclude its season by presenting the musical, Funny Girl at the Pasant Theatre April 19-28, 2013.

It's April 1st. Do you know when your Spring is coming? During another longggggg New York winter, the good news is that there were a ton of warming cabaret shows. The bad news is that there were so many, even during this seemingly endless winter our intrepid reviewer Stephen Hanks didn't have enough time to review them all right after the performances. So in what is becoming a seasonal ritual, here he offers yet another compilation of 13 'catch-up' cabaret show reviews.