Bette Midler News

Brooklyn Center for the Performing Arts at Brooklyn College (BCBC) presents Fiddler on the Roof today, April 14, 2013 at 3pm. All tickets are $45/$36 (orchestra/mezzanine) and can be purchased by phone at 718-951-4500 (Tues-Sat, 1pm-6pm), or online at www.BrooklynCenterOnline.org.

Hold on to your hat! You Ain't Seen Nothing Like This at the Straz before! The first national tour of 'Priscilla Queen of the Desert the musical', part of the Best of Broadway Tampa Bay series, exploded into Carol Morsani Hall at the Straz Center in Tampa, Tuesday night!

Hotel Nikko San Francisco and multi-platinum entertainer Michael Feinstein have announced the opening of Feinstein's at the Nikko. Located within Hotel Nikko (222 Mason Street, San Francisco), Feinstein's at the Nikko will present a wide range of local, regional and national entertainers in an intimate 140-seat cabaret setting. Two-time Tony Award winner Sutton Foster (Thoroughly Modern Millie, Anything Goes, The Drowsy Chaperone) will take the stage May 8 - 12, 2013 for the inaugural performances. Tickets range in price from $60-100 and are available now by calling 866.663.1063 or visiting www.ticketweb.com.

Today, one week before Donna Summer's posthumous induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Universal Music Enterprises (UMe) releases Donna Summer ICON, a new single-disc collection featuring 11 of the legendary singer's biggest hits and fan favorites.

Welcome to this week's edition of our new WEEKLY GROSSES ANALYSIS, part of our new Industry Insights section that will feature insider industry information, commentary and insights! Read on for all the weekly grosses statistics for the movers and shakers from the latest grosses, 4/7/2013.

JetBlue Airways (JBLU), New York's Hometown Airline, today announces its Sixth Annual 'One Thing That's Green' (OTTG) campaign, the first major tree planting in New York since Hurricane Sandy. JetBlue is partnering with New York Restoration Project (NYRP) and its MillionTreesNYC initiative to plant more than 2,400 trees, remove trash and complete beautification projects in Highland Park, an area identified by the New York City Parks Department as a priority location for revitalization efforts. Over 30,000 trees were lost throughout New York City as a result of Hurricane Sandy. This tree planting event is an important step in rebuilding the city's tree canopy.

I'LL EAT YOU LAST began previews on Friday, April 5 and opens Wednesday, April 24 at the Booth Theatre (222 West 45th Street). Appearing on Broadway for the first time in 30 years, Tony and Grammy Award-winning superstar Bette Midler will play the legendary Hollywood agent Sue Mengers (1932-2011) in the new, one-character play. BroadwayWorld brings you a first look at Midler's name in lights below!

GLEE mastermind Ryan Murphy has taken to his Twitter to announce a pivotal bit of new casting: Katey Sagal will play Artie (Kevin McHale)'s mother on the show!

New York City Center goes Off-Broadway this summer with the launch of Encores! Off-Center, a new series featuring seminal Off-Broadway musicals filtered through the lens of today's most innovative artists. In keeping with City Center's founding mission to make the arts accessible to all, the majority of tickets will be $25.

The Girls in the Band is a documentary about female jazz and big band instrumentalists that chronicles their inspired journeys and struggles for recognition from the late 1920s to the present day. The film will be screening for one week beginning May 10 at the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center at Lincoln Center. Written and directed by Judy Chaikin and executive produced by Michael Greene, who are also the film's producers, The Girls in the Band is being hailed as a "real crowd-pleaser" by Variety and "extraordinary" by The Hollywood Reporter. The film won the Audience Choice Awards at the Palm Springs Film Festival, the Victoria Film Festival and the Omaha Film Festival as well as the Best Music Documentary Award at DocUtah Film Festival. The film has also screened at many other festivals including the Atlanta Film Festival, the Dubai International Film Festival, the Cleveland International Film Festival and the Washington D.C. International Film Festival. Screen Daily International declared The Girls in the Band to be "a fascinating, moving and wonderfully tuneful documentary." More info on the film can be found at the film's website: http://www.thegirlsintheband.com/home/.

I'LL EAT YOU LAST, the new one-woman play which marks Bette Midler's return to Broadway, announces its rush ticket policy: A limited number of $35 rush tickets (including facility fee) will be available for purchase in-person at the Booth Theatre box office (222 West 45th Street) when it opens for that day's performance(s) only. There is a limit of two tickets per person. Tickets are subject to availability and may not be offered at all performances.

Fans of the Disney film 'Hocus Pocus' starring Bette Midler, Kathy Najimy and Sarah Jessica Parker as the Sanderson sisters, wicked witches brought back to life on Halloween to steal the souls of children, are gathering online as a grassroots movement to bring it to Broadway. Following the success of musicals such as NEWSIES, MARY POPPINS, SISTER ACT and MATILDA; Winnie, Mary and Sarah are ready to enchant Broadway audiences.

As an undergraduate theater major in the early 1970s, I heard music everywhere. It seemed to pour out of every office and workspace around the department. (And in the LP era, if you wanted more than the radio, this meant schlepping a twenty pound record player and a dozen or so albums from your home to the campus, sometimes requiring back-and-forth trips from the car. If you go to that much trouble, you want to keep the music playing.) In the hushed costume shop with its quietly industrious all female staff, Broadway ruled, with Stephen Sondheim's recent Company and Follies in heavy rotation. It was 'men only' in the scene shop where I listened to male balladeers like James Taylor and Gordon Lightfoot while unhappily working off assigned crew hours. Jazz classes (my favorites) in the dance department were conducted to the pre-disco sounds of Isaac Hayes and the Temptations. And late night cast parties were never complete without spins of Bette Midler's first two albums.

The Barns at Wolf Trap Welcomes a GRAMMY-Winning Songstress, a Celebrated Pop-Rock Sensation, and a Cabaret Queen.

The Barns at Wolf Trap has announced the following upcoming performances.

Observing the evolution of young Marissa Mulder's cabaret career is like watching a high jumper going for the gold at the Olympic Games. With every show or performance, she and the creative teams around her set the bar just a little bit higher and she keeps clearing the dang thing. But with her new Tom Waits Tribute Show, which opened last night at the Metropolitan Room (and continues through Saturday night, all at 7pm), the bar was raised multiple notches, and damn if she didn't clear it with inches to spare. With Tom . . . In His Own Words/The Songs of Tom Waits, Mulder has vaulted herself into major cabaret performer territory and even managed to stick the landing.

Clear Channel Media and Entertainment, the leading media company in America with a greater reach than any radio or television outlet, today announced the return of its historic, two-day, star-studded music event – the iHeartRadio Music Festival.

Walnut Street Theatre's President and Producing Artistic Director Bernard Havard has announced the 2013-2014 Independence Studio on 3 season, noting 'the plays I've selected are a dramatic blend of new work and American classics. It's the most ambitious season yet for our intimate theatre. Several of the shows have larger casts and more challenging scenic elements, which will be exciting to see our creative designers bring to life. I'm thrilled to share our upcoming season with Philadelphia audiences.'

I'LL EAT YOU LAST will begin previews Friday, April 5 and opens Wednesday, April 24 at the Booth Theatre (222 West 45th Street). Appearing on Broadway for the first time in 30 years, Tony and Grammy Award-winning superstar Bette Midler will play the legendary Hollywood agent Sue Mengers (1932-2011) in the new, one-character play. BroadwayWorld brings you a first look at the marquee below!