Bill Russell News

Exciting news just in to BroadwayWorld!  Michael Weber, artistic director of Porchlight Music Theatre, has announced the casts of the Chicago premiere of the 2014 revision of Side Show, the return of Porchlight's hit Ain't Misbehavin', multi-Jeff Award-winner Summer Naomi Smart starring in the Chicago premiere of Far From Heaven, and Porchlight Music Theatre's 2015 - 2016 artistic leadership for its four Mainstage productions.

July's releases from Class Act Books feature another entry in the Dark Urban Fantasy series The Second Species as well as Science Fiction and Horror. They are: Dragon: The Tower of Tamerlane by James Austin McCormick, Shadow Law by Tony-Paul de Vissage, and Fear the Sky by Rick McQuiston Shadow Law, Book 5 in the Second Species series, continues the story of the Strigoi clan's pursuit of Mircea Ravagiu, murderer of their family and the reason they were exiled from their Carpathian home. In this novel, the pursuers and the pursued finally come face-to-face. Tony-Paul de Vissage currently has seventeen novels published with Class Act Books. Book 1 in the Second Species series was voted one of the Top Ten horror novels of 2013 by Preditors & Editors Readers Choice. Dragon: The Tower of Tamerlane by James Austin McCormick is another Sillow the Sylvan novel. In this one, the diminutive alien con man gets a new partner, a no-nonsense amazon with a cybernetic arm and a ruby-laser eye. Mr. McCormick has written two other Dragon novels for Class Act Books, Dragon and Dragon: Smuggler's Tales, plus the Sword and Sorcery tale, The Last Synn. Fear the Sky by Rick McQuiston is a horror novel with science fiction overtones in which a small mountain tourist attraction is taken over by an entity from Hell. This is his second novel for Class Act Books. His first When Only the Nightmare Remains, was acclaimed by critics who gave it a 5-star rating. Class Act Books went under new ownership in 2013, specializing in all writing genres from Romance to Horror. It features award-winners such as Toni V. Sweeney, Bill Russell, Icy Snow Blackstone, and Tony-Paul de Vissage among its authors.

54 BELOW, Broadway's Supper Club, presents Carly Sakolove in 'I'M EVERY WOMAN' on August 19th at 7pm. 'Diva' impersonator and actress Carly Sakolove is slated to bring her new zany one woman show to 54 Below for one night only! The show is 60 minutes of all your favorite Pop and Broadway Diva impersonations. Take the journey through the soulful stylings of Adele, the Latin beats of Shakira, dating back to the Golden Age with Liza, Judy and so many more.

A glamorous dose of the legendary Lypsinka, John Epperson's iconic creation, will once again be doled out this summer when the acclaimed LYPSINKA! THE BOXED SET returns for a limited Off-Broadway engagement.  LYPSINKA! THE BOXED SET will be performed Wednesday, July 22nd through Saturday, September 12th at the ravishing jewel-box Connelly Theater, located at 220 East 4th Street (between Avenues A and B) in Manhattan's East Village. The Opening is Saturday, July 25th at 8 PM.  Tickets ($35 - $65) will go on sale on Monday, April 27th at 10 am online at www.lypsinka.com and www.tweedtheater.org/lypsinka, or by calling 866-811-4111.

The first ever cast recording of the critically-acclaimed musical PAGEANT is now available digitally and on compact disc via select outlets. The cast of the recent revival - nominated for a 2015 Drama Desk Award for Best Revival of a Musical and a 2015 Off-Broadway Alliance Award for Best Musical Revival - just reunited to launch the Original Cast Recording at 54 Below (254 West 54th Street) last night, and BroadwayWorld was there for the special night.

This week at 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.

Broadway's 40 theatres aren't the only places to catch performances from your favorite stars! Well after Broadway orchestras begin their overtures, ensemble members take their dance breaks, and performers belt out their eleven o'clock numbers, the party continues at various cabaret venues throughout New York City. Below, BroadwayWorld brings you some cabaret highlights for this week as picked by our theatre editors, including: Jeremy Jordan at 54 Below; Pageant: The Original Cast Recording Launch Concert; The Music of Paul Gordon: Featuring Sarah Stiles, Jeremy Kushnier, and More; Lauren Worsham: Corsets and Combat Boots; and Tony Yazbeck in 'The Floor Above Me.'

Golf's resident funnyman David Feherty, host of Golf Channel's Feherty, returns for a fifth season on a new night, today, June 9 at 9 p.m. ET.

Elegies For Angels, Punks and Raging Queens is a song cycle with music by Janet Hood and lyrics and additional text by Bill Russell. The work features songs and monologues inspired by the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt and Edgar Lee Masters' Spoon River Anthology. Each of the monologues is written from the perspective of characters who have died from AIDS and the songs represent the feelings of friends and family members dealing with the loss.

Bucks County Playhouse (BCP) announces Bucks County's own John Augustine to return (The Hummingbird's Tour, 2014, Director) to the Bucks County Playhouse stage as 'Larry' in Stephen Sondheim's COMPANY, running May 29-June 21. Augustine will play alongside Broadway's Candy Buckley (Scandalous, Thoroughly Modern Millie, Cabaret) as 'Joanne'.

Supplant your new SIDE SHOW cast recording with even more goodies!

Back by popular demand, March's SIDE SHOW: ADDED ATTRACTIONS concert returned to 54 Below this week. Packing in two more performances, the Monday evening show celebrated the short lived Broadway run of the revival of Side Show, the March concert, and the upcoming release of Broadway Records' SIDE SHOW: ADDED ATTRACTIONS - Live at 54 Below.

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.

The first ever cast recording of the critically-acclaimed musical PAGEANT will be released today, June 22, 2015, digitally and on compact disc via select outlets. The cast of the recent revival - nominated for a 2015 Drama Desk Award for Best Revival of a Musical and a 2015 Off-Broadway Alliance Award for Best Musical Revival - will reunite to launch the Original Cast Recording at 54 Below (254 West 54th Street) tonight, June 22, 2015, at 9:30pm.

Broadway's 40 theatres aren't the only places to catch performances from your favorite stars! Well after Broadway orchestra's begin their overtures, ensemble members take their dance breaks, and performers belt out their eleven- o'clock numbers, the party continues at various cabaret venues throughout New York City. Below, BroadwayWorld brings you some cabaret highlights for this week as picked by our theatre editors, including: Cast of Side Show: Added Attractions; The Theory of Relativity: A New Musical in concert by Neil Bartram & Brian Hill; 54 Celebrates Julie Wilson; Songs of Cy Coleman, Starring Randy Graff, Cady Huffman, & Lillias White; and Ciara Renee at 54 Below.

On Monday, May 4, Cooper Hewitt Museum celebrated the Roundabout Theatre Company's new Broadway production of ON THE TWENTIETH CENTURY with special guest: Cooper Hewitt Trustee David Rockwell (nominated for two 2015 Tony Awards for his scenic designs of 'TWENTIETH CENTURY' and YOU CAN'T TAKE IT WITH YOU). Scroll down for photos from the event!

This May and June, 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.

On a special episode of the popular Golf Channel series, Feherty, David Feherty sits down with PGA TOUR Commissioner Tim Finchem for a wide-ranging conversation covering his life, his career and 21 prolific years leading the world's top golf tour.

3D Theatricals (3DT), recipient of the 2015 Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle's Joel Hirschhorn Award for Excellence in Musical Theatre during 2014, beckons all patrons of the arts to buckle up and hold on for a rip-roaring journey back into time by way of the acclaimed Broadway musical SIDE SHOW, based on the true life story of conjoined twins Daisy and Violet Hilton. Side Show has been set for ten performances - exclusively at historic Plummer Auditorium in Fullerton, CA, running April 25 - May 10. BroadwayWorld has photos from the opening night curtain call and festivities below!

The musical Side Show played Broadway in 1997 for 91 performances and was Tony nominated but never got the recognition it deserved. A revamped version went to Broadway in 2014, but it, too, closed early. Like Jason Robert Brown's Parade, another noteworthy Broadway miss, it's worth the attention, but its dark grotesque presentation of carnival freak shows is not the most appealing fare for commercial theatre audiences. Many are repelled by the sight of a man with three legs, a bearded lady, a half-man, half-woman or in the case of Daisy and Violet Hilton, by the appearance of twins who are conjoined. The girls hated the term Siamese twins, for they were not Siamese, and also if people asked them if they wanted to be normal. What is normal? Now in a revival production of the original - not the 2013 revamped production, which played La Jolla and the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. before Broadway - by 3-D Theatricals at Plummer Auditorium, Fullerton, Side Show comes out as winning and memorable as when it first appeared.