Billy Crystal News

What good is sitting alone in your room this week? If you don't already have plans to see a Broadway show, come out to see your favorite Broadway stars in a cabaret act instead. Highlights this week include:

When you enter the Friars Club on 55th street the world immediately becomes a better place. The first space you encounter is the Billy Crystal Room where you hear the laughter and the animated conversations as Friars share stories with one another. Last night in only the 8th time in the Club's 114-year history The Icon Award was presented by Robert De Niro to Billy Crystal at the Ziegfeld Ballroom to a capacity filled New York/Hollywood audience. The Icon Award honors individuals whose extraordinary accomplishment raise the standard of entertainment and positively redefines our culture. Billy is following in the footsteps of entertainment icons Douglas Fairbanks, Cary Grant, Frank Sinatra, Martin Scorsese, and Robert De Niro.

After an extraordinarily successful year with the release of their #1 Billboard Contemporary Jazz album ICONIC and a world tour, Take 6 is capping off the year on a high note with four nights at the Blue Note in NYC (Nov. 8-11), a Friar's Club Billy Crystal tribute on November 13 at the Ziegfield Ballroom which they will be opening (additional performers/attendees include Bette Midler, Robert DeNiro, Alec Baldwin, Katie Couric, Meg Ryan, Martin Scorcese,  to name a few) and a Christmas special they participated in with Bebe Winans and Cece Winans, Anthony Hamilton, and others. "The Soul & Spirit of Christmas" will air on GetTV on November 23 at 8pm EST. They will end the year with additional tour dates in Europe (dates below.)

New York Stage and Film is thrilled to announce that its annual Winter Gala will honor playwright and Emmy award-winning actress Patricia Wettig (F2M, 'Brothers and Sisters,' 'thirtysomething') and Executive Producer/director/actor Ken Olin ('This Is Us,' 'Alias,' 'Brothers & Sisters,' 'thirtysomething'), and, in recognition for her years of dedication to New York Stage and Film, Artistic Director Johanna Pfaelzer, who is stepping down from her post at the end of the 2019 Powerhouse Summer Season.

Global rock icons and Rock & Roll Hall of Fame 2018 inductees Bon Jovi commence their massive stadium tour of Australia in just five weeks!

On this day we celebrate legendary composer of stage and screen, the great Marc Shaiman!

An outstanding lineup of entertainers gathered in the Kennedy Center Concert Hall to salute Julia Louis-Dreyfus, recipient of the 21st annual Mark Twain Prize for American Humor on October 21, 2018. The Prize, which is named to honor one of the world's greatest humorists, was presented at a gala performance featuring some of the biggest names in comedy. The event was taped by WETA Washington, D.C. and will air nationally on PBS on November 19, 2018 at 9:00 p.m. ET.

Celebrating 25 years of pioneering political comedy talk shows on TV, including 15 years on his current weekly HBO series, REAL TIME WITH BILL MAHER: ANNIVERSARY SPECIAL debuts this FRIDAY, OCT. 19 (10:00-11:00 p.m. ET/PT), exclusively on HBO. The special looks back at highlights of Maher's irreverent run on TV, featuring archival footage from both “Real Time with Bill Maher” and “Politically Incorrect,” as well as appearances by such notables as Salman Rushdie, Maureen Dowd, Billy Crystal, Larry David, Martin Short, Woody Harrelson and Barbra Streisand, among others.

Broadwayworld.com had the pleasure of interviewing Caroline Hirsch, founder and owner of Carolines on Broadway, about the upcoming New York Comedy Festival.

Sakina's Restaurant, the Obie Award-winning play written and performed by actor, writer, and former correspondent for "The Daily Show" Aasif Mandvi (Disgraced), opens this Sunday, October 14 at the Minetta Lane Theatre. Performances of the recently-extended five-week-only engagement began on October 5th. Sakina's Restaurant comes from Audible, the same producers as the critically acclaimed Harry Clarke, Girls and Boys, and Patti Smith: Words and Music, and the world's largest seller and producer of downloadable audiobooks and other spoken-word entertainment.

To celebrate the upcoming holiday season, three-time GRAMMY® nominee Joey Alexander will release A Joey Alexander Christmas, a four-track digital-only EP, set for November 2 release on Motéma Music. The EP follows the release of the 15-year-old's critically acclaimed spring album Eclipse as well as his recent September collaboration on the socially conscious Legion of Peace project.

Hot off a sold-out, wildly successful run in Los Angeles, producers Just Words Productions, LLC, in association with Theatre 68, and Lenny Bruce's daughter, Kitty Bruce, announced today that Joe Mantenga will direct the Off-Broadway premiere of I'm Not A Comedian…I'm Lenny Bruce, written by and starring Ronnie Marmo. Performances begin Tuesday, October 23 at The Cutting Room (44 E 32nd St).

A fearless observer of current events and longtime HBO favorite takes a (brief) pause from the nonstop news cycle later this month to look back on his groundbreaking career. Celebrating 25 years of pioneering political comedy talk shows on TV, including 15 years on his current weekly HBO series, REAL TIME WITH BILL MAHER: ANNIVERSARY SPECIAL debuts FRIDAY, OCT. 19 (10:00-11:00 p.m. ET/PT), exclusively on HBO.

GHOSTLIGHT RECORDS has announced the release of How We React and How We Recover, the new album from three-time Tony Award winner Jason Robert Brown, on physical CD online and in stores today, Friday, September 28.

The New York Comedy Festival (NYCF), in association with TBS, announced today the addition of more than 100 shows to its 2018 line-up. The festival runs from November 5th through November 11th at some of New York City's most iconic venues including the Beacon Theatre, Carnegie Hall, Carolines on Broadway, Madison Square Garden, Town Hall and the Tribeca Performing Arts Center, among others.

Together, Bruce and Judy will fill the BIG & TALL order of making you laugh and laugh!  BRUCE VILANCH is a six-time Emmy Award-winning comic who's best known for his four-year stint as a celebrity participant on Hollywood Squares. His stand-up routine draws on his years of being a Hollywood insider and earned him the role of head writer for the Oscars - writing for hosts Billy Crystal, Alec Baldwin, Steve Martin and others.

Preview performances begin tonight, Tuesday, September 25, for The Waverly Gallery on Broadway! Get to know the cast below!

Good morning BroadwayWorld! Today's top stories: get a first look at Jessica Vosk and Ryan McCartan in Wicked, and more!

Billy Crystal's new play 'Have a Nice Day' will hold a live reading at the Minetta Lane Theater next month, according to The New York Times.

The British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) will honour Saturday Night Live with a Special Award to celebrate its influence on television comedy in the UK and around the world.