Brett Ryback News

How do you "fix" the misogyny of Shakespeare's now antiquated THE TAMING OF THE SHREW? For playwright Amy Freed, it means injecting it with a noticeable dose of equality empowerment, and then shifting its characters' traits and motivations as if written from a female's perspective. That is the premise of South Coast Repertory's latest World Premiere production SHREW!-which continues performances in Costa Mesa through April 21. The results? A funny but flawed update with good intentions.

A Little New Music returned to the Catalina Jazz Club in the heart of Hollywood on Tuesday, March 6 with a stellar lineup of singers and new musical theatre songs. Scroll down for photos from this exciting evening!

Playwright Amy Freed has always been a Shakespeare fan. Her breakout hit, The Beard of Avon (SCR-commissioned and premiered, 2001), was a smart, funny look at the controversy surrounding the authorship of Shakespeare's plays. Now comes SHREW! (March 24-April 21, Segerstrom Stage), in which Freed has re-imagined The Bard's play, The Taming of the Shrew, as a wickedly funny love story of two people who find their way to true, deep and mutual love. Art Manke directs SHREW!, which is an anchor production of the 2018 Pacific Playwrights Festival. Tickets are available at www.scr.org.

On Monday, March 5, ContemporaryMusicalTheatre.com celebrated their Fifth Anniversary with a star-studded concert, featuring songs by some of today's most celebrated, award-winning, and emerging writers, presented by a host of fantastic Broadway performers.

A Little New Music returns to the Catalina Jazz Club in the heart of Hollywood on Tuesday, March 6 at 8:30pm, with a stellar lineup of singers and exciting new musical theatre songs! Scroll down for photos of the cast in rehearsal.

A Little New Music will spotlight a diverse array of artists performing new and unheard musical theatre songs in a classic cabaret setting at Hollywood's historic Catalina Jazz Club on Tuesday, March 6 at 8:30pm.  Audiences of A Little New Music's concert series discover firsthand pieces of musical theatre that could become Broadway hits.

ContemporaryMusicalTheatre.com is proud to announce an amazing line-up of performers for their Fifth Anniversary Celebration Concert at The Green Room 42 on Monday, March 5 at 9:30 PM. Packed with great contemporary musical theatre songs and curated by Laura Josepher & David Sisco, Contemporary Writers' Circle: Fifth Anniversary Concert represents the best of today's wide range of contemporary musical theatre styles featuring songs by celebrated, award-winning, and emerging writers.

Theater's next generation of actors will come from all over the globe, to be certain, but one might find an impressive concentration of artists on the campus of the University of Southern California, where the 2018 list of candidates for the Master of Fine Arts in acting rivals any group to be found anywhere. Take Isadora Lee Cintron Moya, for example. A native of San Juan, Puerto Rico, she earned her bachelor's degree in theater from the University of Puerto Rico, where she was a member of the university's acclaimed Traveling Theatre Group.

ContemporaryMusicalTheatre.com is proud to celebrate their Fifth Anniversary at The Green Room 42 with a star-studded concert packed with great contemporary musical theatre songs on Monday, March 5 at 9:30 PM. Curated by Laura Josepher & David Sisco, Contemporary Writers' Circle: Fifth Anniversary Concert represents the best of today's wide range of contemporary musical theatre styles.

On Tuesday, March 6 at 8:30pm, A Little New Music (ALNM) presents its sixteenth concert of the latest 'new or unheard' musical theatre songs at the historic Catalina Jazz Club. Be among the first to discover the best new writing for Broadway, brought to life by LA's premier performing artists and the ALNM band. The event is co-hosted by Broadway's J. Elaine Marcos (ANNIE, PRISCILLA) and MadTV's Michelle Ortiz under the guest music direction of singer, songwriter, and arranger Jan Roper (Hollywood Bowl, Musical Theatre Guild).

There's a feeling unlike anything I've ever felt and it happened this past Sunday at 3:30pm. The final chords of our musical Passing Through played and I looked at our incredible cast through teary eyes as the lights faded to blackout. For the past two and a half hours, the musical that Brett Ryback and I had worked on for three years had its first reading in front of a paying audience that embraced and connected themselves to the story in exactly the way we had hoped an audience one day would.

The 13th Annual Goodspeed Festival of New Musicals, produced by Goodspeed Musicals' Max Showalter Center for Education in Musical Theatre, kicks off its much-anticipated three-day festival of brand-new works today, January 12, 2018 at The Goodspeed with a staged reading of the rousing new musical Five Points by Ethan D. Pakchar (Music) and Douglas Lyons (Music and Lyrics), and McKnight Fellowship winner Harrison David Rivers (Book).

Note by note. That's how musical scores are written and that is how they are learned. Over the last two days, our fearless musical director Matthew Meckes has taught a week's worth of dense, ensemble-heavy music in less than 11 hours. The score for Passing Through, as I mentioned in an earlier post, is heavily influenced by folk music, but it also has the layering of any modern pop/musical theatre score. There are a lot of moving parts.

Welcome Back BroadwayWorld Readers! We hope you had a happy holiday season and a great start to the New Year.

First off, huge thanks to BroadwayWorld for allowing us to bring you this backstage look at the very beginnings of a new original American musical. This process is so fascinating and intricate and we'll be able to share with you our passion for this art form.

Jason Ma has been named the recipient of the 2017 ASCAP Foundation Cole Porter Award, presented annually to an emerging composer/lyricist 'whose work shows promise.'

Olivier Award winner and Broadway star Lesli Margherita (Matilda, Dames at Sea, Zorro), Adelaide from Bucks County Playhouse's blockbuster production of Guys and Dolls, returns to New Hope with a brand-new concert, This Broad's Way, Saturday, January 20 at 8:00 p.m. Margherita is appearing at the Playhouse as part of the Winter Visiting Artists Series.

The 13th Annual Goodspeed Festival of New Musicals, produced by Goodspeed Musicals' Max Showalter Center for Education in Musical Theatre, kicks off its much-anticipated three-day festival of brand-new works on Friday, January 12, 2018 at The Goodspeed with a staged reading of the rousing new musical Five Points by Ethan D. Pakchar (Music) and Douglas Lyons (Music and Lyrics), and McKnight Fellowship winner Harrison David Rivers (Book).

Jason Ma has been named the recipient of the 2017 ASCAP Foundation Cole Porter Award, presented annually to an emerging composer/lyricist 'whose work shows promise.'

Olivier Award winner Lesli Margherita (Zorro, Matilda, Dames at Sea) launched a Kickstarter campaign today to raise funds to release her debut solo album RULE YOUR KINGDOM: Live at Feinstein's/54 Below.