Brian Stokes Mitchell News

THE ACTORS FUND will honor Tony Award Winner Brian Stokes Mitchell at their 14th Annual Tony Awards Party with the Julie Harris Award for Lifetime Achievement. The gala features the only live feed in Los Angeles of the Tony Awards as they happen in New York. Marc Cherry, creator/producer of 'Desperate Housewives' and David Rambo, producer/writer is 'CSI' will produce and write this event.

On June 7 at 7:30 p.m., Symphony Space presents a monumental evening of entertainment, 32 years in the making, as the venerable cultural center celebrates co-founder, voce of Selected Shorts and out-going Artistic Director Isaiah Sheffer with Isaiah Fest.

The Town Hall (123 W. 43rd St.), Times Square's landmark concert venue, is pleased to present Brian Stokes Mitchell in concert on Saturday April 17th at 8PM. Tickets are on sale now for $50 and $45.

Donna Murphy, star of the upcoming production of ANYONE CAN WHISTLE at City Center, recently sat down with the New York Daily News to discuss her feeling on the production and her upcoming Disney film.

Donna Murphy, Sutton Foster and Raúl Esparza will star in Stephen Sondheim and Arthur Laurents' Anyone Can Whistle, the final New York City Center Encores! production of the 2009-2010 season. Anyone Can Whistle, running for five performances April 8 - 11, will be directed and choreographed by Casey Nicholaw with musical direction by Rob Berman.

Patti LuPone, the winner of three Drama Desk Awards as Outstanding Actress in A Musical for her performances in Evita (1980), Anything Goes 1988) and Gypsy (2008), will host this year's 55th Annual Drama Desk Awards ceremony on Sunday, May 23, 2010, at 9 PM, it was announced today by Robert R. Blume, Executive Producer of the annual awards show, and William Wolf, President of the Drama Desk.

Reprise Theatre Company's production of 'A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum,' 1962's Tony-Award-winning Best Musical, will play its final performance on March 28 at UCLA's Freud Playhouse. Directed by David Lee, the production's book is by Burt Shevelove and Larry Gelbart, with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim.

The Manhattan Association of Cabarets & Clubs has announced the nominees for the 2010 24th Annual MAC Awards. The ceremony honoring the nominees, will take place on May 4, 2010 at B.B. King Blues Club & Grill, and will be hosted by Sharon McNight. Leslie Uggams will be honored for Lifetime Achievement, with Board of Directors Awards being presented to Peter Leavy and playbill.com. The event will begin at 7:30pm. Doors open at 6:00pm. Lennie Watts will direct the evening, with Tracy Stark musical directing.

The nominees for the 24TH ANNUAL MAC AWARDS will be announced by veteran Cabaret and Broadway performers TITUS BURGESS (The Little Mermaid, Guys & Dolls), DOREEN MONTALVO (In The Heights), KT SULLIVAN (Lifetime Achievement Award, Mabel Mercer Foundation) and LENNIE WATTS (President of MAC and Director of MAC Awards Show).

Reprise Theatre Company presents An Intimate Evening with Marvin Hamlisch for one performance only on Monday, March 22 at 8:00 pm, at UCLA's Freud Playhouse.

Big band sound transforms the Lincoln Theatre into a Duke Ellington jazz club as Arena Stage presents Duke Ellington's Sophisticated Ladies, choreographed by and starring Maurice Hines (Broadway's Sophisticated Ladies and Uptown... It's Hot!) with direction by Charles Randolph-Wright (Arena's Guys and Dolls and Blue).

Raúl Esparza, Edward Hibbert, Jeff Blumenkrantz and John Ellison Conlee will join Donna Murphy and Sutton Foster in Stephen Sondheim and Arthur Laurents' Anyone Can Whistle, the final New York City Center Encores! production of the 2009-2010 season. Anyone Can Whistle, running for five performances April 8 - 11, will be directed and choreographed by Casey Nicholaw with musical direction by Rob Berman.

The latest in unauthorized gossip and buzz from the heart of Chicago's showtune video bars, and musical theater news from Chicago to Broadway. Liza Minnelli, 'Billy Elliot,' 'Ragtime,' Christine Ebersole, 'God Of Carnage,' 'It Takes A Village,' more.....

On Friday, April 16 at 8:00 p.m. in Stern Auditorium/Perelman Stage, Kelli O'Hara and Paulo Szot, stars from Lincoln Center's award-winning revival of South Pacific join The New York Pops, under the baton of Music Director and Conductor Steven Reineke, for The Best of Lerner and Loewe-a tribute to one of Broadway's greatest creative teams: lyricist/librettist Alan Jay Lerner and composer Frederick Loewe.

Last night, March 15, The Actor's Fund presented a one-night-only benefit performance of VALLEY OF THE DOLLS, a stage adaptation of the 1967 film, at the Gerald W. Lynch Theatre at John Jay College. The evening will benefit their programs and services.

Reprise Theatre Company will open A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, 1962's Tony-Award-winning Best Musical, March 16-28 at UCLA's Freud Playhouse. Directed by David Lee, the production's book is by Burt Shevelove and Larry Gelbart, with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. Single tickets are available for Forum online at www.reprise.org or through the UCLA Central Ticket Office at 310-825-2101.

Join theatre patrons as they come "Up Close and Personal" with Alan & Marilyn Bergman as well as special guests Maureen McGovern and Lari White at the Actors Fund concert series entitled MUSICAL MONDAYS, a series of Cabaret events in the lobby of the historic Pantages Theatre.

Offering up greater variety, including more than 50 debuts from Sting to Wagnerian tenor John Treleaven, Ravinia Festival Chairperson Pamela B. Strobel and President and CEO Welz Kauffman today announced details of the 2010 season, including a Chicago Symphony Orchestra residency that celebrates major anniversaries of Mahler, Chopin, Schumann, Barber, Bernstein and Copland, as well as milestone birthdays of Music Director James Conlon, Christoph Eschenbach and Stephen Sondheim. The season, featuring 117 separate events, runs from June 3 through September 7.

Lainie Kazan and Brian Stokes Mitchell are set to guest on the 'Fire and Nice' episode of Ugly Betty. Lainie Kazanwill guest as Dina Talercio, and Brian Stokes Mitchell will guest as Don Jones. The show will also feature Rich Sommer as Jimmy Wilson, Alec Mapa as Suzuki St. Pierre, Neal Bledsoe as Tyler and Nestor Serrano as Anthony Talercio, with Adam Rodriguez as Bobby Talercio.

According to the New York Times, following his stint as Oscar co-host this Sunday, Alec Baldwin will be heading back to the east coast to star as the psychiatrist Martin Dysart in Peter Shaffer's Equus this summer at Guild Hall in East Hampton, N.Y. The production will run from June 8 - July 13 at the John Drew Theater at Guild Hall.