Carol Rosegg News

Ars Nova presents 'Jollyship the Whiz-Bang', an hilarious 'Pirate Puppet Rock Odyssey', now through June 28th!

I LOVE YOU, YOU'RE PERFECT, NOW CHANGE is set to close on Sunday, July 27 at the Westside Theatre. The production will have played a total of 5,003 performances and 20 previews, making it the second longest-running musical in Off-Broadway history after 'The Fantasticks.'

In substance, AVENUE Q is a distant relative of THE LION KING, television's SESAME STREET and many a yuppie sitcom in the mold of FRIENDS. The actor/singer/dancers in AVENUE Q also serve as the show's puppet masters. AVENUE Q is inhabited by human people, puppet people, and puppet 'monsters.' The inhabitants of AVENUE Q live on a block of homes where the superintendent is former child star Gary Coleman

Signature Theatre Company announced that their world premiere production of EDWARD ALBEE'S OCCUPANT starring Mercedes Ruehl and Larry Bryggman sold out its initial 8-week run in three days, one month before performances are scheduled to begin. Directed by Pam MacKinnon, the limited engagement has been extended by popular demand one week from Sunday, June 29th to Sunday, July 6th.

There's little drama to be had in first-time playwright George Stevens, Jr's solo play, Thurgood, a textbook review of the career of civil rights attorney and eventual U.S. Supreme Court JustIce Thurgood Marshall. Set at the Howard University Law School Auditorium with The Playgoers serving as the title character's audience, the ninety minute piece offers a chronological telling of his personal history without much happening in the immediate present. It's a bit like watching a historical documentary of a familiar story with none of that great archival footage.

Figaro runs April 25 through June 8. This show marries Mozart and Theatre de la Jeune Lune, the Tony Award-winning artists who brought you The Miser in 2006. No Child… runs May 11 through June 1. It's the stunning solo show about America's public schools from Obie Award-winner Nilaja Sun.

'American Girls', the new play by Hilary Bettis, is a fascinating but inconclusive look into the psyche of America's youth, exemplified by two 14-year-old Christian girls who enter the adult sex industry.

New Georges, the OBIE Award-winning downtown theater company founded in 1992, will present Artistic Director Susan Bernfield's new politically charged comedy-drama 'STRETCH (a fantasia), ' directed by Emma Griffin (Five Course Love), with music by Rachel Peters.

BroadwayWorld.com has learned the the Jill Santoriello penned A Tale of Two Cities, which played the Asolo Repertory Theatre in Sarasota, Florida in the Fall of 2007 will open on Broadway at the Al Hirschfeld Theatre on September 18, 2008.

1959 was a heck of a good year for Broadway overtures.  The majestic trumpet fanfare and lowdown bump and grind of Gypsy's is generally regarded as the best in musical theatre, but there was also the rousingly rhythmic curtain-raiser to Fiorello! and, my personal favorite, Philip J. Lang's beautiful interpretation of Bob Merrill's music for Take Me Along, which touches on so many moods of the show while continually building the toe-tapping climax of The catchy title tune.

Signature Theatre Company presents the world premiere of Paradise Park by 2007-2008 Playwright-in-Residence Charles Mee; officially opening Sunday March 2.

Timothy Busfield and Helen Stenborg star in the dark comedy Vigil at Westport Country Playhouse, now playing through March 15.

February of 2008 has turned out to be a heck of a terrific month for non-traditional and daring Off-Broadway musicals. (Do we have any more opening by tomorrow night?) Following the exhilarating Next To Normal and the entrancingly Dadaist The Blue Flower we now have Joshua Schmidt (music and libretto) and Jason Loewith's (libretto) haunting chamber piece, Adding Machine, based on Elmer Rice's 1923 Expressionist drama. To call it 'old-fashioned' would be misleading, but one of the pleasures of Adding Machine is that it recalls a time when political and social protest musicals were not uncommon among Gotham's theatrical offerings.

The new musical Passing Strange is truly bringing something 'strange' to today's world of musical theatre... originality. Shaped out of personal life experiences, 'Passing Strange' utters a refreshing sound for the streets of Broadway. The cast dive-into their eclectic mix of characters and the roots of this adventurous new musical which seeks 'the real.'

Secrets of a Soccer Mom, written by Kathleen Clark and directed by Judith Ivey, will officially open Wednesday, March 5 at The Snapple Theater Center (Broadway at 50 Street)

You would think that Edith Wharton's fizzy little comic novel, The Glimpses Of The Moon, might have been a perfect property for Rodgers & Hart or Kern, Wodehouse & Bolton to musicalize when it was fresh off the presses in 1922.  But no, it took until 2008 for New Yorkers to get a glimpse, not to mention a pleasant earful, of a brand new frothy little musical charmer based on her book, courtesy of a couple of moderns, Tajlei Levis (book and lyrics) and John Mercurio (music).

The New Group proudly presents the US premiere of Mike Leigh's Two Thousand Years, set for a limited Off-Broadway engagement through March 8; officially opening tonight Thursday February 7 at 7PM at The Acorn Theatre (Theatre Row) at. Scott Elliott directs.

Creation Production Company will present the world premiere of Susan Mosakowski's full-length drama Man-Made, which she will also direct. Man-Made will be presented at the Ohio Theatre, 66 Wooster Street (between Spring and Broome Streets). Previews begin February 29, and the official Opening Night will be Sunday, March 2 at 7PM. Performances will run through Saturday, March 22.

Feinstein's at Loews Regency continues its Spring 2008 season with the debut of Andrea McArdle for one night only on Sunday, February 10.

The Butterfly - adapted from Patricia Polacco's book of the same name by Charles Greenberg (Music) and Barbara Zinn Krieger (Book & Lyrics) and directed by David Schechter - will be presented by Making Books Sing, the New York-based company dedicated to turning culturally and historically significant books for young readers into musical works for the stage, with performances in the Bronx at the Lovinger Theatre at Lehman College from January 28 to February 1; in Brooklyn at the Goldstein Theatre at Kingsborough Community College from February 4 to 8; in Manhattan at Symphony Space from February 9 to 12; and in Queens at Laguardia Performing Arts Center at Laguardia Community College from February 14 to 15.