Craig Smith News

English Touring Opera's Spring 2017 season features the company's first ever Gilbert & Sullivan production, a Puccini favourite marking the opera debut of stage director Blanche McIntyre, and two new operas for young people:Silver Electra and Different.

Grammy®-nominated Singer/Songwriter Shawn Mullins will play a gig in the Alhambra After Dark music series at Jacksonville's iconic Alhambra Theatre & Dining.  Mullins, nominated for a Grammy Award for his breakout song, "Lullaby," is touring North America to promote My Stupid Heart, his new album available now on Rounder Sugar Hill.

He's arrogant, cocky, virginal and he doesn't know it yet, but he's going to have a thing for mom in Jean Cocteau's witty and urbane retelling of the Oedipus story,The Infernal Machine. In this magical modernization of the Greek tragedy the enigmatic Sphinx is a bored young girl who slips him an answer to that tricky riddle because well,... she's bored and he's handsome and a welcome diversion.

If there is a 'leading family' of Jacksonville theater, it may very well be the Booth family. Marking their first time ever on stage together, Tod Booth, Lisa Valdini Booth and Jessica Booth will team up for the Alhambra's production of the Neil Simon comedy, Come Blow Your Horn.

In the summer of 2009, local businessman Craig Smith took a huge gamble on Jacksonville's failing Alhambra Dinner Theatre, which had decided to close its doors after 42 years of production. The longest-running professional dinner theatre in the country had, for a number of reasons (not the least of which being the poor economy in the late 2000's) seen its subscription base drop from a peak of about 4,500 to 500 and struggle to fill even half the house at discounted prices.

If there is a 'leading family' of Jacksonville theater, it may very well be the Booth family. Marking their first time ever on stage together, Tod Booth, Lisa Valdini Booth and Jessica Booth will team up for the Alhambra's production of the Neil Simon comedy, Come Blow Your Horn.

"In late July of 1967, there was but one table - on an empty lot on Beach Boulevard in Jacksonville, Florida, an unlikely spot 50 years ago for what would become an icon in the Jacksonville cultural landscape and within the national theater scene.  Set for two, that single table was covered by an elegant lace cloth, and adorned with matching napkins, silverware, stylish china plates and coffee cups and tall crystal glasses.

Amazon Music is excited to share that the "Christmas Cookie Song," by GRAMMY nominated artist, Lisa Loeb, from the upcoming Amazon Original holiday special, If You Give a Mouse a Christmas Cookie, will be available exclusively to download and stream on Amazon Music

Looking back. Looking Forward. That is the theme for the year-long anniversary celebration at Alhambra Theatre & Dining, the nation's longest running professional dinner theater. In late July of 1967, there was but one table - on an empty lot on Beach Boulevard in Jacksonville, Florida, an unlikely spot 50 years ago for what would become an icon in the Jacksonville cultural landscape and within the national theater scene.

(AMZN)-Amazon Studios today announced its original kids holiday programming is scheduled to premiere on Friday, November 25 on Prime Video in the US and UK. Brand-new Amazon Original Specials include If You Give a Mouse a Christmas Cookie, Ezra Jack Keats' The Snowy Day, and An American Girl Story-Maryellen 1955: Extraordinary Christmas as well as existing holiday episodes from Creative Galaxy and Tumble Leaf.

Most eighty-some-year-olds creak a bit, but others really get around, and that's the truth about ANYTHING GOES. Cole Porter is, of course, one of the great lyrical geniuses of history, which is a huge part of the reason, but there's another truth about it - heavily worked-over as the book was, and has been, it hasn't aged badly... possibly because it's purely frothy silliness, like GUYS AND DOLLS. In this day, however, the frothy silliness is almost realistic, since part of the plot revolves around hysterical celebrity-worship. Is that young man really Public Enemy Number One? Grab a selfie with him before the police get him! Wait, he's not a famous criminal? Well, then, get him out of our way!

Phoenix Theatre Ensemble announces that Bertolt Brecht's political farce, The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, will lead off the company's 13th season on October 20 and will play for 21 performances through November 13, 2016 at The Wild Project in the East Village.  Previews will start October 20 with an official opening Saturday, October 22 @ 8PM.

Following a triumphant return to the breathtaking setting of The Garden, Tisno this summer, SuncéBeat festival has now announced the first wave of names for its Croatia homecoming in 2017, taking place from 19th - 26th July.

A mob informant walks into a convent...sounds like the opening to a great joke, but it's really the premise of the Alhambra Theatre & Dining's newest production, Sister Act.

A mob informant walks into a convent...sounds like the opening to a great joke, but it's really the premise of the Alhambra Theatre & Dining's newest production, Sister Act.

Nominated for eight Tony® Awards, Smokey Joe's Cafe is a musical revue showcasing 39 pop standards from the 1950's, 1960's and 1970's, including rock and roll and rhythm and blues songs written by songwriters Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller. The Original Broadway cast recording, Smokey Joe's Cafe: The Songs Of Leiber And Stoller, won a Grammy Award in 1996. After a Los Angeles tryout, the revue opened on Broadway in 1995, running for 2,036 performances, making it the longest -running musical revue in Broadway history. It also had a London run in 1996. The show will open at Jacksonville's Alhambra Theatre & Dining on August 3, 2016.

On June 15, 2016, The Alhambra Theatre & Dining will open Disney's Beauty and the Beast presented by Snyder Heating & Air Conditioning. The Alhambra   for menu please click logo traditionally stages a family-oriented show for its summer time period. The show will be theater's longest engagement of the year, running from June 15 through July 31. This summer the Alhambra is asking its guests to donate unused and unwrapped school supplies that will be collected by local not-for-profit group, Theatre on a Mission, and brought to schools in Kenya as part of its effort to help educate African youth through theatrical experience.

Artistic Directors Elise Stone and Craig Smith announce that Phoenix Theatre Ensemble will be presenting 4 staged readings of Eric Bentley's ARE YOU NOW OR HAVE YOU EVER BEEN, which is taken from the  actual testimony of witnesses before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) during the late 1940's and early 1950's. 

Artistic Directors Elise Stone and Craig Smith announce that Phoenix Theatre Ensemble will be presenting 4 staged readings of Eric Bentley's ARE YOU NOW OR HAVE YOU EVER BEEN, which is taken from the  actual testimony of witnesses before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) during the late 1940's and early 1950's. 

The story line of Blithe Spirit could be anyone's fantasy: return to life as a ghost and haunt your former spouse and newly betrothed partner. Such is the premise of Noel Coward's comedy opening May 4 at the Alhambra Theater & Dining for a four-week run. Blithe Spirit has been heralded as one of three jewels in Coward's crown. It's most recent Broadway and touring revival from starred Angela Lansbury received rave reviews around the country. The Alhambra performances will feature Lisa Valdini-Booth in the lead role of medium, Madame Arcati, who leads the seance that brings back the ghost of Charles Condomine's wife.