Cy Coleman News

All Star Productions has announced full casting and creatives for DAYS OF HOPE, with Music and Lyrics by Howard Goodall and Book by Renata Allen.

Performances are set for Friday and Saturday, Oct. 18 and 19, at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday, Oct. 20, at 2 p.m. at Hartke Theatre.

BIG FISH's Ryan Andes spoke exclusively to BWW about dancing on stilts, family traditions and why he counts himself 'one of the luckiest people' he knows.

75 - year old singer Tonia Tecce has made her long-delayed New York City cabaret debut last night at The Metropolitan Room. Previously, Tecce has appeared at Carnegie Hall, Philadelphia's Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts Academy of Music, and sung with Peter Nero and many orchestras . Her show, A Cockeyed Optimist, Why We Believe, The Songs of Richard Rodgers, was written and directed by Michael Bush.

The season includes Hello Dolly, The Sunshine Boys, Footloose and The Will Rogers Follies.

DAYS OF HOPE is set in Spain in 1939, in the dying moments of the Spanish Civil War. The story begins with a family celebrating the marriage of the daughter, Sofia, to an English volunteer, but the wedding meal is tinged with anger at Franco and his fascists. They plan to escape that night to England with Sofia's groom, Stanley, but before the plan is executed, various visitors over the course of the evening bring different perspectives upon their condemnation of Franco, of Mussolini and Hitler for their intervention, and of Britain's non-intervention… The family ends up being torn apart, trying to decide whether to flee or stay and fight.

The Crazy Coqs October schedule begins with Steven Brinberg, who returns following his sell-out show earlier this year with Simply Barbra (October 1- 5), followed by Les Miserables actress and singer Frances Ruffelle and her show Paris Original (October 8 - 12). New York singer-pianist Billy Stritch performs his show I've Got Your Number - The Jazz of Cy Coleman (October 15- 19). As part of the London Festival of Cabaret, Karen Kohler and KT Sullivan will duet together in their show Vienna to Weimar (October 22- 26) followed by KT Sullivan with Rhyme, Women and Song (October 29 - November 2).

THE COLUMN Awards Board of Directors and Executive Director/Producer/Founder John Garcia have the esteemed honor to announce today that one of Broadway's biggest and most sought after stars, Rachel York will serve as Co-Host for the 15th Annual Column Awards Gala. The gala will be held Monday February 24, 2014 at the Patty Granville Performing Arts Complex with a cocktail reception at 7:00pm, curtain at 8:00pm. For all info and tix info go towww.thecolumnawards.org

The Anaheim Performing Arts Center Foundation (APACF) (http://www.apacf.org) has announced that Broadway star David Burnham ('Wicked,' 'The Light in the Piazza') will join the lineup of stellar entertainment at the third annual GREAT GATSBY WEEKEND which is to be held tonight and tomorrow, August 24 & 25 at Fox Pointe Manor and the Lost World Estate, the magnificent estate residences of Dr. Howard and Linda Knohl and Patrick and Jolynn Mahoney in Anaheim Hills.

Marlene Ver Planck sings a story the way the rest of us wishes we could tell one: with polish and panache, convincing listeners that each and every lyric is her own. She has backed-up Frank Sinatra and Mel Torme and has been out front of the Beneke, Miller and Dorsey orchestras, singing those stories like no one else. A long list of recordings documents her talent, many featuring the arrangements of her gifted late husband, Billy. Seven of his takes on Cy Coleman, some Harry Warren and Marlene's favorites from Ivan Lins, Paul Williams and Ronny White make up her new CD, Ballads...mostly (Audiophile).

The noted musical director, currently taking on BIG FISH, also takes on the issues of children, poverty, and education with her arts organization, ASTEP

Joseph Wise, a performer who portrayed the original part of a Porter - of the famed Four Porters, that is - in the 1978 Broadway premiere production of ON THE TWENTIETH CENTURY has released a new dance remix of a favorite track from the glorious Cy Coleman/Betty Comdon/Adolph Green score he once sang on the Great White Way.

Marlene Ver Planck sings a story the way the rest of us wishes we could tell one: with polish and panache, convincing listeners that each and every lyric is her own. She has backed-up Frank Sinatra and Mel Torme and has been out front of the Beneke, Miller and Dorsey orchestras, singing those stories like no one else. A long list of recordings documents her talent, many featuring the arrangements of her gifted late husband, Billy. Seven of his takes on Cy Coleman, some Harry Warren and Marlene's favorites from Ivan Lins, Paul Williams and Ronny White make up her new CD, Ballads...mostly (Audiophile).

For The Society of Composers & Lyricists first SongArts event, the SCL and ASCAP will present an evening with illustrious songwriters Alan and Marilyn Bergman. As their songs have been enriching the Great American Songbook for more than five decades, they are recipients of three Academy Awards, two Golden Globe Awards, the Grammy Trustees Award, and have been nominated for 16 Academy Awards.

Director JJ Kaczynski and a stellar lead cast bring the circus -- the three-ring and the marital variety both -- to Totem Pole Playhouse

On Tuesday, August 13th at 8 & 10pm, ScoBar Entertainment will present A TRIBUTE TO JULIE WILSON at Iridium NYC. Performers confirmed thus far are Eric Comstock, Baby Jane Dexter, Natalie Douglas, Antonio Edwards, Eric Engelhardt, Barbara Fasano, Terese Genecco, Jeff Harnar, Mark Hartman, Tanya Holt, Sue Matsuki , Marissa Mulder, Christine Pedi, Colm Reilly, Julie Reyburn, Ricky Ritzel, KT Sullivan, Stacy Sullivan, Grace Wall, Lennie Watts & Carol Woods.Accompanying the performers is The Barry Levitt Trio, Barry Levitt on piano, Dick Sarpola on bass & Ray Marchica on drums,

Happy Birthday Rachel York! York has appeared on Broadway as Fantine in Les Miserables; Norma in Victor/Victoria (Drama Desk Award) with Julie Andrews; Marguerite in The Scarlet Pimpernel; Miss Fancy in Sly Fox with Richard Dreyfuss; and Christine Colgate in Dirty Rotten Scoundrelswith Jonathan Pryce. She appeared off-Broadway opposite Julie Andrews in Stephen Sondheim's Putting It Together and in the Lincoln Center Theater production of Dessa Rose. Most recently, Rachel was seen in The Best Is Yet to Come: The Music of Cy Coleman and created the role of Cruella de Vil in The 101 Dalmatians Musical directed by Jerry Zaks.

Today in the NY Post, Michael Riedel writes 'Chenoweth has another show in her future - a revival of Cy Coleman's 1978 operetta "On the Twentieth Century," which she hopes to do with Peter Gallagher. She'd play Lily Garland, the temperamental movie star (Madeline Kahn in the original). It's a perfect role for her, and she generated good buzz when she appeared in a reading at the Roundabout a couple of years ago.'

Christopher Fitzgerald and Tamsin Carroll star in BARNUM at the Chichester Festival Theatre. This exhilarating musical follows the irrepressible imagination and dreams of Phineas T Barnum, America's Greatest Showman. The story of his life and his marriage to Chairy reveals a couple who looked at the world from opposite sides of the spectrum, and also reveals that she was the practical one who made his dreams come true. We follow the legendary showman's life as he lit up the world with the colour, warmth and excitement of his imagination and finally teamed up with J A Bailey to create Barnum and Bailey's Circus - the Greatest Show on Earth. BroadwayWorld brings you highlights of the cast in action below!

P.T. Barnum, arguably American history's most celebrated showman, said in his 1880 book The Art of Money-Getting, or, Golden Rules for Making Money, 'Let your motto then always be 'Excelsior,' for by living up to it there is no such word as fail.' To say that Barnum did everything the biggest and best he possibly could would be an understatement. From his earliest days in show business to becoming king of the circus big top, everything Barnum did was over-the-top. There's only one way to tell the story of the life and loves of the man behind the greatest show on earth - with jaw-dropping spectacle and unprecedented grandeur - the way the award-winning Broadway musical Barnum, playing today, August 6-18 at Totem Pole Playhouse does.