It was a starry week at 54 BELOW with performances from Faith Prince and Jason Graae, Maurice Hines and Tonya Pinkins. Among the celebrities who came out for their opening night performances were Elaine Stritch, S. Epatha Merkerson, La Chanze, Liiliane Montevecchi, Donna McKechnie, Ron Raines, Nona Hendryx, Andre de Shields, Adriane Lenox, Jeanine Tesori, Phillip Boykin, Jeff Calhoun, Mary Rodgers, George C. Wolfe, George Faison, Billy Porter, Brenda Braxton, Adrian Bailey, Mark Nadler, Stanley Wayne Mathis, Charles Randolph-Wright and Julie Budd. Check out photos from the events below!
On Monday, August 27, cabaret star Jeff Harnar took to the Broadway at Birdland stage with a new show, "Does This Song Make Me Look Fat?" The packed house included theater and cabaret stars like Elaine Stritch, Lilliane Montevecchi, Julie Wilson, Holt McCallany, Hunter Ryan Herdlicka, Klea Blackhurst, Billy Stritch, Clint Holmes, Natalie Douglas, Colleen McHugh, Faith Prince, Mark Waldrop, fashion icon Carmen Dell'Orefice, writer Gay Talese and Best Little Whorehouse songwriter Carol Hall.
At BroadwayWorld we pride ourselves in showcasing theater content from all corners of the globe. Our regional contributors do an amazing job each day of bringing you the latest theater news in their cities and countries and to acknowledge this, we launched a new weekly column called 'Around BWW: Regional Highlights of the Week'. Read on for our most-read features, interviews, breaking news and more for the week of August 20!
The RRazz Room, San Francisco's premier nightclub, will welcome back acclaimed entertainer Lypsinka for a special two-week engagement from September 4 to 16 to celebrate Lypsinka's 30th anniversary. She will recreate the widely popular show 'The Passion of the Crawford' - a fab fantasia about the refraction of celebrity and addiction to fame - for the first time in the Bay Area in more than five years.
INCOMING! The Public Theater's Under the Radar Festival will present new work at Joe's Pub, The Public Theater's most intimate performance space, tonight, August 23 and tomorrow night, August 24.
At BroadwayWorld we pride ourselves in showcasing theater content from all corners of the globe. Our regional contributors do an amazing job each day of bringing you the latest theater news in their cities and countries and to acknowledge this, we launched a new weekly column called 'Around BWW: Regional Highlights of the Week'. Read on for our most-read features, interviews, breaking news and more for the week of August 13!
Focus Features' animated comedy thriller ParaNorman gets its nationwide release by Focus today, Friday, August 17th, 2012. Following LAIKA and Focus' groundbreaking Academy Award-nominated animated feature Coraline, ParaNorman is only the second stop-motion animated feature to be made in 3D. Jon Brion created the score for the film.
Broadway Records announced today that Laura Osnes: Dream A Little Dream - Live At The Cafe Carlyle will be released on Tuesday, September 18, 2012. Pre-orders are now being taken at amazon.com at http://amzn.com/B008TAVUA2. A digital release date will be announced in the coming weeks.
INCOMING! The Public Theater's Under the Radar Festival will present new work at Joe's Pub, The Public Theater's most intimate performance space, on August 23 and 24. INCOMING! offers emerging talent the freedom and flexibility to experiment with new material - sometimes for the first time - in front of a live audience. This year's lineup includes Obie winner Edwin Lee Gibson's Five ' Til, the Brooklyn-based theater company Lilac co's Drusi Is Coming and playwright Christina Anderson's Hollow Roots.
It's time for episode eight of BWW's newest exclusive TV series - CHEWING THE SCENERY WITH Randy Rainbow! In this week's episode, Randy 'chats' with Sutton Foster and Elaine Stritch, and covers Broadway's hottest stories from the Chewing the Scenery Newsdesk! Click below to watch episode 9!
Just yesterday BroadwayWorld reported that Broadway star and Academy Award winner Celeste Holm has died. She was 95. We pay tribute to Holm with photos from her career below.
Today we are talking to a celebrated comedienne and actress known for her decades-spanning career on screens and stages large and small - from making her Broadway debut in the original Jerome Robbins production of GYPSY on Broadway in 1960 to her many musical roles throughout the 60s to her countless game show and variety show appearances following that all the way to creating an unforgettable character in MOONSTRUCK in the 1980s, as well as her subsequent oft-Neil Simon stage work; now, playing Tina Fey's sweet and daffy mom on NBC's 30 ROCK and, most recently, appearing in Nora & Celia Ephron's LOVE, LOSS AND WHAT I WORE and the Playwright's Horizons premiere production of THE BIG MEAL in the new millennium - the one of a kind Anita Gillette. Analyzing her nearly sixty-year career and sharing candid stories of her brushes with some of Broadway and Hollywood's brightest talents - Jule Styne to Ethel Merman to Irving Berlin to Burt Lancaster and beyond - Gillette paints a vivid portrait of the tail end of the Golden Age of Broadway and the heady game show days of TV in the 1960s and 70s to her lauded stage work with Neil Simon and many of the great comedy and musical writers in the years since. Additionally, Gillette and I discuss her current essaying of the role of Mae Peterson in the new Regal Music Theatre production of Charles Strouse and Lee Adams's BYE BYE BIRDIE in Massachusetts as she looks towards opening night tomorrow and relates her joy in participating in a production that has some behind-the-scenes help by her loving granddaughter (while another attends their summer camp). Plus, Gillette's observations on sharing a soundstage with Alec Baldwin, Tina Fey, Elaine Stritch and Buck Henry for a recent 30 ROCK shoot, reflections on her fondest and most celebrated comedy roles, hilarious memories of appearing in some short-running flops (JIMMY, SKYSKRAPER) as well as in some big hits (GYPSY), her upcoming series of master classes titled "Life In The Business", her return to Birdland with her concert show, AFTER ALL, her role in an upcoming Ed Burns film and maybe even a role in a new Alexander Payne film - all of that, all about attending the Diamond Jubilee celebration in the United Kingdom and much, much more!
The 'Rise' posters all around New York City are getting movie fans excited for the upcoming film THE DARK KNIGHT RISES, but put three in a row, and all some theatre fans can think of is the iconic Elaine Stritch singing the Sondheim classic 'Ladies Who Lunch'.
It's time for episode eight of BWW's newest exclusive TV series - CHEWING THE SCENERY WITH Randy Rainbow! In this week's episode, Randy 'chats' with Elaine Stritch and Liza Minnelli about this past week's biggest theatre news, including Broadway closings, Cher's new musical, Jennifer Hudson on SMASH and more!
Pittsburgh CLO will present Fiddler on the Roof, July 13-22 at the Benedum Center. This classic tale is filled with 'memorable music, rousing dances and a touch of human wisdom.'
MARINA ABRAMOVI? THE ARTIST IS PRESENT debuts MONDAY, JULY 2 (9:00-10:45 p.m. ET/PT), exclusively on HBO, as part of the HBO Documentary Films summer series. The film had its world premiere at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival.
The Stella Adler Studio's Harold Clurman Laboratory Theater Company has announced the world premiere of The Empty Ocean, a brand new original play by Anton Dudley, on June 14. Dudley has been acknowledged as an important emerging author by some of the most prestigious dramatic writing programs including Manhattan Theatre Club, New York Theatre Workshop, The Eugene O'Neill Musical Theatre Conference, The Lark Play Development Center, and MCC Theater/Playwrights' Coalition.
The Public Theater (Artistic Director Oskar Eustis; Executive Director Patrick Willingham) will take its MOBILE SHAKESPEARE UNIT on tour again this July with a production of RICHARD III, directed by Amanda Dehnert. The three-week tour, July 16 to August 3, will bring free Shakespeare to audiences who have limited or no access to the arts before a sit-down run at The Public Theater, August 6-25. Tickets for Richard III at The Public are $15 and go on sale July 12.
The New York Times is reporting that Alec Baldwin will return to Broadway in the Spring of 2013 in a new production of OPRHANS, to be directed by Tony-winner Daniel Sullivan. There is no word yet on a theatre or additional cast members for the production.
Masterworks Broadway continues to make good on its promise to open its vaults with more classic cast recordings previously unavailable in the CD era. Working (1978 Original Broadway Cast), Call Me Madam (Dinah Shore and the Original Broadway Company, 1950) and Desert Song (1959 Studio Cast) will be available as downloads through all major digital service providers and as disc-on-demand with the original cover art, via Arkivmusic.com and Amazon.com.
