Ethel Merman News

The Merm belts out 'All That Jazz,' 'What I Did For Love' and even 'Ease On Down The Road.'

With four Broadway revivals, two West End productions, a movie and an already existing television version, some may scoff that Gypsy is done too often, but really, you can't blame great actresses for wanting to take on one of the American musical theatre's greatest roles.

In 1959 Ethel Merman, the prominent musical theatre actress of her time, and David Merrick were searching for their next project. After reading an excerpt from the memoir by Gypsy Rose Lee, Merrick felt they had said project and GYPSY was born.

BroadwayWorld has just learned that an Equity staged reading of PRESENTING ETHEL MERMAN, a new play with music tracing the ups and downs of the famed Broadway star affectionately known as 'the Merm', is currently rehearsing for private presentations to industry producers and insiders.

On Monday October 5, zany comedienne/singer Diane Vincent brought her act: Diane and Lucy & Betty: A One Woman Show to an SRO room at Sterling's Upstairs at the Federal. The best way to describe Vincent is off.the.wall, wound up tightly like a coil that will spring loose at any second. Watch out! She has a nonstop patter that is infectious, that keeps her fans rolling in the aisles and begging for more. In this show she also showed a lovely way with a ballad, proving that she can bring the volume down several decibels when she should...to great effect.

Acclaimed New York City cabaret singer and actress Klea Blackhurst will bring her signature show 'An Evening with Klea Blackhurst' to the Milford Center for the Arts as part of it's Nite Spot Nights series produced in conjunction with Pantochino Productions Inc. on Saturday, November 7th at 8 p.m.

This week FEINSTEIN'S/54 BELOW, Broadway's Supper Club, presents some of the brightest stars from Broadway, cabaret, jazz and beyond. To purchase tickets or for more information, visitwww.54Below.com/Feinsteins or call (646) 476-3551.

New York City Center adds second performance of Irving Berlin's Annie Get Your Gun: In Concert starring Megan Hilty on Wednesday, October 28 at 7:30pm. The previously announced performance on October 27 is part of City Center's annual Gala. Three years after starring in the Encores! production of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Megan Hilty returns to City Center as Annie Oakley in this concert staging of Irving Berlin's classic 1946 musical. Hilty will be joined by a Tony-honored cast including Andy Karl, Chuck Cooper, Judy Kaye, Brad Oscar, and Ron Raines.

Broadway's 40 theatres aren't the only places to catch performances from your favorite stars! Well after Broadway orchestras begin their overtures, ensemble members take their dance breaks, and performers belt out their eleven o'clock numbers, the party continues at various cabaret venues throughout New York City. Below, BroadwayWorld brings you some cabaret highlights for this week as picked by our theatre editors, including: Jessica Keenan Wynn at 54 Below; Bring Him Home: Celebrating Kyle Jean-Baptiste; Lee Roy Reams Salutes His Leading Ladies; Lisa Howard at 54 Below; and Tovah Feldshuh: Aging Is Optional.

Cindy Brown's breezy, lightly satiric book THE SOUND OF MURDER casts Ivy Meadows in a mirthful musical mash-up called “The Sound of Cabaret”!

This October, FEINSTEIN'S/54 BELOW presents an exciting lineup of the brightest talent from Broadway and beyond. Located just below the legendary Studio 54 at 254 West 54th Street. For

Segerstrom Center for the Arts' 2015 - 2016 Spotlight Series opens with the sidesplitting savagery known as Forbidden Broadway tonight, October 1 - 4, 2015

In 1930 Manhattan, George and Ira Gershwin opened 'Strike Up the Band' on Broadway, while ingenue Ethel Merman stepped into the spotlight in 'Girl Crazy.' Not far from the glow of the marquees, Etta and Herbert Sondheim became the co-producers of a son who would revolutionize American musical theater.

BroadwayWorld is excited to report that SPOTLIGHT 2015, in benefit of Fife House, will take place on Friday, November 27th at the CBC Glenn Gould Studio. Featuring Broadway's original 'Annie', Andrea McArdle, in concert with three time Emmy-nominated musician, Seth Rudetsky! The evening will feature Andrea in conversation about her illustrious career with Seth and singing some of the most memorable Broadway show-stoppers!

Feinstein's/54 Below will present the triumphant return of Rita McKenzie's award-winning ETHEL MERMAN'S BROADWAY, the country's longest-running one woman musical. This special one-night-only event will be presented on Tuesday, October 27th at 7 PM at Feinstein's/54 Below as a benefit for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS. 

Expanding on its commitment to add classic TV series to its vintage movie lineup, Sony Pictures Television Networks' digital broadcast channel getTV has acquired all 26 episodes of 1963's 'The Judy Garland Show,' from World Nation Live Entertainment

Feinstein's/54 Below will present the triumphant return of Rita McKenzie's award-winning ETHEL MERMAN'S BROADWAY, the country's longest-running one woman musical. This special one-night-only event will be presented on Tuesday, October 27th at 7 PM at Feinstein's/54 Below as a benefit for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS. Rita McKenzie has performed her critically acclaimed show throughout the world - from New York's Carnegie Hall to Pasadena Playhouse - from Canada to Europe and Asia. And now she's back in New York City for this one performance and this great cause.

Deaf West Theatre's acclaimed production of Steven Sater and Duncan Sheik's SPRING AWAKENING, directed by Michael Arden and choreographed by Spencer Liff, opened on Sunday night, September 27, at Broadway's Brooks AtkinsonTheatre. BroadwayWorld was on hand for the whole evening, starting with the sacred Gypsy Robe ceremony. Check out photos of gypsy robe recipient Van Hughes with the company!

Al Hirschfeld immortalized celebrities, politicians, Broadway productions, films, television shows and beyond with his iconic linear drawings for nine decades, establishing himself as one of the most important contemporary portrait artists. Over a decade since the legendary artist drew his final line drawing, he continues to inspire. Tonight, September 29, at 6:30PM, The Art Students League of New York (215 W 57th Street) will host a discussion on the art and influence of perhaps the most popular graphic artist of the 20th century.

Portland's Good Theater opened its 2015-2016 season with No Biz Like Show Biz, a stylish tribute to two legends of the Broadway stage, Ethel Merman and Mary Martin, created and directed by the company's artistic director, Brian P. Allen. The one-hundred-minute arrangement of songs associated with these legends from the decades of the 1930s-1960s focuses on the work of iconic composers and lyricists such as George Gershwin, Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, Jule Styne, Jerry Herman, and Stephen Sondheim and is performed by three delightfully talented and distinctive singing-actresses.