Fred Ebb News

Signature Theatre has announced the pairing of one of the theatre's most celebrated friends with the upcoming 2013/14 season's newest play. Shakespeare Theatre Company Artistic Director Michael Kahn returns to Signature this fall for the first time in nearly twenty years to direct the world premiere of Pride in the Falls of Autrey Mill, the new play by Paul Downs Colaizzo.

Casting has been announced for "The Scottsboro Boys," which begins previews May 21 at the Center Theatre Group/Ahmanson Theatre at the Los Angeles Music Center. Opening night is May 29 and performances run through June 30, 2013.

Brooke Shields has been announced as the director of the Hollywood Bowl's upcoming production of CHICAGO, which holds the record as the third longest running show in Broadway history. Rob Fisher has also been announced as the conductor of the production. Shields starred in CHICAGO both on Broadway and in London's West End and this marks her directing debut. Fisher's association with the show began with the 1996 Broadway revival and he continues to be supervising music director of CHICAGO productions around the globe.

Christine Baranski, Kelli Barrett, Walter Bobbie, Jeremy Cohen, Dalton Harrod, Randy Skinner, Shonn Wiley, Karen Ziemba,New York City Ballet Principaldancer Joaquin De Luz and American Ballet Theatre principal dancer Irina Dvorovenkowill star in Rodgers and Hart's On Your Toes, the final Encores! presentation of the 2012-13 New York City Center season. Directed and choreographed by Warren Carlyle, On Your Toes will have guest music direction by Encores! founding music director Rob Fisher and will play seven performances, from May 8 - 12 at New York City Center, W. 55th Street (between 6th and 7th Avenues). The "Slaughter on Tenth Avenue" ballet, originally choreographed by George Balanchine, will be staged by Susan Pilarre, who served as a Ballet Mistress of the show's 1983 Broadway Revival.

Cabaret and physics? Who would have thought? Yet, Gia Mora makes it all work.

Nonesuch releases Audra McDonald's first solo album in seven years-Go Back Home-on May 21, 2013. After four seasons spent in Los Angeles playing Dr. Naomi Bennett on ABC's hit medical drama Private Practice, the acclaimed singer and actress returned to New York and Broadway last year, winning her record-tying fifth Tony Award for her role in The Gershwins' Porgy and Bess. With Go Back Home, the Grammy Award-winning soprano, whose voice Stephen Sondheim has hailed as "one of the glories of the American theater," makes her highly anticipated return to recording, presenting her most personal album to date.

Liz Callaway (Miss Saigon, Baby), Kate Shindle (Legally Blonde, Cabaret), Betsy Wolfe (The Last Five Years, The Mystery of Edwin Drood), F. Michael Haynie (Wicked, Dogfight), Zachary Prince (On A Clear Day…) and Sam Heldt (Junie B. Jones) have joined the lineup of performers for musical theater writer Adam Gwon's upcoming concert at 54 Below tonight April 8, 2013 at 9:30pm. Heading up a five-piece band, Gwon will premiere brand-new songs and share fresh and funny tunes from his musicals Ordinary Days, Cloudlands, The Boy Detective Fails, and String.

Winner of the 2012 Fred Ebb Award, musical theatre composer/lyricist Sam Willmott will showcase his work with The Songs of Sam Willmott at the York Theatre tonight, April 8th at 6:30 PM. Presented by the Fred Ebb Foundation in association with the York Theatre Company, the free concert event will feature Tony nominee Tony Sheldon (Priscilla: Queen of the Desert) with Etai BenShlomo (Wicked), Griffin Birney (Fun Home), Alyse Alan Louis (Mamma Mia!), Grace McLean (The Last Goodbye), Matthew Schechter (Mary Poppins), and Sam Teldaldi (Fantasy Football: The Musical). The band includes Gregg Monteith and Peter Sachon. Sam Pinkleton directs with musical direction by Matt Aument. Rachel Sussman produces.

PlayMakers Repertory Company concludes its Mainstage Season with the Tony Award-winning musical 'Cabaret' now through April 21 at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. BroadwayWorld has a first look at the cast in action below!

Vineyard Theatre (108 E. 15 St.) will produce the world-premiere of the musical THE LANDING this fall, with music by the Tony Award-winning composer John Kander and book and lyrics by Greg Pierce, kicking off the company's 2013-14 season, it has been announced by Douglas Aibel, The Vineyard's Artistic Director, and Sarah Stern, Co-Artistic Director.

Light Opera Works artistic director Rudy Hogenmiller will star as the Master of Ceremonies in CABARET, August 10-25, at Cahn Auditorium in Evanston. It will mark Hogenmiller's first stage appearance anywhere since assuming the artistic director title in 2005.

NEW DRAMATISTS, Tony Honor recipient and the nation's premiere playwright development workshop, has announced that they will honor entertainment lawyer and New Dramatists Chairman of the Board Seth Gelblum with their 2013 Lifetime Achievement Award at its 64th Annual Spring Luncheon tribute, to be held Tuesday, May 21 at the New York Marriott Marquis. Among those performing tributes will be Tony Award nominee Keith Carradine (Hands on a Hardbody, The Will Rogers Follies) and Tony Award winner Tonya Pinkins (Caroline, or Change; Jelly's Last Jam). The event co-chairs are Roger Berlind, Roy Furman, and Barry and Fran Weissler.

Way Off Broadway (WOB) presents the Iowa premiere of the 1998 Broadway revival of Cabaret now through April 7, 2013, in the Sondheim Center. BroadwayWorld has a first look at the cast onstage below!

Liz Callaway (Miss Saigon, Baby), Kate Shindle (Legally Blonde, Cabaret), Betsy Wolfe (The Last Five Years, The Mystery of Edwin Drood), F. Michael Haynie (Wicked, Dogfight), Zachary Prince (On A Clear Day…) and Sam Heldt (Junie B. Jones) have joined the lineup of performers for musical theater writer Adam Gwon's upcoming concert at 54 Below on Monday April 8, 2013 at 9:30pm. Heading up a five-piece band, Gwon will premiere brand-new songs and share fresh and funny tunes from his musicals Ordinary Days, Cloudlands, The Boy Detective Fails, and String.

It's April 1st. Do you know when your Spring is coming? During another longggggg New York winter, the good news is that there were a ton of warming cabaret shows. The bad news is that there were so many, even during this seemingly endless winter our intrepid reviewer Stephen Hanks didn't have enough time to review them all right after the performances. So in what is becoming a seasonal ritual, here he offers yet another compilation of 13 'catch-up' cabaret show reviews.

Way Off Broadway, Iowa's only professional musical theatre company and the residential company at the Stephen Sondheim Center for the Performing Arts is delighted to announce their Iowa premiere production, the newest version of Cabaret which won the Tony for Best Revival. Cabaret is a musical based on a book written by Christopher Isherwood, music by John Kander and lyrics by Fred Ebb. The 1966 Broadway production became a hit and spawned a 1972 film as well as numerous subsequent productions including a major 're-think' revival in 1998, which WOB will present.

As an undergraduate theater major in the early 1970s, I heard music everywhere. It seemed to pour out of every office and workspace around the department. (And in the LP era, if you wanted more than the radio, this meant schlepping a twenty pound record player and a dozen or so albums from your home to the campus, sometimes requiring back-and-forth trips from the car. If you go to that much trouble, you want to keep the music playing.) In the hushed costume shop with its quietly industrious all female staff, Broadway ruled, with Stephen Sondheim's recent Company and Follies in heavy rotation. It was 'men only' in the scene shop where I listened to male balladeers like James Taylor and Gordon Lightfoot while unhappily working off assigned crew hours. Jazz classes (my favorites) in the dance department were conducted to the pre-disco sounds of Isaac Hayes and the Temptations. And late night cast parties were never complete without spins of Bette Midler's first two albums.

Winner of the 2012 Fred Ebb Award, musical theatre composer/lyricist Sam Willmott will showcase his work with The Songs of Sam Willmott at the York Theatre on Monday, April 8th at 6:30 PM. Presented by the Fred Ebb Foundation in association with the York Theatre Company, the free concert event will feature Tony nominee Tony Sheldon (Priscilla: Queen of the Desert) with Etai BenShlomo (Wicked), Griffin Birney (Fun Home), Alyse Alan Louis (Mamma Mia!), Grace McLean (The Last Goodbye), Matthew Schechter (Mary Poppins), and Sam Teldaldi (Fantasy Football: The Musical). The band includes Gregg Monteith and Peter Sachon. Sam Pinkleton directs with musical direction by Matt Aument. Rachel Sussman produces.