Frederick Hagreen News

With The 19th Annual Festival of New Musicals taking place this upcoming weekend, Village Theatre is excited to announce the casting for XY, an uplifting musical about identity and coming to terms with your past; Cold Turkey, a wild and funny satire; Modern, an inspiring tale about a group of Amish teenagers; Eastbound, an poignant story about Chinese brothers in search of a home they've never known; and Cowboy Bob, an adventurous rock musical about a bank-robbing woman. The Festival will take place in Issaquah August 9-11, 2019 and provides an essential platform for writers to develop new works. Past Festival shows include Tony and Pulitzer Prize-winning shows such as Next to Normal and Million Dollar Quartet, as well as Broadway and Off-Broadway hits: It Shoulda Been You, Desperate Measures, Lizzie, and many more.

Disney's THE LITTLE MERMAID runs through November 5 at Fox Cities PAC, and the critics are weighing in!

Disney's THE LITTLE MERMAID runs through November 5 at Fox Cities PAC! See the cast in action in this video!

THE LITTLE MERMAID opened swimmingly at Appleton's Fox Cities Performing Arts Center. With plenty of laughs, entertaining musical numbers and innovative staging, THE LITTLE MERMAID is a shore bet.

Victoria Theatre Association's Premier Health Broadway Series will present Disney's THE LITTLE MERMAID, the under-the-sea spectacle swimming into the Benjamin & Marian Schuster Performing Arts Center Aug. 8-13, 2017. Tickets for the timeless fairytale go on sale Wednesday, June 21.

Alan Menken and the late Howard Ashman made their mark with the early Disney musicals, and always included a sense of "home" and "belonging". As much as Disney's The Little Mermaid is a princess-story aimed at the pre-teen audience, it also has a deeper message of being a fish out of water, only in Ariel's case she is a fish in water who doesn't belong.

Victoria Theatre Association's Premier Health Broadway Series will present Disney's THE LITTLE MERMAID, the under-the-sea spectacle swimming into the Benjamin & Marian Schuster Performing Arts Center Aug. 8-13, 2017. Tickets for the timeless fairytale go on sale Wednesday, June 21.

Pittsburgh CLO has joined forces with Kansas City Starlight to produce a 21-week tour of Disney's THE LITTLE MERMAID, coming to the Benedum Center June 14-25.

Down Where its Wetter

A spectacular new production of Disney's The Little Mermaid kicks off at The Broward Center for the Performing Arts on Wednesday, February 22, 2017 for a limited two week run. Featuring the critically acclaimed work of Director Glenn Casale, this beloved tale of a young mermaid's coming-of-age adventure is told like never before. Previously announced casting includes Diana Huey as Ariel and Matthew Kacergis as Prince Eric, with Broadway's Jennifer Allen as Ursula and Steven Blanchard as King Triton. Melvin Abston, Connor Russell and Jamie Torcellini join the cast as Sebastian, Flounder and Scuttle. 

It's been a crazy year, Dear Readers. Lots of ups, lots of downs, and LOTS of emotions. And I'm not just talking about on stage. But let's not dwell on the bad things that may have happened in the world and focus on some of the amazing things Seattle theater companies gave us this past year, and let me tell you there were quite a few. So many in fact that in some categories I simply had to call out more than the usual Honorable Mentions as some performances just needed to be noted. You'll see what I mean especially when you get to the female categories as the ladies were certainly bringing it this year. But let's get started shall we? Out of the myriad shows I saw this year in Seattle, here are the shows and performances that truly stood out to me.

A spectacular new production of Disney's The Little Mermaid kicks off at The 5th Avenue Theatre this holiday season. Featuring the critically acclaimed work of Director Glenn Casale, this beloved tale of a young mermaid's coming-of-age adventure is told like never before.

The original animated film of "Disney's The Little Mermaid" is arguably one of the best of the Disney canon. With songs written by the incredible Alan Menken and Howard Ashman it marked the rebirth of the Disney animated musicals. The original conversion of it into a Broadway musical was not so great. With bad staging and flow, achieving the illusion of swimming by putting the actors on Heelys (shoes with wheels in the heels) so they would glide across stage, and additional songs from Menken and Glenn Slater (owing to the passing of the great Howard Ashman) the show lost much of it's core cleverness and heart in favor of the cliche and gimmicky. Now there's a new version with a reworked book and score and much improved staging which is currently being offered at the 5th Avenue Theatre and while it still may not have that magical greatness of the original film it does manage a magic of its own largely due to some new stage magic and a stellar cast including an Ariel (Diana Huey) who is the most layered, honest, real and still adorable Disney Princess ever.

A spectacular new production of Disney's The Little Mermaid kicks off at The 5th Avenue Theatre this holiday season. Featuring the critically acclaimed work of Director Glenn Casale, this beloved tale of a young mermaid's coming-of-age adventure is told like never before. Previously announced casting includes Seattle's own Diana Huey as Ariel and Matthew Kacergis as Prince Eric, with Broadway's Jennifer Allen as Ursula andSteven Blanchard as King Triton. Melvin Abston, Connor Russell and Jamie Torcellini join the cast as Sebastian, Flounder and Scuttle. The 5th Avenue's production will go on to play engagements in cities including Orlando, Cincinnati,Atlanta and Louisville, among others.

A spectacular new production of Disney's The Little Mermaid kicks off at The 5th Avenue Theatre this holiday season. Featuring the critically acclaimed work of Director Glenn Casale, this beloved tale of a young mermaid's coming-of-age adventure is told like never before. Previously announced casting includes Seattle's own Diana Huey as Ariel and Matthew Kacergis as Prince Eric, with Broadway's Jennifer Allen as Ursula andSteven Blanchard as King Triton. Melvin Abston, Connor Russell and Jamie Torcellini join the cast as Sebastian, Flounder and Scuttle. The 5th Avenue's production will go on to play engagements in cities including Orlando, Cincinnati,Atlanta and Louisville, among others.

Some of Seattle's most talented actors will be hard at work in collaboration with writers from around the country in the rehearsal halls of The 5th Avenue Theatre this month as the company's NextFest: A Festival of New Musicals launches its three week intensive development cycle this weekend.

Are there any taboo subjects for musicals anymore? I mean we've had shows about serial killers and assassins, drug addicts and prisoners, demons and super powered psychotic teens, and even oversexed puppets. So I don't know why anyone should be surprised by the new musical at ACT in conjunction with ArtsWest and Circle X Theatre Co., 'Bad Apples' which takes a look at one of our countries most disgraceful moments, the Abu Ghraib prison scandal. This in your face rock musical will definitely not be everyone's cup of tea and especially not for the kids. But if you can get past all the language, sex, and horrific images then what you're left with is a killer show that looks at how easily people in power can justify appalling acts.

Join ArtsWest as your favorite Seattle performers sing the songbooks of the artists who inspired them, from Carole King and Alanis Morrissette to Freddie Mercury and Stevie Wonder. Hosted by Artistic Director Mathew Wright, these one-night only events feature four of Seattle's brightest stars: Kirsten DeLohr Helland, Frederick Hagreen, Jimmie Herrod, and Andi Alhadeff. These performers are at the forefront of musical theatre in Seattle-artistic talent behind smash-hits like Lizard Boy (Seattle Rep), Green Day's American Idiot (ArtsWest), and The Sound of Music (5th Avenue Theatre), just to name a few.

Bad Apples is the new rock musical inspired by the real-life prisoner abuse scandal at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Bad Apples seeks to answer the simple question: How in God's name did this happen? Two soldiers ended up pregnant by fellow soldier Charles Graner; both women wanted to marry him, competed with each other to win his love, and enthusiastically tortured prisoners together, documenting most of it in pictures that later leaked and shocked the world.

The 5th Avenue Theatre has announced the nominees for the 14th annual 5th Avenue Awards Honoring High School Musical Theater.