Before their August 3rd opening at NYMF, LUDO's Broken Bride is presenting a... 'Broken Bride Preview Cabaret' on Saturday, July 23rd at 7:30pm (doors open at 7pm) at The West End Lounge 955 West End Avenue (at 107th Street).
The New York Musical Festival (NYMF) in association with Chinese Mother Jewish Daughter & Michael Chase Gosselin presents LUDO's Broken Bride, a new rock opera about one man's epic journey to save his true love's life, utilizing LUDO's entire discography. Adapted by Stacey Weingarten (NYMF: Les Enfants de Paris, Rescue Rue) with additional story and arrangements by Dana Levinson, the cast of 14 includes Spencer Clark (Regional: West Side Story, Romeo In Your Arms), Carson Higgins (Nat. Tour: American Idiot; NYMF: The Runaway Clone), Larry Hamilton (Off Bway: You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown; Captain Louie), Catherine Landeta (Regional: The King and I, Avenue Q, Bat Boy), Melissa Hunter McCann (TV: 'Tony Awards'; NY: Carnegie Hall's West Side Story, Encore's Paint Your Wagon), Gabrielle McClinton (Bway: Pippin; 1st Nat. Tour: American Idiot), Brendan Malafronte (Nat. Tour: Annie, The Producers, Singin' in the Rain), Jamen Nathakumar, Jackson Perrin, Devin Richey, Brian Charles Rooney (Bway: The Threepenny Opera; NYMF: Bedbugs!!!), Ashley Talluto (Nat. Tour: Flashdance, West Side Story), Michael Jayne Walker (Regional: Hair, Godspell, Tommy), and Amy Whitcomb (TV: 'The Voice;' 'The Sing-Off'). LUDO's Broken Bride is being staged at The Duke on 42nd Street a NEW 42ND STREET project, 229 West 42nd Street (bet. 10th and 11th Aves.) in NYC for five performances from Tuesday, August 2 through Saturday, August 6, 2016.
Broadway performers will come together on Monday April 25th at The Cutting Room NYC to celebrate female composers in the one night only concert LOVE GOES ON, hosted by Miss Staten Island, Heather Wolf. The concert will benefit the suicide prevention organization, You Can NOT Be Replaced, focusing on the irreplaceable value of each person by passing wristbands. Doors open at 6:30, with the show beginning at 7:30.
Four-Time Tony Award Winner PIPPIN is heading to Europe with Broadway star Kyle Dean Massey to join in Amsterdam.
Four-Time Tony Award Winner PIPPIN is heading to Europe with Broadway star Kyle Dean Massey to join in Amsterdam.
After a successful run on Broadway as well as a national tour through the country, the high-flying, tony awards-winning hit musical PIPPIN is heading to Europe. Hailed by audiences and critics alike this 'eye-popping, jaw-dropping extravaganza' opens in Amsterdam, The Netherlands on March 9 for a 5-weeks run through April 10. The European premiere is on March 10.
There are some shows that tempt a reviewer to write a lengthy essay going into great detail about the many reasons why the show succeeds or fails. Other shows make a reviewer simply want to say, 'Just go see this show,' and nothing more. While there is, of course, much to say about the touring production of the Broadway musical Pippin, now at Providence Performing Arts Center, the production's merits can absolutely be summed up briefly: See. This. Show.
The extraordinary journey of the Broadway revival of PIPPIN began at the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge a few years back, and now that triumphant Tony Award-winning musical, directed by Diane Paulus, is back in Boston via the national tour. While some tweaks have since been made to the production that had its Broadway tryout at the A.R.T., the show's exuberant joie de vivre and circus-inspired excitement are still intact. If anything, the show's politics and humor have been heightened in this iteration, thanks largely to its sensational cast.
The 1970's was an era of self discovery, rebellion and personal exploration. Broadway was morphing from the stock musical comedy formula towards the darker issues of life not usually seen on the musical stage . There was a young Stephen Sondheim delving into the deep interpersonal relations of marriage in COMPANY and FOLLIES, while Michael Bennett had gathered a group of young dancers who were exposing their inner demons and life stories in A CHORUS LINE. Meanwhile the composer Stephen Schwartz began his career with PIPPIN and would later write hit scores for GODSPELL and WICKED
The National Tour of PIPPIN is, hands down, the finest touring production to land at The McCallum Theatre during my tenure in the desert cities. Passionate. Polished. Near Perfection! It is a glorious spectacle of sight, sound and immaculate storytelling that, despite its mesmerizing visual feast of circus spectacle, remains honest and intimate and, at every turn, very human.
The "magic to do" in Broadway's "Pippin" owes as much to simple storytelling and relatable "players" as to actual magic tricks and acrobatic wonders. A knife-throwing act here, a disappearing act there, the grand circus tent concept that helped the musical win its Tony Award for Best Revival fits flawlessly. But a beautiful new conclusion and a quest for meaning set to Stephen Schwartz's spellbinding music also capture the soul of live theatre. On that count, nothing has changed since the show's 1972 premiere. Young prince Pippin searches for his "corner of the sky," dabbling in war, sex and politics as a "Lead Player" guides him toward one grand "finale."
Experience the thrilling 2013 Tony Award-winning musical PIPPIN - described as 'An eye-popping, jaw-dropping, VISUALLY STUNNING extravaganza. THE THRILL OF THE SEASON!' by NY1. PIPPIN will have a limited engagement at Sacramento Community Center Theater from Dec. 29 - Jan. 3. The cast includes Gabrielle McClinton as Leading Player; Brian Flores as Pippin; John Rubinstein, who played the role of Pippin in the original Bob Fosse-directed Broadway production, as Charles; Sabrina Harper as Berthe; Bradley Benjamin as Catherine; and Kate Wesler as Fastrada.
Experience the thrilling 2013 Tony Award-winning musical PIPPIN - described as 'An eye-popping, jaw-dropping, VISUALLY STUNNING extravaganza. THE THRILL OF THE SEASON!' by NY1. PIPPIN will have a limited engagement at Sacramento Community Center Theater from Dec. 29 - Jan. 3. The cast includes Gabrielle McClinton as Leading Player; Brian Flores as Pippin; John Rubinstein, who played the role of Pippin in the original Bob Fosse-directed Broadway production, as Charles; Sabrina Harper as Berthe; Bradley Benjamin as Catherine; and Kate Wesler as Fastrada.
There are the warhorse musicals of Rodgers and Hammerstein, Cole Porter, and Irving Berlin; there are the lavish productions befitting Phantoms in opera houses and French revolutionaries and revisionist fairy tales (and you know the ones I mean); there are the Disney powerhouses; and . . . there are musicals of a quaint, mind-nudging nature that don't quite fit into any category. Certainly THE FANTASTICKS comes to mind, and -- at least in the previous productions I have seen -- Stephen Schwartz's PIPPIN. Somewhere in my video collection is a filmed version of the musical with William Katt, and just a few years ago PIPPIN was the first musical staged at the shiny, new Playhouse on the Square (with Alvaro Francisco stepping in for a sidelined Jordan Nichols). I sometimes think that small-scale musicals are better suited to venues less grand than the Orpheum; I needn't have worried, however, as PIPPIN has acquired the kind of theatrical, Cirque du Soleil-style atmosphere that perfectly suits the show's opening number, 'Magic to Do.'
The circus is in town and I ain't talking about Barnum & Bailey! The national tour of the 2013 revival of PIPPIN made its way to the Bayou City and I'm hippopotamusly happy to see this tour! When creative geniuses such as Bob Fosse and Stephen Schwartz are at the helm of the original material, there's no denying that a musical theatre maven such as myself would be overzealous.
Pippin brings the audience into a traveling circus who are performing a tale of Pippen a prince of a land who is struggling with finding himself. Pippen believes he is extraordinary and wants an extraordinary life but find out that an ordinary life may actually be the thing he has been looking for. The same can be said for this production. Pippin the musical really wants to be extraordinary when in fact it is just ordinary. The plot is just so so and none of the musical numbers are catching. There was one very big bright spot however and that was the circus acts.
PIPPIN is playing at the San Diego Civic Theatre through Sunday, August 30th. For shoetimes and ticket information go to www.Broadwaysd.com
Stephen Schwartz's "Pippin" is one of those under appreciated musicals. It definitely has its problems but if done well it can deliver the goods. Well, the current tour of the recent Broadway run certainly delivers those goods. Not only does it retain the dark edginess of the story but it's also infused with thrilling circus routines that make it a crowd pleaser on many levels.
The latest in unauthorized gossip and buzz from the heart of Chicago's showtune video bars, and musical theater news from Chicago to Broadway. Tours of 'Persuasion,' 'Pippin' and '42nd Street,' dueling productions of 'American Idiot,' Michael Kingston and Jane Lynch solo out, 'Bette' adds a date, Theo Ubique announced 'Blood Brothers,' Porchlight sets the season, and 'The Wiz Live!' gets movin' down the road!
Let's first get this very necessary accolade out of the way: South Coast Repertory's brand new production of Rick Elice's PETER AND THE STARCATCHER is, hands down, one of the most enjoyable, most thrilling, and most engagingly imaginative plays I have seen all season---a fitting capper to the Tony Award-winning Orange County theater's 51st year. This delightfully revised production---which continues performances in Costa Mesa through June 7---re-calibrates the play's hyperactive mixture of mirth and mayhem by further emphasizing its seemingly 'bare-bones' storytelling devices, resulting in one entertaining night of theater that both kids and adults will find endearingly beguiling. Motivated by imagination, I seriously cannot recall the last time I laughed this boisterously and had this much unabashed joy from sitting through a play in quite some time.
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