The stars and creative team of 'HAIRSPRAY LIVE!' reunited for a panel discussion and special performances on Friday, June 9, 2017 at the Saban Media Center at the Television Academy, North Hollywood.
Jennifer Hudson is once again taking the world by storm as she blows the roof off of venues with her rendition of 'I Know Where I've Been,' which she first performed as part of NBC's 'Hairspray Live!' This time she took the stage at an FYC event at the Television Academy, check out the video below!
Kate Pazakis just keeps topping herself with her musical parodies! This time she teams up with Bradley Bredeweg and his Fuse Project for a wildly entertaining THE LAST BREAKFAST CLUB. Bredeweg and Pazakis ingeniously take the 'Musical Parody of' concept and 'fuse' a mash-up of John Hughes' classic film The Breakfast Club with other cinematic cult favorites. The pop song choices are simply genius as they each move the plot along.
On July 17, 2017, distinguished artists from across the nation's entertainment industry will come together in Los Angeles for a gala production of The 24 Hour Musicals: Los Angeles, an intensive theatrical endeavor where a team of more than 100 (including artists from Broadway, film, television and music) will come together to write, compose, rehearse and perform four original musicals within a 24-hour time span at the beautiful The Theater at Ace Hotel.
Just a few months ago, Kristin Chenoweth was complaining about the new girl and singing about her time as Miss Baltimore Crabs as Velma Von Tussle in NBC's HAIRSPRAY LIVE! Now she has joined producer Neil Meron to reminisce about the experience with BroadwayWorld and SAG-AFTRA Foundation. Check out the full interview below!
LA's Center Theatre Group celebrated its 50th Anniversary with a plethora of performance stars including Jennifer Hudson who took the stage at the gala event and performed one of her most show-stopping numbers from Hairspray Live, 'I Know Where I've Been.'
Jennifer Hudson recently sat down with GoldDerby to have a conversation about what it was like taking on the iconic role of Motormouth Maybelle in NBC's Hairspray Live. Hudson describes the role as deeply empowering and very relevant to times today. She also touches on the difficulties in taking on a role that so many greats have played before her and how she brought her own experiences into the character. Check out the full interview for more.
On Monday, May 22 (6PM) SAG-AFTRA Foundation and BroadwayWorld will host a special screening of Hairspray Live! followed by a Q&A with Kristin Chenoweth and Executive Producer Neil Meron. Moderated by BroadwayWorld's Richard Ridge, the event will take place at the Robin Williams Center (247 W 54th St).
The Paley Center for Media has announced the worldwide premiere of You Can't Stop the Beat: The Art & Artistry of Hairspray Live!, an exciting new feature exhibit. Opening April 22, 2017 at the Paley Center's Beverly Hills location, the exhibit runs through May 21, 2017.
Good morning, BroadwayWorld! Today's big news: Larry Kirwan's REBEL IN THE SOUL starts tonight at Irish Rep, and writers of color take the stage in MTF's LIFT EVERY VOICE AND SING this evening!
???????It's the end of the world as we know it - and the brain, the athlete, the basket case, the princess, and the criminal are still stuck in that damn library! The Fuse Project and Rockwell Table & Stage explore a musical theatre world in which the most beloved cinema characters from the 1980's era barricade themselves inside the library because the world as we know it has ended.
The Pasadena Playhouse (Danny Feldman, Producing Artistic Director) continues it FOUR BY TENN: A TENNESSEE WILLIAMS READING SERIES in celebration of Tennessee Williams with CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF. Performed in association with East West Players and directed by Snehal Desai, the reading will feature Suzy Nakamura of ABC's DR. KEN as Mae Pollitt. Also joining Nakamura are Laura Kai Chen, Ryun Yu, C.S. Lee, Amy Hill, Dana Lee, Jenapher Zheng, Greg Watanabe and Anil Kumar Bhardwarj. CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF will be read on Monday, March 13 at 8:00 PM at The Pasadena Playhouse (39 S. El Molino Avenue, Pasadena).
Actress Judith Light certainly needs no introduction. A familiar face to television audiences, she co-starred in the soap One Life to Live winning two Daytime Emmy Awards and in prime time with Tony Danza in Who's the Boss?She has also won two Tony Awards for her stellar work on Broadway. She is a gay rights activist and she and her husband Robert Desiderio have contributed greatly to the gay community in Los Angeles over the years. Co-starring in Amazon's web series Transparent, she is currently performing double duty: the TV show by day and at night a workshop play God Looked Away at the Pasadena Playhouse sharing the stage with none other than icon Al Pacino. I caught up with her this week, and she talked briefly but joyously about the play, her role in it and working with Pacino.
The Pasadena Playhouse presents their first development production, under the theater's new play development program PlayWorks, Dotson Rader's GOD LOOKED AWAY starring Academy Award- and two-time Tony Award-winner Al Pacino (Scent of a Woman) as 'Tennessee Williams' and co-starring two-time Tony Award-winner Judith Light (Transparent) as Williams' close friend 'Estelle' and Miles Gaston Villanueva (CBS's The Young and the Restless) as 'Baby.'
The Pasadena Playhouse presents its first developmental production, under the theater's new play development program PlayWorks: Dotson Rader's GOD LOOKED AWAY starring Academy Award- and two-time Tony Award-winner Al Pacino (Scent of a Woman) as 'Tennessee Williams' and co-starring two-time Tony Award-winner Judith Light (Transparent) as Williams' close friend 'Estelle' and Miles Gaston Villanueva (CBS's The Young and the Restless) as 'Baby.'
The Pasadena Playhouse has announced a new partnership with TodayTix, the theater ticket app, to launch a mobile Rush program for Dotson Rader's GOD LOOKED AWAY, directed by Robert Allan Ackerman, and starring Al Pacino and Judith Light.
Skeptics of musical theater like to ask, 'But how do they know the song?' when characters join in during a musical number. One of the virtues of HAIRSPRAY is that the audience itself actually does this: the songs are so catchy that we start singing along. This is appropriate, given the show's message of inclusivity and empowerment of the ordinary. Marc Shaiman (music and lyrics) and Scott Wittman (lyrics) are responsible for the irresistible score of this show, set in Baltimore in the 1960s, that follows plucky, overweight teenager Tracy Turnblad's quest to integrate the 'Corny Collins Show,' an AMERICAN BANDSTAND-style teen dance party that she adores. Along the way, she falls in love with one of its stars, locks horns with another, makes new friends who are black and have a different perspective and a different way of dancing, and finds a place for herself on the show and in life. And her mother Edna and best friend Penny also benefit from Tracy's widening world.