The Met's new production of Puccini's MANON LESCAUT opens February 12 with Kristine Opolais as the seductive, tragic heroine and Roberto Alagna in a role debut as her ardent lover, the Chevalier des Grieux.
Music Director Carl St.Clair and Pacific Symphony today unveil the 2016-17 Hal and Jeanette Segerstrom Family Foundation Classical and Sunday Casual Connections series and special events. This season celebrates the orchestra's 38th season and its 10th year in the Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall. Inaugurated by the Symphony in September 2006, this magnificent venue—with its exceptional acoustics and beautiful architecture—changed the world of symphonic music forever in Orange County. Both the orchestra and its audiences suddenly felt the ceiling to their musical opportunities open up to limitless possibilities. The trajectory of the orchestra sped up, allowing for broader choices in repertoire, greater ensemble excellence and immersive audience experiences—culminating, 10 years later, in this momentous season.
Today in 1938, Pygmalion opened at the Maxine Elliott's Theatre. Written by Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw, the play centers on Professor of phonetics Henry Higgins. He makes a bet that he can train a bedraggled Cockney flower girl, Eliza Doolittle, to pass for a duchess at an ambassador's garden party by teaching her to assume a veneer of gentility, the most important element of which, he believes, is impeccable speech. The play is a sharp lampoon of the rigid British class system of the day and a comment on women's independence, packaged as a romantic comedy.
Kelsey Grammer and Kelli O'Hara starring in a revival of MY FAIR LADY? Wouldn't it be loverly! According to Roger Friedman's Showbiz411, it just may be happening.
When author Michael Kies was 10 years old, he saved his father's life and learned some priceless lessons in the process. After surviving acute leukemia, he realized the lessons he learned while saving his father's life had made a significant impact on his life. He has put his life experiences together in his new book, 'Unreasonable!: The power of expectations' (published by Balboa Press), as a record of the priceless lessons he has learned about living a full and courageous life.
'Wretched Little Brat', a new play about the lovers of Oscar Wilde, premieres in Dublin at the Sean O'Casey Theatre on November 16th and runs until November 21st. Written by Brian Merriman, starring Sean Doyle (Callum, Fair City) as Lord Alfred 'Bosie' Douglas and David Flynn as Robbie Ross, the play charts the lives of Wilde's closest associates up to 1945, in a frank telling of the aftermath of one of Victorian England's most scandalous courtroom downfalls. Brian Graham Higgins plays Wilde with a team of four actors (Ailish Leavy, Anne Doyle, Stephan Gorman and Eli Caldwell) playing 'The Mothers', 'The Wives', 'The Older and The Younger Men' - all caught up in this spiral of litigation, acrimony, morality and loyalty.
California Shakespeare Theater today announced plans for its 2016 season, which will feature one of Shakespeare's sassiest romantic comedies, a Pulitzer Prize-winning story of one family's struggle to achieve the American Dream, and an outrageously funny comedy of manners by George Bernard Shaw. The season, which was selected by outgoing Artistic Director Jonathan Moscone, will include one final Shakespearean title to be selected by incoming Artistic Director Eric Ting later this fall.
The first ever Broadway revival of Harold Pinter'sOld Times, directed by Douglas Hodge begins previews September 17 at the American Airlines Theatre to kick off our 50th Anniversary season.
A Noise Within (ANW), the acclaimed classical repertory theatre company, presents Arthur Miller's classic ALL MY SONS, as part of the 2015-2016 BREAKING AND ENTERING season, directed by Geoff Elliott, beginning October 11 and playing through November 21, 2015 (opens on October 17). Miller was born on October 17, 1915 (this production opens on the actual day and date of the centennial of Miller's birth).
A reading of George Bernard Shaw's feminist comedy, PRESS CUTTINGS, preceded by two short plays by one of his major influences, Anton Chekhov.
Today in 1981, the second Broadway revival of My Fair Lady opened at the Uris Theatre (now the George Gershwin Theatre), where it ran for 120 performances. My Fair Lady is a musical based upon George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion and with book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe. The story concerns Eliza Doolittle, a Cockney flower girl who takes speech lessons from professor Henry Higgins, a phoneticist, so that she may pass as a well born lady. The musical's 1956 Broadway production was a hit, setting what was then the record for the longest run of any major musical theatre production in history. It was followed by a hit London production, a popular film version, and numerous revivals.
In honor of this week's buzz about Colin Firth headlining a Broadway revival, we turn our attention to Golden Age classic MY FAIR LADY.
The Desert Rose Playhouse, in Rancho Mirage, California, is presenting yet another fine production - its last show for the 2014-15 season. Douglas Carter Beane's THE LITTLE DOG LAUGHED is an edgy comedy which raises serious questions and which contains serious moments, especially in the second act. It is well-acted and superbly staged. I recommend this show for adults with one caveat: It contains brief moments of full frontal male nudity, and is therefore not suitable for everyone.
Today in 1976, the first Broadway revival of My Fair Lady opened at the St. James Theatre, where it ran for 377 performances. My Fair Lady is a musical based upon George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion and with book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe. The story concerns Eliza Doolittle, a Cockney flower girl who takes speech lessons from professor Henry Higgins, a phoneticist, so that she may pass as a well born lady. The musical's 1956 Broadway production was a hit, setting what was then the record for the longest run of any major musical theatre production in history. It was followed by a hit London production, a popular film version, and numerous revivals.
POUGHKEEPSIE, N.Y., March 12, 2015 /PRNewswire/ He was one adventurous man who lived his life to the fullest despite the dangers and the challenges of the world he lived in. Robert Loraine was an acting star, a pioneer aviator, and a soldier in the Boer War and World War I. His personality was both engaging and enraging and everything about him gets unraveled in this biography penned down by author Lanayre D. Liggera. The Life of Robert Loraine: The Stage, the Sky, and George Bernard Shaw reveals the many faces of this interesting and intriguing man.
Washington Stage Guild's production prudently balances the science fiction nature of Shaw's work with the greater philosophical discussions his plays' raise regarding the consistent need for humanity to keep developing.
Mark Bebbington has a knack for finding and bringing to the spotlight either lost or forgotten pieces by important musical personalities - having already premiered (and recorded) the Vaughan Williams Fantasy For Piano and Orchestra, a complete John Ireland CD cycle and the piano music of Mario Castelnuovo-Tadesco. Most recently he opened the American Symphony Orchestra's Carnegie Hall season with Richard Strauss's little-known left-had piano concerto, Parergon. That's in addition to all the expected Rach 2's and Griegs and Schumanns. But his latest discovery should hold particular fascination, especially for Londoners.
Mark Bebbington has a knack for finding and bringing to the spotlight either lost or forgotten pieces by important musical personalities - having already premiered (and recorded) the Vaughan Williams Fantasy For Piano and Orchestra, a complete John Ireland CD cycle and the piano music of Mario Castelnuovo-Tadesco. Most recently he opened the American Symphony Orchestra's Carnegie Hall season with Richard Strauss's little-known left-had piano concerto, Parergon. That's in addition to all the expected Rach 2's and Griegs and Schumanns. But his latest discovery should hold particular fascination, especially for Londoners.
The Canadian Opera Company's 2014/2015 winter season opens with a game-changing new production of Mozart's Don Giovanni. Internationally acclaimed Russian director Dmitri Tcherniakov defies convention with this dark and witty masterpiece inspired by literature's most famous womanizer, Don Juan. His vision is brought to blistering life by a dream cast led by renowned Canadian baritoneRussell Braun and German maestro Michael Hofstetter conducting Mozart's glorious score of irresistible melodies. Sung in Italian with English SURTITLESTM, Don Giovanni runs for 10 performances today, January 24, 27, 30,February 1, 3, 6, 12, 14, 18, 21, 2015 at the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts.
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