Houston Grand Opera News

Opera Pacific announces 'Susannah' as the final opera of their 2007-2008 season. Performances begin May 14th.

PREMIERES, a not-for-profit musical theater development company, proudly announces the world premiere of INNER VOICES: SOLO MUSICALS, three new works created by and starring some of the industry's brightest talents.

The all-new fully renovated HERE Arts Center proudly reopens its doors this Spring with Arias with a Twist, a premiere production from New York favorites Joey Arias and Basil Twist. Arias with a Twist marks the 10th Anniversary of the Dream Music Puppetry Program and the Dorothy B. Williams Theatre at HERE Arts Center. The production is presented as part of HERE's 2007-2008 season of new multi-disciplinary productions spanning theatre, dance, puppetry and multimedia work, which includes Dream Music programming. Arias with a Twist will run Thursday, June 12 - Saturday, July 13 at HERE Arts Center (145 Sixth Avenue).

On Monday, May 5th, The Actors Fund will host its 2008 Annual Gala which will honor four individuals whose combined careers represent the diversity and range of the entertainment industry: acclaimed actor Alec Baldwin will be receiving the Nedda Harrigan Logan Award; international opera sensation Renée Fleming will be receiving the Lee Strasberg Artistic Achievement Award; and Tony Award-winning Broadway producers and theater owners Stewart F. Lane and Bonnie Comley will be receiving The Actors Fund Medal of Honor.

Legendary designers John Conklin and Robert Fletcher are among the recipients of the 2008 TDF/Irene Sharaff Awards. For his achievements as both a costume and set designer, John Conklin will receive the TDF/Irene Sharaff Awards' special Robert L. B. Tobin Award for Lifetime Achievement in Theatrical Design. Acclaimed costume designer Robert Fletcher, who also produced, performed and designed sets, will receive the 2008 TDF/Irene Sharaff Lifetime Achievement Award at a ceremony on Friday, March 28, at the Hudson Theatre in New York City.

Ted Sperling has joined The Public as Director of The Musical Theater Initiative.

The second interactive Sweeney Todd character card features Mrs. Lovett!

Check out the first interactive character card, for Sweeney Todd himself!

Following its sold-out run in 2006, Academy Award-winning director Anthony Minghella's acclaimed production of Puccini's Madama Butterfly returns to the Met for only six performances, beginning Monday, October 8, 2007.

With a resume of leading roles as long as a football field, there's only a handful of leading roles this 'baritenor' has not played over many years on stages across the country and the world.

We talk to Tony Nominee for best lighting design: Kevin Adams of Spring Awakening. Kevin is a self-taught lighting designer with a style and theory al his own, with many of his lighting designs often doubling as set 'installations'. Oh, and he enjoys gardening...

Michael John LaChiusa will be featured at The After Party on Friday, June 8th

At 8 pm on Wednesday, May 9th and Thursday, May 10th, the New York Festival of Song will perform We Open in Paris. Paris is the backdrop for four musical theatre works in vest-pocket NYFOS productions, including Jacques Offenbach's La Vie Parisienne and Cole Porter's Fifty Million Frenchmen.

Manhattan Theatre Club (Lynne Meadow, artistic director; Barry Grove, executive producer) is pleased to announce full casting for the world premiere of LoveMusik, a new musical featuring the songs of Kurt Weill, starring Tony Awardâ winners Michael Cerveris and Donna Murphy.

Designers Santo Loguasto, Bob Mackie, Murell Horton, Kermit Love and Rouben Ter-Arutunian will all be honored for their contributions to the theater at the TDF/Irene Sharaff Award Ceremony March 23rd at the Hudson Theatre.

Casting has been announced for the world premiere of Ricky Ian Gordon and Michael Korie's adaptation of the classic John Steinbeck novel The Grapes of Wrath.

Cast to feature Peter Weller as Frank Lloyd Wright, Harris Yulin as Louis Sullivan, Chris Henry Coffey, Holley Fain, Mary Beth Fisher, Maggie Siff, Jeremy Strong and Jay Whittaker

Acclaimed baritone and Drama Desk Award-nominee George Merritt is making an encore performance in 15 concerts with the Portland (Maine) Symphony Orchestra in their annual 'Magic of Christmas' Concert Series from December 8 - 18, 2006

Patti LuPone will be the featured vocalist in four San Francisco Bay Area concerts with the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra in Jake Heggie's one-act opera, 'To Hell and Back,' November 2 through 5.

Ricky Ian Gordon and Michael Korie's The Grapes of Wrath, a new opera based on the John Steinbeck classic, will be given its world premiere by the Minnesota Opera Company next year