Ike Ball News

Adding more to their lineup of events - including Janis Ian, Judy Collins, Steve Earle, and The Miles Davis Experience - the Englert Theatre is happy to announce three additional shows for the Fall Season.

Adding more to their lineup of events - including Janis Ian, Judy Collins, Steve Earle, and The Miles Davis Experience - the Englert Theatre is happy to announce three additional shows for the Fall Season.

This summer the Un-Common Theatre Co will be the first Amateur Community Theatre Company in the US to perform the much acclaimed, Tony Award winning Broadway Musical SPRING AWAKENING.

This summer the Un-Common Theatre Co will be the first Amateur Community Theatre Company in the US to perform the much acclaimed, Tony Award winning Broadway Musical SPRING AWAKENING.

This summer the Un-Common Theatre Co will be the first Amateur Community Theatre Company in the US to perform the much acclaimed, Tony Award winning Broadway Musical SPRING AWAKENING.

This summer the Un-Common Theatre Co will be the first Amateur Community Theatre Company in the US to perform the much acclaimed, Tony Award winning Broadway Musical SPRING AWAKENING. Winner of eight Tony Awards including best musical, direction, book and score, SPRING AWAKENING celebrates the unforgettable journey from youth to adulthood with a power, poignancy, and a passion you will never forget.

This summer the Un-Common Theatre Co will be the first Amateur Community Theatre Company in the US to perform the much acclaimed, Tony Award winning Broadway Musical SPRING AWAKENING.

Always edgy and never dull, Theatre Out--Orange County's Gay and Lesbian Theater company--has continually presented some interesting theater offerings since its remarkable debut in 2006. Its current production, a rambunctious revival of Andrew Lippa's topsy-turvy musical THE WILD PARTY, is no exception, as it corrals a huge pool of talents to tell the story of a bacchanal gone horribly, horribly awry. The show plays at the Empire Theatre in the Santa Ana Arts District through July 2.

School is nearly out and for teens and college students nationwide that means one thing - summer vacation!

In a few short weeks, Shadowbox Live and BalletMet Columbus will unveil the very first collaboration between these two heavy hitting arts organizations, 7 Deadly Sins, performing at Capitol Theatre April 29th - May 7th.

In a few short weeks, Shadowbox Live and BalletMet Columbus will unveil the very first collaboration between these two heavy hitting arts organizations, 7 Deadly Sins, performing at Capitol Theatre April 29th - May 7th.

Billy Joel - Live at Shea Stadium: The Concert, a full-length concert film released by Legacy Recordings on March 8, has just entered the Billboard Top Music DVD/Video chart at #1.

In THE BUTTERFLY GARDEN, Italian theater company Teatro di Piazza o d'Occasione (T.P.O.) incorporates computer graphics and digital technologies to create a thrilling new experience in participatory theater. The children's cheering carpet, a ground-breaking device that uses touch sensors, transforms the stage into a magical landscape from which beautiful botanical images, rainforest sounds, and brilliant prisms of color emerge in every direction in real-time response to the dancers' movements. Even bigger thrills come when young ones from the audience are invited to touch and explore the glowing interactive garden themselves.

Even as it debuts another world premiere tonight and eagerly awaits previews for its latest Broadway outing, Berkeley Repertory Theatre proudly announces a slate of eight new shows. The Tony Award-winning nonprofit - known for developing exhilarating new plays - introduces a series of stunning scripts and stellar performers for the coming year.

In 2010 alone, 24-year-old New Orleans singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist and all-around musical powerhouse Troy 'Trombone Shorty' Andrews has signed with Verve Forecast Records and performed on Good Morning America and ESPN's SportsCenter in the run-up to the Super Bowl. He has seen recordings he contributed to earn a Grammy award (Buckwheat Zydeco's 'Lay Your Burden Down') and an Oscar nomination (Dr. John's 'Down In New Orleans' from the hit Disney film 'The Princess and the Frog'). He has taped two appearances - as himself - for the upcoming HBO series 'Treme' from 'The Wire' creator David Simon, and played with his band Orleans Avenue as honored guests on Saints owner Tom Benson's float in a victorious post-Super Bowl Mardi Gras parade. He's just getting started.

Perched above the stage in their private bleacher section, just beyond an outfield fence graffitied with the musical's title, conductor Rob Berman and his 25 piece Encores! Summer Stars orchestra might be mistaken for the conservatory cousins of Brooklyn's legendary Dodger Sym-Phony. But instead of serenading umpires from the Ebbet's Field grandstands with double forte arrangements of 'Three Blind Mice,' the musicians of director John Rando's cracker-jack production of Damn Yankees - a 1955 musical that opened in the early weeks of the baseball season that saw Brooklyn beat the Yankees for the borough's only World Series championship - treats 21st Century audiences to that thrilling sound of a Broadway Golden Age orchestra. The detailed movements and textures contained within Don Walker's orchestrations, whether giving comic accents to the pepper-upper 'Heart,' setting a satirical mood for the pseudo-vamp 'Whatever Lola Wants' or lifting a slow ballad like 'A Man Doesn't Know' with phrases that search the mind of the singing character, help bring majestic touches of artistry to this rousing vaudeville disguised as a book musical.

This past Sunday, Bruce Weber penned a big review of Tiny Kushner in the new Bay Area section now appearing in West Coast editions of the Times.