James Darrah News

Semele recently opened at Opera Philadelphia and critics were in attendance. Find out what they had to say!

In the summer of 1983, Jerry Herman and Harvey Fierstein put on a show that was light years ahead of the zeitgeist, vis-a-vis the awareness and acceptance of LGBTQ people in America, and about twenty years before the legalization of same-sex marriage. Yet, after a successful tryout at the Colonial Theatre in Boston, they boldly went where no Broadway musical had gone before when they opened LA CAGE AUX FOLLES at the Palace Theatre on August 21, 1983. Reagle Music Theatre of Greater Boston concludes its 51st Summer Season with LA CAGE, and I am pleased to report that the show continues to stand the test of time. The three most important components for a successful staging of this musical are the two actors who play the leading men, Georges (J.T. Turner) and Albin (James Darrah), and the dance troupe who comprise Les Cagelles, the drag performers at the Saint-Tropez title nightclub owned by the latter couple, and they collectively win the trifecta.

Reagle Music Theatre of Greater Boston's 51st Summer Season concludes with La Cage Aux Folles from August 8-18, 2019.

Music Critics Association of North America (MCANA) announces that its 3rd Annual Award for Best New Opera has been given to composer and sound artist Ellen Reid and librettist Roxie Perkins for p r i s m.

With its eighth innovative season in 2020, PROTOTYPE: Opera | Theatre | Now continues its rigorous exploration of the work, producing and presenting an abundance of provocative shows in the interstitial realms between music, operatic tradition, and theatre. This season, Beth Morrison Projects and HERE's meteoric annual festival lands on stages across New York from January 9-18, presenting 6 works by 23 composers and librettists along with hundreds of collaborators - productions ranging from black-box chamber opera to multi-media rock concerts. 

There's only one transformative, artist-packed weekend left of Opera Omaha's ONE Festival, to include the Opera Omaha debut of acclaimed theatre director Lileana Blain-Cruz as she directs the world stage premiere of a new performance edition of Gounod's Faust. 

Last night, Theatre Now New York (TNNY) presented its Sixth Annual Festival of 10-Minute Musicals at Merkin Hall at Kaufman Music Center, 129 West 67th Street, New York, NY 10023. SOUND BITES 6.0 grants composers, lyricists, and librettists the unique opportunity to present their work in front of a live audience. This one-night only event, now in its sixth year, showcases 10 new musicals by up-and-coming musical theatre writing teams.

Theatre Now New York (TNNY) is pleased to announce the official casting and full creative teams for SOUND BITES 6.0, the Sixth Annual Festival of 10-Minute Musicals. This year's festival is scheduled for next Tuesday, April 2, 2019 at 7pm at Merkin Hall at Kaufman Music Center, 129 West 67th Street, New York, NY 10023. Scroll down for more detailed information on each musical's casting and creative team.

Theatre Now New York (TNNY) is pleased to announce the official judging panel for SOUND BITES 6.0, the Sixth Annual Festival of 10-Minute Musicals, which is scheduled for Tuesday, April 2, 2019 at 7pm at Merkin Hall at Kaufman Music Center, 129 West 67th Street, New York, NY 10023. 

Launching its past two annual seasons with the groundbreaking Festival O has firmly established Opera Philadelphia not only as "one of North America's premiere generators of valid new operas" (Opera News), but as "one of American opera's success stories" (New York Times). Now the company steps boldly into 2019-2020 with the third edition of its festival, O19, which comprises two world premieres, two company premieres, and a series of special presentations, events, and recitals at multiple venues across the city in September. Next, the season spotlights renowned Jack Mulroney Music Director Corrado Rovaris, who leads three productions at the Academy of Music to mark the 20th anniversary of his company debut. As the Washington Post observes: "Opera in Philadelphia really can claim to offer something for everyone."

Opera Omaha's ONE Festival returns March 30 - April 14, 2019 with new explorations and exciting work that exemplify innovation and the power of opera.  Led by Omaha native and Opera Omaha General Director Roger Weitz (Chicago Opera Theater, Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts) and Festival Artistic Director James Darrah, ONE amplifies the Omaha creative spirit by curating a cadre of interdisciplinary, world-class artists to rethink how contemporary opera is made. Each of the festival's handpicked creatives is an Artist-in-Residence, partnering across mediums to push beyond operatic norms. Together they bring to life two staged operas, a performance series exploring the operatic form, and various films, lectures, and intimate pop-up classical concert experiences. 

Where are our Violettas, our Salomes, our Elektras--even our Lulus--for opera to move forward as an art form for the 21 century? They're all victims of stress and suffering of one sort or another, but still worth meeting up with--not only musically but dramatically--more than once. I began thinking about this while watching the three music-theatre/new opera pieces that I visited during the opening days of the current edition of PROTOTYPE:OPERA/THEATRE/NOW--The Infinite Hotel, 4.48 Psychosis and PRISM.

New York's PROTOTYPE OperaTheatreNow Festival returns for its seventh season from January 5 to the 13th and the one thing that you can't ask about it is “What's new?” That's not because there's nothing to answer. On the contrary--there's too much, in style, in content, in the sizes of its venues: This year's Festival is larger than ever, with a dozen works, 24 composerlibrettists and over 150 collaborators.

Well, it's that time of the year again--time for a look-back on what was worth making note of during the calendar year that's about to come to an end. It's from a totally personal, subjective point of view, of course, but frankly that's the way opera-lovers always seem to like it, n'est-ce pas? The productions worth noting come from places big, small and in-between, from composers old as the hills to freshly minted or somewhere in between (likewise the performers), from traditional or boldly modern to simply stand up and sing.

Isabel Leonard and Jessica Vosk sing "A Boy Like That/I Have A Love" from "West Side Story" also performed by Tony Yazbeck and other Broadway artists on Great Performances: The Bernstein Centennial Celebration at Tanglewood. Watch the performance below!

LA Opera Off Grand presents the world premiere of a new work by composer Ellen Reid and librettist Roxie Perkins: 'p r i s m.' 

PROTOTYPE: Opera/Theatre/Now announces full programming for the seventh annual festival of fresh opera-theatre & music-theatre, running January 5-13, 2019 and featuring ten presentations that "shift the whole paradigm of what opera is and can be" (New York Observer).

Missy Mazzoli had me with BREAKING THE WAVES, her 2016 opera written with librettist Royce Vavrek at Opera Philadelphia and PROTOTYPE 2017. With PROVING UP--same librettist and with a production also conceived by James Darrah--which had its New York debut this week at Columbia University's Miller theatre, she proved she's a force to be reckoned with.