Jerome Robbins News

On Wednesday, September 5 at 7:30pm at NYU's Skirball Center for the Performing Arts (566 LaGuardia Place), dance icon Mikhail Baryshnikov will be honored at the NYC Dance Alliance Foundation's "Bright Lights Shining Stars" Gala where he will receive their prestigious Ambassador for the Arts Award which will be presented to him by longtime friend and colleague Liza Minnelli.

New York City's Drama Desk-nominated Parallel Exit returns to the Joyce SoHo for the third time, to present the world premiere of I LOVE BOB, an evening-length comic ballet, from July 20-29, 2012 at 7:30pm at Joyce SoHo

After several well-received Canadian productions, The New York Musical Theatre Festival will offer Christopher Wilson's LIVING WITH HENRY its US Premiere. Directed by Donna Marie Baratta, Henry will play from tonight July 23-July 29 at the The PTC Performance Space.

Cape May Stage will welcome another Broadway legend to the Robert Shackleton Playhouse. Tonight, July 23rd at 8pm, Faith Prince brings her critically-acclaimed one woman show Total Faith to Cape May.

The Baryshnikov Arts Center (BAC) announces the fall 2012 performance season, which runs September 20 to December 15 and features the World, U.S., and New York Premieres of works by international theater, dance, and music artists.

The New York Musical Theatre Festival (NYMF) and UnitedRain Productions present the world premiere of In The Night. Screening takes place tonight, July 21st at 7 and 9 PM at St Clements Theatre 423 West 46th Street, New York, New York 10036.

Glorya Kaufman Presents Dance at The MusicCenter will kick-off its 2012-2013 10th Anniversary season with its commission of the inaugural full-length program by L.A. Dance Project founded by acclaimed choreographer Benjamin Millepied. The L.A. Dance Project commission will have its premiere performances September 22 and 23, 2012 at The Music Center's Walt Disney Concert Hall.

After several well-received Canadian productions, The New York Musical Theatre Festival will offer Christopher Wilson's LIVING WITH HENRY its US Premiere. Directed by Donna Marie Baratta, Henry will play from July 23- 29 at the The PTC Performance Space: 555 West 42nd Street, New York, NY 10036. Tickets are $25 and can be purchased at nymf.org or by calling (212) 352-3101.

Jonah Bokaer, who has been making artistic waves on the international dance circuit since he began choreographing almost ten years ago, will be seen both close-up and afar in these coming months: outdoors at the Avignon Festival in France (tonight, July 20-July 22, 24-26) and indoors at the Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival in Becket, MA (August 1-5) when he and Bolshoi Ballet star David Hallberg perform together in the world premiere of Bokaer's "CURTAIN."

Now in its ninth year, the New York Musical Theatre Festival (NYMF) is the largest annual musical theatre event in America. NYMF provides a launching pad for the next generation of musicals and their creators to ensure the continued vitality of one of America's greatest art forms. Hailed as the 'Sundance of Musical Theatre,' NYMF discovers, nurtures, and promotes promising musical theatre artists and producers at all stages of development, and inspires a diverse audience through vibrant, accessible, powerful new work.

Faith Prince is a Tony Award winner for the acclaimed revival of Guys and Dolls, a Tony nominee for Bells are Ringing and A Catered Affair, a featured star of The Little Mermaid, and a regular on Lifetime TV's hit series Drop Dead Diva, in the role of Brooke Elliott's mother, Elaine. On July 26th and 27th, she will make her Provincetown debut with two shows at The Art House, joined by Seth Rudetsky at piano. For tickets please visit www.ptownarthouse.com or call 508-487-9222.

The York Theatre Company (James Morgan, Producing Artistic Director), in association with Robert D. Wachs (producer of the hit films Beverly Hills Cop, Beverly Hills Cop 2, Coming to America), will mount a lab workshop of the new disco "revue-sical," Last Dance featuring the music of legendary pop master Paul Jabara (Enough is Enough, It's Raining Men, Last Dance, and more) with book by Shaun McKenna (Lord of the Rings, The Musical). Last Dance will play 5 performances, September 20 - 23, 2012 at at The York Theatre at Saint Peter's (Citicorp Building, entrance on East 54th Street, just east of Lexington Avenue).

Upstairs Landing Productions presents another episode of "Standing By" with guests Marissa Perry and Jennifer Allen from the hit Broadway production of "Sister Act". "Standing By" introduces you to the understudies, standbys and swings helping keep Broadway's curtains up every night. Host Caskey Hunsader speaks with Broadway's rising stars on this new and exciting web series. Watch the interview below!

The New York Musical Theatre Festival (NYMF) presents a staged reading of MY PERFECT PET. Marlo Hunter, Founder & Artistic Director of Eating Their Words, will direct a cast that includes Ethan Haberfield (Mary Poppins), Rebecca Lynn Goldfarb (Godspell 2032), David Foley, Jr. (Shrek, National Tour), Caroline Cahill, and Adrienne Asterita in a staged reading of the new family musical MY PERFECT PET. Daniel Feyer (Arnie the Doughnut) serves as music director, with stage management by Lauren Wong and general management by Gretchen Margaroli. Performances are July 27th at 4:30 p.m. and July 28th at 11:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m. as part of the 2012 New York Musical Theatre Festival.

Jeremy Kushnier (Jesus Christ Superstar, Footloose), Eden Espinosa (Wicked, Brooklyn), Rachel York (Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Victor/Victoria) and Jack Noseworthy (A Chorus Line, Sweet Smell of Success) lead the cast of New York Musical Theater Festival's 'Stealing Time,' the latest work of writers/composers Tor Hyams and Lisa Neubauer. 'Stealing Time' will play as a special event in the 2012 New York Musical Theater Festival at the PTC Performance Space. 'Stealing Time' is the second NYMF project for Hyams coming off the success of 'Greenwood' starring Andrea McArdle in the 2011 New York Musical Theater Festival.

Cinema at the Square returns to PlayhouseSquare for its fifteenth year of bringing classic films back to the BIG screen in Cleveland August 2-19.

Today we are talking to a celebrated comedienne and actress known for her decades-spanning career on screens and stages large and small - from making her Broadway debut in the original Jerome Robbins production of GYPSY on Broadway in 1960 to her many musical roles throughout the 60s to her countless game show and variety show appearances following that all the way to creating an unforgettable character in MOONSTRUCK in the 1980s, as well as her subsequent oft-Neil Simon stage work; now, playing Tina Fey's sweet and daffy mom on NBC's 30 ROCK and, most recently, appearing in Nora & Celia Ephron's LOVE, LOSS AND WHAT I WORE and the Playwright's Horizons premiere production of THE BIG MEAL in the new millennium - the one of a kind Anita Gillette. Analyzing her nearly sixty-year career and sharing candid stories of her brushes with some of Broadway and Hollywood's brightest talents - Jule Styne to Ethel Merman to Irving Berlin to Burt Lancaster and beyond - Gillette paints a vivid portrait of the tail end of the Golden Age of Broadway and the heady game show days of TV in the 1960s and 70s to her lauded stage work with Neil Simon and many of the great comedy and musical writers in the years since. Additionally, Gillette and I discuss her current essaying of the role of Mae Peterson in the new Regal Music Theatre production of Charles Strouse and Lee Adams's BYE BYE BIRDIE in Massachusetts as she looks towards opening night tomorrow and relates her joy in participating in a production that has some behind-the-scenes help by her loving granddaughter (while another attends their summer camp). Plus, Gillette's observations on sharing a soundstage with Alec Baldwin, Tina Fey, Elaine Stritch and Buck Henry for a recent 30 ROCK shoot, reflections on her fondest and most celebrated comedy roles, hilarious memories of appearing in some short-running flops (JIMMY, SKYSKRAPER) as well as in some big hits (GYPSY), her upcoming series of master classes titled "Life In The Business", her return to Birdland with her concert show, AFTER ALL, her role in an upcoming Ed Burns film and maybe even a role in a new Alexander Payne film - all of that, all about attending the Diamond Jubilee celebration in the United Kingdom and much, much more!

Connecticut Repertory Theatre (CRT) presents Gilbert & Sullivan's comic operetta THE PIRATES OF PENZANCE, directed by Broadway veteran Terrence Mann, starring Sean Martin Hingston as the Pirate King, Steven Hayes as the Major-General and Connecticut native Diane Phelan as Mabel.

Broadway Diva Faith Prince returns to Lifetime's "Drop Dead Diva" as Elaine Bingum, mother of series star Jane (played by another Broadway Diva - Brooke Elliot). This season, Prince, a "Drop Dead Diva" semi-regular, is back for two episodes.

Ballet NY presents its 2012 Season, including the World Premiere of Trois Mouvements by Artistic Director Medhi Bahiriand the Company Premiere of emerging choreographerJohn-Mark Owen's Triptych, from August 9-11, 2012 at the Ailey Citigroup Theater, 405 West 55th Street, NYC (at Ninth Avenue). Performances: Thursday at 7:30pm, Friday at 7:30pm, Saturday at 2pm. Tickets are $26 ($16 for students and seniors) and are available at www.smarttix.com or by phone at 212-868-4444.