Joan Marcus News

Opening the 2018 Off-Center season (running through June 30), is Songs for a New World- the first musical from three-time Tony Award-winner Jason Robert Brown. This powerful collection of songs examines life, love, and the choices ordinary people make when faced with extraordinary moments. From the deck of a 1492 Spanish sailing ship to the ledge of a Fifth Avenue high-rise, each character faces a new world which follows the unique challenge they encounter.

Superstars come and go. Cher is forever. For six straight decades, only one unstoppable force has flat-out dominated popular culture - breaking down barriers, pushing boundaries, and letting nothing and no one stand in her way. The Cher Show takes its opening night bows in Chicago tonight, June 28. Check out a first look at the Broadway-bound cast in action below!

Opening the 2018 Off-Center season (running through June 30), is Songs for a New World- the first musical from three-time Tony Award-winner Jason Robert Brown. This powerful collection of songs examines life, love, and the choices ordinary people make when faced with extraordinary moments. From the deck of a 1492 Spanish sailing ship to the ledge of a Fifth Avenue high-rise, each character faces a new world which follows the unique challenge they encounter.

ArtsEmerson presents the New England premiere of BORN FOR THIS - A NEW MUSICAL, based on the life story of Bebe Winans and his sister Cece Winans, offspring of a spiritual, musical Detroit family, who made a huge splash as teenagers on the Praise the Lord network of Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker in the 1980s. With a book by Charles Randolph-Wright, Bebe Winans, and Lisa D'Amour, and original music and lyrics by Winans, the majority of which were written for the show, BORN FOR THIS offers a longitudinal view of the Winans journey from music biz hopeful, to fledgling performer, to breakout R&B star, and award-winning (six Grammys) artist. Under the slick direction of Randolph-Wright and music director Steven Jamail, the cast is extraordinary from top to bottom, with Donald Webber Jr. and Loren Lott giving star turns as Bebe and Cece.

On June 16, 2018, Joshua Harmon spoke about Skintight with education dramaturg Ted Sod as part of Roundabout Theatre Company's lecture series.

"The existence of queer people of color, particularly of African descent, has repeatedly been washed over, or forgotten altogether," writes Donja R. Love, whose SUGAR IN OUR WOUNDS is receiving a handsome and well-acted production from Manhattan Theatre Club, via director Sahaam Ali.

After nearly 15 years, WICKED is still defying gravity. The North American tour of Stephen Schwartz' blockbuster musical WICKED will be whisking Toronto audiences to Oz this summer at Mirvish's Ed Mirvish Theatre. Lucky for us Torontonians, this touring cast is more than capable at navigating the thrilling, challenging, and...popular score.

The Stage 42 box office (422 West 42nd Street) is now open for the new production of Smokey Joe's Cafe: The Songs of Leiber & Stoller, which begins preview performances on Friday, July 6 and officially opens on Sunday, July 22. Box office is open Monday - Sunday from Noon - 6pm. If there is an evening performance, the box office will remain open until curtain.

ArtsEmerson has announced that Born for This - A New Musical will take the stage this summer for a limited engagement, June 15 - July 15 at the Emerson Cutler Majestic Theatre, 219 Tremont St, Downtown Boston. With original music and lyrics by six-time GRAMMY® Award-winning icon BeBe Winans book by Charles Randolph-Wright, BeBe Winans, and Lisa D'Amour, and direction by Charles-Randolph Wright (Motown the Musical), Born For This celebrates the incredible true story of BeBe Winans - a young man who follows his heart and finds his destiny.

Humans fear monsters, and monsters we are told are even more scared of humans. Monsters are not real but horror really does lie in the human experience. Ask the Blakes. Losing one's job, facing illness, the worst being dementia, is a part of their lives and many others in the decaying/disappearing American middle class. In Stephen Karam's riveting play, The Humans, the Blake family gather for Thanksgiving in daughter Brigid's latest dwelling, a Chinatown New York apartment, that she shares with boyfriend Richard, some year since the devastation of September 2001 The parents and grandmother have made the long trek from Scranton, Pennsylvania; they love their children that much and of course like to meddle in their lives. Currently onstage at the Ahmanson, the Tony winning play with the original Broadway cast and directed by Joe Mantello, engages our thought processes, and is simultaneously relatable and entertaining.

An inspired mash-up of posh and punk, Head Over Heels is an unpredictable, Elizabethan romp about a royal family that must prevent an oracle's prophecy of doom. In order to save their beloved kingdom, the family embarks on an extravagant journey wrought with mistaken identities, jealous lovers, sexual awakening, scandal and self-discovery, where everything (and everyone) is not quite what it seems. Get to know the cast below as they begin Broadway performances!

Peppermint is bringing a whole new flavor to Broadway as she takes the stage in Head Over Heels. For the first time in the Great White Way's history, an openly transgender actor is originating a principal role.

The Playwrights Horizons (Tim Sanford, Artistic Director; Leslie Marcus, Managing Director) world premiere production of LOG CABIN, a new play by Pulitzer Prize finalist Jordan Harrison (Marjorie Prime, Maple and Vine, Doris to Darlene at Playwrights; 'Orange Is the New Black') is currently in previews. Directed by Tony Award and Obie Award winner Pam MacKinnon (Clybourne Park, The Qualms at Playwrights; Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, The Parisian Woman), LOG CABIN is the sixth and final production of the theater company's current 2017/2018 Season.

Rinne Groff returns to The Public with a dynamic and poignantly funny new play directed by Marissa Wolf, Associate Artistic Director and New Works Director at Kansas City Repertory. Check out photos of the production below!

Due to popular demand, Manhattan Theatre Club announces one additional week of performances for the world premiere of Sugar in Our Wounds.

Earlier this week, star of stage and screen James Corden returned to the London for a Crosswalk the Musical showcasing some of Andrew Lloyd Webber's most memorable compositions, including 'Evita,' 'Phantom of the Opera,' 'Cats' and 'Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.' Watch the hilarious new edition, featuring Crosswalk veteran Josh Gad, as James' leading lady, here.

We cannot help but wonder: Do peacock feathers foretell of something far more sinister and portentous than what we've seen already in both Love Never Dies and The Phantom of the Opera await our heroine in the moments to follow? We won't spoil the outcome for you, of course, but suffice it to say that those pesky peacock feathers continue to work their devilment in the intriguing production now onstage at Nashville's Tennessee Performing Arts Center through Sunday, June 24.

Classic Stage Company's new production of the musical CARMEN JONES featuring Tony Award winner Anika Noni Rose, which began performances Saturday, June 9 at CSC (136 East 13th Street), will have its official opening is Wednesday, June 27. Directed by CSC's Tony Award-winning Artistic Director John Doyle and choreographed by Tony Award winner Bill T. Jones, CARMEN JONES features book and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II and music by Georges Bizet.

Cannes' Critic Week saw the premiere of this year's newest Carey Mulligan movie, Wildlife: a shattering, 1960s-set drama in which she co-stars alongside Jake Gyllenhaal?. In it, she plays a woman who cheats on her husband. 'It's the kind of warts-and-all role that are usually reserved for men,' Mulligan said, according to Variety. However, prior to the film's fall release, Mulligan is getting back onstage and starring in Girls & Boys, a one-woman show that recently opened at the Minetta Lane Theatre after a sold-out run in London.

From the very beginning, one of the most important tenants of Joseph Papp's vision of free Shakespeare in Central Park has been the insistence the company of actors audiences see on stage will always reflect the extraordinary and powerful cultural diversity of New York City.