John Shivers News

Voting is now underway for the Nashville Awards and continues until December 31, 2012. Winners will be announced in early January. Check out the live standings below.

SISTER ACT, the family friendly, over the top spectacle with nuns that rock, opens at the Marcus Center for the Performing Arts on February 19-24, 2013 for a limited engagement.

The new musical Kinky Boots, from four-time Tony Award-winner Harvey Fierstein (book) and Grammy Award-winning rock icon Cyndi Lauper (Music & Lyrics), will begin preview performances on Broadway at the Al Hirschfeld Theatre (302 West 45th Street) on Tuesday, March 5, 2013, with an official opening night set for Thursday, April 4, 2013. In anticipation of the musical's big debut, a new Kinky Boots billboard just went up in Times Square. Click below to watch a time-lapse video of the installation!

Voting is now underway for the Nashville Awards and continues until December 31, 2012. Winners will be announced in early January. Check out the live standings below!

ARTINFO's Patrick Pacheco and NY1 theater reporter Frank DiLella sat down with architect and producer David Rockwell to talk about his most recent set designs for the Broadway musicals Kinky Boots and the upcoming Houdini. Watch the interview below! Rockwell has also designed sets for Broadway's Dead Accounts, Elf, The Normal Heart, Catch Me If You Can, A Free Man Of Color, Legally Blonde, Hairspray, All Shook Up, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels and The Rocky Horror Show.

Voting is now underway for the Nashville Awards and continues until December 31, 2012. Winners will be announced in early January. Check out the live standings below!

Full casting has been announced and rehearsals have begun for the upcoming national tour of FLASHDANCE - THE MUSICAL, the stage adaptation of the 1983 hit film that defined a generation. Joining the previously announced Broadway stars Emily Padgett as Alex, Matthew Hydzik as Nick and Rachelle Rak as Tess are Kelly Felthous as Gloria, DeQuina Moore as Kiki, Jo Ann Cunningham as Hannah, David R. Gordon as Jimmy, Matthew Henerson as Harry and Christian Whelan in the role of C.C.

Direct from Broadway, SISTER ACT, the hilarious, five-time Tony®-nominated smash hit musical, is coming to Boston for a limited two week engagement. Performances at the Boston Opera House January 22 - February 3, 2013. SISTER ACT is produced by Whoopi Goldberg, Stage Entertainment and Troika Entertainment and is part of the Lexus Broadway In Boston Series.

Broadway stars Emily Padgett and Matthew Hydzik will star as "Alex" and "Nick" in the world premiere of FLASHDANCE - THE MUSICAL, the stage adaptation of the 1983 hit film that defined a generation. Padgett and Hydzik will be joined on stage by the legendary Rachelle Rak in the role of "Tess." Sergio Trujillo, director and choreographer for the production returned to the home of FLASHDANCE and launch of the world premiere, Pittsburgh's Heinz Hall, to announce the lead casting from a press conference. Mayor Luke Ravenstahl and Kevin McMahon, CEO of Pittsburgh Cultural Trust, were also on hand to welcome the cast and creative team to Pittsburgh and to make a proclamation, naming January 1, 2013 as FLASHDANCE DAY. Celebrating its 30th Anniversary,FLASHDANCE kicks off a national tour January 1-6 at Heinz Hall and continues on to more than 20 cities with additional bookings to be announced:

The new musical Kinky Boots, from four-time Tony Award-winner Harvey Fierstein (book) and Grammy Award-winning rock icon Cyndi Lauper (Music & Lyrics), ends its pre-Broadway run at Chicago's Bank of America Theatre today, November 4, 2012. Kinky Boots will begin preview performances on Broadway at the Al Hirschfeld Theatre (302 West 45th Street) on Tuesday, March 5, 2013, with an official opening night set for Thursday, April 4, 2013.

"Sex is in the Heel," a new single remix by Grammy® Award-winning rock icon Cyndi Lauper, composer of the new Broadway-bound musical Kinky Boots, has hit the Top Ten (#6) position on the Billboard Dance/Club Play Top 200 chart this week. The energetic love letter to fancy footwear, which shares the Top Ten this week with Madonna, Usher and the Scissor Sisters, is the first single from a Broadway show to top the dance charts in more than 25 years.

Kinky Boots, the highly anticipated new musical that brings together four-time Tony® Award-winner Harvey Fierstein (Book) and Grammy® Award-winning rock icon Cyndi Lauper (Music & Lyrics), will begin preview performances on Broadway at the Al Hirschfeld Theatre (302 West 45th Street) on Tuesday, March 5, 2013, with an official opening night set for Thursday, April 4, 2013. The cast and creative team just gathered for their first rehearsal, and you can check out photos from the big event below!

Producers Daryl Roth and Hal Luftig announced today that Kinky Boots, the highly anticipated new musical that brings together four-time Tony® Award-winner Harvey Fierstein (Book) and Grammy® Award-winning rock icon Cyndi Lauper (Music & Lyrics), will begin preview performances on Broadway at the Al Hirschfeld Theatre (302 West 45th Street) on Tuesday, March 5, 2013, with an official opening night set for Thursday, April 4, 2013. Group tickets for Kinky Boots, directed and choreographed by Tony® Award-winner Jerry Mitchell, will go on sale Tuesday, August 21 to groups of 10 or more.

Throughout the day, company members had taken to social media to express their shock and grief at the news of Hamlisch's death. Hamlisch, one of the most honored music composers in history, had been scheduled to fly to Nashville this week to see the show for the first time. He was last in Nashville at the start of the company's rehearsals in Music City.

Fairly exploding onto the stage, The Nutty Professor-the new musical based on the classic 1963 film comedy-opened at Nashville's James K. Polk Theatre last night in a vibrantly told and visually stunning production helmed by Jerry Lewis, the man who co-wrote the movie and, at this moment, is probably booking a ticket to Broadway . The story of nerdy Professor Julius Kelp and his transformation into the suave and sophisticated (if boorish) Buddy Love offers plenty of laughs to be certain, but perhaps surprisingly, there's a whole lot of heart to be found in Rupert Holmes' book, set tunefully to a classic Marvin Hamlisch score.

Michael Riedel reports in today's The New York Post that 'It appears that Jujamcyn's got "Kinky Boots" and will put it in the Al Hirschfeld Theatre next spring following an out-of-town tryout in Chicago in the fall. Jujamcyn's co-producer will be Hal Luftig, who's on a roll with the hit revival of Evita.'

Producers Daryl Roth and Hal Luftig have announced the full cast and creative team for the World Premiere of Kinky Boots, the new musical that brings together four-time Tony® Award-winner Harvey Fierstein (Book) and Grammy® Award-winning rock icon Cyndi Lauper (Music & Lyrics). Directed and choreographed by Tony® Award-winner Jerry Mitchell, Kinky Boots will play the Bank of America Theatre (18 West Monroe Street, Chicago, IL) beginning October 2 through November 4, 2012, in advance of a Broadway opening.

LEAP OF FAITH might have taken its final bow back in May, but sources in the cast tell us that an album is in the works. The cast will gather tomorrow, June 13 to record the original cast album. A release date has not yet been announced.

Alan Menken has taken to his twitter just now to announce that LEAP OF FAITH will be recording a Broadway cast album sometime soon. No details regarding a label, recording or anticipated release date have been confirmed at present.

LEAP OF FAITH plays its final performance today, May 13, at Broadway's St. James Theatre (246 West 44th Street) after the matinee performance. Broadway's LEAP OF FAITH opened on Thursday April 26 and will have played 24 previews and 20 regular performances. Take a look back through video from the show's opening in Los Angeles to its first steps on Broadway, and everything in between, including fan's reactions and an opening-night interview with Raul Esparza!