Mary Jo McConnell News

Actors' Equity Association and the Actors' Equity Foundation have announced jointly that they will bestow the Paul Robeson Award for 2025 on Leslie Ishii.

TheatreWorks Silicon Valley has set the casting for its 20th Anniversary New Works Festival, a unique program that offers an extraordinary opportunity for audiences to experience new plays and musicals in their early stages of development.

Tony nominee Montego Glover (Memphis, Les Miz, Hamilton) and Broadway's Quentin Earl Darrington (Ragtime, Once On This Island, MJ the Musical) open the World Premiere live outdoor staged performance and simulcast of Beyond the Veil, an original ghost thriller by Steve Wargo.

Resounding, the immersive-audio entertainment company, announced today casting for the world premiere live outdoor performance and simulcast of Beyond the Veil, an original ghost thriller by Steve Wargo, as part of the month-long residency at the theatrical drive-in experience Radial Park at Halletts Point Play.

Poetic Theater Productions will present Veteran Voices: Conscious Community as Ritual, a national showcase of original work by military veterans and family members of veterans.

Poetic Theater Productions' Veteran Voices programming returns with Veteran Voices: Transformation, a national showcase of original work by military veterans and the family members of veterans from fourteen cities, nine states and the District of Columbia, and two countries.

Finish your holiday shopping early this year. The North Shore Civic Ballet (NSCB), a nonprofit dance company based in Marblehead, Massachusetts, kicks off its annual holiday online auction on Friday, November 15. The NSCB's auction website page, www.biddingforgood.com/ballet, opens for bids on Friday, November 15 at 6:00 p.m. and continues through Friday, December 6 closing at 6:00 p.m. The auction's proceeds provide dancers with the resources and training they need to study ballet in the North Shore region.

Disney's Freaky Friday just opened at North Shore Music Theatre. Based on the 1972 novel by Mary Rodgers. It was then made into a movie by Disney in 1976 staring Jody Foster and Barbara Harris, with a less memorable movie remake in 2018. It is now a newly created, fun family musical with all the bells and whistles.

Bill Hanney's award-winning North Shore Music Theatre (NSMT) continues the 2019 Musical Season with Disney's FREAKY FRIDAY, a brand-new motherdaughter body swap musical playing for two-weeks only from Tuesday, July 9 thru Sunday, July 21, 2019. Disney's FREAKY FRIDAY is sponsored by Big Jim's Auto Body.

Disney Theatrical Productions just celebrated its first stage-to-television collaboration with the Disney Channel in adapting its original stage musical Freaky Friday for a worldwide televised premiere on the Disney Channel on Friday, August 10th.

I never saw Sister Act, the Musical when it was on Broadway, but now this is my second Westchester go round with this musical. It certainly makes sense for Westchester Broadway Theatre especially to mount it since it gives a unified group of nuns the chance to belt and let their habits down to a 60's themed score.

SISTER ACT, based on the Touchstone Motion Picture, tells the hilarious story of Deloris Van Cartier, a disco diva, whose life takes a surprising turn when she witnesses a murder. Under protective custody she is hidden in the one place she won't be found - a Convent! Disguised as a nun and under the suspicious watch of the Mother Superior, Deloris helps her fellow sisters find their voices as she unexpectedly rediscovers her own. A sparkling tribute to the universal power of friendship, sisterhood and music.

SISTER ACT, based on the Touchstone Motion Picture, tells the hilarious story of Deloris Van Cartier, a disco diva, whose life takes a surprising turn when she witnesses a murder. Under protective custody she is hidden in the one place she won't be found - a Convent! Disguised as a nun and under the suspicious watch of the Mother Superior, Deloris helps her fellow sisters find their voices as she unexpectedly rediscovers her own. A sparkling tribute to the universal power of friendship, sisterhood and music.

SISTER ACT, based on the Touchstone Motion Picture, tells the hilarious story of Deloris Van Cartier, a disco diva, whose life takes a surprising turn when she witnesses a murder. Under protective custody she is hidden in the one place she won't be found - a Convent! Disguised as a nun and under the suspicious watch of the Mother Superior, Deloris helps her fellow sisters find their voices as she unexpectedly rediscovers her own. A sparkling tribute to the universal power of friendship, sisterhood and music.

Far From Canterbury, a new musical by Danny K. Bernstein, is having a staged reading on March 9th. The reading will be directed by Charlie Johnson.

Freaky Friday has made its way to Houston! See stars Heidi Blickenstaff and Emma Hunton talk about the show with Houston Life Reporter, Stephanie Gonzalez in the video below!

The Alley Theatre announces the cast and creative team of its 2016-2017 season finale production - Disney's new musical Freaky Friday.

Cleveland Play House will close out their 2016-17 season with the joyful new musical romp, Freaky Friday. Based on the celebrated novel by Mary Rodgers which spawned two hit Disney films, Freaky Friday tells the story of a mother and daughter who magically swap bodies for 24 chaotic hours. The contemporary update of this American classic includes a hilarious new book by Bridget Carpenter ("Parenthood," "Friday Night Lights"), and a pop?rock score by Tony Award® and Pulitzer Prize winners Tom Kitt and Brian Yorkey (Next to Normal, If/Then). Directed by Christopher Ashley, Artistic Director of La Jolla Playhouse, it has been hailed as "a polished, peppy, modern fairy tale" by The Washington Post. With high-energy choreography by Sergio Trujillo (Memphis, Jersey Boys), this vivacious production is "delightfully spunky" with "timeless appeal" (Variety).

Due to overwhelming demand, La Jolla Playhouse is adding a seventh week of performances for Disney's Freaky Friday.  The show will extend its run through March 19. 

Mary Jo McConnell makes her NYC cabaret debut while celebrating a very special birthday in Captain MJ's Fantastic Journey: A Memoir With Song.