McDonald News

The Educational Theatre Foundation (ETF) will honor Warner Bros. Theatre Ventures with the ETF Entertainment Industry Award, at Thespians Go Hollywood, Monday, November 18 at 6:30 p.m. at the Avalon Hollywood. The annual benefit supports theatre education programs for schools in need by bringing together film, theatre, and television professionals with current high school students in a cabaret show that is entertaining, inspiring and not-to-be-missed.

Starting November 15th Elm Street Cultural Arts Village enters a world of pure imagination with opening night of Willy Wonka Jr., a sweet treat of a musical that is perfect for the entire family. Mysterious candy manufacturer Willy Wonka stages a contest by hiding golden tickets in five of his scrumptious candy bars. Whomever comes up with these tickets will win a free tour of the Wonka factory, as well as a lifetime supply of candy. Four of the five winning children are insufferable brats, but the fifth is a likeable young lad named Charlie Bucket. The children must learn to follow Wonka's rules in the factory — or suffer the consequences. 

Williamstown Theatre Festival (Mandy Greenfield, Artistic Director) announced that the 2020 WTF Gala in New York City honoring Bo & Katherine Peabody will be held at Tao Downtown in New York City on Monday, February 10, 2020, and feature special appearances by Tony Award winner Laura Benanti (My Fair Lady, She Loves Me, Gypsy), Joshua Boone (Network, WTF's Artney Jackson, Actually, and Where Storms are Born), Tony Award nominee Ashley Park (WTF's Grand Horizons, Mean Girls, The King and I), and Kyle MacLachlan (a?oeTwin Peaksa??, a?oePortlandiaa??, a?oeDesperate Housewivesa??), among many others to be announced at a later date.

Producer Mark Cortale has announced that Audra McDonald will return to his acclaimed Broadway @ NOCCA series with Sirius XM Radio star Seth Rudetsky as music director and host, on December 14 at 8:00 pm. Historic six-time Tony Award Winner Audra McDonald has thrilled audiences in starring roles on Broadway in The Gershwin's Porgy and Bess, Carousel and Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill, on television in The Good Wife and NBC's live telecast of The Sound of Music. She will be joined by special guest, husband and fellow-Broadway star Will Swenson. 

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has announced the finalists for the Queensland Premier's Drama Award (QPDA) 2020-21. Artists Anna Loren, Maddie Nixon and Steve Pirie have been selected from the record-breaking field of 221 entries. This marks the largest intake of new dramatic works in the Award's 17-year history, with entries received from every state and territory in Australia.

The annual Fall Festival of Shakespeare is back! Bringing hundreds of teenagers from ten area high schools to the Tina Packer Playhouse at Shakespeare & Company. 

Multiple Award winners Kim Grogg and Lennie Watts join forces to honor their HOMETOWN HEROES! Grogg, from Indiana, and Watts, from Missouri pay tribute to songwriters and artists that hail from their home states. Featuring artists from Cole Porter to Burt Bacharach and Hoagy Carmichael to Michael McDonald, Grogg and Watts explore their musical roots, with a nod to artists from New York, where they have resided for over 30 years. Steven Ray Watkins Musical Directs with Matt Scharfglass on bass.

Roald Dahl wrote books for the children of his time and it is a wonder that many of his creations have remained as popular and well-loved as they have decades after his death. Although James and the Giant Peach, Matilda, The Witches, and The Twits can all trace thematic influence back to Dahl's involvement in World War II, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory seems to be the most heavily-informed by an unquestioning devotion to western industrialization and hope for the germinating seeds of our present-day capitalism. The 1971 movie, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory is indicative of its time not only in its psychedelic colors and film effects but in its Vietnam-Conflict-era praise of Americanized consumerism. While Tim Burton's 2005 film adaptation reclaimed the title of the 1964 book and attempted to be a more faithful translation, its darkness and sterile settings have not garnered the cultural embrace of its predecessor, mainly because (I believe) of the public's common, shifting relationship with and disdain for industrialization and capitalism.

With music and lyrics by the British team of Gary Barlow and Eliot Kennedy, this most recent BOW from BIV demonstrates how wonderful “Play” is. Introduced by co-composer Kennedy, this arrangement by Grammy award-nominated and Tony Honoree Michael McElroy with Co- orchestration by Isaac Harlan has transformed the song into an entirely new listening experience. As videographer Nate Wind lets the viewer sneak in between BIV members playfully interacting with each other, the performance commences in a groovy “Heigh Ho Jam”. Celebrating 25 years as a choir in service to the Broadway community and beyond, BIV revels in the joy that comes from playing well with others, and looking at life through the eyes of a child. Now, simply press “play” and have fun!

A spectacle like no other awaits millions, as the 93rd Annual Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade®, the nation's most cherished holiday tradition, kicks off the holiday season. On Thursday, November 28 at 9 a.m., the time honored phrase Let's Have a ParadeTM will ring from the starting line as the march of fantasy takes to the streets of New York City. With more than 8,000 volunteers dressed as clowns, guiding the flight of larger-than-life character balloons, transporting spectators to new worlds on signature floats, bringing the beat in the nation's best marching bands and entertaining the crowds as part of dazzling performance groups, the annual march is jam-packed with entertainment. With more than 3.5 million spectators in New York City and more than 50 million television viewers nationwide, Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade is America's premiere holiday celebration.

City Winery Chicago has announced the acts performing throughout the month of November. All City Winery Chicago events are open to all ages and start at 8:00 p.m., unless noted.  Tickets can be purchased by calling 312-733-WINE (9463) or by visiting www.citywinery.com/chicago.

Award-winning production company Element Pictures (The Favourite, Room, The Lobster, Dublin Murders) have released first look imagery from the highly anticipated TV adaptation of Sally Rooney's international literary phenomenon, Normal People.

CLOCKTOWER PLAYERS Award-Winning MAIN STAGE Productions Presents Kwame Kwei-Armah and Shaina Taub's musical adaptation of Shakespeare's 12th Night. A free-spirited, thoroughly delightful gloss on the Bard's beloved comedy comes to Irvington!

BroadwayWorld has a first look at the new national touring company of CATS! The Jellicle Cats include Phillip Deceus as 'Alonzo,' McGee Maddox as 'Bill BaileyRum Tum Tugger,' Lexie Plath as 'Bombalurina,' Mariah Reives as 'Cassandra,' PJ DiGaetano as 'Coricopat,' Liz Schmitz as 'Demeter,' Keri Rene Fuller as 'Grizabella,' Kaitlyn Davidson as 'Jellylorum,' Emily Jeanne Phillips as 'Jennyanydots,' Tion Gaston as 'Mistoffelees,' Tony D'Alelio as 'Mungojerrie,' Dan Hoy as 'Munkustrap,' Timothy Gulan as 'PeterBustopher JonesAsparagus,' Tyler John Logan as 'PlatoMacavity,' Anthony Michael Zas as 'Pouncival,' Rose Iannaccone as 'Rumpelteazer,' Ahren Victory as 'Sillabub,' Ethan Saviet as 'Skimbleshanks,' Halli Toland as 'Tantomile,' Devin Neilson as 'Tumblebrutus,' Brandon Michael Nase as 'VictorOld Deuteronomy,' Caitlin Bond as 'Victoria,' along with Zachary S. Berger, Nicholas Burrage, Erin Chupinsky, Maria Failla, Justin W. Geiss, Charlotte O'Dowd, Adam Richardson, Tricia Tanguy, and Andy Zimmermann.

Edmund Bagnell, 1st Violinist & vocalist of the internationally acclaimed group Well-Strung, will star in the New York premiere of He Plays The Violin at Feinstein's/54 Below on Nov. 25 at 9:30 PM. The show is being developed by New Works Provincetown at The Art House this fall and includes a brand new song written for Mr. Bagnell by Scott Frankel (Grey Gardens & War Paint). Through stories and song, the evening celebrates all things music, from classical to standards and from pop to Broadway, and of course with a good dose of fiddle thrown in. This piece shows a different side of Edmund Bagnell in this personal and uplifting journey through music, and is written by and starring Edmund Bagnell, conceived by Mark Cortale, music directed by Matt Aument and directed by Michael Schiralli.

For the sixth­ holiday season, Big League Productions brings their critically acclaimed national tour of A Christmas Story, The Musical, to eight cities across the U.S., opening in Sacramento, CA on November 8, 2019, and running through November 17. The heart-warming TONY-nominated Broadway musical brings the classic holiday film vibrantly to life on stage by expanding the movie's iconic moments with breathtaking choreography and joyous songs. It's the first Broadway On Tour presentation in the newly-renovated Memorial Auditorium, 1515 J Street in Sacramento, home for Broadway On Tour while Community Center Theater is being renovated.

What will two Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning playwrights have to say to each other in a room full of critics about creating drama based on real-life characters and events?

Tony Award Honoree Michael McElroy and the BROADWAY INSPIRATIONAL VOICES announce their 2019 holiday concert, a?oeSeasons of Inspirationa??, December 16that the Peter Jay Sharp Theatre at Symphony Space, December 16th, 2019 at Peter Norton Symphony Space. Tickets go on sale 11/4.

San Francisco Opera presents Engelbert Humperdinck's Hansel and Gretel, November 15–December 7. Last seen on the War Memorial Opera House stage nearly two decades ago, the popular fairy-tale opera returns in an “enchanting” (The Times, UK) new co-production with London's Royal Opera by director and production designer Antony McDonald. Humperdinck's sweeping score will be conducted by Christopher Franklin and sung in English translation by a cast including mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke as Hansel, Heidi Stober as Gretel and Robert Brubaker as the Witch.

Lincoln Center's David Rubenstein Atrium is marking a decade as home to free, eclectic performances and public gathering space. To mark the milestone, Lincoln Center has commissioned interdisciplinary and highly imaginative Brooklyn-born visual artist Kambui Olujimi to create an original video work that will premiere November 19 at 8pm ET on Lincoln Center's Facebook and Instagram account, @LincolnCenter.