Michael Burg News

Full star casting is announced (sound the trumpets!) for Spamalot's cracking four-week Christmas season at Theatre Royal Brighton beginning on December 15, 2011; Marcus Brigstocke triumphantly returns as Arthur, King of the Britons; Nancy, sorry, Jodie Prenger, reprises her role as the Lady of The Lake; and Todd Carty, is back again (there's no getting rid of him it seems) on coconuts as Patsy.

Song and Script is Toronto's oldest independent music store and they are celebrating their 50th incredible year in our city. Co-owners Dane Taylor and Bob Sagman invited BWW into the store for an afternoon to peruse the selection and quiz employees on all things Broadway! After an exciting afternoon of shopping, we are thrilled to profile this gem of a store to ensure our readers know that there is still somewhere in Toronto that exists solely to celebrate musical theatre.

Part of the Finborough Theatre's Celebrating British Music Theatre series Blue Shale Theatre in association with Neil McPherson for the Finborough Theatre by arrangement with Samuel French Limited presents PERCHANCE TO DREAM 'A Musical Romance' Devised, Written and Composed by Ivor Novello. Directed by Max Pappenheim. Musical Direction by Ross Leadbeater. Designed by Gregor Donnelly. Sound by Edward Lewis. Cast: Taube Brahms. Michael Burgen. Clare Louise Connolly. Laura Hanna. Amanda Hootman. Annabel Leventon. James Marchant. Rachael McCormick. Martin Milnes. Kelly Price. Claire Redcliffe. Robert Rees. James Russell. Gemma Sandzer. Katy Treharne. Details of the cast for PERCHANCE TO DREAM are below. Please also note the correct date for the press night of LULLABIES OF BROADMOOR which also plays during September. The press night is Venus At Broadmoor and The Demon Box - FRIDAY, 2 SEPTEMBER 2011 AT 3.00PM The Murder Club and Wilderness - FRIDAY, 2 SEPTEMBER 2011 AT 7.30PM and not Friday 1st September as previously stated. The Finborough Theatre's acclaimed 'Celebrating British Music Theatre' series continues with Ivor Novello's most romantic musical, Perchance to Dream, opening at the Finborough Theatre for a limited run of eight Sunday and Monday performances on Sunday, 4 September 2011 (Press Night: Monday, 5 September 2011 at 7.30pm). This rediscovery is the first professional London production in more than 25 years, and also commemorates the 60th anniversary of the death of composer Ivor Novello. Spanning the Regency, Victorian and post-war eras, and featuring a score filled with some of Novello's most ravishing songs including Love is My Reason, When I Curtsied to the King, A Woman's Heart and the classic We'll Gather Lilacs, Perchance to Dream is a classic Novello musical - an escapist 'musical romance' whose original 1945 run in the West End played for 1,022 performances. In 1818, Sir Graham Rodney, an impoverished womaniser, is the owner of Huntersmoon, a magnificent old country house, but seeks relief from his life of leisure by masquerading as the dread highwayman "Frenchy". Just at the moment when he finally finds love, the law runs him to ground with tragic results. A generation later, his estate has passed to the wrong side of the family and tragedy strikes a second time. More than a century must go by before the ghosts of Huntersmoon can finally be laid to rest... Welsh-born composer, author and actor Ivor Novello (1893-1951) was one of the most eminent British entertainers of the 20th century. As a composer, he trained in Cardiff, Gloucester (alongside eminent British composers - Ivor Gurney and Herbert Howells) and at Magdalen College School, Oxford. His musicals include Glamorous Night, Careless Rapture, Crest of the Wave, The Dancing Years, Gay's the Word and King's Rhapsody; his more than 250 songs include Keep the Home Fires Burning, I Can Give You the Starlight, Waltz of My Heart, And Her Mother Came Too, The Land of Might-Have-Been, Why Isn't It You and Primrose. His plays include Symphony in Two Flats, I Lived With You and The Truth Game. As an actor, he was one of Britain's first major film stars, appearing in over twenty films including The Call of the Blood and playing the title role in the original silent version of Alfred Hitchcock's The Lodger; while his long stage career included many of his own plays and musicals. Novello's musical legacy is commemorated in the Ivor Novello Awards, established in 1955 to honour excellence in British music writing. This production commemorates the 60th anniversary of his death. Director Max Pappenheim recently assisted on Beating Heart Cadaver and The Goodnight Bird at the Finborough Theatre. Directing includes The Charmed Life (King's Head Theatre), An Evening With Opera (Southwark Cathedral), Arcadia and Sweeney Todd (Rugby School), and, as Musical Director for Open Door Opera, The Enchanted Child (Edinburgh Festival and St John's, Smith Square). The cast includes Taube Brahms Kindertransport, The Way Of The World, Redemption Over Hammersmith Broadway, A Woman Of No Importance (LAMDA); Michael Burgen All Male Iolanthe (Union Theatre and Wilton's Music Hall), Alice in Wonderland (Erasmus International Theatre), Zaide (Sadler's Wells), The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (New Vic Theatre), Sweeney Todd (Union Theatre); Clare Louise Connolly Seven Brides For Seven Brothers (Theatre Royal Haymarket), Next Door's Baby (Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond), Six Characters In Search Of An Author (Headlong), The Crimson Petal And The White; Laura Hanna A Short History of the Royal Court (Royal Court Theatre), Into the Woods, Hedda Gabler, Romeo and Juliet (LAMDA); Amanda Hootman Epsom Downs, Her Naked Skin (Guildford School of Acting); Annabel Leventon The Comedy of Errors, Twelfth Night (Royal Shakespeare Company), Pillars Of The Community (National Theatre), Jeffrey Bernard Is Unwell (Old Vic and Apollo Theatre), New Tricks; James Marchant The Same...But Different (Pleasance Islington), The Straits (Paines Plough), Waking The Dead (BBC); Rachael McCormick Oliver! (Theatre Royal, Drury Lane); Martin Milnes Utopia Limited (Gilbert and Sullivan Opera Festival, Buxton), The Yeoman Of The Guard (Tower of London), Promises And Lies (Birmingham Rep), The Andrew Marr Show (BBC); Kelly Price Zack (Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester), The Misanthrope (Ambassadors Theatre), A Little Night Music (Menier Chocolate Factory and Garrick Theatre), Chicago (Cambridge Theatre), Guys and Dolls (Donmar Warehouse and Piccadilly Theatre), Desperately Seeking Susan (Novello Theatre), Waterloo Road, Doctors; Claire Redcliffe When We Are Married (Garrick Theatre), Great Expectations, Tom's Midnight Garden (Library Theatre, Manchester), Question Time (Arcola Theatre), EastEnders (BBC); Robert Rees Peter Pan (New Wimbledon Theatre), All the Fun of the Fair (Garrick Theatre), State Fair (Finborough Theatre and Trafalgar Studios), Shakespeare Sonnet Walk (Shakespeare's Globe); James Russell Namaskar, Quality Street, Miss Lily Gets Boned (Finborough Theatre), Lewis (ITV); Gemma Sandzer Les Miserables (Palace Theatre), HMS Pinafore (King's Head Theatre), Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone; Katy Treharne The Phantom Of The Opera (Her Majesty's Theatre). The Celebrating British Music Theatre series at the Finborough Theatre In 2006, the Finborough Theatre began the Celebrating British Music Theatre series with a sell-out production of Leslie Stuart's Florodora. Productions since then have included sell-our rediscoveries of Lionel Monckton's Our Miss Gibbs, Harold Fraser-Simson's operetta The Maid of the Mountains, A 'Gilbert and Sullivan' Double Bill featuring Gilbert's play Sweethearts and Sullivan's opera The Zoo, Dame Ethel Smyth's opera The Boatswain's Mate, Sandy Wilson's The Buccaneer, Oscar Asche's Chu Chin Chow, and Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley's The Roar of the Greasepaint - The Smell of the Crowd.

Multi-platinum superstar, four-time Grammy winner and multiple Teen Choice Award nominee Taylor Swift will receive the Ultimate Choice Award during TEEN CHOICE 2011 airing Sunday, Aug. 7 (8:00-10:00 PM ET live/PT tape-delayed) on FOX.

Multi-platinum superstar, four-time Grammy winner and multiple Teen Choice Award nominee Taylor Swift will receive the Ultimate Choice Award during TEEN CHOICE 2011 airing Sunday, Aug. 7 (8:00-10:00 PM ET live/PT tape-delayed) on FOX.

The next wave of nominees has been announced for TEEN CHOICE 2011, airing live Sunday, Aug. 7 (8:00-10:00 PM ET live/PT tape-delayed) on FOX.

Seven time Grammy Award winning recording artist, producer and nominee will.i.am will spin music's hottest tracks as the 'Choice' DJ at TEEN CHOICE 2011.

TEEN CHOICE 2011 will celebrate the hottest teen icons in film, television, music, sports and fashion in the choicest, star-studded two-hour event airing live Sunday, Aug. 7 (8:00-10:00 PM ET live/PT tape-delayed) on FOX. 'The Twilight Saga: Eclipse' leads the TEEN CHOICE 2011 nominees with 12 nominations, and GLEE has nine nominations. In addition, 'The Vampire Diaries' has seven nominations, while 'The Hangover Part II,' Taylor Swift and Selena Gomez each earned six nominations.

TEEN CHOICE 2011, the annual special that celebrates the year's hottest teen icons in film, television, music, sports, comedy, fashion and the web will air live Sunday, Aug. 7 (8:00-10:00 PM ET live/PT tape-delayed) on FOX.

Boston Playwrights' Theatre presents the 13th annual Boston Theater Marathon and the third year of The Warm-Up Laps.

Not only does the world love Betty White, but as Jamie Lee Curtis so poignantly pointed out at the 40th annual Actors and Others for Animals, Celebration of Caring, it seems every inhabitant of the world also wants Betty White to love them. Adding to a long list of organizations wanting, pleading and begging Ms. White to be their honoree, Actors and Others for Animals holds a very special place in Betty's heart. An organization she has been apart of since its first meetings, that helps those to whom her heart is fondest - Pets. A point Ms. Curtis illustrated by dawning puppy attire (furry floppy ears and paws), before bestowing the honoree with doggy kisses.

In January-February 2011, the Overtime Theater will stage the third and final installment of its original "Stage Noir" series: All Good Things, written by Scott McDowell and directed by Andrew Thornton.

In January-February 2011, the Overtime Theater will stage the third and final installment of its original "Stage Noir" series: All Good Things, written by Scott McDowell and directed by Andrew Thornton.

This December the Overtime Theater will stage its first holiday variety show. With a little heart and a lot of holiday bawdiness, "Christmastime at the Overtime" will be an Overtime original for those who like their holiday programming heaped with laughter.

On SATURDAY, DECEMBER 18, Tony award-winner LEN CARIOU stars in the ongoing series OUT OF CHARACTER: INTIMATE PORTRAITS OF THEATRICAL STARS at The George Weston Recital Hall, Toronto Centre for the Arts.

In January-February 2011, the Overtime Theater will stage the third and final installment of its original "Stage Noir" series: All Good Things, written by Scott McDowell and directed by Andrew Thornton.

This December the Overtime Theater will stage its first holiday variety show. With a little heart and a lot of holiday bawdiness, "Christmastime at the Overtime" will be an Overtime original for those who like their holiday programming heaped with laughter.