Happy Tonys season BroadwayWorld! Is your CD collection and iPod Tonys ready? The big show-the 71th annual Tony Awards-is just over 24 hours away! Naturally, New York City and theatre fans across the world are excitedly buzzing about this year's ceremonies, which will be broadcast live from Radio City Music Hall on Sunday, June 11, 2017 at 8/7c on CBS. As always, this Broadway season has some exciting contenders in the musical categories, and to get you ready for the big night, I'm recapping the albums you should be listening to (or at least pre-ordering).
Florida Grand Opera (FGO) is pleased to welcome the singers who will make up the company's 2017-18 Young Artist Program. Twelve performers in all, chosen from the nearly 550 who applied, will arrive in early October to become an integral part of the seventy-seventh season of Florida Grand Opera, the state's longest continuously running performing arts institution.
What a show! Opera Theatre of St. Louis has opened The Grapes of Wrath, a work by Ricky Ian Gordon and Michael Korie. I have never in my life been more emotionally moved by an opera than by this glorious production.
It's not often that listening to a cast album makes one think of Richard Strauss, but such is the genius of Scott Frankel and Michael Korie. The composer-lyricist team best known for the brilliant GREY GARDENS is back with WAR PAINT, the story of rival beauty moguls Helena Rubinstein and Elizabeth Arden. Here both story and emotion are thinner, but the music is gorgeous--Straussian in its elegiac beauty and bell-like notes--and worthy of its two stars, Patti LuPone and Christine Ebersole, two of the most unique and exciting voices in musical theater. Like a golden-age Hollywood director 'managing' the two stars of a women's picture, the score has to find ways to manage its two leads, giving each an equal role. Ebersole gets an old-fashioned entrance--her Red Door spa staff sings breathlessly, 'She's coming, she's coming...,' bursting into a triumphant 'She's here!' LuPone's entrance is less heralded but equally dramatic (and separate), as she steps off a ship in New York. From then on, many of the songs are duets, in which one star sings half of a song about her own experience, and the second sings the other half, with lyrics expressing her different but parallel experience. Occasionally they sing in unison. What sounds tedious as a show (a narrative in which two separate characters have similar, not highly dramatic arcs and don't meet until the very end) enchants on the album. Without the strain of the storytelling, we can simply enjoy the gorgeous songs and their peerless purveyors.
Ghostlight Records has released the Original Broadway Cast Recording of the new musical War Paint - starring two-time Tony Award winners Patti LuPone and Christine Ebersole - in digital and streaming formats today, Friday, May 26. Watch a special new 'War Paint Medley' music video featuring three of the show's most acclaimed songs - 'Forever Beautiful,' 'Pink' and 'Face to Face' - below! The video includes exclusive footage from both the recording studio and the stage production, in addition to historical photography.
Ghostlight Records will release the Original Broadway Cast Recording of the new musical WAR PAINT – starring two-time Tony Award winners Patti LuPone and Christine Ebersole – in digital formats on Friday, May 26. The CD version will be available online and in stores in mid-July. The musical, currently running at the Nederlander Theatre (208 West 41st Street), played a sold-out run in Chicago last summer where it became the most successful show in Goodman Theatre's history. WAR PAINT is nominated for four 2017 Tony Awards, including “Best Actress in a Musical” for both of the leading ladies. Starting today, May 19, customers that pre-order the album via Apple Music will immediately receive the second single “If I'd Been A Man” – the stirring duet between LuPone and Ebersole – in addition to the previously available single “Back on Top.”
Ghostlight Records will release the Original Broadway Cast Recording of the new musical War Paint - starring two-time Tony Award winners Patti LuPone and Christine Ebersole - in digital formats on Friday, May 26. The CD version will be available online and in stores in mid-July. Watch a teaser for the album's single 'Back on Top' below, and for more information on the album, visit www.sh-k-boom.com/war-paint!
Just last night, acclaimed Off-Broadway theater company Playwrights Horizons held its annual Spring Gala Benefit. This year called A CELEBRATION OF SONG, it honored three of the company's exceptional alumni writers: Tony Award nominee Scott Frankel (Grey Gardens, Far From Heaven), Tony Award nominee Michael Korie (Grey Gardens, Far From Heaven) and Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award winner Doug Wright (I Am My Own Wife, Grey Gardens).
BroadwayWorld was on hand for the big night and you can check out photos below!
Playwrights Horizons begins accepting entries today, Monday, May 8 at 12 Noon, for the LIVEforFIVE online lottery for $5 tickets to their world premiere production of BELLA: AN AMERICAN TALL TALE, a new musical with book, music and lyrics by Obie Award winner Kirsten Childs (The Bubbly Black Girl Sheds Her Chameleon Skin at Playwrights, Miracle Brothers).
Acclaimed Off-Broadway theater company Playwrights Horizons will hold its annual Spring Gala on Monday evening, May 8, at the event space 583 Park Avenue. Titled A CELEBRATION OF SONG, the evening will honor three of the company's exceptional alumni writers: Tony Award nominee Scott Frankel (Grey Gardens and Far From Heaven at Playwrights), Tony Award nominee Michael Korie (Grey Gardens and Far From Heaven at Playwrights) and Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award winner Doug Wright (I Am My Own Wife and Grey Gardens at Playwrights). The Grey Gardens writing team has returned to Broadway with their new musical, War Paint, now playing at The Nederlander Theatre.
Playwrights Horizons (Artistic Director, Tim Sanford; Managing Director, Leslie Marcus) has announced that the score for their World Premiere production of the musical IOWA has been preserved as an Original Cast Recording, produced by Michael Croiter (Matilda, The Visit, Big Fish) and Todd Almond. IOWA is written by Jenny Schwartz (God's Ear, Somewhere Fun) with music by Todd Almond (Girlfriend) and lyrics by Ms. Schwartz and Mr. Almond.
The National Alliance for Musical Theatre (NAMT) announces 16 awards granted from their National Fund for New Musicals, a major funding program to support NAMT member not-for-profit theatres in their collaborations with writers to create, develop and produce new musicals.
Earlier this morning, Laura Benanti (She Loves Me, Gypsy) and Javier Muñoz (Hamilton, In the Heights) announced the nominations for the 62nd Annual Drama Desk Awards.
Starring two-time Tony Award winners Patti LuPone and Christine Ebersole, War Paint tells the remarkable story of cosmetics titans Helena Rubinstein (LuPone) and Elizabeth Arden (Ebersole), who defined beauty standards for the first half of the 20th Century. Brilliant innovators with humble roots, both women were masters of self-invention who sacrificed everything to become the country's first major female entrepreneurs. They were also fierce competitors, whose 50-year tug-of-war would give birth to an industry that would forever change the face of America. From Fifth Avenue society to the halls of Congress, their intense rivalry was ruthless, relentless and legendary-pushing both women to build international empires in a world dominated by men.
In Broadway by Design, BroadwayWorld is shining a spotlight on the stellar designs of this Broadway season, show by show. Today, we continue the series with David Korins, Kenneth Posner & Catherine Zuber, who acted as scenic, lighting and costume designers for Broadway's beautified hit, War Paint.
This week THEATER TALK welcomes Broadway grande dames Patti LuPone and Christine Ebersole, currently starring in WAR PAINT, the new Broadway musical in which they portray legendary Twentieth Century cosmetic pioneers Madame Helena Rubinstein and Miss Elizabeth Arden.
The Drama League has announced the 2017 Drama League Awards Nominees for Outstanding Play, Outstanding Revival of a Play, Outstanding Musical, Outstanding Revival of a Musical, and the much-coveted Distinguished Performance Award. Scroll down for the full list of nominees!
As BroadwayWorld previously reported, Ghostlight Records will soon release the original cast album of the new musical, War Paint, starring two-time Tony Award winners Patti LuPone and Christine Ebersole. Set to be released in June, pre-orders are now being taken at the theater. To sign up for updates, visit www.sh-k-boom.com/war-paint.
