Monique News

Good morning, BroadwayWorld! Because we know all our readers eat, sleep and breathe Broadway, what could be better than waking up to it? Today's big news: MOTOWN hits 500 shows, 'MUSCLES', THE LION and ATOMIC begin off-Broadway, GHOSTS screens in the UK and 'A GENTLEMAN'S GUIDE' appears on THE TONIGHT SHOW again this evening!

San Francisco Playhouse (Artistic Director Bill English & Producing Director Susi Damilano) concludes its provocative eleventh season with Into the Woods by Stephen Sondheim (music and lyrics) and James Lapine (book). The production runs today, June 24th to September 6th, 2014, with an official opening set for June 28.

NBC's The Voice breakout star Monique Abbadie was crowned last night "Miss ChocoVine," becoming the rising brand's first ambassador.

Gateway Playhouse presents Smokey Joe's Cafe, directed by Tony Award nominee Chet Walker & featuring legendary rock 'n roll group The Coasters! In a few weeks, the production will be heading out on tour. Check below for pictures from the production!

The 32nd Annual Fred & Adele Astaire Awards were held on Monday, June 2 at 7:30pm at NYU's Skirball Center for the Performing Arts. The winners for the evening were Dormeshia Sumbry Edwards (After Midnight) & Karine Plantadit (AfterMidnight) a tie for Outstanding Female Dancer in a Broadway Show; Jared Grimes (After Midnight) for Outstanding Male Dancer in a Broadway Show; and Warren Carlyle (After Midnight) for Outstanding Choreographer for a Broadway Show. BroadwayWorld brings you photos from the star-studded arrivals below!

The Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) paid tribute to the winners and honorees of the 2014 CFDA Fashion Awards in collaboration with Swarovski at Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center.

The Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) paid tribute to the winners and honorees of the 2014 CFDA Fashion Awards in collaboration with Swarovski at Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center. Film director and screenwriter John Waters was the host for the evening. For the thirteenth year in a row, the evening was generously underwritten by Swarovski.

The 32nd Annual Fred & Adele Astaire Awards were held on Monday, June 2 at 7:30pm at NYU's Skirball Center for the Performing Arts.

The theme this season at the Stratford Festival is Madness: Minds Pushed to the Edge and when it comes to choosing a musical to fit this theme, there is quite possibly no better choice than MAN OF LA MANCHA.

If you like musicals with amazing dancing, powerful singing and farcical comedy - and who doesn't? - get your tickets now for Crazy for You, on Stratford's Festival stage, as this show will sell out this summer. Crazy for You is an interesting invention. George and Ira Gershwin's old songs from the 1930s were gathered together, and while people love the tunes and lyrics, the stories that go with them are dated. So in 1992, playwright Ken Ludwig wrote a script incorporating the Gershwin favourites.

Top Hat, winner of three Olivier Awards, for 'Best New Musical', 'Best Choreography' and 'Best Costume Design' from a total of seven nominations and winner of the Evening Standard Award for 'Best Night Out', is setting off on an epic 47-week UK tour, visiting 24 theatres nationwide. Opening at New Wimbledon Theatre on Tuesday 12 August 2014 the production will tour until Saturday 25 July 2015.

San Francisco Playhouse (Artistic Director Bill English & Producing Director Susi Damilano) concludes its provocative eleventh season with Into the Woods by Stephen Sondheim (music and lyrics) and James Lapine (book). The production runs June 24th to September 6th, 2014, with an official opening set for June 28.

The first set of presenters have been announced for the 32nd Annual Fred & Adele Astaire Awards which will be held on Monday, June 2 at 7:30pm at NYU's Skirball Center for the Performing Arts. Set to present are Tony Award-winners Hal Prince & Bebe Neuwirth, Emmy Award-winner Valerie Harper, Scandal's Joe Morton, Dancing with the Stars' Maksim Chmerkovskiy and Sandy Duncan. Select tickets are available to the public priced at $425, $200 & $75; tickets can currently be purchased online at www.TheAstaireAwards.org.

The passion, complexity and pure joy of singing SONDHEIM knows no bounds for a performer, but for the 12 finalists of this year's The Stephen Sondheim Society Student Performer Of The Year Competition 2014 (SSSSPOTY), all will be revealed as they sing their hearts out competing for the title on SUNDAY 18 MAY at 3pm at the West End's GARRICK THEATRE. As if that weren't enough for them to sing in one afternoon, at SONDHEIM's request, the 12 finalists will also be singing the 12 new musical songs that are competing for The Stiles & Drewe Best New Song Prize.

Misha Defonseca, the author of 'Misha: A Mémoire of the Holocaust Years' a fake memoir about how she was raised by wolves during the second world war, has been ordered to pay back $22.5 million (£13.3m) to her publisher.

The nominees have been announced for the 32nd Annual Fred & Adele Astaire Awards, which will be held on Monday, June 2 at 7:30pm at NYU's Skirball Center for the Performing Arts.

New Georges (Susan Bernfield, Producing Artistic Director; Sarah Cameron Sunde, Deputy Artistic Director; Jaynie Saunders Tiller, Managing Director) will present workshop presentations of new plays by Jam artists Dipika Guha (The Architecture of Becoming with Women's Project), Mary Elizabeth Hamilton (current member of EST's Youngblood), and Anna Moench (The Pillow Book at 59E59; Gormanzee at The Flea) as part of The New Georges Jam On Toast, a brand-new play festival featuring work by The New Georges Jam, a 'performance gym' for early-career female playwrights and directors founded in 2010 by Lucy Alibar, Jess Chayes, and Portia Krieger. The works in progress will be directed by Sarah Krohn (Victor Frange Presents Gas at Incubator Arts Project; 2013 Boris Sagal Fellow at Williamstown Theatre Festival), Pirronne Yousefzadeh (QVC with Partial Comfort; The Tenant with Woodshed Collective), and Adrienne Campbell-Holt (Colt Coeur's Fish Eye at HERE; Missed Connections with Ars Nova). The festival will also feature cabaret-style pieces and special presentations by Sofia Alvarez (Between Us Chickens at South Coast Rep), Eliza Bent (Blue Wizard/Black Wizard at Incubator Arts Project; The Hotel Colors at The Bushwick Starr), Mary Birnbaum (Artistic Director of art.party.theater.company), Katie Brook (She Is King at Dixon Place; American Realism at The Invisible Dog), Meghan Finn (Take Me Home with Incubator Arts Project/3LD; Erin Courtney's The Service Road; Mac Wellman's AFAR at Dixon Place), Morgan Gould (co-creator of Young Jean Lee's Untitled Feminist Show),Caroline V. McGraw (2013 Page 73 Playwriting Fellow), and Mia Rovegno (The Civilians' Pretty Filthy II at Joe's Pub; We Play for the Gods with Women's Project).

Willy Russell's iconic musical BLOOD BROTHERS, which has been adapted and directed by David Kramer and has wowed South Africa since it first opened in Cape Town last year, will celebrate its 150th performance on Thursday 1 May 2014. To celebrate this momentous milestone in the show's journey, the Fugard Theatre, where the production is running until Sunday 25 May 2014, is offering the first 30 people who call in to book with the reference "Blood Brothers 150", tickets for R100 each (limited to 4 per person) as well as a glass of bubbly on arrival.

Sharr White's comedy/drama about an estranged couple's reunion offers little that's new.

The 15th anniversary of the Midtown International Theatre Festival continues. Spend this weekend with John Chatterton and his venerable midtown festival series. Saturday & Sunday at Roy Arias Theatres will be the premiere of 20 new short plays as part of the on-going celebrated Short Play Lab series this weekend, April 26 and 27.