Nathan Young News

Voting is NOW OPEN and the first votes are in for the 2019 BroadwayWorld Seattle Awards, brought to you by TodayTix! The nominees are set, and now you can vote to make sure your favorite local theatres and performers are recognized!

Craig Lucas and Adam Guettel's soaring romantic and tragic musical a?oeLight in the Piazzaa?? is not often tackled a?? thank the theater Gods. I'm not saying it's bad by any stretch of the imagination, it's just that I'd hate to see every small company, without the resources to handle it well, take it on. Fortunately, they've built in a few traps that may dissuade. First off, it's not your typical, rollicking musical with songs you'll be singing after. Second, there's all that Italian that your cast needs to learn and deliver authentically. And finally, it's some tough music. It needs to be done by insanely talented professionals who can handle these beautiful melodies that fly up into the rafters (often in Italian) as well as the heartfelt story. Enter Showtunes Theatre as they begin their 20th season, who routinely gather together the cream of the crop of Seattle artists for just a few weekends, books in hand, and you'll find yourself gifted with the mind-blowingly gorgeous evening that is their current production of a?oeLight in the Piazzaa??.

For the opener of its 20th Anniversary Season, Showtunes is bringing this legendary work home to the theatre where it began. Join them as The Light in the Piazza returns to Seattle in one of the biggest concerts ever, featuring the full, Broadway orchestration.

With The 19th Annual Festival of New Musicals taking place this upcoming weekend, Village Theatre is excited to announce the casting for XY, an uplifting musical about identity and coming to terms with your past; Cold Turkey, a wild and funny satire; Modern, an inspiring tale about a group of Amish teenagers; Eastbound, an poignant story about Chinese brothers in search of a home they've never known; and Cowboy Bob, an adventurous rock musical about a bank-robbing woman. The Festival will take place in Issaquah August 9-11, 2019 and provides an essential platform for writers to develop new works. Past Festival shows include Tony and Pulitzer Prize-winning shows such as Next to Normal and Million Dollar Quartet, as well as Broadway and Off-Broadway hits: It Shoulda Been You, Desperate Measures, Lizzie, and many more.

Village Theatre has announced the lineup for The 19th Annual Festival of New Musicals, a series of five staged readings of musicals currently in development. The Festival will take place in Issaquah August 9-11, 2019. Village Theatre's Festival of New Musicals is the birthplace of Tony and Pulitzer Prize-winning shows such as Next to Normal and Million Dollar Quartet, as well as Broadway and Off-Broadway hits: It Shoulda Been You, Desperate Measures, Lizzie, and many more.

Dear Readers, it has been one crazy year with some amazing theater. You know it's true. We've had dead teens riding a roller coaster, demonic puppets, and an ageless guy with a picture of himself in his attic. And, of course, a hip-hop founding father sweeping through town. But let's not talk about the juggernaut when we have such amazing things right here that blew us all away. At least they blew me away. So, let's talk about what blew me away this past year and what I have chosen to give my BWW 2018 Seattle Critic's Choice Awards (Jay's Picks) to (not to mention all those honorable mentions since often I can't limit myself to just one).

It's the last week to vote for the 2018 BroadwayWorld Seattle Awards, brought to you by BroadwayHD! Readers are already setting records as they vote for their favorites. Regional productions, touring shows, and more are all included in the awards, honoring productions which opened between October 1, 2017 through September 30, 2018. Our local editors set the categories, our readers submitted their nominees, and now you get to vote for your favorites! Voting will continue through December 31st, 2018.

There's just two weeks left to vote for the 2018 BroadwayWorld Seattle Awards, brought to you by BroadwayHD! Readers are already setting records as they vote for their favorites. Regional productions, touring shows, and more are all included in the awards, honoring productions which opened between October 1, 2017 through September 30, 2018. Our local editors set the categories, our readers submitted their nominees, and now you get to vote for your favorites! Voting will continue through December 31st, 2018.

There's just two weeks left to vote for the 2018 BroadwayWorld Seattle Awards, brought to you by BroadwayHD! Readers are already setting records as they vote for their favorites. Regional productions, touring shows, and more are all included in the awards, honoring productions which opened between October 1, 2017 through September 30, 2018. Our local editors set the categories, our readers submitted their nominees, and now you get to vote for your favorites! Voting will continue through December 31st, 2018.

There's just one month left to vote for the 2018 BroadwayWorld Seattle Awards, brought to you by BroadwayHD! Readers are already setting records as they vote for their favorites. Regional productions, touring shows, and more are all included in the awards, honoring productions which opened between October 1, 2017 through September 30, 2018. Our local editors set the categories, our readers submitted their nominees, and now you get to vote for your favorites! Voting will continue through December 31st, 2018.

There's just one month left to vote for the 2018 BroadwayWorld Seattle Awards, brought to you by BroadwayHD! Nominations were reader-submitted and now our readers are already setting records as they vote for their favorites. Regional productions, touring shows, and more are all included in the awards, honoring productions which opened between October 1, 2017 through September 30, 2018. Our local editors set the categories, our readers submitted their nominees, and now you get to vote for your favorites! Voting will continue through December 31st, 2018.

BroadwayWorld presents a comprehensive weekly roundup of regional stories around our Broadway World, which include videos, editor spotlights, regional reviews and more. This week, we feature GYPSY, HUNCHBACK, FUN HOME, and More!

Showtunes is doing "Legally Blonde"? Don't they do obscure musicals that never get done? Yes, that's them, Dear Readers. Putting up for a few weekends, concert stagings with books in hand shows that usually don't see the spotlight. And now here they come with "Legally Blonde" that mega-hit. So why? Because they focus on rare voices and that could mean titles of shows or that could mean casting someone in a role for which they may never be considered. Enter an off-hand remark made at one of the 5th Avenue Theatre spotlight nights when Alexandria Henderson said she didn't have a dream role, just to be able to be cast without limitation and another actor on-stage shouted that she should be Elle in "Legally Blonde" and the crowd went wild. So, an African American Elle with the titular blonde locks. Why not? And that Dear Readers, is the last time we need focus on the fact that Ms. Henderson isn't your traditional Elle. For the rest of this article we'll only focus on the fact that she killed it!

The Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami (MOCA) will present the group exhibition "Monarchs: Brown and Native Contemporary Artists in the Path of the Butterfly" from May 24 - Aug. 5, 2018. Curated by Risa Puleo, the exhibition features the works of 37 artists who are native to the Americas separated into conceptual categories including indigenous, immigrant and assimilated.

Some 90 captivating minutes of creative, imaginative movement, Light/The Holocaust & Humanity Project features the superb dancers of Nashville Ballet at their finest, bringing to life history in such a way that left their audiences rapt, riveted to the smallest of moments and the largest of themes as they are conveyed onstage to a stunning, stirring musical score.

Performance Space New York kicks off its East Village Series, contemplating the past, present, and future of the organization and its neighborhood, with Welcome to Lenapehoking (February 17, 4pm, Free), a partnership with the The Lenape Center, and Avant-Garde-Arama, the extravaganza of experimentation that's also the organization's longest-running program (February 18, 6pm, Free). Performance Space New York's Executive Artistic Director Jenny Schlenzka steps into her new curatorial role with these events honoring the neighborhood's original caretakers and the organization's own trailblazing roots, as springboards into an exhilarating new chapter.

Performance Space New York (formerly Performance Space 122) presents the East Village Series, its first semi-annual themed series, and the first program curated by the institution's new Executive Artistic Director, Jenny Schlenzka. This presentation of works from some of today's most radical performers and multidisciplinary artists resituates the institution in newly revamped spaces, designed by Deborah Berke Partners, in 122 Community Center (150 First Avenue, at East 9th Street), where Performance Space 122 was founded, and where it operated until it moved out in 2011 for the building renovation. The series contemplates the past, present, and future of the organization and its neighborhood.

Nashville Ballet dancers took to the aisles of the Tennessee Performing Arts Center's Polk Theater for Lizzie Borden with The Raven, Thursday, October 26th. Principal dancer Christopher Stuart's interpretation of Edgar Allan Poe's seminal work led the evening, sharing an ominous closing motif with Artistic Director Paul Vasterling's rendition of Lizzie Borden's complicated life.

Sound Theatre Company presents GOBLIN MARKET a musical based on the poem by Victorian era poet Christina Rossetti, by Polly Pen and Peggy Harmon.

The Firehall Arts Centre is thrilled to kick off its 35th anniversary season with the world premiere of Shay Kuebler's Feasting on Famine from Wednesday, September 27 to Saturday, September 30, 2017.