Nathan Young News

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.

Raven Theatre Company's 35th anniversary season will begin in September with the Chicago premiere of Choir Boy by recent Academy Award winner Tarell Alvin McCraney who, together with writer-director Barry Jenkins, won the Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar for the Academy's Best Picture winner, Moonlight.  

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

Village Theatre is excited to announce the lineup for The 17th Annual Festival of New Musicals, which will take place in Issaquah on August 11-13, 2017 and continues the theatre's dedication to the development of new work. This year, the Festival's five readings will include Nikola Tesla Drops the Beat, an electronic pop musical about one of the world's greatest inventors; Hart Island, a look at social justice and the people society has forgotten; Afterwords, a tale of art and love; Howl's Moving Castle, based on the novel by Diana Wynne Jones and animated feature by Hayao Miyazaki; and ZM, a hilarious romp through a zombie-filled future by the Tony Award-winning authors of Urinetown.

This Thursday night, April 13th, BROADWAY SESSIONS welcomes alum and '17 graduating class from Baldwin Wallace University.

Groundhog Day scooped Best Musical at last night's Olivier Awards, with Lin-Manuel Miranda and Audra McDonald presenting the award to composer Tim Minchin at the ceremony at London's Royal Albert Hall. The show is currently playing Broadway's August Wilson Theatre.  Find a full list of Oliviers winners here, and read our behind the scenes report.

Mention Lin-Manuel Miranda and the musical sensation Hamilton comes to mind. If not, then, In the Heights, which had a run at Beck Center last year, is noted. Few know Miranda also wrote both the music and lyrics, along with Tom Kitt and Amanda Green for Bring It On: The Musical, with book by Jeff Whitty, which is loosely based on the 2000 film of the same name. The script centers on the competitive world of cheerleading, with side stories about bullying, teen angst and determining what's important in the world.

BRING IT ON THE MUSICAL, with Libretto by Jeff Whitty, Music by Tom Kitt & Lin-Manuel Miranda, and Lyrics by Amanda Green & Lin-Manuel Miranda, opens tonight, February 10, at Beck Center for a run through February 26, 2017. BroadwayWorld has a first look at the cast in action below!

The 'large theater' productions of ACT Theatre's The Royale and The 5th Avenue Theatre's How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying take top honors and the 'small theater' productions of ArtsWest's Death of a Salesman and Washington Ensemble Theatre's The Things Are Against Us take top honors - for most category wins!?

Spanning 28 theater companies and 59 productions, from the largest and most prominent to small, humble and innovative, the Gypsy Rose Lee Awards honor as much professional theater as we reviewers can cram into our year.

Spanning 28 theater companies and 59 productions, from the largest and most prominent to small, humble and innovative, the Gypsy Rose Lee Awards honor as much professional theater as we reviewers can cram into our year.