Ovation News

The holiday hit of last Christmas season is back this year with some new cast members and more fun.

Last night, Renee Taylor won the annual The United Solo Special Award, which recognizes artists who have made significant recent contributions to solo theatre during the year, for her critically acclaimed autobiographical comedy MY LIFE ON A DIET. Along with Ms. Taylor, this year's nominees included Derek DelGaudio (In & Of Itself), Alison S. M. Kobayashi (Say Something Bunny!), John Lithgow (Stories By Heart), Chita Rivera (An Evening with Chita Rivera) and Bruce Springsteen (Springsteen on Broadway).

It's raining Oscar-nominated films at IFFI this year. Of the 87 films nominated by their respective countries in the Best Foreign Language Film category at the 91st Academy Awards, as many as 16 films are going to be screened at IFFI 2018. That's more than one-fifth of all the films vying for the top award. These films are spread across multiple categories at IFFI 2018.

The nonprofit Garry Marshall Theatre celebrates starting its second year with support from the entertainment industry and both the Broadway and Los Angeles theatre community for the Second Annual Founder's Gala.

NBC has announced the first group of world-renowned, superstar acts who will compete on the all-new winter edition of TV's #1 alternative series, “America's Got Talent: The Champions,” premiering Monday, Jan. 7 from 8-10 p.m. ET/PT.

You only had “One Job”... TeaMarrr turns up with a cinematic music video for her buzzing single “One Job” and has joined forces with AFROPUNK for an exclusive premiere. Watch it HERE. 

THE ROAD THEATRE COMPANY and Taylor Gilbert, Founder/Artistic Director together with Sam Anderson, Artistic Director, present the second show of its 2018-2019 season, the world premiere of DEATH HOUSE, written by Jason Karasev and directed by Michael Peretzian. DEATH HOUSE will preview on Tuesday, January 15 at 8pm; Wednesday, January 16 at 8pm & Thursday, January 17 at 8pm and will open on Friday, January 18 at 8pm and run through Sunday, March 10 at the Road Theatre on Lankershim, 5108 Lankershim Blvd. in North Hollywood.

Walnut Street Theatre's 2018-19 Independence Studio on 3 season continues with the wacky holiday musical revue, WINTER WONDERETTES. Directed by Richard Parison, the production begins with previews on November 13th, opens November 15th, and continues through December 30th.

Christmas traditions sparkle and holiday music fills the air, as Grammy-nominated songwriter and piano sensation Jim Brickman embarks on his 30-city holiday tour A Joyful Christmas.

Rubicon Theatre's 20th Anniversary Season culminates with a two-piano version of Rodgers and Hammerstein's soaring epic South Pacific, helmed by award-winning director KATHARINE FARMER and featuring a cast of 28 led by Tony honoree BEN DAVIS (Baz Luhrmann's La Boheme) and MADISON CLAIRE PARKS (Luisa in The Fantasticks Off-Broadway). 

Von Heidecke's Chicago Festival Ballet performs its 29th annual production of “The Nutcracker” at the McAninch Arts Center (MAC), Saturday, Dec. 15 at 2 and 7 p.m., and Sunday, Dec. 16at 1 and 5 p.m. New Philharmonic, under the baton of Maestro Kirk Muspratt, will perform Tchaikovsky's classic “Nutcracker” score live for this full-scale, lavish production. As a special treat, will be photo opportunities with Santa and a three-foot tall wooden Nutcracker in the lobby.

If there is a musical theater moment more joyous that what occurs at the top of Act Two in Irving Berlin's White Christmas, then we must respectfully demand it be performed in front of us as quickly as possible. Certainly, we recognize there is much joy to be found in musical theater, but sitting in the audience at Tennessee Performing Arts Center's Andrew Jackson Hall - six years to the day we last found ourselves awash in the nostalgia and sentimentality so abundant in this particular holiday favorite - we simply couldn't recall anything more engaging or more entertaining than watching Jeremy Benton and Kelly Sheehan, backed by a cadre of 12 other fleet-footed dancers, tapping their hearts out to "I Love a Piano.'

The Tony Award-winning, record-breaking hit musical Chicago celebrates its 22nd Broadway anniversary tomorrow, Wednesday, November 14th. Celebrate 22 years of razzle dazzle with these fun Chicago facts!

We are all familiar with the tale of the six wives of Henry VIII. Or at least, their endings - divorced, beheaded, died; divorced, beheaded, survived. But what about the women behind the rhyme?

Creator and librettist Cerise Jacobs premiered her 'most technologically ambitious production to date' (Boston Globe) at Boston's Emerson Cutler Majestic Theater in September: the video game opera, PermaDeath, co-written by Jacobs and her son, Pirate Epstein, founder of the video game company SqueePlay and a former New England Halo champion. The score was composed by Rome and Berlin Prize-winning composer Dan Visconti, who also composed Opera Philadelphia's recent Andy Warhol-themed ANDY: A Popera. Now Jacobs's first opera, Madame White Snake, which premiered in Boston in 2010 and went on to win the Pulitzer Prize for music the following year for the score by composer Zhou Long, will be given its Hong Kong premiere in two performances at the 47th Hong Kong Arts Festival in March of next year.

American Blues Theater announces the addition of five new Ensemble members and one new Artistic Affiliate to the Blues family. Joining the Ensemble is director, designer and Associate Producer Elyse Dolan, who directed several works in past Ripped and Blue Ink festivals; designer Jared Gooding, lighting designer of Buddy - The Buddy Holly Story; actor Philip Earl Johnson, who is slated to appear in the upcoming Chicago premiere of Steven Dietz's On Clover Road; director Chuck Smith, director of the recent American Blues production of Pearl Cleage's Flyin' West; and actress and playwright Wandachristine, who won many awards for her solo performance Beauty's Daughter. Actor Zachary Stevenson has been named an Artistic Affiliate. Stevenson recently made his Chicago debut as 'Buddy Holly' in American Blues Theater's Joseph Jefferson Award-winning musical Buddy - the Buddy Holly Story, in which he also won a Jeff Award for Performance in a Musical.

THE GREEN ROOM 42 will present Tonya Pinkins and Brad Simmons in a new holiday show 'Naughty & Nice' on Sunday, December 16 at 9:30 PM. The Tony, Drama Desk and Obie Award-winning actress Tony Pinkins is known to theater, film, and television audiences everywhere, and perfectly pairs with Broadway music director and concert artist Brad Simmons. Together they bring a provocative and eclectic evening of music to The Green Room 42, just in time for the holidays.

Meet Eric. He's an aspiring playwright who's trying to break into TV writing when his Dad interrupts his plans by suddenly getting sick with a terminal illness. Instead of stepping up to his familial duties, Eric runs away from his sadness straight into a 'Wall of Dicks'. Fortunately, there's a hot, imaginary Cockroach who's there to help him to confront his grief and his family's disappointment. Death and Cockroaches, a brand new theatrical experience presented by Chalk Repertory Theatre, opens November 9 for four weeks at Atwater Village Theatre. Written by Chalk Rep Artistic Circle member Eric Reyes Loo and directed by Chalk Rep Founding Member Jennifer Chang, in an innovative, immersive production featuring a full sensory experience.

The nonprofit Garry Marshall Theatre celebrates starting its second year with support from the entertainment industry and both the Broadway and Los Angeles theatre community for the Second Annual Founder's Gala with performances including the reuniting of Hairspray stars, Tony Award-winner Marissa Jaret Winokur and Broadway favorite Paul C. Vogt.