Playbill News

What with contemporary musical theater's artistic bent toward the nostalgic in recent years, it should come as no surprise that Happy Days, the ABC sitcom that painted an affectionate portrait of life in Milwaukee in the late 1950s/early 1960s, was adapted by the show's creator Garry Marshall and composer Paul Williams into a musical comedy.

This is a story about dreams and destiny. My name is Ari Gold. I am Jewish. I am gay. I am a 4th generation lower east sider. And I am not the guy from Entourage. I call my style shtetle fabulous. My parents, Sid and Malkah Gold, who worked as educators in the public school system in the South Bronx, are two unorthodox orthodox Jews from New York with unfulfilled show-biz dreams. I like to call them Show-Jews!

Marin Theatre Company, in a co-production with Encore Theatre Company of San Francisco, opens its 2012/13 Season with the regional premiere of Circle Mirror Transformation by Annie Baker, which runs from August 2 to August 26.

The Stratford Shakespeare Festival continues to mark its 60th season this week with the world premieres of three Canadian plays and the opening of Artistic Director Des McAnuff's production of Henry V.

The Broadway Theatre Project (BTP) will be holding nationwide auditions in preparation for their 22nd season, three week intensive program in Dance, Voice, and Acting, July 8 - 29, 2012 in Tampa, FL.

Tony nominee Josh Young (Judas Iscariot), who brought the closing audience of "Jesus Christ Superstar" (JCS) to its feet, seconds after his strong 11 o'clock number, "Jesus Christ Superstar," yesterday afternoon at Neil Simon Theatre, signed everyone's playbill at the stage door, and showed off to the crowd his pooch, Keppy, who was wearing a replica of Young's character's royal blue sequined top, designed by Paul Tazewell ("In the Heights," "The Color Purple") for the show.

Playhouse on Park in West Hartford is offering theatergoers a rare treat this summer: a chance to hang around the pool and get smarter while doing it. You may not get a tan at this intimate venue, but you will expand your mind while lounging around an inviting, shimmering, and often foreboding, pool of water.

Broadway In Chicago has announced that Emerald City Theatre's 2010 hit PINKALICIOUS: THE MUSICAL is celebrating its one year anniversary Sunday, July 8, 2012. To honor 365 days of PINKALICIOUS: THE MUSICAL, tickets for the Sunday, July 8 performance are available to the public for only $3.65.

The Man Who Came To Dinner by Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman, acknowledged as one of the funniest comedies ever written, is coming to the Coronado Playhouse stage June 29 -August 5, 2012.

Tweeting and writing about theatre has brought me back into the community I lost when I was an actor. The solitary act of tweeting became a means to connect with thousands of theatre-lovers like me. As my list of readers grew longer, I also sought out other voices sharing their words & thoughts with the digital world. It has been a delight to join a community, not unlike the casts I knew in my acting days, of passionate consumers of theatre. I want to thank every person who has shared their fervor by way of written word.

Today we are talking to an iconic Tony Award-winning star who made her name as a teenager singing on TV variety shows - THE LAWRENCE WELK SHOW and SING ALONG WITH MITCH included - and then went on to a multimedia career in film and theatre, conquering Broadway with her Tony-winning turn in the Jule Styne/Arthur Laurents musical HALLELUJAH, BABY! in 1967 and returning to the stage in the subsequent decades in a host of Broadway productions, such as BLUES IN THE NIGHT, JERRY'S GIRLS, ANYTHING GOES, August Wilson's KING HEDLEY II and her celebrated Muzzy in THOROUGHLY MODERN MILLIE - a role she reprises in the new Muny production of the Tony Award-winning Best Musical beginning this week - the one and only Leslie Uggams. Taking a thorough look back at her career thus far, Uggams opens up about her many successes and how she has endured for fifty years in show business and shares recollections of many of her most noted co-stars and collaborators, all the way up to the recent 2012 Encores! PIPE DREAM. Additionally, Uggams comments on her film and TV appearances over the years, speaking about her work in INHERIT THE WIND, TWO WEEKS IN ANOTHER TOWN, ROOTS and beyond. Plus, she shares her candid opinions on GLEE, SMASH, Broadway then versus now, future plans for her Lena Horne solo show and thoughts on other roles she would enjoy pursuing - and much, much more!

The Tony Awards Nominating Committee is a rotating group of up to 35 theatre professionals selected by the Tony Awards Administration Committee. Nominators serve for overlapping three-year terms. They are asked to see every new Broadway production and then meet each year shortly after the Tony eligibility deadline. They determine the nominations based on secret ballots supervised by an accounting firm. The results are announced early the following morning.

It's Saturday, and that means it's time for BroadwayWorld's 'Saturday Intermission Pics' round-up! Scroll below for photos from Broadway's PHANTOM OF THE OPERA, JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR, PRISCILLA, QUEEN OF THE DESERT, NEWSIES, THE BOOK OF MORMON, EVITA, MAMMA MIA!, ANYTHING GOES, NICE WORK IF YOU CAN GET IT - featuring Tony winner Michael McGrath, AVENUE Q, ONCE ON THIS ISLAND at Paper Mill Playhouse, Off-Broadway's TRIASSIC PARQ: THE MUSICAL, the national tours of LEGALLY BLONDE and WAR HORSE, and the cast of MY FAIR LADY at Gateway Playhouse in Bellport.

Playhouse on Park in West Hartford is offering theatergoers a rare treat this summer: a chance to hang around the pool and get smarter while doing it. You may not get a tan at this intimate venue, but you will expand your mind while lounging around an inviting, shimmering, and often foreboding, pool of water.

A Noise Within (ANW), the acclaimed classical repertory theatre company, led by Producing Artistic Directors Geoff Elliott and Julia Rodriguez-Elliott, has announced its 2012-13 Season featuring six masterworks linked by spiritual, physical and emotional journeys. Presented during the second season in the company's new 33,000 square-foot, state-of-the-art Pasadena venue are Shakespeare's CYMBELINE, George Bernard Shaw's THE DOCTOR'S DILEMMA, Charles Dickens' A CHRISTMAS CAROL adapted by Geoff Elliott, John Steinbeck's THE GRAPES OF WRATH adapted by Frank Galati, EURYDICE by Sarah Ruhl, and George Farquhar's THE BEAUX' STRATAGEM adapted by Thornton Wilder and Ken Ludwig. The season runs from September 2012 to May 2013.

It's Saturday, and that means its time for BroadwayWorld's 'Saturday Intermission Pics' round-up! See below for 'Tony Edition' SIPs from Broadway's JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR, THE BOOK OF MORMON's Jared Gertner in his first intermission picture as full-time Edler Cunningham, plus Andrew Rannells partying it up backstage with the cast, EVITA's Max von Essen, PRISCILLA, QUEEN OF THE DESERT's Ellyn Marsh, GHOST's Caissie Levy, the casts of NICE WORK IF YOU CAN GET IT, NEWSIES and MAMMA MIA!, the cast of Paper Mill Playhouse's ONCE ON THIS ISLAND and more.

The Man Who Came To Dinner by Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman, acknowledged as one of the funniest comedies ever written, is coming to the Coronado Playhouse stage June 29 -August 5, 2012.

BroadwayWorld has seen and covered many concerts over the years, but never have we witnessed anything like what we saw on stage at City Center on Saturday night, June 2nd.

The Provincetown Tennessee Williams Theater Festival will announce the program for this year's theme, Tennessee Williams and Music, at its first gala fundraising dinner tonight, June 2, 2012. Guests will be treated to a sneak preview of one of this year's productions, "Autumn Song," an exclusive auction and art exhibition of white-line woodcuts by Bill Evaul, and a special appearance by entertainer Zoe Lewis.

Live from the red carpet, co-hosts Janice Zolf and Dan Chameroy bring you the opening night of the Stratford Shakespeare Festival's 60th season. Meet Festival favourites and special guests as they arrive to see the 2012 production of Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing.