Ravinia Festival News

The Manhattan Theatre Club has announced full casting for the upcoming world premiere of CLOSE UP SPACE by Molly Smith Metzler, directed by Leigh Silverman. Joining the cast is Academy Award & Emmy Award nominee Rosie Perez (Fearless, The Ritz) as famous author 'Vanessa Finn Adams.' Completing the cast are Jessica DiGiovanni (Off-Broadway Debut) and Colby Minifie (The Pillowman, Landscape of the Body) as well as already announced Tony Award and four-time Emmy Award winner David Hyde Pierce ('Frasier', Curtains) and Obie Award winner Michael Chernus (The Aliens, In The Wake).

An Evening with Bill T. Jones: Insights on Directing, Choreography and Life will be held Saturday, October, 1, 2011 at Northeastern University, at 8pm

Producers Paula Herold and Alan Wasser announced today that the complete cast from the acclaimed off-Broadway production of Lysistrata Jones will transfer with the musical when it opens on Broadway this fall. Beginning previews November 12, 2011, Lysistrata Jones will officially open on December 14, 2011 at Broadway's Walter Kerr Theatre.

Tony and Emmy Award-winning actor David Hyde Pierce has been cast in the Vineyard Theatre's Developmental Lab Production of THE LANDING (previously titled 'Andra') -- a collection of three related one-act musicals written by the celebrated composer John Kander and his new collaborator, Greg Pierce - to be directed by Scott Ellis, with David Loud as musical director, it has been announced by artistic director Douglas Aibel and co-artistic director Sarah Stern. THE LANDING will be presented in the spring of 2012 at The Vineyard (108 E. 15 St.).

Award-winning actor and musician Hershey Felder (George Gershwin Alone, Monsieur Chopin, Beethoven As I Knew Him) returns to Chicago with Maestro: The Art of Leonard Bernstein.

Broadway legend Mandy Patinkin and opera superstar Nathan Gunn combine their vocal talents to create a unique and powerful evening at 8 p.m. on Wednesday, Aug. 31, in the pavilion. Featured in People magazine's 2008 list of 'The Sexiest Men Alive,' baritone Gunn has performed in opera houses around the world and last appeared at Ravinia in the festival's production of Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro. Tony and Emmy award-winner Patinkin has appeared in the Broadway productions of Evita, Sunday in the Park with George, The Wild Party, The Winter's Tale and The Knife, as well as in CBS's Chicago Hope and Criminal Minds. They will be joined by pianists Julie Gunn and Paul Ford.

Executive Producer Lou Spisto today announced the cast and creative team for the World Premiere of Somewhere, a new play by Old Globe Playwright-in-Residence Matthew Lopez. Lopez's play The Whipping Man was a critical success in New York last season after receiving its West Coast Premiere at the Globe in a production directed by Giovanna Sardelli. Sardelli returns to direct Somewhere, which will run in the Sheryl and Harvey White Theatre, part of the Globe's Conrad Prebys Theatre Center, Sept. 24 - Oct. 30. Preview performances run Sept. 24 - Sept. 28. Opening night is Thursday, Sept. 29 at 8:00 p.m. Tickets are currently available by subscription only. Single tickets will go on sale on Sunday, Sept. 4. Tickets can be purchased online at www.TheOldGlobe.org, by phone at (619) 23-GLOBE or by visiting the Box Office at 1363 Old Globe Way in Balboa Park.

Broadway Star Marc Kudisch (9 to 5, Thoroughly Modern Millie, Assassins) will offer a musical theatre master class on Monday, August 29th from 6:30 to 10:30pm at the Davenport Studio in Midtown Manhattan.

Reprise Theatre Company presents Patti LuPone 'Gypsy In My Soul' for one performance only on Tuesday, October 4 at 8:00 pm, at Royce Hall on the campus of UCLA.

Drury Lane Theatre, 100 Drury Lane, presents THE SOUND OF MUSIC, the Tony Award and Academy Award-winning musical by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein, previewing October 20, opening October 27 and running through December 23.

The latest in unauthorized gossip and buzz from the heart of Chicago's showtune video bars, and musical theater news from Chicago to Broadway. The return of 'Mary Poppins' and 'Jersey Boys,' the premiere of 'For The Boys,' Mandy Patinkin, Nathan Gunn, Laura Benanti, 'Oprah! A Comedy!,' more....

Rising Stars series, this year featuring six concerts in the fall of 2011 and spring of 2012, bringing the brightest stars of the next generation of professional classical musiciansto Ravinia. All concerts take place in the festival's most intimate performance space, the indoor 450-seat Bennett Gordon Hall, which continues to showcase successful recitals and chamber music concerts during the summer. This season's series features pianist Giles Vonsattel (Oct. 1, 2011); violinist Bella Hristova (Oct. 15, 2011); the Linden String Quartet (Nov. 5, 2011); pianist Daria Rabotkina (Nov. 19, 2011); Musicians from Ravinia's Steans Music Institute (April 7, 2012); and vocal ensemble Calmus (April 28, 2012).

Broadway legend Mandy Patinkin and opera superstar Nathan Gunn combine their vocal talents to create a unique and powerful evening at 8 p.m. on Wednesday, Aug. 31, in the pavilion. Featured in People magazine's 2008 list of 'The Sexiest Men Alive,' baritone Gunn has performed in opera houses around the world and last appeared at Ravinia in the festival's production of Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro. Tony and Emmy award-winner Patinkin has appeared in the Broadway productions of Evita, Sunday in the Park with George, The Wild Party, The Winter's Tale and The Knife, as well as in CBS's Chicago Hope and Criminal Minds. They will be joined by pianists Julie Gunn and Paul Ford.

FEINSTEIN'S AT LOEWS REGENCY, the nightclub proclaimed 'Best of New York' by New York Magazine and 'an invaluable New York institution' by The New York Post will continue its Fall 2011 season with the first New York joint engagement of the club's founder MICHAEL FEINSTEIN and critically acclaimed vocalist LINDA EDER. The two powerhouse performers will share the spotlight in their show 'Two For The Road.' The evening will feature classics from Harold Arlen, George Gershwin and Sammy Cahn; hits from newer writers like Peter Allen, Joni Mitchell and Michel Legrand; and selections from Michael's upcoming CD The Sinatra Legacy. Music Director Billy Jay Stein will conduct a seven piece band. The show will run September 6 to October 1 at the Loews Regency Hotel (540 Park Avenue at 61st Street).

Writers' Theatre Artistic Director Michael Halberstam and Executive Director Kathryn M. Lipuma announce the launch of Writers' 20th Anniversary Season with The Real Thing by Tom Stoppard, directed by Michael Halberstam.

Reprise Theatre Company's production of the classic American musical 'Cabaret,' which opens the 2011-2012 Reprise season and plays September 13 to 25 (press opening September 14, 2011) at UCLA's Freud Playhouse, includes a cast of new talents as well as Broadway and West End veterans - Zach Bandler as Ernst Ludwig, Lisa O'Hare as Sally Bowles, Jeff McLean as Cliff Bradshaw, Katrina Lenk as Fräulein Kost, Mary Gordon Murray as Fräulein Schneider, Robert Picardo as Herr Schultz and Bryce Ryness as the Master of Ceremonies.

The Austrian Cultural Forum NYC will Present FROM AUSTRIA WITH LOVE, sung by Mathias Hausmann and accompanied by pianist Crauig Rutenberg on Thursday, October 6 at 7:30 PM. Admission is free but tickets must be reserved by calling 212-319-5300 ext. 222.

The innovative and influential Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company (a program of New York Live Arts) opens The Dance Center of Columbia College Chicago's 2011-12 season with the repertory program 'Body Against Body' Thursday, September 29-Saturday, October 1 at 8 p.m. at The Dance Center, 1306 S. Michigan Ave., Chicago.

On September 1, 2, 3, 6, and 7 at 7:00 PM, Opera Omnia returns to Le Poisson Rouge to present Francesco Cavalli's Giasone, fully staged, in an English edition by Paul C. Echols (originally prepared for the Mannes Camerata in 1987).

Northlight Theatre, under the direction of Artistic Director BJ Jones and Executive Director Timothy J. Evans, announces casting for the Chicago premiere of Snapshots, by Stephen Schwartz and David Stern, and Alan Ayckbourn's Season's Greetings. The Snapshots cast includes Gene Weygandt in his third production with Stephen Schwartz, following Wicked and Working; and Susie McMonagle, direct from the Billy Elliott National Tour.