Ravinia Festival News

Ravinia Festival today announced the show-stopping Broadway superstar and star of television hit Glee Idina Menzel will make her Ravinia debut on Sunday, July 8. The concert, featuring the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, will be led by renowned composer and conductor Marvin Hamlisch, who returns to the festival for the first time since 2001. It is Menzel's first time performing with the CSO.

Lampkin Music Group is set to present ten-time Jeff Award winner and "First Lady of Chicago Musical Theatre" Hollis Resnik in a special New Year's Eve cabaret performance.

Though Bonnie & Clyde closes on Broadway tomorrow, December 30, the story of the infamous duo will live on at Georgia's Aurora Theatre in 2012. Bonnie & Clyde: A Folktale has attracted an impressive creative team for the premiere of this new musical at Aurora Theatre in March 2012. Storied Broadway veteran, award-winning Lonny Price will direct, while the magnificent Josh Rhodes, having worked on the show through development, will choreograph. It is no wonder the project has attracted world-class talent. The musical is the brain child of Broadway stars Hunter Foster and Rick Crom. Aurora Theatre Associate Producer Ann-Carol Pence joins as musical director. She discovered the show while attending the New York Musical Theatre Festival, a place where new shows like Tony Award-winning Next to Normal got their start.

Patricia Racette will return to the title role of Puccini's Tosca, which she sang at the Met to great acclaim in the 2009-10 season, for six performances beginning January 10.

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 2011 BWW Chicago Awards, Chicagoans on Broadway, tour tickets, Equity casting decisions from the western suburbs, 'Welcome Yule!,' 'Pinkalicious' and more....

The Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company will present the world premiere of Jones' "Story/Time" at Peak Performances at Montclair State University, January 21-22 & 26-29. "Story/Time" marks Jones' third commission from Peak.

Drury Lane Theatre, 100 Drury Lane, have extended THE SOUND OF MUSIC, the Tony Award and Academy Award-winning musical by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein, through January 8, 2012 due to popular demand. The production opened October 27. A captivating love story featuring some of Broadway's most popular music, THE SOUND OF MUSIC is directed and choreographed by multi-Jeff Award winner Rachel Rockwell (Sweeney Todd, Ragtime and Miss Saigon at Drury Lane Theatre), who was named 'Best Director' by Chicago Magazine in 2010. THE SOUND OF MUSIC features an all-star cast led by five-time Jeff Award nominee Larry Adams as 'Captain von Trapp' (the Broadway production and National Tour of Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera, Drury Lane Theatre's Ragtime and The Music Man, and The Merry Widow at The Lyric Opera of Chicago), Tony Award-nominee Patti Cohenour as 'Mother Abbess' ('Mother Abbess' in the 1997 Broadway revival of The Sound of Music, 'Christine' in The Phantom of the Opera on Broadway, and The Light in the Piazza at the Lincoln Center) and introducing Jennifer Blood as 'Maria' (Falling for Eve Off-Broadway).

The New York Times reports today that a FINDING NEVERLAND musical has been greenlighted by The Weinstein Company for further development following successful readings in London last week. The project was last workshopped in New York this past spring and was scheduled to premiere at the La Jolla playhouse this fall. The Weinstein's pulled the project at the last minute (which was replaced at La Jolla by the Startford Festival's Jesus Christ Superstar, currently running) to develop further. Tony Award winner Rob Ashford helms the project, which has Broadway apsirations. The project marks the first musical on which the Weinstein company is lead producer.

Northlight Theatre, under the direction of Artistic Director BJ Jones and Executive Director Timothy J. Evans, presents Season's Greetings by Alan Ayckbourn, directed by Artistic Director BJ Jones.

Bonnie & Clyde: A Folktale has attracted an impressive creative team for the premiere of this new musical at Aurora Theatre in March 2012.

Lampkin Music Group is set to present ten-time Jeff Award winner and "First Lady of Chicago Musical Theatre" Hollis Resnik in a special New Year's Eve cabaret performance.

Northlight Theatre, under the direction of Artistic Director BJ Jones and Executive Director Timothy J. Evans, announces The 3 Divas, a special one night-only Valentine's Day event with Susie McMonagle, Heidi Kettenring and Christine Sherrill.

Celebrating the multiple talents of the accomplished musicians on its faculty, the Music Institute of Chicago presents a performance by the Cantare Chamber Players Sunday, January 22 at 3 p.m. at Nichols Concert Hall, 1490 Chicago Avenue, Evanston.

The Juilliard String Quartet, widely known as the quintessential American string quartet, will visit Greenwich Village on Thursday, January 12, 2012, to make its first appearance at (Le) Poisson Rouge (158 Bleecker Street, Manhattan), one of New York City's major downtown venues for a wide range of musical genres.

The Pasadena Playhouse (Sheldon Epps, Artistic Director and Stephen Eich, Executive Director) announced that, by popular demand, Hershey Felder will return to The Pasadena Playhouse with a special presentation of the world premiere of LINCOLN - AN AMERICAN STORY for Actor and Symphony Orchestra which will be performed in front of a 45-piece orchestra, preceded by his tour-de-force works, MONSIEUR CHOPIN - the love story of Frederic Chopin and the authoress George Sand, featuring Chopin's most beautiful piano music, and MAESTRO: LEONARD BERNSTEIN - the hit production that has played nationwide.

Sony Classical will release pianist Simone Dinnerstein's second album Something Almost Being Said: Music of Bach and Schubert, internationally on January 30, 2012 and in the US on January 31, 2012.

Northlight Theatre, under the direction of Artistic Director BJ Jones and Executive Director Timothy J. Evans, presents Season's Greetings by Alan Ayckbourn, directed by Artistic Director BJ Jones.

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. Combining first-person narrative with the music of composer Bernstein and the artists who inspired him, Maestro: The Art of Leonard Bernstein is the story of the legendary American composer and longtime music director of the New York Philharmonic. Helmed by award-winning director Joel Zwick, Hershey Felder will return to Chicago's Royal George Theatre, 1641 N. Halsted, where from September 2004 through January 2006, he held residence with George Gershwin Alone and the World Premiere of Monsieur Chopin, culminating in 70 weeks of live performances. Maestro will begin previews on November 1st with press opening November 9th, and will play through December 30.