Robert Taylor News

Drawing its inspiration from the romantic Hollywood musicals of the 1940s and 50s, while blending classical, jazz and global rhythms, Pink Martini performs on Sunday, November 21, 2010, at 8 p.m., at the Byham Theater.

Bonhams & Butterfields is pleased to offer Fine European Furniture and Decorative Arts on September 13, 2010 in Los Angeles. The eclectic auction will offer a global array of works, showcasing pieces from the 15th through 20th centuries with a focus on English, French, Italian, Spanish and German property.

Bonhams & Butterfields is pleased to offer Fine European Furniture and Decorative Arts on September 13, 2010 in Los Angeles. The eclectic auction will offer a global array of works, showcasing pieces from the 15th through 20th centuries with a focus on English, French, Italian, Spanish and German property.

Bonhams & Butterfields' Entertainment Memorabilia auction on June 13, 2010 in Los Angeles will include a wide variety of items related to Hollywood, Rock 'n Roll and Animation Arts. Highlights will include pieces connected to The Beatles, Michael; Jackson, screen goddess Marilyn Monroe, The Grateful Dead and countless movie posters and vintage animation cells.

Bonhams & Butterfields' Entertainment Memorabilia auction on June 13, 2010 in Los Angeles will include a wide variety of items related to Hollywood, Rock 'n Roll and Animation Arts. Highlights will include pieces connected to The Beatles, Michael; Jackson, screen goddess Marilyn Monroe, The Grateful Dead and countless movie posters and vintage animation cells.

The Theatre and Interpretation Center (TIC) at Northwestern University, will launch the 2009-10 season this fall with a star-studded classic comedy, the first of several musical readings that will be offered as part of the American Music Theatre Project (AMTP) OutLOUD Reading series, and a Performance Studies Performance Hour.

To begin the 2009-10 Mainstage Season in October, the Theatre and Interpretation Center (TIC) at Northwestern University welcomes Tony Award-winning director Frank Galati with his production of the classic farce-comedy ?Arsenic and Old Lace,? featuring guest artists Dennis Zacek and John Mohrlein and award-winning Northwestern acting faculty Cindy Gold and Mary Poole as the sinister, but hilarious sisters.

This week marks the beginning of what has become an enduring tradition for Playhouse Square, as they launch their annual ?Cinema at the Square.? For the next two weeks, fifteen classic films will be revived on the second biggest screen in the Cleveland area (the local Imax is bigger but, by the same token, they aren?t going to be running ?Gone With the Wind? anytime soon) at Playhouse Square?s Palace Theatre. Fifteen dollars will get you six tickets to the films of your choice, or you can pay five dollars at the door to films that are guaranteed memories in the making.

The Banks house in Disney and Cameron Mackintosh's theatrical version of Mary Poppins is a wonder to behold. Designed by Bob Crowley, the huge structure opens like a storybook, spins to reveal more secrets and has the magical ability to cause a gasp of delight from both parents and children alike. If only the happenings that occur within the Banks household were nearly as memorable as that house.

After beginning her career in Cleveland in Disney's jukebox musical On the Record, Ashley Brown has triumphantly returned armed with an umbrella, British accent and the ability to fly.

Last night, Mary Poppins played its first performance at Playhouse Square's State Theatre and seemed to magically transfer audiences into the New Amsterdam Theatre on 42nd Street in New York City. It's not far-fetched to say that the touring production of 'Poppins' is the closest thing Cleveland audiences will get to the real Great White Way for quite some time. The show's set has been newly redesigned by the legendary Bob Crowley and all of the major special effects of the Broadway version have been recreated for this production. In addition, several cast members who originated their roles on Broadway are on the tour as well, including Ashley Brown as Mary and Gavin Lee as Bert.

Gavin Lee first took his bow as the beloved character of Bert five years ago when Mary Poppins began its first previews at the Bristol Hippodrome in England. Since then, he has performed the role at London?s Prince Edward Theatre, New York?s legendary New Amsterdam Theatre and, beginning Friday, will be taking his bows on the stage at Cleveland?s State Theatre in Playhouse Square.

Michael Frayn's international smash hit play, COPENHAGEN opens Friday July 10 and runs through Sunday July 12 at the Masquers Playhouse in Point Richmond.

Michael Frayn's international smash hit play, COPENHAGEN opens Friday July 10 and runs through Sunday July 12 at the Masquers Playhouse in Point Richmond.

The personal theatrical papers of Katharine Hepburn, which were acquired by The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts in 2007, will be on view for the first time in the new library exhibition, Katharine Hepburn: In Her Own Files, opening Wednesday, June 10. Her long and rich theater career is documented through typescripts (some, like the script for Coco, annotated in Hepburn?s hand), hundreds of photographs (publicity shots and formal portraits, as well as informal snapshots and rehearsal candids), scrapbooks, promotional ephemera, and sixty years of correspondence (fan mail, congratulatory notes, and general letters from such notable friends and admirers as Judy Garland, Richard Burton, John Ford, Vivien Leigh, Peter O?Toole, Cary Grant, Humphrey Bogart, and Jeremy Irons, among scores of others. She saved telegrams from her friends and from stage crews and even the cards that come with flower bouquets, including many signed ?Pot,? Hepburn?s pet name for long-time companion Spencer Tracy). The exhibition continues through Saturday, October 10, 2009 in the Vincent Astor Gallery of The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center, located on the Lincoln Center campus at 40 Lincoln Center Plaza. Admission is free. For exhibition information, call 212.870.1630 or visit the Library?s website at www.nypl.org/lpa. In conjunction with this exhibition, a series of Hepburn films based on stage plays will be screened on Saturday afternoons in July and August at the Library.

?[title of show]? has always been the most intimate of stage experiences. Not only are we taking an inspiring musical journey that happens to be pretty much true, but all previous incarnations of ?[show]? also had the advantage of having the show creators playing themselves in their roles?one character even sings ?I Am Playing Me? early in the show. The original cast became Broadway celebrities through their juggernaut promotion of [show], which includes a still-going popular series of Youtube videos. So the notion of creating the show without the original cast is, at best, tricky and, at worst, suicidal. And yet the first regional production of ?[title of show]? opened last night at Playhouse Square?s 14th Street Theater and did just that.

It might have closed on Broadway earlier this season, but this weekend [title of show] returns triumphantly to life with the first regional version of the production at Playhouse Square's 14th Street Theater in Cleveland.

After pulling off the most difficult feat of appealing to both diehard Monty Python fans and newcomers to the British humorists, Monty Pythons Spamalot enjoyed a healthy and audience-pleasing run on The Great White Way before closing earlier this year. The touring version of the show is not dead yet, however, and arrived last night at Cleveland's Palace Theatre for an eight-show engagement.

Blake Bashoff misses having normal hair. Hes been playing the lovable, desperate, hairstyle-challenged Moritz in the hit show Spring Awakening for over a year, first with the Broadway company and currently with the first touring production of the show. The role of Moritz is a meaty, emotional tour de force for an actor, but it also means that Bashoff must go through not one, but two extreme hairstyles over the course of the musical?s two acts. And though Bashoff loves so many things about Moritz, he probably wishes that shampoo and conditioner were invented in late nineteenth century Germany.

To create a touring production of a Broadway hit, the production team usually has to scale down large sets, trim the corners and sometimes cut down the cast. With the ?Spring Awakening? touring production, it was just the opposite: the show would have to be made bigger. Gone would be the cozy feel of The Eugene O?Neill Theater, replaced with larger two-and-three tiered touring houses with bigger stages, and as a result the set would have to be expanded, creating more of an imposing feel than the original classroom did. But, more than any logistical problems, the question became this: Would ?Spring Awakening? even be viable as a touring show?