Stephen Sondheim News

The Harbor Lights Theater Company (Harbor Lights), Staten Island's only professional Equity Theater Company, led by Founders and Artistic Directors Tamara Jenkins and Jay Montgomery, is pleased to announce a cast that includes not only Broadway veterans and Tony and Emmy nominees, but also many Staten Islanders.  Check out a sneak peek below!

They say the neon lights are bright on Broadway… turns out, they're just as bright in the Rollins Studio Theatre, where Summer Stock Austin will play its 11th summer season with Great White Way favorites Into the Woods and Guys & Dolls, in addition to the world premiere of Allen Robertson and Damon Brown's newest family musical, Tortoise & Hare. Tickets are now on sale and start at $25, with a special $17 ticket for students.

In 1959 Ethel Merman, the prominent musical theatre actress of her time, and David Merrick were searching for their next project. After reading an excerpt from the memoir by Gypsy Rose Lee, Merrick felt they had said project and GYPSY was born.

The Coachella Valley Repertory Theatre (CVRep) is proud to present FINDING HOME: An Evening With Chad Hilligus - stories from life on the road, life on the stage and life on the journey.

Hillbarn Theatre, the Peninsula's premier theatre company, kicks off its 75th Anniversary season with Broadway's greatest farce, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.

Theater in Tennessee has never been busier nor has it been more diverse than what you'll find onstage this weekend throughout the Volunteer State. From frothy and fun summer musicals that are sure to make you think - like All Shook Up at Chaffin's Barn and A Chorus Line at Cumberland County Playhouse - to new plays from Shawn Whitsell (his latest, Songs For Our Sons, premieres at Darkhorse Theatre on Friday night) and emerging playwright Che Pieper (his new script based on the book The Man With the Light in His Window debuts at The Theater Bug this weekend)…the magic of live theater is all around you…even in this heat and humidity! So pull your seersucker suits and sundresses out of the closet, get all gussied up and make your way to the relative cool of a darkened theater for some midsummer magic!

I purposely avoided the recent film version of INTO THE WOODS because I really didn't find the previews or the stunt casting appropriate. For me, it's a work that requires an audience to use their imagination to a great extent, and movies tend to give form to those things that are much better left conjured up in your own mind. That's why my son and I absolutely loved The MUNY's current presentation of the show. Let's face it, a woodland setting created utilizing green screen technology and a few key set pieces is nowhere near as effective at conveying the atmosphere desired, especially when you already have those actual elements growing freely at the back of this marvelous outdoor stage. Stephen Sondheim (music and lyrics) and James Lapine (book) crafted a brilliant mash-up of several fairy tales and fables that is smart, funny, and, ultimately, touching. When I asked my boy what he thought of the show at the end of the night he neatly summed it up: 'I thought it was awesome!' I agree wholeheartedly. Superbly cast and conceived, this is a production that's simply tailor made for The MUNY. Go see it, and take your kids with you! It may have a few moments that are a bit gruesome or adult in content, but they'll have a wonderful time, and so will you!

Multi-award winning Foothill Music Theatre presents A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO THE FORUM, the Tony Award-winning Broadway musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by Larry Gelbart and Burt Shevelove. This production will be co-directed by Milissa Carey and Michael Ryken, with musical direction provided by Katie Coleman. The show will play tonight, July 23, through August 9, 2015 at the Smithwick Theatre, 12345 El Monte Rd., Los Altos Hills. BroadwayWorld has a look at the cast in action below!

Stephen Sondheim (music and lyrics) and James Lapine's (book) INTO THE WOODS opened July 21, at the Muny, and is playing through July 27 in Forest Park. The production is directed by Gary Griffin, choreographed by Chris Bailey and music directed by Brad Haak. Check out a first look at the cast in action on opening night below! The cast includes Heather Headley (Witch), Erin Dilly (Baker's Wife), Rob McClure (Baker), Ken Page (Narrator), Andrew Samonsky (Cinderella's Prince/Wolf), Elena Shaddow (Cinderella) and Ryan Silverman (Rapunzel's Prince), will be Jason Gotay (Jack), Ellen Harvey (Cinderella's Stepmother), Sara Kapner (Little Red Ridinghood), Samantha Massell (Rapunzel), Michael McCormick (Mysterious Man/Cinderella's Father) and Zoe Vonder Haar (Jack's Mother). Rounding out this incredible cast are Anna Blair (Granny/Cinderella's Stepmother), Jennifer Diamond (Florinda), Gary Glasgow (Steward), Maggie Lakis (Milky White) and April Strelinger (Lucinda).

54 BELOW, Broadway's Supper Club, and KulturfestNYC present 'Another Hundred Years' on Wednesday, August 5th at 9:30pm.

Stephen Sondheim (music and lyrics) and James Lapine's (book) INTO THE WOODS opened July 21, at the Muny, and is playing through July 27 in Forest Park. The production is directed by Gary Griffin, choreographed by Chris Bailey and music directed by Brad Haak. Check out a first look at the cast in action on opening night below!

There's a lot happening at off the WALL!  As of July of 2015, Hans and Virginia Wall Gruenert, co-founders of off the WALL Performing Arts Center, have donated the building at 25 W. Main St., Carnegie to the off the WALL Charitable Trust. The not-for-profit venue will be renamed Carnegie Stage, as their nod to a supportive community.  The anchor tenants will continue to be off the WALL Productions, whose main theater season is October to May, fireWALL dance theater with two new works annually and the Pittsburgh New Works Festival.

Stephen Sondheim (music and lyrics) and James Lapine's (book) INTO THE WOODS begins tonight, July 21, at the Muny, playing through July 27 in Forest Park. The production is directed by Gary Griffin, choreographed by Chris Bailey and music directed by Brad Haak.  Check out an exclusive look at some backstage shots below!

Stephen Sondheim (music and lyrics) and James Lapine's (book) INTO THE WOODS begins tonight, July 21, at the Muny, playing through July 27 in Forest Park. The production is directed by Gary Griffin, choreographed by Chris Bailey and music directed by Brad Haak.

Sometimes it seems there is so much theater happening that it's difficult to keep track of it all. From personal experience, despite all the datebooks, smart phones, tablets, desktop computers and laptops...it's hard to keep everything straight in this wacky business of the show.

This week at 54 BELOW, Broadway's Supper Club presents some of the brightest stars from Broadway, cabaret, jazz and beyond. To purchase tickets or for more information, visit www.54Below.com or call (646) 476-3551.

Upcoming Equity Auditions from Sunday, July 19, 2015.

The characters are all compelled by circumstances to go back into the woods, and this time they encounter there such things as infidelity, divorce, the death of parents, the death of children, abandonment, catastrophe - and overarching this the absence of a narration (the narrator becomes a casualty) or any other authoritative guidance as to the choices that need to be made. As one of the characters observes: 'The path has strayed from you.' The unsettling conclusion: 'You decide what's right / You decide what's good.' This is all incredibly sad and confusing, not to mention frightening, and yet as the core of surviving characters gels, so does the indomitability of the human spirit they evince.

Mannyville LLC, Dramatic Question Theatre and the New York Musical Theatre Festival are proud to announce the extension of the musical Manuel versus The Statue of Liberty which will begin performances this Tuesday, July 21.

Though it stumbles on the romance, Inspire Creative makes the classic musical's deeper themes shine through.