T. Jones News

As BroadwayWorld previously speculated, producers Shawn 'Jay-Z' Carter, Will & Jada Pinkett Smith, Ruth & Stephen Hendel and Roy Gabay will welcome Grammy Award-winning, multi-platinum recording artist Patti LaBelle to the cast of the hit Award-winning Broadway musical Fela! on Tuesday, September 14, when she takes over the role of Fela's mother (Funmilayo Anikulapo-Kuti) through Sunday, January 2, 2011, when the show will play its final scheduled performance. Tony Award-winner Lillias White (who received a 2010 Tony Nomination for her performance in this production) will play her final performance on September 12. Fela! received three 2010 Tony Awards, including Best Choreography, Best Costume Design and Best Sound Design. It is currently playing at Broadway's Eugene O'Neill Theatre (230 West 49th Street) where it opened to rave reviews on November 23.

In the company's only East Coast engagement in 2010, Trey McIntyre Project will perform at Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival August 4-8.

Dancer/choreographer Kyle Abraham brings his company Abraham.In.Motion to Jacob's Pillow, America's longest-running international dance festival, August 11-15. Abraham, called a dancer of 'equal parts power and grace' by Steve Sucato of Dance Magazine, has performed with David Dorfman Dance, Nathan Trice/Rituals, and the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company. He founded Abraham.In.Motion in 2005 to focus on his own choreography, which deals with issues of personal and global importance. The company will perform excerpts from The Radio Show, which explores the function of radio and memory in urban history, culture, and community; Inventing Pookie Jenkins, a solo for Abraham that deals with perceptions of masculinity and identity; and Op. 1, a world premiere inspired by the photography of Eadweard Muybridge, co-commissioned by Jacob's Pillow and created in part during a Pillow Creative Development Residency.

In the company's only East Coast engagement in 2010, Trey McIntyre Project will perform at Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival August 4-8.

Miami City Ballet has been selected to make its debut at the 2010 Fall for Dance Festival at New York's City Center September 28th and 29th, 2010. The company will perform Twyla Tharp's 'The Golden Section.' The festival, running September 28th - October 9th, 2010, will showcase 20 dance companies and choreographers from across the United States and around the world. Miami City Ballet is one of ten dance companies making their debut in the festival. 'We are thrilled to perform, as it builds on our ongoing successful relationship with New York City Center, where the company made its debut in 2009,' said Edward Villella, founding artistic director and CEO of Miami City Ballet.

Photographer Marilyn Nance is suing the musical FELA! for unauthorized use of one of her photographs, the New York Post reports.

The cast and crew of the Tony Award-winning Broadway musical Fela!, based on the life and music of groundbreaking African composer, performer and activist Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, will be honored by New York City Council Members Jimmy Van Bramer and Julissa Ferreras on the Steps of City Hall on Thursday, July 29.

Hailed as 'one of the wittiest young choreographers around' (Deborah Jowitt, The Village Voice), Monica Bill Barnes brings her trademark blend of theatricality, intelligence, humor, and physicality to Jacob's Pillow Dance, July 28-August 1.

In the company's only East Coast engagement in 2010, Trey McIntyre Project will perform at Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival August 4-8.

New York City Center's seventh annual Fall for Dance Festival, running September 28 - October 9, will showcase 20 national and international companies and choreographers. With ticket prices remaining at $10 for all seats, a night of dance is more affordable than a night at the movies. The festival will include world and U.S. premieres, and will feature several companies making their first U.S. appearances.

As part of The River To River Festival, the dance community's leading lights will celebrate the extraordinary life of Merce Cunningham in a free outdoor performance on July 26th in New York, the city in which he worked and lived for 70 years.

As part of The River To River Festival, the dance community's leading lights will celebrate the extraordinary life of Merce Cunningham in a free outdoor performance on July 26th in New York, the city in which he worked and lived for 70 years.

California International Theatre Festival 2010 season is presented by the City of Calabasas with Linda Purl as Festival Director, M. Edgar Rosenblum as Executive Director and Tammy Taylor as Festival Producer. The Festival will take place in several Calabasas locations and will include distinguished international productions.

This weekend, July 16 - July 18, the Fire Island Dance Fetsival took place to benefit Dancers Repsonding to AIDS, a program of Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS. Below, BroadwayWorld brings you a clip of a performance to 'Stand By Me,' choreographed and performed by Travis Wall, Teddy Forance, Nick Lazzarini. The video features filming and editing by Allison Leigh Schiltz.

The winner of eight Tony Awards, including Best Musical and featuring, 'The most gorgeous Broadway score this decade,' (Entertainment Weekly) the 2010 - 2011 National Tour of SPRING AWAKENING will launch in mid October and visit over 60 cities including Los Angeles, Nashville, Chicago and Fort Lauderdale.

The work of Bill T. Jones, eminent choreographer, Tony Award-winner, director, and recipient of the Jacob's Pillow Dance Award, is celebrated throughout the Pillow's 2010 Festival.

Nigel Redden, Director of the Lincoln Center Festival, which runs from July 7 through July 25, 2010, today announced the Festival's line-up, which includes ten North American, U.S., and New York premieres, and debuts. The Festival will unfold in seven venues on and off the Lincoln Center campus, including two major theater events on Governors Island-the North American premiere of Peter Stein's 12-hour marathon production of Dostoyevsky's The Demons (also known as The Possessed) and the North American premiere of Toneelgroep Amsterdam's production of Pier Paolo Pasolini's searing Teorema, adapted and staged by Ivo van Hove.

Jacob's Pillow Dance presents Armitage Gone! Dance in Three Theories, July 14-18, a new contemporary ballet work choreographed by Artistic Director Karole Armitage and inspired by physicist Brian Greene's best-selling book The Elegant Universe.

California International Theatre Festival 2010 season is presented by the City of Calabasas with Linda Purl as Festival Director, M. Edgar Rosenblum as Executive Director and Tammy Taylor as Festival Producer. The Festival will take place in several Calabasas locations and will include distinguished international productions.

Michael Riedel reports in the New York Post this morning that songbird Patti LaBelle will be joining the Broadway cast of FELA! in September as Fela's mother. She will be filling in for Lillias White, who has concert obligations in Australia that month.