Today we are continuing out summer series on the TV shows featuring some of the brightest and best talent onscreen and onstage with the second part of BroadwayWorld's series on USA's new primetime network drama NECESSARY ROUGHNESS focusing on screen and stage star Scott Cohen who plays Nico on the show. Featuring an impressive assortment of players known for roles on screens large and small and stages far and wide, NECESSARY ROUGHNESS was created by Craig Shapiro and Liz Kruger and features Callie Thorne, Marc Blucas, Scott Cohen, Mehcad Brooks and Andrea Anders. The show centers on therapist Dr. Dani Santino (Thorne) and her suddenly crumbling domestic life coming in the wake of her husband's (Craig Bierko) newly discovered affair, just as she enters a new area of expertise in her field and starts taking on the clients of her career - chief among them being star quarterback TK (Brooks). Will her newfound romance with Matthew (Blucas) and his relationship to the team lead to a fumble? And who exactly is the shadowy figure behind the scenes, Nico (Cohen)? Plus, how will Dr. Santino balance the roles of therapist, mother and newly-single woman approaching her forties? NECESSARY ROUGHNESS goes in for a touchdown by bringing together issues from all sides and taking them on play-by-play - because, after all, as the tagline goes: 'Everyone has issues to tackle.' Touchdown!
Triple Grammy Award winner Debby Boone will appear at the Welk Resort in Escondido from June 22 to 25. In 1977 she skyrocketed to fame with 'You Light Up My Life' and has never stopped recording since. In the 80s it was gospel and Broadway into the 90s and more recently Reflections of Rosemary, a CD that honors her late mother-in-law all time great singer Rosemary Clooney. Boone has had a varied career, running the gamut from country to Christian to pop - Broadway and standards - and will soon record a Big Band Swing album. In our chat, this talented gal talks about her music and her childrens' books, which she wrote with her husband illustrator, Gabriel Ferrer.
Whether you're a flower child of the 60's or an Internet child of the 90's, it is likely that you have heard about the hit musical Hair, or at very least heard some of the iconic numbers from the show like "Aquarius" or "Let the Sunshine In." But regardless of how much audiences come to the theatre knowing about Hair, they leave having experienced something electric, powerful and unique. And leading the "tribe" is free-spirited and energetic Berger, everyone's best friend and resident "bad boy." When Hair arrives at The Fabulous Fox Theatre on May 17th, wearing Berger's trademark loincloth and "long, beautiful hair" will be Steel Burkhardt, a veteran of five previous versions of the show. We had the chance to chat with Steel about the show, playing Berger, and baring your soul on stage in more ways than one.
In a very short time since his Broadway debut roughly ten years ago, Aaron Lazar has crafted a particularly impressive career consisting of a striking series featured and leading roles in everything from LES MISERABLES and A TALE OF TWO CITIES to THE LIGHT IN THE PIAZZA - and the sensational PBS Live From Lincoln Center telecast of it - to his superb turn as Count Carl Magnus in the recent revival of Stephen Sondheim's A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC starring Catherine Zeta-Jones and Angela Lansbury to, most recently, Lonny Price's rapturously received presentation of Sondheim's COMPANY: IN CONCERT starring Neil Patrick Harris and Patti LuPone at Lincoln Center - which will soon be seen in 500+ movie theaters nationwide starting in June. In this revealing conversation we discuss all of the aforementioned peformances, as well as what we can expect from the forthcoming Clint Eastwood film J. EDGAR starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Josh Lucas, written by Dustin Lance Black, with Lazar in a featured role, as well as his upcoming dates premiering his new show at Feinstein‘s in June. Before all of that, you can catch Aaron live and in person May 2 at the NY Pops Tribute to Bob Hope, which will also feature performances by Kelli O'Hara, Tom Wopat and many more in addition to a special presentation by Angela Lansbury. More information about the event - and tickets - is available here.
Nashville's Circle Players, now in its 61st season and the oldest community theatre in Middle Tennessee, has scored one of its biggest hits ever with the current production of Jason Robert Brown's 13. Who'd have ever thought that the musical tale of a 13-year-old Jewish boy from NYC who is transplanted to Indiana could be so enormously entertaining or - perhaps more importantly and more significantly - acted and sung so amazingly well? Seriously, who knew?
The judging panel of the Place Prize Finals, the UK's biggest and most prestigious choreography prize, will include: gallery director Hannah Barry, performance poet and musician Zena Edwards, theatre director Rupert Goold, Streetwise Opera CEO Matthew Peacock and director of Dublin Dance Festival, Laurie Uprichard.
The judging panel of the Place Prize Finals, the UK's biggest and most prestigious choreography prize, will include: gallery director Hannah Barry, performance poet and musician Zena Edwards, theatre director Rupert Goold, Streetwise Opera CEO Matthew Peacock and director of Dublin Dance Festival, Laurie Uprichard.
Jennifer Carpenter is best known for her TV role as Debra Morgan on Dexter. She has also graced the big screen as Emily Rose in The Exorcism of Emily Rose, and as the lead role in the 2008 horror movie Quarantine.
In a recent interview with Broadway Beat, comedian Chris Rock went on the record about making his Broadway debut in the new play THE MOTHER FU**KER WITH THE HAT. Rock told Broadway Beat, 'I just like this play so much. I like the fact that sometimes Broadway can be a little over the averages man's head, but this play is for evrybody. It works on so many levels. It's like the kinda play that could work at the Apollo or the Met. That's what i like to do with my stand up- have an act that works for everybody, and this play gets them all.'
The 1980 movie Nine to Five was a pretty big hit when it came out, and one reason is because it touched a nerve with its tale of three secretaries (Lily Tomlin, Jane Fonda and Dolly Parton) who extract revenge from their chauvinistic boss, superbly played by Dabney Coleman, who made a career out of playing the man you love to hate in a number of comedies from that period. And since there are still issues of inequality in the workplace with regards to the salaries and opportunities that are afforded to women (even though there's certainly been some progress made in those areas in the last 30 years), I can see why this material might still seem pertinent enough to launch a stage musical. Even though it runs a bit long, and loses momentum about halfway through, it was obvious to me that most of the audience in attendance found 9 to 5: THE MUSICAL to be a very entertaining show. The current production playing the Fox Theatre is served well by a talented and enthusiastic cast that appears to be having a great deal of fun.
Dance New Amsterdam (DNA) presents award-winning choreographers Clarinda Mac Low and Jordana Che Toback in the stirring Winter 2011 Season opener, SPLICE: A dinosaur attacks a lighthouse.
Roundabout's Education Dramaturg, Ted Sod, sits down with The Importance of Being Earnest actors, David Furr and Sara Topham, to discuss the show, working with Brian Bedford and take questions from the audience as part of our Lecture Series.
Today I took my son to see his very first show ever, and I'm afraid the bar has been set very high. THE OHMIES, an interactive, musical adventure playing at the Daryl Roth Theatre until January 30th, is much more than a play. It's part concert, part dance party, part yoga class, part musical theatre, part preschool and part adventure. And if it held my two-year-old crazy-boy's attention, you know it was all fun.
I'll resist the temptation to call director Paul Alexander's Off-Broadway mounting of Dracula anemic or toothless, but will note his remarkable achievement of assembling a production that manages to be aggressively bad in so many ways and yet never achieves the 'you gotta see how bad this is' status. Though plagued by inept acting, questionable character choices, cheap-looking (and sounding) effects and a glacial pace, the evening is too dull to be enjoyed on any level.
Dance New Amsterdam (DNA) presents award-winning choreographers Clarinda Mac Low and Jordana Che Toback in the stirring Winter 2011 Season opener, SPLICE: A dinosaur attacks a lighthouse.
It's hard to believe, but the fiercely fruity hit Fruitcake Follies is celebrating its 12th birthday, having originated in Hollywood at the Cinegrill, and now in its permanent residence in the basement of a Mexican restaurant in Silver Lake. About as original as you'll find anywhere, the show's genius is James Gray, who serves as host, and costars the one and only Momma ... and this year Eric Seppala and Sandy Fox. Guest stars are Leslie Carrara and puppet pet Lolly and Melanie Hutsell as chef Paula Deen.
