Verona News

A great, big Broadway season is on its way, with fourteen productions already slated to open in the next few months. With several weeks until the craziness begins, there is plenty of time to catch up on what's been going on at Broadway's occupied theaters . BroadwayWorld will be profiling the hits of the Great White Way that continue to draw crowds after months, years, and (in some cases) decades. Meet the current cast of Broadway's WICKED below!

Choreographer Spencer Liff - hot on the heels of HEDWIG on Broadwaybig Tony win - joins Goodspeed's creative team this fall to bring some hot moves to this cool new musical. Fans of @SoYouThinkYouCanDance will get the opportunity to see his latest steps in action right on The Norma Terris stage in The Circus in Winter.

'America's not used to seeing a black face in this particular art form,' says 16-year-old Naazir Muhammad about ballet. He should know. He and his twin brother, Shaakir, both practice ballet at the American Ballet Theatre School in New York. Both are aware that ballet is expected to have a certain face. The Dance Theatre of Harlem defies these expectations. Because of this, the company is special in two ways. It is innovative and radical in existing as well as being innovative and radical in dance. Aretha Franklin en point? You never.

Last week, The Dance Theatre of Harlem (DTH) presented a classic but eclectic program of four ballets at the Miller Outdoor Theatre. To my surprise, they gave me something I could feel. The performance reminded me that ballet can be fun, art should be communal and a coloratura soprano singing 'Domine Deus, Rex caelestis' is just as electrifying as James Brown singing 'Mother Popcorn.'

Die Wiener Staatsoper trauert um Carlo Bergonzi, einen der bedeutendsten italienischen Tenore des 20. Jahrhunderts, der am Freitag, 25. Juli 2014 im Alter von 90 Jahren in Mailand verstorben ist.

The Oregon Shakespeare Festival (OSF) will host four Shakespeare on the Road travelers July 28-August 1, 2014, as part of the group's 60-day, 10,000-mile road trip to 14 Shakespeare festivals in the U.S. and Canada to celebrate the 450th anniversary of Shakespeare's birth. During their Ashland visit, Shakespeare on the Road members will get an in-depth look at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, both on stage and behind the scenes.

The Old Globe will host the 2014 Globe Gala tonight, Saturday, July 26 in support of the theatre's education and artistic programs. The annual event will feature a one-night-only performance by Broadway veteran and Tony Award winner Laura Benanti (Gypsy, Into the Woods, NBC's The Sound of Music Live!, 'The Good Wife,' 'Go On'), based on her smash hit New York cabaret (and new CD) In Constant Search of the Right Kind of Attention. Nina Doede, Deni Jacobs, and Sheryl White serve as Co-Chairs of the 2014 Globe Gala. Leading underwriters include Audrey Geisel, Darlene Marcos Shiley, Conrad Prebys and Debra Turner, and Sheryl and Harvey White.

TED NEELEY (GESU'), YVONNE ELLIMAN (MADDALENA) E BARRY DENNEN (PILATO) di nuovo insieme in "Jesus Christ Superstar". A 40 anni dallo storico film di Norman Jewison, i protagonisti originali del grande successo cinematografico saranno sul palco del Teatro Sistina di Roma in Prima Nazionale il 19 settembre, e all'Arena di Verona il 12 ottobre, per celebrare il XX anniversario dell'edizione italiana del musical diretto da MASSIMO ROMEO PIPARO. Un'edizione memorabile, che ha decretato "Jesus Christ Superstar" evento teatrale dell'anno, con 50 mila spettatori in due mesi, interminabili standing ovation e applausi a scena aperta ad ogni replica.

SAN DIEGO (July 24, 2014)-The Old Globe will host the 2014 Globe Gala on Saturday, July 26 in support of the theatre's education and artistic programs. The annual event will feature a one-night-only performance by Broadway veteran and Tony Award winner Laura Benanti (Gypsy, Into the Woods, NBC's The Sound of Music Live!, "The Good Wife," "Go On"), based on her smash hit New York cabaret (and new CD) In Constant Search of the Right Kind of Attention. Nina Doede, Deni Jacobs, and Sheryl White serve as Co-Chairs of the 2014 Globe Gala. Leading underwriters include Audrey Geisel,Darlene Marcos Shiley, Conrad Prebys and Debra Turner, and Sheryl and Harvey White.

The Old Globe presents its third production of the 2014 Summer Season, Ronald Harwood's comedy Quartet, directed by Richard Seer (Other Desert Cities, God of Carnage, The Last Romance). Harwood received an Academy Award for his screenplay of The Pianist and was nominated for The Diving Bell and the Butterfly and The Dresser (also a hit on Broadway and the West End). Quartet will play in the Sheryl and Harvey White Theatre, part of the Globe's Conrad Prebys Theatre Center, today, July 25 - August 24, 2014.

The London-based Shakespeare's Globe will bring their global touring production of William Shakespeare's Hamlet to Folger Theatre for three performances only this weekend, July 25 and 26, 2014, making it the only east coast stop for the company in the United States. Directed by Dominic Dromgoole and Bill Buckhurst, the production is a fresh, pared-down version of the classic tragedy of deferred revenge.

The Old Globe will host the 2014 Globe Gala on Saturday, July 26 in support of the theatre's education and artistic programs. The annual event will feature a one-night-only performance by Broadway veteran and Tony Award winner Laura Benanti (Gypsy, Into the Woods, NBC's The Sound of Music Live!, 'The Good Wife,' 'Go On'), based on her smash hit New York cabaret (and new CD) In Constant Search of the Right Kind of Attention. Nina Doede, Deni Jacobs, and Sheryl White serve as Co-Chairs of the 2014 Globe Gala.

The Old Globe today announced the full cast and creative team for Shakespeare's The Two Gentlemen of Verona. Renowned director, Globe alumnus, and Tony Award nominee Mark Lamos (Compleat Female Stage Beauty, Pentecost, Resurrection Blues) returns to the Globe with one of Shakespeare's most delightful and boisterous comedies. The final production of the 2014 Summer Season will be presented in the outdoor Lowell Davies Festival Theatre, August 10 - September 14, 2014.

The Group Rep presents as their first production of their 41st Season Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire directed by L. Flint Esquerra, produced by Kellie Brook Malone for the Group Rep. This Pulitzer Prize and Drama Critics Circle Award-winning play famously recounts how the faded and promiscuous Blanche DuBois is pushed over the edge by her sexy and brutal brother-in-law, Stanley Kowalski. Considered to be one of the most remarkable plays of our time, the play solidified Tennessee Williams' position as one of the most important young playwrights of his generation.

Prepare yourselves b***hes! Tay Tay's coming to town. And not the lovely girl with a beautiful voice. It's Wesley 'Tay Tay' Taylor, the lovely boy with a beautiful voice. And he's here to teach you. Not just how to sing but how to sang. The Broadway star has teamed up with the Straight From New York Workshop and Concert Series and will be teaching master classes in Houston and Dallas.

The Classical Theatre Lab and the City of West Hollywood present A Family Affair by Alexander Ostrovsky, adapted from a translation by Geroge R. Noyes, directed by Mel Green. Causing an uproar when published in 1850, this broad and irreverent Russian comedy of manners centers around a greedy merchant, Bolshov, who makes a fraudulent bankruptcy application in order to finance the lavish lifestyle of his bourgeois husband-hunting daughter. When Bolshov's accomplices run off with his assets and his daughter, he descends into professional and psychological ruin and is jailed. Upon his release, Bolshov, a new man ready to walk the straight and narrow, finds that his selfish and cantankerous family has not changed one bit.

Venice Classics is the section of the Venice Film Festival that since 2012 has presented, with growing success, a selection of classic films.

Banned by the Lord Chamberlain for its facetious and irreverent treatment of adultery, This Was A Man, a previously unseen play by Noel Coward, directed by actress Belinda Lang, opens for its long overdue UK professional premiere in a strictly limited three week season at the Finborough Theatre tonight, 15 July 2014 (Press Night: Thursday, 17 July 2014 at 7.30pm).

It is a chilling conclusion when Kimberly Scott repeats the text of the prologue again at the end of ROMEO AND JULIET while standing over the dead bodies of the lovers. You can hear the bitter warning in her voice as she slowly looks from one end of the stage to the other at two fathers who have paid the price of their feud in blood. As her weighty words hang in the air, the lights dim and Shakespeare Center of Los Angeles's magnificent production fades out.

Warner Classics presents the most ambitious and extensive project ever undertaken in the name of the Maria Callas catalogue: a groundbreaking remastered edition of her complete recordings.