Bathing Beauty 1997

Critics are weighing in on SOME LIKE IT HOT, the brand-new Broadway musical comedy featuring a book by Matthew López & Amber Ruffin, music by Marc Shaiman, lyrics by Scott Wittman and Marc Shaiman and direction and choreography by Casey Nicholaw, which opened on Broadway Sunday, December 11th at the Shubert Theatre.

On September 8, 1945, just months after Germany's surrender and the liberation of Nazi death camps ending the Holocaust, an unlikely and unexpected winner was crowned Miss America in Atlantic City, NJ.

This week, New York City Center presents the final Encores! production of the City Center 75th Anniversary Season, High Button Shoes. The production features Aidan Alberto (Stevie), Jennifer Allen (Shirley Simpkins), Kevin Chamberlin (Mr. Pontdue), Carla Duren (Fran), Chester Gregory (Papa Longstreet), Mylinda Hull (Nancy), Marc Koeck (Oggle), Matt Loehr (Uncle Willy), Wayne Pretlow (Elmer Simpkins), Michael Urie (Harrison Floy), and Betsy Wolfe (Sara Longstreet).

This week, New York City Center presents the final Encores! production of the City Center 75th Anniversary Season, High Button Shoes. The production features Aidan Alberto (Stevie), Jennifer Allen (Shirley Simpkins), Kevin Chamberlin (Mr. Pontdue), Carla Duren (Fran), Chester Gregory (Papa Longstreet), Mylinda Hull (Nancy), Marc Koeck (Oggle), Matt Loehr (Uncle Willy), Wayne Pretlow (Elmer Simpkins), Michael Urie (Harrison Floy), and Betsy Wolfe (Sara Longstreet).

That crazy cacophony of choreographic chaos that careens across the City Center stage shortly after the commencement of Act II is the main reason for Encores! to bring back the smash hit 1947 musical comedy High Button Shoes.

This week, New York City Center presents the final Encores! production of the City Center 75th Anniversary Season, High Button Shoes. The production will feature Aidan Alberto (Stevie), Jennifer Allen (Shirley Simpkins), Kevin Chamberlin (Mr. Pontdue), Carla Duren (Fran), Chester Gregory (Papa Longstreet), Mylinda Hull (Nancy), Marc Koeck (Oggle), Matt Loehr (Uncle Willy), Wayne Pretlow (Elmer Simpkins), Michael Urie (Harrison Floy), and Betsy Wolfe (Sara Longstreet).

Next week, New York City Center will present the final Encores! production of the City Center 75th Anniversary Season, High Button Shoes. The production will feature Aidan Alberto (Stevie), Jennifer Allen (Shirley Simpkins), Kevin Chamberlin (Mr. Pontdue), Carla Duren (Fran), Chester Gregory (Papa Longstreet), Mylinda Hull (Nancy), Marc Koeck (Oggle), Matt Loehr (Uncle Willy), Wayne Pretlow (Elmer Simpkins), Michael Urie (Harrison Floy), and Betsy Wolfe (Sara Longstreet).

New York City Center will soon present the final Encores! production of the City Center 75th Anniversary Season, High Button Shoes. The production will feature Aidan Alberto (Stevie), Jennifer Allen (Shirley Simpkins), Kevin Chamberlin (Mr. Pontdue), Carla Duren (Fran), Chester Gregory (Papa Longstreet), Mylinda Hull (Nancy), Marc Koeck (Oggle), Matt Loehr (Uncle Willy), Wayne Pretlow (Elmer Simpkins), Michael Urie (Harrison Floy), and Betsy Wolfe (Sara Longstreet).

New York City Center today announced casting for High Button Shoes, the final Encores! production of the City Center 75th Anniversary Season. The production will feature Aidan Alberto (Stevie), Jennifer Allen (Shirley Simpkins), Kevin Chamberlin (Mr. Pontdue), Carla Duren (Fran), Chester Gregory (Papa Longstreet), Mylinda Hull (Nancy), Marc Koeck (Oggle), Matt Loehr (Uncle Willy), Wayne Pretlow (Elmer Simpkins),Michael Urie (Harrison Floy), and Betsy Wolfe (Sara Longstreet).

Your knees won't buckle when you enter Belk Theater to see LOVE NEVER DIES, Anthony Lloyd Webber's long-awaited sequel to The Phantom of the Opera. There's no gleaming chandelier looming ominously over ticketholders in the front rows, nor will you see any nooks or gargoyles spanning the stage proscenium. Until the curtain rose, about the only aspect of the new Lloyd Webber melodrama that reminded me of its predecessor on opening night was the size of the crowd who had come to see it. A near sellout - not too shabby for a musical that has never played on Broadway.

As Memphis theatergoers pile into the Orpheum to kick off a record-breaking 2018-2019 season for ticket sales at the much beloved venue, they are confronted with a familiar, albeit masked face. Indeed, while Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera continues its remarkable 30-year run as Broadway's most enduring production, its sequel, Love Never Dies, has opened in the bluff city. Like all other sequels, Love Never Dies faces the initial challenge of justifying its mere existence. That challenge is further amplified when the first installment is, like The Phantom of the Opera, so woven into the fabric of our cultural iconography. Grumbling devotees of the original Phantom will no doubt ask why the story necessitates a sequel at all, let alone one in which the Phantom is transplanted from the Paris Opera House to (gasp) the underbelly of New York's Coney Island. To those skeptics in the audience (of which this reviewer was one), rest assured that Troika Entertainment's magically beautiful production of Love Never Dies, with direction by Simon Phillips, answers that question rather quickly. Why does The Phantom of the Opera require a sequel? Well, why not? That is particularly the case when the sequel is such an eye catching showcase for its talented cast of performers.

Turner Classic Movies (TCM) will pay homage to the glittering world of Hollywood musicals with Mad About Musicals!, a special month of programming celebrating timeless movie musicals such as The Wizard of Oz, Singin' in the Rain and Cabaret. TCM is once again partnering with Ball State University and Canvas to offer a free online multimedia course tied to this programming special about the history of the musical genre and its evolution with cultural and technological shifts. Enrollment is open until June 17 and fans can sign up for the course at musicals.tcm.com.

New York City Center is sure to be a singular sensation this fall!

Let's make one thing perfectly clear from the start. If you are expecting a sequel to Phantom of the Opera in Love Never Dies, you may be let down. This new show that is making its American premiere in the tour across North America, after a dismal opening in London in 2010, has been rewritten and reworked many times over, and is based on Frederick Forsyth's The Phantom of Manhattan, not on Gaston Leroux's Le Phantome de l'Opera upon which the first Phantom was based. Even Lloyd Webber stated emphatically that it is not a sequel, but a different story with the same characters. If you open your imagination and find it in your heart to believe that the Phantom and Christine consummated their love for one another by having sex and producing a son, you will enjoy much of the show. If not, and you want this production to follow the original from 1986, it will most likely not suit you.

LOVE NEVER DIES is playing through April 1st at the San Diego Civic Theatre. This one is for those whose love for the Phantom never died.

The talent in this production of Love Never Dies is unquestionably top-notch, and both of the leads truly seem to be pouring 110% of themselves into their performances - unquestionably focused and committed to each other, to the moment, and to the music of Andrew Lloyd Webber.