Black Broadway 1979 - Articles Page 9

Birdland Presents Dee Dee Bridgewater, Nicki Parrott, Chiemi Nakai Latin Jazz Quartet and More

Summer at Lincoln Center is a time-honored New York tradition, bringing people from all walks of life together to experience a multitude of music, dance, and drama across the entire campus.

The 72nd Annual Tony Awards are this Sunday June 10th at 8/9c hosted by Josh Groban and Sara Bareilles. It's the biggest award show of the Broadway season and it closes out a long awards season for Broadway and Off-Broadway musicals and plays. We can't help but wonder what chances this year's Best Musical and Best Play nominees have of taking home the ultimate prize...

This fall, artists and audiences from the Washington, D.C. area, the U.S., and around the globe come together at the nation's cultural capital to dance, sing, create, collaborate, listen, learn, talk, share, and celebrate the opening of the REACH, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts's unprecedented new expansion. At a preview event today, May 29, which marks both President Kennedy's 102nd birthday and 100 days until the historic opening, the Kennedy Center unveiled preliminary details of the free 16-day REACH Opening Festival on September 7-22.

The stars were on their feet (toes, taps and standing ovations) on a warm Sunday night, May 19th, for the Chita Rivera Awards a?" an annual ceremony recognizing the very best in dance on Broadway, Off-Broadway and in film that honors icons and trailblazers while also nurturing future generations simultaneously. It could have been dubbed a?oeChita Rivera's Dance Salona?? for the presenters, attendees and honorees read like a Who's Who of Chita's friends, fans and fellow Fosse favorites, including hosts Ben Vereen and Anne Reinking.

Four Chords and a Gun is an intense black comedy about the infamous punk band the Ramones written by John Ross Bowie (“The Big Bang Theory”, “Speechless”). The play reveals the drama-filled 1979 recording session that led to The Ramones album, End of the Century, produced by the eccentric gun wielding Phil Spector. The Canadian premier of this sometimes funny, sometimes wrenching, always gritty, story of how the world's greatest Punk album came to be is directed by long-time Toronto Star theatre critic and Stratford Festival director Richard Ouzounian. Hey Ho Let's Go! to a play about the Ramones followed by a concert. Not a f***ing musical.

Skylight Theatre Company's first world premiere musical, BRONCO BILLY - THE MUSICAL, will be helmed by director Hunter Bird. Based on the 1980 Warner Bros. film Bronco Billy starring Clint Eastwood, this rousing MUSICAL centering on a travelling Wild West show, circa 1979, has already begun previews. Hunter managed to rest his cowboy booted feet up for a few to answer my inquiring questions.

Tickets are now on-sale for the New York Premiere of the new musical comedy BROADWAY BOUNTY HUNTER, opening Off-Broadway this summer at Greenwich House Theater (27 Barrow Street). The follow-up to his viral smash hit Be More Chill which made its Broadway bow this spring, BROADWAY BOUNTY HUNTER features music and lyrics by two-time Drama Desk Award nominee Joe Iconis ('Smash', The Black Suits, Bloodsong of Love at Ars Nova), who also co-wrote the book with Lance Rubin (Denton Little's Deathdate), and Jason SweetTooth Williams (Be More Chill). Directed and choreographed by Jennifer Werner (The Book of Mormon Supervising Associate Director), BROADWAY BOUNTY HUNTER begins previews Tuesday, July 9, 2019, with an official opening night of Tuesday, July 23, for a limited engagement of ten weeks through Sunday, September 15.

The musical Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street is a 1979 thriller featuring music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by Hugh Wheeler. The musical is based on a 1973 play of the same name by Christopher Bond. Sweeney Todd opened on Broadway in 1979 and won the Tony Award for Best MusicalThe Broadway production starred Len Cariou and Angela Lansbury, both of whom won Tony Awards for originating the roles of Sweeney and Mrs. Lovett.

Producers Jennifer Ashley Tepper and Allison Bressi announce the cast of the New York Premiere of the new musical comedy BROADWAY BOUNTY HUNTER, opening Off-Broadway this summer at Greenwich House Theater

This May, BAM continues two ongoing monthly programs: Beyond the Canon on May 18 with a double bill of searing self-portraits, Bob Fosse's All that Jazz (1979) and Richard Pryor's Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life is Calling(1986); and on May 28, Screen Epiphanies returns with John Landis' An American Werewolf in London (1981), chosen by author Victor LaValle.  

Ensemble for the Romantic Century (Eve Wolf, Executive Artistic Director) continues the 2018 - '19 season, ERC's 18th, with its final offering of the season, Hans Christian Andersen: Tales Real & Imagined by Eve Wolf. 

Good morning, BroadwayWorld! Take a moment, grab your coffee, and catch up on the latest Broadway news!

Composer, conductor and pianist Andre Previn has died at the age of 89 on February 28. Previn was composer of the opera versions of Tennessee Williams's A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE and Noel Coward's BRIEF ENCOUNTER, dozens of orchestral works, film scores, jazz works and the score for Tom Stoppard's 1977 play, EVERY GOOD BOY DESERVES FAVOUR. He was also music director of the Houston Symphony, LA Philharmonic and the Pittsburgh Symphony, as well as the London Symphony Orchestra.

In a recent interview with the New York Times, Be More Chill composer Joe Iconis revealed that an off-Broadway production of Broadway Bounty Hunter, starring Annie Golden, is in the works. 

Good morning, BroadwayWorld! Happy Valentine's Day! Before you spend the day with the one you love, catch up on the latest Broadway news!

A 40th Anniversary reunion benefit concert of the 1979 hit Broadway production of They're Playing Our Song will be held on Monday, February 11th at 7:30 pm at the Music Box Theatre (239 West 45th St.) and will star the Broadway cast members Lucie Arnaz as 'Sonia Walsk' and Robert Klein as 'Vernon Gersch'.

On this day, we celebrate the birth of the legendary and history-making composer, Eubie Blake.

The York Theatre Company (James Morgan, Producing Artistic Director; Evans Haile, Executive Director), dedicated to the development of new musicals and rediscovery of musical gems from the past, will present a return engagement of the hit Off-Broadway musical, Enter Laughing: The Musical with book by Joseph Stein, music and lyrics by Stan Daniels, based on the play Enter Laughing by Joseph Stein from the novel by Carl Reiner, produced in association with Riki Kane Larimer and Alene Daniels. Enter Laughing: The Musical returns to kick off The York's year-long 50th Anniversary Celebration at The York Theatre Company at Saint Peter's (entrance on East 54th Street, just east of Lexington Avenue).

On Thursday night, Roundabout Theatre Company brought Sam Shepard's Pulitzer Prize-nominated play, True West, back to Broadway, continuing the legacy of the late playwright's work.

Just in time for the holiday season, THE WOMAN IN BLACK is inviting guests to try something new this year with a holiday ticket package. For those looking to bond over a spine-tingling live theater performance, THE WOMAN IN BLACK will include a drink from the bar with the purchase of a ticket using the code HOLIDAY through January 6, 2019. An experience surely not to miss, the production has been called "Spectacular" by the Chicago Sun-Times, and "Brilliant" by Chicago Theater Review, receiving rave reviews from critics across the board. 

Next week, FEINSTEIN'S/54 BELOW, Broadway's Supper Club & Private Event Destination, presents some of the brightest stars from Broadway, cabaret, jazz, and beyond.

The Actors Fund announced today a 40th Anniversary reunion benefit concert of the 1979 hit Broadway production of They're Playing Our Song. The concert will be held on Monday, February 11th at 7:30 pm at the Music Box Theatre (239 West 45th St.) and will star the Broadway cast members Lucie Arnaz as 'Sonia Walsk' and Robert Klein as 'Vernon Gersch'.

On September 10, the Broadway at Birdland concert series presented singer/songwriter Amanda McBroom, who returned to the historic stage with "My Favorite Things." Musical director Michele Brourman was at the piano, and Jared Egan was on bass.