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BWW Reviewer Peter Nason chooses the best musical theatre characters from 1940-2020; see if your favorites are on our list of the best characters from Broadway musicals.

The Beatles! Rihanna! Michael Jackson! Johnny Cash! Kanye West! The Rolling Stones! Aretha Franklin! Bob Dylan! Miles Davis! Nirvana! BWW Reviewer Peter Nason chooses the greatest albums from the rock and rap era (1950-2020); see if your favorites made the grade!

Innsbrook After Hours announced that Chase Rice will perform at the SERVPRO of Richmond Pavilion on Saturday, August 15th and Steve Earle and Los Lobos will perform on Friday, September 4th. A limited number of early bird general admission tickets for each show will be available for one week from April 10 - 16..

While all non-essential businesses have closed, Birdland owner Gianni Valenti has been hard at work, preparing for the inevitable day when the legendary Manhattan hotspot will reopen for the throng of fans who call Birdland home.

Visit our list of the best musicals & shows you can watch from home! We've got you covered with all the must-sees on streaming sites including Tony-award winners, favorite stars and top performances.

Theater fans tend to highlight certain events throughout the year, moments where the work being produced in theaters, mostly on Broadway, has a chance to shine and become known to greater audiences. The Tony Awards in June and the Thanksgiving Day Parades in November usually draw the most attention, but the Grammy Awards each winter also brings this pleasure to theater fans.

City Winery Chicago, 1200 W. Randolph Street, announces Grammy-nominated Malian singer-songwriter Fatoumata Diawara, roots rock group Freddy Jones Band and more. The following shows go on sale to the public on Friday, November 22 at noon. Tickets will be available at citywinery.com/chicago.

Julien's Auctions, the world-record breaking auction house, honors one of the most celebrated and beloved pop culture icons of all time with their PROPERTY FROM THE COLLECTION OF OLIVIA NEWTON-JOHN (OBE, AC, HONORARY DOCTORATE OF LETTERS (LA TROBE UNIVERSITY)) auction event live at The Standard Oil Building in Beverly Hills and online at juliensauctions.com. Over 500 of the most iconic film and television worn costumes, ensembles, gowns, personal items and accessories owned and used by the four-time Grammy award-winning singer/Hollywood film star and one of the best-selling musical artists of all time who has sold 100 million records worldwide, will take the auction stage headlining Julien's Auctions' ICONS & IDOLS two-day music extravaganza taking place Friday, November 1 and Saturday, November 2, 2019.

Harold Pinter Award-winning playwright Anders Lustgarten's highly charged play about fear, friendship and the creeping polarisation of our society, opens in London at Theatre Peckham this November.

Rachel Bertone has set the bar high for the 45th anniversary season of the Lyric Stage Company with her pitch perfect production of LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS. Assuming the mantle of both director and choreographer, with the dependable Dan Rodriguez as music director by her side, Bertone and her design team capture the grit and the innocence of the story set in the early 1960s, while finding ways to punctuate it with flashes of contemporary pizzazz. Puppet designer Cameron McEachern has crafted an Audrey II without gender bias on its menu, and despite being voiced by a woman (Yewande Odetoyinbo), the plant is no shrinking violet.

New York City's largest outdoor Oktoberfest festival, OktoberFest NYC 2019 kicks off on Friday, September 13th, one week in advance of the official start of the famous German festival, at Watermark Bar at Pier 15. The open-air, family-friendly festival will run from 11 a.m. to 12 a.m. each Saturday and Sunday, rain or shine, from September 13th to October 20th with up to 150,000 guests expected over the six weekends.

A Few Good Men, a courtroom drama full of twists and turns, opens at Theatre Memphis in the Next Stage September 13 and runs through September, 29 2019.  Set in 1986, an apathetic military lawyer is assigned to the case of two Marines charged with the murder of a fellow squadron member at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base. Upon the assumption that an illegal retaliatory order was given to cover up a commanding officer's actions, Lieutenant Commander Joanne Galloway, an Internal Affairs legal ace, thinks there is something amiss. As the defendants refuse a plea bargain based on their belief in the military code of honor, the facts come out and lead to a court martial courtroom showdown that exposes the truth.

BroadwayWorld presents a comprehensive weekly roundup of regional stories around our Broadway World, which include videos, editor spotlights, regional reviews and more. This week, we feature INTO THE WOODS in Los Angeles, Lea Salonga in SWEENEY TODD and more!

An inspired choice of a show, the Hollywood Bowl has decided to present an effervescently buoyant new production of the Tony Award-winning 1986 musical INTO THE WOODS, Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine's much beloved twisted take on traditional fairy tale stories mashed together with witty charm, tongue-tying lyrics, and gallows humor. Directed and choreographed by Robert Longbottom, this enjoyable, sublime production is exquisite and thoroughly delightful from start to finish---much of which can be attributed to its top-notch, musical theater-trained cast that includes Tony Winners Sutton Foster and Patina Miller giving exceptional acting and singing performances alongside theater favorites Cheyenne Jackson, Skylar Astin, Sierra Boggess, Hailey Kilgore, and Stranger Things breakout star Gaten Matarazzo. The show continues with two additional evening performances July 27-28, 2019.

AMC and SundanceTV announced today from the Television Critics Association (TCA) Press Tour a simulcast of the upcoming true crime docuseries The Preppy Murder: Death in Central Park. The five-part series, which reexamines one of the most infamous crimes in recent American history – the 1986 killing of Jennifer Levin at the hands of Robert Chambers– will air over three consecutive nights, Wednesday, November 13th- Friday, November 15th at 9:00pm ET. 

When you think of a group of young performers doing a musical, most people enter with the assumption of low quality and newbie type talent. This largely stems from the mindset of not believing young folks can put in the same hard work as any other seasoned professional. However, when you take a group of hard-working individuals, like the ones I was given the opportunity to see, and pair them with extremely talented leadership, you find yourself with a recipe for greatness. Desert Stages production of The Wedding Singer is a prime example of why we should hold our young actors to higher expectations and treat them like the professionals they strive to be.

"In a story, someone had a dream. In that Dream, someone told a story." A Dream Like a Dream is one of the most celebrated Chinese theatrical masterworks of the 21st century. It was conceived and created by Stan Lai, who recently became the first Chinese theatre professional inducted into the Sibiu Walk of Fame at the Sibiu International Theatre Festival, Romania's pre-eminent performing arts event. In 2002, the Hong Kong Repertory Theatre was the first professional company to mount A Dream Like a Dream, winning Best Overall Performance, Best Costume Design and Best Supporting Actor (TragedyDrama) at the 12th Hong Kong Drama Awards. After a hiatus of 17 years, the HKRep produces this work anew, co-directed by Stan Lai and HKRep Assistant Artistic Director Fung Wai Hang, with special guests Louisa So, three-time Hong Kong Drama Award Best Actor Poon Chan Leung and ViuTV series star Cecilia Choi from My Very Short Marriage leading a 30-member cast of HKRep company members and other outstanding local actors. The production runs from July 28th to September 8th at The Box, Freespace, Art Park, West Kowloon Cultural District. On July 11th, a limited number of tickets will be available for sale for the preview performance (July 27th) and the production run from URBTIX outlets and the West Kowloon Cultural District.

As part of its year-long 50th anniversary celebration, CAPA will offer a free open house walking tour of the Ohio, Southern, and Palace Theatres on Saturday, July 13, from 1-4 pm. The three historical, downtown theatres are owned and operated by CAPA, and will be open for self-guided tours that include access to their stages to take photos with the theatre as a backdrop. Local docents will be scattered throughout, offering historical information and interesting, and perhaps lesser known, facts about each venue.

Celebrating its 37th anniversary, Outfest - the Los Angeles-based nonprofit organization promoting equality by creating, sharing, and protecting LGBTQ stories on the screen - today announced the complete programming lineup for the 2019 Outfest Los Angeles LGBTQ Film Festival, presented by HBO. The nation's leading LGBTQ festival will be held July 18-28, 2019.

The City Theatre's production of PARALLEL LIVES eschews elaborate sets, costumes, and production design in favor of highlighting its varied characters and the stories they bring to life. Sadly, the show suffers from a lack of dynamic entertainment value and holds a run time that will have you checking your watch surprised that it's not over yet.

To close out its 55th season, Orange County's Tony Award-winning South Coast Repertory is mounting David Henry Hwang's intriguing and mysterious play M. BUTTERFLY, using the playwright's much more layered and riveting 2017 Broadway revival as its source material. Marked assuredly by powerful, gripping performances, this admirable OC staging---directed with clarifying precision by Desdemona Chiang that continues through June 8 in Costa Mesa---keeps you at the edge of your seat, as it unpacks a story filled with wobbly uncertainties and vague declarations. A beautifully complex production that echoes sentiments of gender conformity/fluidity crossed with geopolitical issues that still resonate in today's ever-changing world, M. BUTTERFLY---particularly with this strong new update instituted by the original playwright himself---is definitely worth seeing.

Portland Opera is pleased to announce programming for the company's 56th season, which will open on October 25, 2019. The season will launch with one of the most powerful operas of all time, Puccini's Madama Butterfly, starring internationally acclaimed soprano Hiromi Omura in the title role. In February, the company will present An American Quartet: Four One-Act Operas in an intimate evening in the Hampton Opera Center's black box theatre. These one-acts feature Gian Carlo Menotti's The Telephone, Samuel Barber's A Hand of Bridge, Douglas Moore's Gallantry, and Lee Hoiby's Bon Appetit! The season will continue with a rare presentation of Vivaldi's opera Bajazet in March, which will be a special collaboration with the Portland Baroque Orchestra. In the spring, Portland Opera will present its annual Big Night concert and Leoncavallo's verismo masterpiece, Pagliacci. The 2019/20 season will close with the Portland Opera premiere of Jake Heggie's familial drama, Three Decembers.  

The Civilians, under the leadership of Founding Artistic Director Steve Cosson and Managing Director Margaret Moll, is proud to announce a series of lively and engaging post-show salons that will follow select performances of Claire Kiechel's Paul Swan is Dead and Gone. Luminaries from the world of arts and letters will speak on various themes relevant to Paul Swan's life and work including his residency in the Carnegie Hall studios, queer performance, and mid-century ideas of camps.

Now over 20 million albums into their career, there can be no doubt as to why The B-52s remain one of rock music's most beloved and enduring bands. As The B-52s continue to celebrate their 40th Anniversary, the band announced a world-wide tour today that is expected to cover more than 10 countries and will include a headlining North American summer tour, including a stop at the Majestic Theatre (224 E. Houston St.) in San Antonio, TX on August 21, 2019 at 7PM. Special guests OMD and Berlin will open the show. Tickets go on sale this Friday, April 12 at NOON.

A fraternity of alternative British rock bands led by acoustic pioneers The Alarm, post punk auteurs Modern English, and the charismatic Jay Aston's Gene Loves Jezebel have announced they will take to the road throughout North America this summer 2019. See initial dates below.