Just So Revival 1998 - Articles Page 8

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more! Shakespeare by the Sea's stunning 24th season continues with Shakespeare's bold and patriotic Richard III  opening July 16. Audience members can attend SBTS just as they used to pre-pandemic - no reservations, no ticketing, no fencing, no proof of vaccination - just show up

New Line Theatre has announced it 30th Anniversary Season of adult, alternative musical theatre, including the return of Jason Robert Brown's brilliant, funny, and intense concept musical SONGS FOR A NEW WORLD, which New Line first produced in 1998 in its American regional premiere, running Sept. 30-Oct. 23, 2021.

He may be Manhattan's leading multi-hyphenate, but on June 30th Michael Kushner will take off all the other hats in favor of his ACTOR hat, when he spends an hour or so celebrating Gay Pride with his Pride playlist at 54 Below.

This month, Laurel audiences get a real treat when Steven and Catherine take on the leading roles of Norman and Ethel Thayer in the classic play “ON GOLDEN POND.”  Those are the roles that won Best Actor Oscar awards for Henry Fonda and Katherine Hepburn in the hit 1981 movie version.

This week, I was so sick I couldn’t get out of bed. What’s a neurotic theatre kid to do? Watch every Tony Awards that I could find, of course. Shout out to MsPoochSmooch.

There are just some people on this planet who naturally operate on a more creative level than the rest of us, and mezzo-soprano Hai-Ting Chinn is clearly one of those people. She is bringing her wildly inventive musical science show Science Fair: An Opera with Experiments to The Marsh on Saturday, March 6th.  Conceived and performed by Chinn with pianist Erika Switzer, Science Fair pairs luscious operatic vocals with light-hearted humor and science lectures. Chinn herself describes it as “a classical cabaret of science songs with science communication staging, including live experiments and slide shows, a little audience participation and a general sort of Bill Nye fun.” Science Fair will be available for livestream at 5:00pm PST on March 6th, followed by a post-performance Q&A with The Marsh Founder/Artistic Director Stephanie Weisman. Chinn will also appear two days prior to that on Stephanie’s MarshStream at 7:30pm on Thursday, March 4th to discuss this innovative work. For more information, visit www.themarsh.org/marshstream. BroadwayWorld caught up with Chinn last week from her home in the Hudson Valley, where she had just moved from New York City only two days earlier. A Northern California native with degrees from the Eastman and Yale Schools of Music, Shinn has enjoyed an unusually eclectic career, with credits as varied as touring around the world in Phillip Glass’s Einstein on the Beach, playing Lady Thiang in The King & I on the West End, and performing with the experimental Wooster Group in New York. Given her resume, I had thought she might be fascinating to talk to, and she did not disappoint. I mean, what other opera singers do you know who do science in their spare time, just for fun? We talked about how Science Fair came to be, her passion for the creative process, and our evolving understanding around issues of racial and gender equity. In conversation, she is candid and accessible, brainy and funny, and always very, very thoughtful. Underlying everything is her enduring joy in pushing the boundaries of what it means to create musical art.

The history of show business is loaded with couples who work as well offstage as they do on. These twosomes have brought their offstage magic to the stages of the cabaret and concert world.

HEDWIG AND THE ANGRY INCH is a cult-classic, a powerhouse genre-defining rock musical that truly rocks. Hed-Heads are still in love with her story 23 years later. In this exclusive interview, Oklahoma City's Hedwigs Matthew Alvin Brown and Jared Blount break down what this character means to them, and how she changed the narrative on live theatre.

Whether you love them or not, holiday films are designed to make you feel good inside - so it makes total sense that, over the years, Broadway stars (our favorite purveyors of joy) have found themselves appearing in them!

So how do you avoid burn out? Just rest, right?! Take a break?! Put down the work and relax?! Super easy right? Ha. Haha. *sigh*

As one of the lucky October-born people, the celebration of Halloween has always been a very important occasion for me as it is just a handful of days after my birthday. Growing up enjoying playing dress-up at this time of year always brought out my imagination into the realm of spirits, goblins, and how I just assumed they lived together with us in this world. So at this time of year, I have always wanted to attend the annual GHOSTWALK an in the streets production held in Santa Paula which brings to life encounters with local sprits who share the history of unique locations in the lovely quaint town. And now virtually I have - and so should you!

There is something beautiful about artists whose insight into the human condition allows them to create works that, even beyond their original intention, emotionally and intuitively meet the moment and help us through the tough times. Long one of the entertainment industry's ultimate hyphenates - singer, songwriter, actress, stage performer, author, healthcare advocate and keynote speaker – Gloria Loring works this magic with just a few inspiring lines from “Rise,” her rousing anthem on her highly anticipated new EP The Best of Me, set for release September 18. 

As live theatre remains in lockdown, Independent Shakespeare Company (ISC) is morphing their Griffith Park Free Shakespeare Festival into a free, livestreaming program of four FESTIVAL EVENTS on Saturdays in August, and a hybrid stage production of ROMEO & JULIET Labor Day weekend. ISC's co-founders David Melville & Melissa Chalsma were most gracious in answering my emailed queries on their twenty-plus-years-old theatre organization.

While Broadway remains shut down, BroadwayWorld is keeping up with your favorite stars and giving you a peek at what they have been up to! Check out yesterday's highlights from some of your favorites, including Todrick Hall, Zachary Quinto, and more!

Just as ESPN Films moved “The Last Dance” earlier to fill the void that live sports left, ESPN Films' Peabody and Academy Award-winning 30 for 30 series is premiering three new documentaries, two of which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, that will air on Sundays in May and June. 

Bridget Boyle is an Australian-based performer, writer, director, researcher and teacher in Drama, with a focus on comedy and gender. In 1998, she co-founded Debase Productions with Liz Skitch and Robert Kronk, and since then their theatrical works have been performed in venues and festivals across Australia and internationally. She has performed and directed for the Brisbane Festival, Queensland Theatre, State Theatre Company of South Australia and the Out of the Box Festival. She holds a doctorate in Drama and is one of the funniest and the most giving human beings you will ever meet. I'm so so grateful to be having her on this segment. Here's what Bridget had to say...

Riverdale Season 4 has attempted another female driven musical. The Hedwig and the Angry Inch musical tribute episode, based on John Cameron Mitchell and Stephen Trask's 1998 Off-Broadway rock musical, sorely misses the mark in its attempts to honor the Gender-queer character from Communist East Berlin.

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!

'I think everybody just needs to do what's in their heart and play what they need to play. I don't think the blues has to go any particular direction; I think everybody who creates in this genre need to do it their own way.' -- Albert Castiglia, on the future of the blues...

At its height in the late 90s, Who Wants to be a Millionaire was must-see television. Hosted by Chris Tarrant, the show premiered in 1998 and was an overnight ratings sensation. After an unwavering run of success, controversy reared its head in 2001. Major Charles Ingram bagged the big prize, only to later be exposed as a cheat thanks to an accomplice who coughed to signal each correct answer. The show's life went on, but in many ways its once bright light had been irrevocably dimmed.

In 1998 Stephen Schwartz mesmerized audiences with his delightfully cinematic songs for Dreamworks' animated film The Prince of Egypt. Just in time for the 2020 Passover season, Ghostlight Records released THE PRINCE OF EGYPT (Original Cast Recording). Featuring the 2020 London Cast, this lushly recorded but surprisingly forgettable album includes five songs featured in the original film and a slew of new compositions.

The Broadway community reacts to the passing of legendary playwright, Terrence McNally.

When you think of theatre, what shows come to mind? An obvious answer may well be Wicked. The writer of songs such as 'Defying Gravity' and 'Popular', Stephen Schwartz is for many the epitome of musical theatre. But cast your mind back to before Wicked and remember The Prince of Egypt, a 1998 animated film for which Schwartz penned 'When You Believe'. Now at the Dominion Theatre and bolstered with 10 songs penned by Schwartz, a new adaptation of the 1990s DreamWorks film defies little other than entertainment.

The dancers manifested exquisite flowing lines hit, yet not lingered on, as they lyrically moved to the next count of the music ever so smoothly, sometimes creating in between that and the next beat, a separate movement, sort of a bridge from the last position and the next... an asterisk; exclamation point, if you will... or a grace note... The stunning choreography will sweep you away to the haunting, gritty, yet buoyantly hopeful lyrics of Leonard Cohen. He has such a unique style to his writings and his presentation. This extraordinary company and their Artistic Director Louis Robitaille, have taken the essence of his intent and transformed it into internal emotion and external movement, simultaneously. By that, I mean, when they dance and move, or pose, their bodies are feeling the emotion being expressed through words or music. The way this was presented, so seamlessly blending from one piece, even though separate choreographers, into the next piece on the repertoire, it just seemed a magical, visual extravaganza for both the eyes and the soul. The company received Leonard Cohen's blessing to perform this amazing tribute, and it is indeed, special and poignant.

The Central New York Playhouse is now entertaining audiences with the delightful romantic comedy Shakespeare in Love. The play by Lee Hall is adapted from the popular 1998 film of the same name. With numerous productions of Romeo and Juliet occurring throughout Central New York the timing is perfect for a refreshing relief, a play that is about writing Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. Even better, the production is witty, refreshing, and entertaining.