Clearly, Brian Strumwasser is an artist, having garnered inspiration and expressed his creativity through a variety of media throughout his life. Beginning with painting and fine arts, the circuitous journey of life has eventually led him to his current career as a noted make-up designer for the national touring company of the Broadway hit, Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder.
Think the zaniness of Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest and Brandon Thomas' Charlie's Aunt and then those crazy American stage musical parodies like Little Mary Sunshine and The Boy Friend, and you've nailed the nonstop comical antics of I'm Just Wild About Harry adapted by Gary Lamb and William A. Reilly at Crown City Theatre in NoHo. With slick direction and choreography from Lisaun Whittingham and a superior cast, this musical is perfect holiday entertainment.
When Ariana Savalas - the Pussycat of Postmodern Jukebox - takes the stage, satisfaction is guaranteed - and she's willing to pack as many entendres into that promise as you can take. This seductive chanteuse captivates her listeners with her signature smooth as silk vocals, a quick wit, and a delightfully naughty sense of humor that would make the late great Mae West proud.
PBS - AMERICAN MASTERS series celebrates Eero Saarinen in primetime with Eero Saarinen: The Architecture Who Saw the Future. Watch the broadcast tonight, December 27th at 8pm ET.
Below, check out quotables from NBC's THE TONIGHT SHOW STARRING JIMMY FALLON for the week of December 12 – December 16.
Today it is too easy to get down on our frail featherless friends. We are birds of a unique ability to fly. It is easy to dis, but deserves much more that's not to missed from our fellow monkeys who have elevated our canopy to reach closer to our internal gods above and inside. I will celebrate the best of humankind and try to write a pictorial story with no direction in sight. It will be an image game.
The Rhode Island Philharmonic Orchestra's music director Larry Rachleff takes the podium on Today, November 12 with violinist Alexander Kerr playing Samuel Barber's Violin Concerto. The Orchestra will also perform Dvorak's Sixth Symphony and Dreamtime Ancestors, a 2015 composition by Christopher Theofanidis. The concert is Today, November 12 at 8:00pm, with an Open Rehearsal Friday, November 11 at 5:30pm.
Art has needed it for a long time and of all things, it comes from the political realm. The tipping point has dropped with Donald Trumpeting a New Order unlike Joy Division. The new Don's deal will play out in the arts like a match to gunpowder.
Love Broadway? In need of a good book? Well you're in luck, because BroadwayWorld has teamed up with the New York Public Library to bring you Broadway Bookshelf- an expert opinion on what theatre fans can and should add to their personal libraries. Read on as Gwen Glazer, (Librarian, Readers Services) and Doug Reside (Curator for the Billy Rose Theatre Division) share their selections for your very own Broadway bookshelf!
The Rhode Island Philharmonic Orchestra's music director Larry Rachleff takes the podium on Saturday, November 12 with violinist Alexander Kerr playing Samuel Barber's Violin Concerto. The Orchestra will also perform Dvorak's Sixth Symphony and Dreamtime Ancestors, a 2015 composition by Christopher Theofanidis. The concert is Saturday, November 12 at 8:00pm, with an Open Rehearsal Friday, November 11 at 5:30pm.
**Bonus** Nominations are NOW OPEN for the 2016 BroadwayWorld Regional Awards! Click on your region below and nominate your favorites thru October 31st only!
Maury Yeston, the composer and lyricist best-known for Nine and Titanic, visited the West End a few months before the West End opening of his new musical, Death Takes a Holiday. Based on a film (which was based on a play) this story tells of how Death changed his perspective. He used to not quite understand why everyone he came to collect was quite so aggrieved to die, until he met a particular woman who allowed him to realise quite what makes life worth clinging to. The side effect of Death's occupation being, though, that he can't collect anyone else while he's so distracted - Death the person and death the concept take a break! Maury was kind enough to discuss his musical background, some of his better-known works and his latest venture for the stage.
New York City's best cabaret venue has found a home in Seattle. In an all-new producing partnership, Teatro ZinZanni and Joe's Pub at The Public, one of New York City's most celebrated institutions for emerging and accomplished performance artists, present a brand new late night series, 'Joe's Pub Seattle.'
Don't mistake Yeston and Kopit's PHANTOM for the show on Broadway. It's smaller, smarter, and in this production, better. You'll get your boat, your chandelier, and some real human depth.
In what is set to be a major artistic highlight of the 2016 season, Sydney Symphony Orchestra Chief Conductor and Artistic Director David Robertson will conduct three great ballet scores Stravinsky composed for the world-famous Ballets Russes at the beginning of the 20th century. This will be a rare opportunity to hear three ballets: The Firebird, The Rite of Spring and Petrushka - performed by the SSO at the Sydney Opera House across two weeks this August.
In what is set to be a major artistic highlight of the 2016 season, Sydney Symphony Orchestra Chief Conductor and Artistic Director David Robertson will conduct three great ballet scores Stravinsky composed for the world-famous Ballets Russes at the beginning of the 20th century. This will be a rare opportunity to hear three ballets: The Firebird, The Rite of Spring and Petrushka - performed by the SSO at the Sydney Opera House across two weeks this August.
The Warner Theatre has announced its 2016-2017 Warner Stage Company season. The Main Stage season opens in November with Disney's BEAUTY & THE BEAST and follows with The Who's TOMMY, FOLLIES, and MARY POPPINS. The Nancy Marine Studio season opens in September with EVIL DEAD - THE MUSICAL and follows with the FIFTH ANNUAL INTERNATIONAL PLAYWRIGHT FESTIVAL, A CHARLIE BROWN CHRISTMAS, CALENDAR GIRLS and PETER AND THE STARCATCHER. Season Subscriptions are now available. Subscribers get the best seats in the house at the best prices! Tickets go on sale to the General Public in July. Call the Warner Box Office at (860) 489-7180.
I hear music, mighty fine music . . . Host Michael Feinstein sings with pristine bass accompaniment, as Musical Director Tedd Firth's Big Band filters in musician by musician. The sweetest sounds I ever heard . . . he continues as a light saxophone joins syncopated rhythm. Then whomp! All 17 players swing. Rarely have I heard sound design so perfectly balanced, appropriately favoring vocals. Feinstein remains smooth and easy riding the wave. 'You may wonder about the role of jazz in popular song . . . ' our host begins at the start of Jazz at Lincoln Center's first of three segments of the Jazz & Popular Song Series in the Appel Room. At a time when popular songs came and went with alacrity, jazz artists meeting for improvisational jam sessions needed pieces they all knew. Thus jazz mined popular music creating an intersection of the two art forms. Aided and abetted by four very different featured guests, Feinstein illuminates by example, not narrative.
What is the FUSION forum? A 'cultural collider,' as Dennis Gromelski (Executive Director of FUSION, New Mexico's longest-running professional theater company) explains: Similar to the goals of the particle collider in CERN, the Fusion Forum will bring charged artists together to unfold the secrets of the universe.
A production commissioned by the Finborough Theatre to commemorate the centenary of Dublin's Easter Rising of 1916, Margaretta D'Arcy and John Arden's epic retelling of the life story of Easter Rising leader James Connolly, The Non-Stop Connolly Show runs at the Finborough Theatre, playing Sunday and Monday evenings from Monday, 4 April 2016 (Press Night: Monday, 4 April 2016 at 7.00pm), culminating in two all-day 'come and go as you please' performances of the entire play cycle on the anniversary of the Easter Rising itself - Saturday, 23 April and Sunday, 24 April.
How often do you see an American western onstage? Especially one that was a famous John Ford film in 1952 The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. Both the film and the stage play are adapted from a short story by Dorothy Johnson about the American west in 1890-1910. The names of the characters in the film are slightly different from those in the play, but the plot is basically the same. What seem to matter more than plot are the historical, cultural, political themes that the story exudes. Now onstage at the Rubicon Theatre in Ventura, in its American premiere, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance is helmed by uber skilled director Jenny Sullivan and boasts a stellar cast, but you only have one more week to catch it, through March 20.
John Ford's 1962 film, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, is one of motion picture's all-time classic westerns. So when I heard that a play version was making its American premiere at the Rubicon Theatre Company in Ventura, I got more than just a little excited. Envisioning the tensions seen on the screen in epic portrayals by Jimmy Stewart, John Wayne, and Lee Marvin promised to be riveting theater. Unfortunately, the play version was taken not from the screenplay by James Warner Bellah and Willis Goldbeck (it was unavailable) but an adaptation by British playwright Joshua Compton from Dorothy M. Johnson's original short story, and although the Rubicon has created a fabulous setting, marvelous performances from all of the actors, and an atmospheric, on-stage musical tableau by Trevor Wheetman, the result is simply not as compelling as the movie.
A production commissioned by the Finborough Theatre to commemorate the centenary of Dublin's Easter Rising of 1916, Margaretta D'Arcy and John Arden's epic retelling of the life story of Easter Rising leader James Connolly, The Non-Stop Connolly Show runs at the Finborough Theatre, playing Sunday and Monday evenings from Monday, 4 April 2016 (Press Night: Monday, 4 April 2016 at 7.00pm), culminating in two all-day 'come and go as you please' performances of the entire play cycle on the anniversary of the Easter Rising itself - Saturday, 23 April and Sunday, 24 April.
Welcome Home, Captain Fox!, Anthony Weigh's new version of Jean Anouilh's hit 1937 comedy Le Voyageur Sans Bagage, will begin previews at The Donmar Warehouse from Thursday 18 February . The production is directed by Blanche McIntyre, and a cast that includes Michelle Asante, Barnaby Kay, Rory Keenan, Katherine Kingsley, Trevor Laird, Sian Thomas, Danny Webb, Fenella Woolgar and Daniel York.
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