Today in 2002, Oklahoma! opened at the Gershwin Theatre, where it ran for 388 performances. Oklahoma! is the first musical written by the team of composer Richard Rodgers and librettist Oscar Hammerstein II. The musical is based on Lynn Riggs' 1931 play, Green Grow the Lilacs. Set in Oklahoma Territory outside the town of Claremore in 1906, it tells the story of cowboy Curly McLain and his romance with farm girl Laurey Williams. The original Broadway production opened on March 31, 1943. The 2002 revival featured Josefina Gabrielle as Laurey, Shuler Hensley as Jud, Patrick Wilson as Curly and Andrea Martin as Aunt Eller.
Today in 1998, the second Broadway revival of Caberat opened at the Stephen Sondheim Theatre (then called the KIt Kat Klub), where it ran for 2377 performances. Cabaret is a musical based on a book written by Christopher Isherwood, music by John Kander and lyrics by Fred Ebb. The 1966 Broadway production became a hit and spawned a 1972 film as well as numerous subsequent productions. Set in 1931 Berlin as the Nazis are rising to power, it focuses on nightlife at the seedy Kit Kat Klub and revolves around the 19-year-old English cabaret performer Sally Bowles and her relationship with the young American writer Cliff Bradshaw. Overseeing the action is the Master of Ceremonies at the Kit Kat Klub which serves as a constant metaphor for the tenuous and threatening state of late Weimar Germany throughout the show.
Begin St. Patrick's Day celebrations early with the Irish Comedy Tour at The Colonial Theatre Thursday, March 15 at 7:30 pm.
Begin St. Patrick's Day celebrations early with the Irish Comedy Tour at The Colonial Theatre Thursday, March 15 at 7:30 pm.
George Jones was born in 1931 in the East Texas town of Saratoga. As a kid he sang for tips on the streets of nearby Beaumont. By age 24, he had been married twice, served in the Marines and was a veteran of the Texas honky-tonk circuit. On a recording session in 1955 for Starday Records, producer Pappy Dailey suggested he quit singing like his idols, Lefty Frizzell, Roy Acuff and Hank Williams, and try singing like George Jones. The result was 'Why Baby Why,' his first Top Five Hit.
Led by Robert Battle in his inaugural season as Artistic Director, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater will return to the Sony Centre For The Performing Arts stage, February 2-4, 2012 for four performances that will showcase the brilliant artistry and passionate spirit of Ailey's extraordinary dancers in a series of new works and new productions that extend the vital legacy of Alvin Ailey (1931-1989) in exciting new directions.
Led by Robert Battle in his inaugural season as Artistic Director, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater will return to the Sony Centre For The Performing Arts stage, February 2-4, 2012 for four performances that will showcase the brilliant artistry and passionate spirit of Ailey's extraordinary dancers in a series of new works and new productions that extend the vital legacy of Alvin Ailey (1931-1989) in exciting new directions.
Led by Robert Battle in his inaugural season as Artistic Director, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater will return to the Sony Centre For The Performing Arts stage, February 2-4, 2012 for four performances that will showcase the brilliant artistry and passionate spirit of Ailey's extraordinary dancers in a series of new works and new productions that extend the vital legacy of Alvin Ailey (1931-1989) in exciting new directions.
Led by Robert Battle in his inaugural season as Artistic Director, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater will return to the Sony Centre For The Performing Arts stage, February 2-4, 2012 for four performances that will showcase the brilliant artistry and passionate spirit of Ailey's extraordinary dancers in a series of new works and new productions that extend the vital legacy of Alvin Ailey (1931-1989) in exciting new directions.
Led by Robert Battle in his inaugural season as Artistic Director, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater will return to the Sony Centre For The Performing Arts stage, February 2-4, 2012 for four performances that will showcase the brilliant artistry and passionate spirit of Ailey's extraordinary dancers in a series of new works and new productions that extend the vital legacy of Alvin Ailey (1931-1989) in exciting new directions.
Led by Robert Battle in his inaugural season as Artistic Director, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater will return to the Sony Centre For The Performing Arts stage, February 2-4, 2012 for four performances that will showcase the brilliant artistry and passionate spirit of Ailey's extraordinary dancers in a series of new works and new productions that extend the vital legacy of Alvin Ailey (1931-1989) in exciting new directions.
Led by Robert Battle in his inaugural season as Artistic Director, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater will return to the Sony Centre For The Performing Arts stage, February 2-4, 2012 for four performances that will showcase the brilliant artistry and passionate spirit of Ailey's extraordinary dancers in a series of new works and new productions that extend the vital legacy of Alvin Ailey (1931-1989) in exciting new directions.
The Scottsboro Boys, by the renowned duo John Kander and Fred Ebb, is simply excellent from the opening number to the final curtain. Vaudeville-infused numbers put a showy spin on the disturbing 1931 true story of nine black teenage boys in Alabama who were charged with a crime they didn't commit. From the initial accusation and unending jail time to the multitude of trials and the final resolutions made by the court and the boys themselves, the ensemble cast sings and dances their way through the entire saga. Filled with beautiful timbres, endearing characters, spirited dancing and grandiose pizazz, this show is an enjoyable way to engage in a greater discussion on race and progress in American society.
Today in 1931, Broadway veteran James Earl Jones was born. He has won Tony awards in 1969 for The Great White Hope and in 1987 for Fences. He has acted in many Shakespearean roles: Othello, King Lear, Oberon in A Midsummer Night's Dream, Abhorson in Measure for Measure, and Claudius in Hamlet. On April 7, 2005, James Earl Jones and Leslie Uggams headed the cast in an African-American Broadway revival version of On Golden Pond, directed by Leonard Foglia and produced by Jeffrey Finn. In February 2008, he starred on Broadway as Big Daddy in a limited-run, all-African-American production of Tennessee Williams's Pulitzer Prize-winning drama Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, directed by Debbie Allen and mounted at the Broadhurst Theatre. In October 2010, Jones returned to the Broadway stage in Alfred Uhry's Driving Miss Daisy along with Vanessa Redgrave at the Golden Theatre. In November 2011, Jones starred in Driving Miss Daisy in London's West End, and on November 12 Jones received his honorary Oscar in front of the audience at the Wyndham's Theatre, which was presented to him by Ben Kingsley.
Teatro Della Corte presents NATALE IN CASA CUPIELLO January 10- 15, 2012.
Led by Robert Battle in his inaugural season as Artistic Director, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater will return to the Sony Centre For The Performing Arts stage, February 2-4, 2012 for four performances that will showcase the brilliant artistry and passionate spirit of Ailey's extraordinary dancers in a series of new works and new productions that extend the vital legacy of Alvin Ailey (1931-1989) in exciting new directions.
Led by Robert Battle in his inaugural season as Artistic Director, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater will return to the Sony Centre For The Performing Arts stage, February 2-4, 2012 for four performances that will showcase the brilliant artistry and passionate spirit of Ailey's extraordinary dancers in a series of new works and new productions that extend the vital legacy of Alvin Ailey (1931-1989) in exciting new directions.
Acorn Productions, a non-profit company based in the Dana Warp Mill in downtown Westbrook, continues off its 2nd season of Studio Series presentations with an adaptation by local playwright Howard Rosenfield of the book 'The Wandering Beggar... or The Adventures of Simple Shmerel' by Solomon Simon.
Acorn Productions, a non-profit company based in the Dana Warp Mill in downtown Westbrook, continues off its 2nd season of Studio Series presentations with an adaptation by local playwright Howard Rosenfield of the book 'The Wandering Beggar... or The Adventures of Simple Shmerel' by Solomon Simon.
Acorn Productions, a non-profit company based in the Dana Warp Mill in downtown Westbrook, continues off its 2nd season of Studio Series presentations with an adaptation by local playwright Howard Rosenfield of the book 'The Wandering Beggar... or The Adventures of Simple Shmerel' by Solomon Simon.
The exhibition Diego Rivera: Murals for The Museum of Modern Art reunites, for the first time in 80 years, five 'portable murals,' freestanding frescoes with bold images addressing the Mexican Revolution and Depression-era New York that Rivera created at the Museum for his 1931-32 MoMA exhibition.
The exhibition Diego Rivera: Murals for The Museum of Modern Art reunites, for the first time in 80 years, five 'portable murals,' freestanding frescoes with bold images addressing the Mexican Revolution and Depression-era New York that Rivera created at the Museum for his 1931-32 MoMA exhibition.
The San Jose Stage Company opened its season with the provocative and still darkly daring, Tony-winning Cabaret. Set in 1931 Berlin, on the cusp of all that was to come with the takeover of the Nazis, the Kander and Ebb musical revolves around the Kit Kat Club and its cast of characters who are determined to ignore the outside world.
Celebrating its 10th anniversary Odalys Nanin's Garbo's Cuban Lover, in its third revival, currently at the Macha Theatre in WeHo, still copiously exudes the passion of Cuban writer Mercedes de Acosta (in Hollywood from 1931 until her tragic illness & death in 1968) for her art and the supposed love of her life, Greta Garbo. Based on the rumored lesbian relationships that de Acosta had with Garbo, Dietrich, Tallulah Bankhead, Eva Le Gallienne and others, Lover is Nanin's lovingly woven fictional account of how she believed it happened.
Many of Broadway's best and brightest talents performed in Westport Country Playhouse's one-night-only fundraising gala, 'Playing Our Songs: Celebrating 80 Years of Musical Theater,' a fully orchestrated and choreographed retrospective of musicals that have been produced at The Playhouse since its founding in 1931, last night, September 19.
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