BROADWAY BY THE YEAR, the musical revue series created, written, directed, and hosted by Scott Siegel and which pays tribute to a different era of Broadway composers each program, is a stroke of brilliance. Occurring once a month, each evening is dedicated specifically to one decade of American musical theater, and features some of the most talented stars currently working in American musical theater.
The series' most recent installment (and the first of 2017) on February 27 at its usual home, The Town Hall, paid tribute to the 1920s. The decade, which inducted into the theatrical cannon the likes of George and Ira Gershwin and Richard Rodgers, brims with melodically-rich scores including songs of yearning and joviality. The tunes selected for the evening certainly felt of their era; however, put into the hands of such skilled performers as Carolee Carmello, Beth Malone, and Robert Cuccioli (to name a few), they could be heard with fresh and non-cynical ears.
Of the three shows currently running at the Guthrie, THE ROYAL FAMILY is definitely the lightweight, longer on comedy and razzle-dazzle production values than on importance. (The other two shows are KING LEAR and PROMISE LAND, a barebones physical theater take on the Hansel and Gretel tale retold as an immigrant story.) Loosely based on the Barrymore acting clan, THE ROYAL FAMILY follows three generations of a prominent and wealthy family of performers, with particular attention to the female line.
Robert J. Eagle, Producing Artistic Director of Reagle Music Theatre of Greater Boston, announces the company's much-anticipated 49th consecutive summer season at the Robinson Theatre (617 Lexington St. Waltham, MA, 02452), to run June-August, 2017.
Norma Desmond will bring drama to towns across the UK, according to the Leicster Mercury, which reports the Curve announced the news of a SUNSET BOULEVARD tour at its 2017 season launch this evening.
Camden People'sTheatre 's brand new festival All the Right Notes brings together trailblazing work from the place where theatre and live music meet: it's a festival featuring not only theatre-makers whose work is driven by live music, but music acts whose work is audaciously theatrical, programmed in partnership with DJ and journalist Joe Muggs. They meet in the middle, splicing for your delight the hothouse thrill of live music and the buzz of inventive contemporary theatre.
After an opening weekend of record breaking ticket sales, Benighted has been extended at the Old Red Lion due to phenomenal public demand - now closing on Saturday 7th January 2017.
If you like your Halloween entertainment a little on the wacky-creepy side, you will love Broadway in Detroit's “A GENTLEMAN'S GUIDE TO LOVE AND MURDER” now on stage at the beautiful Fisher Theatre. A musical about a serial killer could never be more funny. This show won four Tonys at the 68th Tony Awards in June 2014, including Best Musical. It is based on the 1907 novel Israel Rank: The Autobiography of a Criminal by Roy Horniman and its screen adaptation, the 1949 British film Kind Hearts and Coronets. Characters in the play are penned after real-life English aristocrats, primarily a frivolous British Prime Minister.
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.
Camden People'sTheatre 's brand new festival All the Right Notes brings together trailblazing work from the place where theatre and live music meet: it's a festival featuring not only theatre-makers whose work is driven by live music, but music acts whose work is audaciously theatrical, programmed in partnership with DJ and journalist Joe Muggs. They meet in the middle, splicing for your delight the hothouse thrill of live music and the buzz of inventive contemporary theatre.
The Alden in McLean's riveting 2016-2017 Professional Artist Series brings many of the sold-out, audience favorites' of past seasons back for an encore. The result is an amazing and diverse offering of some of the best performers in the dance, theatre and music worlds, all conveniently accessible to residents of the DMV.
The Old Laundry Theatre, Bowness-on-Windermere, in the heart of the Lake District, announces its exciting and diverse Autumn season including GRIFF RHYS JONES' first solo comedy tour with his brand new show Jones And Smith. ALAN AYCKBOURN directs the first major revival of his classic comedy Henceforward. And, as part of Beatrix Potter's 150th anniversary year, The Old Laundry Theatre presents a new adaptation of Eric Pringle's insightful play Meeting Bea.
SINGIN' IN THE RAIN is a marvellous blend of singing, dancing, celluloid snippets and 12,000 litres of recycled water.
A distinguished creative team has hit it big with a rousing, new, heart-warming version of ANASTASIA, premiering currently at the Hartford Stage Company. This show has appeal for romantics and history buffs and musical comedy fans and dance aficionados and features no fewer than four strong female figures for audiences to identify with; in short, it's a potential blockbuster, for all kinds of worthy reasons.
This June, FEINSTEIN'S/54 BELOW, Broadway's Supper Club, presents some of the brightest stars from Broadway, cabaret, jazz and beyond. To purchase tickets or for more information, visit www.54Below.com/Feinsteins or call (646) 476-3551.
Broadway will come to The Cape Playhouse this summer as Hunter Foster, Jen Cody, Nick Spangler, and Kaitlyn Davidson come to the theatre in a season of Playhouse premieres and Broadway favorites. Erik Orton, Guest Artistic Director, today announced the casting for the historic theater's 90th Season in Dennis, MA. Six shows - a mix of comedies, dramas, and musicals - will play from June 7 - August 30, 2016.
Meg Fofonoff and Stacey Stephens, Producing Artistic Directors of Fiddlehead Theatre Company, announced today the cast of Show Boat, the company's first production in partnership with the Citi Performing Arts Center Shubert Theatre, 265 Tremont Street, Boston. Show Boat will run for twelve performances from June 22-July 3, 2016. Co-Directed by Fofonoff and Stephens, Show Boat will feature a cast of 50 starring seasoned international and off-Broadway performers including Kim Corbett (West Side Story, Les Miserables) as Magnolia Hawks, Jeremiah James (The Fantasticks) as Gaylord Ravenal, Lindsay Roberts (The Gershwins' Porgy And Bess) as Queenie, and Brian Kinnard (Buddy - The Buddy Holly Story) as Joe. Show Boat is Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II's epic of life on the Mississippi River with some of the most beautiful and influential music ever written for the stage including 'Ol'Man River,' 'Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man' and 'Bill.' Show Boat will be choreographed by Wendy Hall, with a 27-piece live orchestra under the direction of Charles Peltz.
For Strawdog Theatre Company's final production in its Broadway home, the company fittingly
presents George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart's 1930 comedy ONCE IN A LIFETIME-both play and production are rife with charm and sly winks to the audience. Director Damon Kiely's choice to stage this particular Kaufman and Hart comedy is also an intriguing one. ONCE IN A LIFETIME chiefly concerns itself with the changes to the entertainment industry after the appearance of the first 'talkie' (a film with spoken dialogue) and a frantic trio of three former vaudeville performers-May, George, and Jerry-who scramble to Hollywood hoping to strike it rich. And just as Jerry contemplates what these new 'talkies' will mean for the future of the 'legitimate stage,' so too do we now find ourselves on the precipice of immense change for the film and entertainment industry.
Daniel Evans' sell-out Sheffield Crucible production of Show Boat has transferred to the West End and is now in previews, with press night on Monday 25 April 2016. Show Boat is booking at the New London Theatre to 7 January 2017. BroadwayWorld has a first look at the cast in action below!
In THE SECRET LIFE OF THE AMERICAN MUSICAL, Jack Viertel takes about musicals, puts them back together, sings their praises, marvels at their unflagging inventiveness, and occasionally despairs over their more embarrassing shortcomings. In the process, he invites us to fall in love with the art form all over again by showing us how musicals happen, what makes them work, how they captivate audiences, and how one landmark show leads to the next-by design or by accident, by emulation or by rebellion from OKLAHOMA! to HAMILTON and onward.
The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts hosts more than 150 outstanding theater students from colleges and universities across the nation as part of the 48th annual Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival (KCACTF), which runs April 12-16, 2016 in multiple locations throughout the Center. Thousands of student artists from eight regions across the country presented their work at regional festivals from January 5 through February 27, 2016 and more than 150 were selected to travel to the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., for an all-expenses-paid trip to participate in the national festival.
Malcolm Sinclair (Capt. Andy Hawks) and Chris Peluso (Gaylord Ravenal) will join original Sheffield cast members Gina Beck (Magnolia Hawks), Lucy Briers (Parthy Ann Hawks), Rebecca Trehearn (Julia La Verne), Emmanuel Kojo(Joe), Sandra Marvin (Queenie), Alex Young (Ellie May Chipley) and Danny Collins (Frank Schultz) in the West End cast of Daniel Evans' five star production of Show Boat.
GREASE: LIVE has enlisted a Jonas brother.
Festival General Director Nigel Redden announces the program for the 40th annual Spoleto Festival USA, taking place May 27 through June 12, 2016 in Charleston, South Carolina.
Show Boat, the first great serious Broadway musical, combined the talents of Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II. The story, which spans almost fifty years, follows the lives, loves, and losses of a troupe of riverboat performers aboard the Cotton Blossom floating theater on the mighty Mississippi. Its timeless score contains some of the most beautiful and emotionally charged songs ever written for a musical, including 'Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man' and 'Make Believe.' "Ol' Man River", is the show's most memorable anthem about how the mighty Mississippi River, that unstoppable force of nature, is completely indifferent to human suffering.
Word for Word closes the 2015 Season with Word for Word's HOLIDAY HIGH JINX -- Bums, Broads and Broadway: Stories by Damon Runyon, Joseph Mitchell, and E.B. White, opening tonight Saturday Nov. 28, 8pm (Press opening) and run through December 24, 2015 at Z Below in San Francisco's Mission/SOMA district.
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