Following its run at The Public Theater, Detroit '67, the much buzzed-about play by two-time NAACP Image Award recipient, Dominique Morisseau, will open at the National Black Theatre on Saturday, March 23. Directed by Kwame Kwei-Armah, the powerful drama will run through Sunday, April 14, presented by Time Warner. Billed as 'Uptown Meets Downtown,' the production is a collaboration between the Classical Theatre of Harlem (Ty Jones, Producing Artistic Director), National Black Theatre (Sade Lythcott, CEO; Nabii Faison, General Manager and The Public Theater (Oskar Eustis, Artistic Director; Patrick Willingham, Executive Director).
Way Off Broadway, Iowa's only professional musical theatre company and the residential company at the Stephen Sondheim Center for the Performing Arts is delighted to announce their Iowa premiere production, the newest version of Cabaret which won the Tony for Best Revival. 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 including a major "re-think" revival in 1998, which WOB will present.
The national tour of HAIR is coming to the Fox Theatre in Detroit this weekend. Cast member Brittany Rose Hammond says, "it's a show that an audience filled with different generations and different types of people can enjoy and share the same message of peace, love, and harmony."
The latest in unauthorized gossip and buzz from the heart of Chicago's showtune video bars, and musical theater news from Chicago to Broadway. That Oscar show, the fall season of national tours from Broadway In Chicago, 'See What I Wanna See,' two from Theo Ubique, Mary Zimmerman's 'Jungle Book,' interesting cabarets at Davenport's and more!
It's a lovely feeling to rehearse a show that's set in London and all about Londoners here. It seems strange that the first performances in 1967/1968 were in Toronto, Boston and New York.
The Whipping Man by Matthew Lopez will make its Bay Area premiere with the Marin Theatre Company in a production co-produced by Virgina Stage Company, in association with Lorraine Hansberry Theatre. Directed by Jasson Minadakis, the show will feature L. Peter Callender,* Nicholas Pelczar* and Tobie Windham* and will run March 28 - April 21.
The Grove Theatre has announced its production of HAIR, the American tribal love-rock musical, opening tonight, January 11th, 2013. HAIR, first opened Off-Broadway in October, 1967, re-opened on Broadway in May, 1968, and the Tony Award-winning show has enjoyed huge success since that time. HAIR portrays a loving, living, realistic look at the flower children of the 60's, who band together as a tribe, complete with bells, beads, incense, flowers, costumes and dreams. HAIR puts rock music and the culture that went with it on stage.
The Grove Theatre has announced its production of HAIR, the American tribal love-rock musical, opening this Friday, January 11th, 2013. HAIR, first opened Off-Broadway in October, 1967, re-opened on Broadway in May, 1968, and the Tony Award-winning show has enjoyed huge success since that time. HAIR portrays a loving, living, realistic look at the flower children of the 60's, who band together as a tribe, complete with bells, beads, incense, flowers, costumes and dreams. HAIR puts rock music and the culture that went with it on stage.
Led by Lauren Fox, a lively group of New York cabaret all-stars, staged a rousing and highly entertaining late night benefit show called 'Cabaret Rocks the Rockaways' to raise funds for the people out in the far reaches of Queens who are still suffering from the ravages of last November's Hurricane Sandy.
Classic Stage Company, under the leadership of Artistic Director Brian Kulick and Executive Director Greg Reiner, presents Anton Chekhov's IVANOV, starring Ethan Hawke, Joely Richardson and Juliet Rylance. Directed by Austin Pendleton, the show ends its limited run today, December 9, 2012.
Stephen Hawking and his fellow physicists may not have yet figured out the formula for traveling through the time-space continuum, but apparently the Metropolitan Room discovered the secret. Last Friday night (October 26), I walked through the curtain into the main performance space and entered a time tunnel that took me from the 21st century into the 1960s and '70s. Two lovely, rising young stars of cabaret, Lauren Fox and Jennifer Sheehan (photo left), had obviously hurtled though that same time warp because in two separate shows on the same evening, they performed songs that had been written and recorded 15 to 25 years before they were born. In the process they transported this particular Baby Boomer joyously back to his youth and to the days of cultural upheaval, generation gaps, peace, love, war, and some of the best pop/rock music ever written.
The long-running sketch comedy series THE CAROL BURNETT SHOW is being released by Time Life on DVD today, September 25, 2012. The half hour comedy was composed of sketches and parodies starring Carol Burnett, Vicky Lawrence, Tim Conway and Harvey Korman among others.
North Coast Repertory Theatre presents a San Diego premiere of The Underpants, adapted by Steve Martin and written by Carl Sternheim. The show begins previews tonight, September 5th through 7th and continues September 8 through 30, 2012.
North Coast Repertory Theatre presents a San Diego premiere of The Underpants, adapted by Steve Martin and written by Carl Sternheim. The show begins previews September 5-7 and continues September 8 through October 7, 2012.
The latest in unauthorized gossip and buzz from the heart of Chicago's showtune video bars, and musical theater news from Chicago to Broadway. Patti LuPone, composer tributes, new musicals in Chicago and New York, 'Beauty And The Beast' and 'The Jungle Book,' yet another 'Reefer Madness' and more....
During her recent two-night run at the Metropolitan Room (July 11, 12), Los Angeles-based nightclub singer and actress Robyn Spangler gingerly walked the tribute show tightrope and made it to the other side intact. Her show 'Why I Love Linda Ronstadt' - which earned her a 2011 BroadwayWorld.com honor as L.A.'s 'Best Female Cabaret Artist - was an honest and heartfelt homage to her singing heroine. Her Ronstadt show hit almost all the right tribute notes, with solid arrangements from her Musical Director/Pianist Todd Schroeder (who also provided nifty backup vocals) that were reverential without being replications.
Obie Award winning director Austin Pendleton is now joined by playwright Marcy Lafferty for talkbacks for Mississippi Mud Productions reprise of her stunning play, Vivien Leigh: THE LAST PRESS CONFERENCE, in New York, NY, tonight, July 6 and July 7, & 9, 2012 at the Alexander Technique Center For Performance And Development, 330 West 38th Street, Suite 805.
Pittsburgh CLO will present Fiddler on the Roof, July 13-22 at the Benedum Center. This classic tale is filled with 'memorable music, rousing dances and a touch of human wisdom.'
On Thursday, three-time Tony Award-winning Broadway composer Richard Adler passed away at the ripe old age of 90. Responsible for two of the biggest Broadway smash hits of the 1950s, THE PAJAMA GAME and GAMN YANKEES, Adler never quite managed to equal his career-high double-hitter of that era, yet his earlier work with Tony Bennett ('Rags To Riches'), Doris Day ('Everybody Loves A Lover') and Marilyn Monroe (the iconic 'Happy Birthday, Mr. President') surely shall solidify his place in the firmament of entertainment history along with his two classic musicals from the Golden Age. Winning both Best Score and Best Musical for both THE PAJAMA GAME and DAMN YANKEES, Adler's partnership with lyricist Jerry Ross - which began on Broadway in 1953 with JOHN MURRAY ANDERSON'S ALMANAC - was tragically cut short just months after the DAMN YANKEES premiere when Ross was diagnosed with lung disease and passed away soon thereafter. Yet, thanks to the beloved film versions of THE PAJAMA GAME and DAMN YANKEES and continued interest in the entities as expressed in the revivals and reappraisals of both onstage from Broadway to Biloxi to Bombay year after year, the snappy, snazzy tunes of Adler and Ross live on eight times a week all around the world - even now, more than fifty years after they premiered. Unfortunately, Adler's subsequent shows with other collaborators post-1955 failed to capture the early magic of his previous projects with Ross and his earlier musical and theatrical endeavors in the pop arena, with the racially charged KWAMINA flopping on Broadway in 1961 (though he took home a Best Composer Tony Award for his efforts anyway) and the awkwardly titled MUSIC IS failing to recreate the magic of its source material, Shakespeare's TWELFTH NIGHT, in 1976. A MOTER'S KISSES, starring Bea Arthur and a young Bernadette Peters, died on the road, as well. In the intervening years, Adler attempted musical adaptations taken from a number of intriguing sources - OF HUMAN BONDAGE and others among them - though only his ballet scores seemed to reach an audience; particularly his last, commissioned for a new production of Lorca's THE HOUSE OF BERNARDA ALBA in 1998. Of course, THE PAJAMA GAME has had two Broadway revivals - most recently the rapturously received Kathleen Marshall-directed production starring Harry Connick, Jr. and Kelli O'Hara; and DAMN YANKEES famously returned to the Great White Way with much ado in 1994 starring Victor Garber. Now seems particularly ripe for remounting YANKEES, as we approach twenty years in its absence - especially given the musical's seriously smashing showing at Encores! in 2007. Who knows, perhaps some risky producer will even take a chance on a new production of KWAMINA, MUSIC IS, A MOTHER'S KISSES or one of the bottom drawer shows someday soon to see if they possess any of the limitless potential shown by Adler's earlier work. Or maybe a stage treatment of his TV musical GIFT OF THE MAGI (originally composed for then-wife Sally Ann Howes)? Or, better yet, how about a revue? What a stupendous songstack Adler created over the course of his career - 'Whatever Lola Wants' to 'Hey There' to 'Hernando's Hideaway' to 'You Gotta Have Heart' to 'Steam Heat' to the aforementioned Bennett, Day and Monroe standards and so many more chestnuts.
Today we are talking to an iconic Tony Award-winning star who made her name as a teenager singing on TV variety shows - THE LAWRENCE WELK SHOW and SING ALONG WITH MITCH included - and then went on to a multimedia career in film and theatre, conquering Broadway with her Tony-winning turn in the Jule Styne/Arthur Laurents musical HALLELUJAH, BABY! in 1967 and returning to the stage in the subsequent decades in a host of Broadway productions, such as BLUES IN THE NIGHT, JERRY'S GIRLS, ANYTHING GOES, August Wilson's KING HEDLEY II and her celebrated Muzzy in THOROUGHLY MODERN MILLIE - a role she reprises in the new Muny production of the Tony Award-winning Best Musical beginning this week - the one and only Leslie Uggams. Taking a thorough look back at her career thus far, Uggams opens up about her many successes and how she has endured for fifty years in show business and shares recollections of many of her most noted co-stars and collaborators, all the way up to the recent 2012 Encores! PIPE DREAM. Additionally, Uggams comments on her film and TV appearances over the years, speaking about her work in INHERIT THE WIND, TWO WEEKS IN ANOTHER TOWN, ROOTS and beyond. Plus, she shares her candid opinions on GLEE, SMASH, Broadway then versus now, future plans for her Lena Horne solo show and thoughts on other roles she would enjoy pursuing - and much, much more!
Obie Award winning director Austin Pendleton is now joined by playwright Marcy Lafferty for talkbacks for Mississippi Mud Productions reprise of her stunning play, VIVIEN LEIGH: THE LAST PRESS CONFERENCE, in New York, NY, July 6, 7, & 9, 2012 at the Alexander Technique Center For Performance And Development, 330 West 38th Street, Suite 805.
Frankie Valli, the frontman of The Four Seasons and inspiration for the Broadway hit JERSEY BOYS, recently performed for Chicago audiences on June 2nd at the Chicago Theater. Nick Cosgrove, who currently plays Valli in the JERSEY BOYS tour, had the opportunity to meet the man behind the show for the first time following his concert. BroadwayWorld brings you the exclusive photos of the two's encounter below.
There comes a moment late in Act Two when Tevye, the beleaguered dairyman at the center of Fiddler on the Roof, remembers his daughters in childhood and laments the loss of his beloved "Chavaleh" to marriage to a gentile, which completely encapsulates the joy and the sadness that permeates this classic work of the musical theater. Derek Whittaker, playing the role of a lifetime as he leads the cast of Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre's new production of the Jerry Bock/Sheldon Harnick/Joseph Stein musical, is at his best in this scene, artfully blending his finely honed comic sensibilities with a genuine pathos that creates a heart-tugging moment that is genuinely effective.
Craig Smith, Managing Partner of the new Alhambra Theatre & Dining, announced that Joyce DeWitt will star in Sam Bobrick's romantic comedy, REMEMBER ME. Miss DeWitt is most widely known to audiences for her starring role as 'Janet Wood' in the ABC Television hit series THREE'S COMPANY. DeWitt has worked both as actress and director in a stage career which spans over forty years. She recently starred in A SCATTERED, SMOTHERED AND COVERED CHRISTMAS MUSICAL and the Canadian productions of the 2000 Pulitzer Prize-winning play DINNER WITH FRIENDS and Alfred Uhry's Tony Award-winning play THE LAST NIGHT OF BALLYHOO. Other recent stage performances include the North American premiere of the Australian comedy DAYLIGHT SAVINGS, the British farce NOISES OFF, the revival of Cole Porter's ANYTHING GOES, and the Broadway musical OLYMPUS ON MY MIND, for which she completed the cast recording - her first record album.
The long-running sketch comedy series THE CAROL BURNETT SHOW is being released by Time Life on DVD. The half hour comedy was composed of sketches and parodies starring Carol Burnett, Vicky Lawrence, Tim Conway and Harvey Korman among others.
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