Actor/singer Scott Dreier is, by self-description, consumed with Doris Day. He has been a fan since a tender age, watching every Doris Day movie and listening to every Day album hundreds, perhaps thousands of times. We all love Day. Who doesn't? She symbolizes all that is sweet and good in life! Because of her genuine spirit, it became OK for actresses like Mary Tyler Moore and Valerie Harper to have their own shows, representing ordinary yet intelligent young middle-class women and their problems. Because of her, four legged creatures have more organizations looking out for their total welfare. Because of her, our overall lives are a whole lot happier. Scott Dreier, like Day, is genuine, warm with a strong lilting vocal instrument and possessing an infectious charisma, with that famous 'sparkling smile' that will not quit on or off stage. He is the perfect entertainer to extol Doris Day and to sing her unforgettable music.
A little over 50 years ago, on Aug. 31, 1962, an African American sharecropper who had spent most of her life working in Mississippi fields traveled to her district's county seat to register to vote. She was denied the right. So began the public activism of Fannie Lou Hamer, whose struggles for voting and civil rights spanned the next 15 years. This coming fall, excerpts from a new musical inspired by Hamer's life and work, written by playwright/composer Felicia Hunter, will be presented in concert format on one of Carnegie Hall's iconic stages. The one-night-only special event also will serve as a benefit for the Center for Law and Social Justice, Medgar Evers College, CUNY.
Kate Fuller, takes on the role of Annie Ross at the closing night of her short lived jazz club, Annie's Room.
Look, we get it, whether due to budget or geography, you didn't see every show of the Broadway season, but that doesn't mean you can't be fully up-to-date for this Sunday's Tony Awards. To help get you prepared for the theatre's biggest night, BroadwayWorld has put together the ultimate Tonys Crash Course. We've outlined all of the shows nominated in the Best Play and Best Revival of a Play categories, and provided you 'study materials' as only BWW can, by mining our one-of-a-kind archives.
Tony award-winning actor/performer Hal Linden returns to the New York stage for six performances with his 'Hal Linden Live in Concert' cabaret style, big-band classics inspired live show at Manhattan's Cafe Carlyle - 35 East 76th Street, NY, NY 10075 - now though May 24th. Below, BroadwayWorld brings you coverage from last night's show!
Join us as we 'step back in time' to New York City's Greenwich Village in the 60s. During the early 1960s New York's The Bitter End Nightclub hosted Folk music 'hootenannies' every Tuesday night, featuring many performers who have since become legendary including Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Ramblin' Jack Elliott, Tom Paxton, Peter, Paul and Mary, Odetta and Pete Seeger.
Marlo Thomas spoke to BWW and other members of the press about her newly released book 'It Ain't Over...Till It's Over: Reinventing Your Life--and Realizing Your Dreams--Anytime, at Any Age'
I was just a little more than a year into my new side career as a cabaret show reviewer when I first saw a Karen Oberlin show. It was Valentine's Day night 2012 and Oberlin—with guitarist Sean Harkness and guest violinist Aaron Weinstein—would be performing her romance-laced set, Stringing Along With Love, at the Metropolitan Room. At the time, all I knew about Oberlin was that she was considered among New York's best female cabaret singers, and I hadn't researched her performing history pre-show. About a third of the way into her set I leaned over to my wife (it was Valentine's Day after all) and whispered, “You know, she has a real Doris Day quality in her voice and in the way she delivers some lyrics.” This immediately ratcheted up my appreciation for Oberlin since there are four passions I inherited from my Dad—baseball, reading the morning papers, sports writing and Doris Day (well, also Sophia Loren, but that's for another column). Since Dad had grown up during the prime of the Big Band Era of the 1940s, I heard the sultry sounds of a young Doris Day singing songs like “Sentimental Journey” on the family stereo more than a few times. Once I saw Day's strikingly adorable blondness on a record cover and her rocking body in one of her films, I knew what Dad was talking about. As popular, famous, and near iconic as Doris Day became, in my book, as a singer and screen beauty she's always been vastly underrated. Little did I know that Karen Oberlin had been doing a Doris Day tribute show so since 2001 at places like Firebird, Iridium, and the late Danny's Skylight Room, and produced a CD, Secret Love: The Music of Doris Day, in 2002. Karen Oberlin had instantly become my secret love.
Join us as we 'step back in time' to New York City's Greenwich Village in the 60s. During the early 1960s New York's The Bitter End Nightclub hosted Folk music 'hootenannies' every Tuesday night, featuring many performers who have since become legendary including Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Ramblin' Jack Elliott, Tom Paxton, Peter, Paul and Mary, Odetta and Pete Seeger.
Pacific Northwest Ballet continues its 2013-2014 season with George Balanchine's A Midsummer Night's Dream. A complete delight for all ages, this full-length ballet is based on William Shakespeare's comedy about the romantic adventures, quarrels and reunions of two pairs of mortal lovers and the king and queen of the fairies. Balanchine's Midsummer, which New York City Ballet premiered in 1962, was the first original evening-length ballet he choreographed in America. Staged by PNB Founding Artistic Director Francia Russell, PNB's production is an enchanted landscape where misunderstandings and mayhem weave tangled paths through the opulent layers of Martin Pakledinaz's designs and Balanchine's marvelously crafted partnerings. All ends well in Act II's wedding festivities with the recognition of ideal love, tenderly portrayed in an exquisite pas de deux. A Midsummer Night's Dream plays for eight performances only, tonight, April 11-19 at McCaw Hall at Seattle Center Tickets start at $28 and may be purchased by calling the PNB Box Office at 206. 441.2424, online at PNB.org, or in person at the PNB Box Office at 301 Mercer Street.
According to TMZ, Mickey Rooney, who spent nearly his entire life in the show business, died today at 93, after being in ill health for quite some time. He appeared on Broadway in Sugar Babies (opposite fellow MGM legend Ann Miller) and The Will Rogers Follies.
The life of privilege long enjoyed by a venerable Texas family is slipping away and its members refuse to let go of it without a fight in Horton Foote's absorbing and widely praised comedy, Dividing the Estate, which opens at Palm Beach Dramaworks tonight, March 28 (8pm). Performances at the Don & Ann Brown Theatre (201 Clematis Street) continue through April 27.
Pacific Northwest Ballet continues its 2013-2014 season with George Balanchine's A Midsummer Night's Dream. A complete delight for all ages, this full-length ballet is based on William Shakespeare's comedy about the romantic adventures, quarrels and reunions of two pairs of mortal lovers and the king and queen of the fairies. Balanchine's Midsummer, which New York City Ballet premiered in 1962, was the first original evening-length ballet he choreographed in America. Staged by PNB Founding Artistic Director Francia Russell, PNB's production is an enchanted landscape where misunderstandings and mayhem weave tangled paths through the opulent layers of Martin Pakledinaz's designs and Balanchine's marvelously crafted partnerings. All ends well in Act II's wedding festivities with the recognition of ideal love, tenderly portrayed in an exquisite pas de deux. A Midsummer Night's Dream plays for eight performances only, April 11-19 at McCaw Hall at Seattle Center Tickets start at $28 and may be purchased by calling the PNB Box Office at 206. 441.2424, online at PNB.org, or in person at the PNB Box Office at 301 Mercer Street.
'Oh, What a Night' it will be when Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons come to DPAC, Durham Performing Arts Center, on August 9, 2014.
The life of privilege long enjoyed by a venerable Texas family is slipping away and its members refuse to let go of it without a fight in Horton Foote's absorbing and widely praised comedy, Dividing the Estate, which opens at Palm Beach Dramaworks on Friday, March 28 (8pm). Performances at the Don & Ann Brown Theatre (201 Clematis Street) continue through April 27, with specially priced previews on March 26 and 27.
On the first Sunday of each month at Kritzerland at Sterling's Upstairs at The Federal, dinner cabaret nights are presented to packed houses. Due to the Oscars, this month's event was held on Monday, March 3, saluting THE PRINCE AND THE SHOWTUNE: A TRIBUTE TO HAROLD PRINCE whose career has spanned over sixty years and who, as producer and/or director is responsible for some of the greatest musical theater triumphs of all time.
What do the 1950s have in common with 1912? Ages of innocence, both. When Meredith Willson wrote his story with Franklin Lacey about a con artist bamboozling an Iowa town in 1912, which formed the substance of his musical The Music Man (1957), the effect became like that of N. Richard Nash's The Rainmaker. People were jubilant, ecstatic and welcomed Professor Harold Hill, as they craved a good old-fashioned love story coated with ironic excitement. He was a charmer, and they saw way past his bad side. Now in a colorful new production at Musical Theatre West (MTW) in Long Beach, this company pulls out all the stops and presents a delightfully bigger-than-life show that would do Willson proud. With super direction from Jeff Maynard and a divine cast led by Davis Gaines, The Music Man offers a refreshing take on the way life should be, whether 1912, 1955 or 2014.
Eric Abraham and the Fugard Theatre will present A HUMAN BEING DIED THAT NIGHT, a play by Nicholas Wright, in a tour that opens at the Fugard Studio Theatre in Cape Town, before transferring to the Market Theatre in Johannesburg, after which the show will be performed in a formal London season at the Hampstead Theatre in May 2014.
American music legend Paul Anka returns to Sydney for one night only on Sunday, March 9th, 2014 at The Star Event Centre, on his first Australian tour in forty years. Anka rocketed to stardom with his first global hit, Diana, at the age of sixteen and his massive catalogue now contains nine hundred song writing credits.
It was announced today that Carole King will be honored as the 2014 MusiCares() Person of the Year tonight, Jan. 24, 2014.
Battersea's new writing powerhouse - Theatre503 - announces a season of groundbreaking plays for spring 2014. Kicking off from today 14 January is an adaptation of Abe Kobo's 1962 Japanese novel WOMAN IN THE DUNES, followed by the previously announced world premiere of A WORLD ELSEWHERE by Times journalist Alan Franks - a thrilling play where Oxford University, Richard Nixon and the Vietnam War all collide. Full casting for A WORLD ELSEWHERE includes Michael Swatton (Maid of Bankside, Jermyn Street Theatre) as headstrong student Elliott, and Crispian Cartwright (Judgement at Nuremberg) and Oxford professor Mayhew.
Bernard, a dashing American living in Paris, chooses his fiancees carefully: They're all-yes, all three-air hostesses, as they were called in the bon vivant '60s, when Boeing-Boeing takes place, and their names all begin with G. The better to ensure no embarrassing mix-ups. But leave it French playwright Marc Camoletti to ensure myriad mix-ups that make for a masterful farce in Fells Point Corner Theatre's uproarious and entertaining adaptation of his 1962 play.
Live From Lincoln Center will broadcast the Richard Tucker Music Foundation's 2013 gala concert, one of the most highly anticipated events of the opera season, from Lincoln Center's Avery Fisher Hall. The concert event will celebrate the legendary tenor's centenary with an illustrious all-American group of singers, and honoring this year'sRichard Tucker Award winner Isabel Leonard. The 'Richard Tucker at 100: An Opera Celebration' broadcast-hosted byAudra McDonald and featuring interstitial interviews with the artists, segments from backstage, and a short documentary on Richard Tucker's life-is taped from a concert on November 17, and will air on PBS stations tonight, January 10, 2014 at 9:00 p.m. (ET) (check local listings).
Battersea's new writing powerhouse - Theatre503 - announces a season of groundbreaking plays for spring 2014. Kicking off from the 14 January is an adaptation of Abe Kobo's 1962 Japanese novel WOMAN IN THE DUNES, followed by the previously announced world premiere of A WORLD ELSEWHERE by Times journalist Alan Franks - a thrilling play where Oxford University, Richard Nixon and the Vietnam War all collide. Full casting for A WORLD ELSEWHERE includes Michael Swatton (Maid of Bankside, Jermyn Street Theatre) as headstrong student Elliott, and Crispian Cartwright (Judgement at Nuremberg) and Oxford professor Mayhew.
This holiday season, BroadwayWorld brings you a look at some of our favorite shows playing across the country. Take a break from the hustle and bustle and treat your family to some of our theatrical favorites, now playing nationwide.
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