Actor, singer, playwright and film historian Charles Busch is a multi-talented artist who has won many awards over the course of his varied career. Remembered for his plays Vampire Lesbians of Sodom, Psycho Beach Party and Die! Mommie Die!, the latter two having been translated to film, Busch never ceases to amaze with his unique style of creativity. On March 13 and 14 he is bringing his act That Girl/That Boy to Rockwell Table and Stage. In our chat, he talks about this cabaret evening along with delightful observations of the theatre and movie world.
In a nutshell, tell our readers about what you are doing in That Girl/That Boy at Rockwell on March 13/14. How is the show unlike any show you have ever done?
The Roxy Regional Theatre opens its production of THE DIARY OF ANNE FRANK this Friday.
Lerner and Loewe's classic Broadway musical My Fair Lady - based on George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion - opens tomorrow night at The Larry Keeton Theatre in Donelson, featuring Erica Patterson (and her understudy Ashley Wolfe, who takes on the iconic role for three performances) as Eliza Doolittle, surrounded by a bevy of Nashville's finest leading men, including Cavender Lane, Elliott Winston Robinson, Chris Cavin, Austin Jeffrey Smith and George Hardimon IV.
It is no secret that acclaimed film director Mike Leigh has a passion for Gilbert and Sullivan; his 1999 film Topsy-Turvy was an outright celebration of them and their music. In this first revival of his version of Pirates of Penzance, Leigh maintains and expands on that celebratory spirit in a colourful and vivacious production at the London Coliseum.
Opening tonight at Murfreesboro's Center for the Arts is 9 to 5: The Musical, the Broadway musical by Dolly Parton and Patricia Resnick, based upon the hit movie in which Parton played Doralee, a buxom, down-home kind of gal. Directed by Matthew Hayes Hunter, with choreography by Kate Adams-Kramer and musical direction by Emily Dennis, the show features a stunning trio of leading ladies - played by Katie Hahn, Mary Ellen Smith and Memory Strong-Smith - and an ensemble filled with local favorites, including two Matt Smiths...
ABBA musical hits the right notes and audiences continue to love it!!!!
Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts has announced its lineup for March events. See the full schedule below!
When Massimo Cavelletti stepped on stage at the Met on November 16, it was a milestone: His 100th performance as Marcello, the baritone lead in LA BOHEME and part of the quartet at the opera's heart: There's Mimi, the seamstress, the sad soul who dies at the opera's end; Rodolfo, the heartthrob tenor, a poet, in love with her; Musetta, the spitfire who eats men for breakfast; and then there's Marcello, a painter, her lover—and, aah, the linchpin that holds it all together.
It didn't quite make Word of the Year, but the expression 'throwing shade' has found its way into the latest edition of the Collins Dictionary. The significance of this development is somewhat shaded (see what I did there?) by the general bemusement that it took Collins so long to 'discover' the phrase, and that anyone pays attention to dictionaries anymore, except in their online guises as useful tools for students and other plagiarists.
Julie Johnson stars as America's favorite country music sweetheart in Dean Regan's musical tribute, "A Closer Walk with Patsy Cline."
Tammy Faye (nee Tammy Lang) is a luminary on the downtown NYC performance art scene. Long before I met her, I'd heard her name spoken with reverence by many artists and musicians I met when I first came to the city in 1999.
Recently I saw the performer in her current show, HOLY WAR 2016: THE NEW REGIME at Pangea, in which she returns to her well-known original character Tammy Faye Starlite, a twisted conflation of Tammy Faye Bakker, Tammy Wynette, and then some. Tammy Faye Starlite brings a perverse, amoral, politically adjacent evening of song and signature improvised unhinged patter, which arises out of such an 'unacceptable' yet earnest point of view that the minds of the audience members are set free to wander in a vast desert of uncertainty, outrageousness, and catharsis of an unknown nature. It was an exhilarating and delightfully uncomfortably confounding place to be.
I wanted to talk with this extraordinary performer to learn about her particular vision and creative process. Seeking to reconcile the performer Tammy Faye with the woman Tammy, I discovered a humble, down-to-earth, curious woman immersed in an ongoing critical examination of our culture---both pop and high---as well as the media and the political landscape we are mucking around in these days. Tammy also comes across as a serious, ambitious artist, pushing to present her work and be a part of the cultural conversation.
We met at a cozy macaron shop in Chelsea on the day of the train crash in Hoboken. Tammy, coming from her home in Hoboken, was able to take an alternate route via bus into the city and keep our appointment, a decidedly un-diva-like move, which I found endearingly respectful. She and I spent over an hour talking about her work over the years, this shit show of an election, and the underlying question about the place of femininity and women in our culture at present.
San Jose Stage Company brings the Regional Premiere of The Night Alive, an imaginative tale of hope and redemption - by three-time Tony® nominee Conor McPherson. With inimitable warmth, humor and heart, the 2013-14 New York Critics Circle Award-Winner for 'Best Play' deftly mines humanity in the most unlikely of situations.
For the first time since opening our doors at ArtsWest Playhouse and Gallery in 1999, the total number of season subscriptions before the season openshas surpassed the prior year's end-of-season total. Subscriptions goals are normally met or surpassed by the end of a given season, but this year we are celebrating before the season even begins. There are other reasons why 2016 is a remarkable year for ArtsWest: in addition to a record-setting revenue for season subscribers, the number of subscribers is at an all-time high for any season opening in our history.
Julie Johnson stars as America's favorite country music sweetheart in Dean Regan's musical tribute, "A Closer Walk with Patsy Cline."
Julie Johnson stars as America's favorite country music sweetheart in Dean Regan's musical tribute, "A Closer Walk with Patsy Cline." Co-starring Steve Barcus, the musical will be presented by the Plaza Theatre and Mark Bell, at the Plaza Theatre in Garland November 11, 12, 13 and 18, 19 and 20, 2016.
'There are two kinds of people in the world, as ye very well know,' Peter Cormican asserts in a lilting accent, 'those that are Irish and those that want to be.' The English-born actor, son Irish parents - a Protestant mother from Belfast and a Catholic father from Galway - is currently in Maine to make his Maine State Music Theatre/Portland Stage debut in Frank McCourt's play The Irish and How They Got That Way, directed by Marc Robin, which opens in Portland August 19th. The production, a bold new collaboration between two of Maine leading Equity companies, marks an exciting new chapter for both theatres and promises to be one of the season's biggest hits, as it has been in every town its played.
Cormican is joined in our conversation by two of the other four principals from the a small cast that also stars Curt Dale Clark [see BWW interview 5/24/16], Charis Leos and Cary Michele Miller, (and features Cameron Wright and Emily Davis, Ernest Sauceda (fiddler) and two other musicians). Both Leos and Miller are MSMT veterans, but new to McCourt's play. 'This is my debut at Portland Stage,' Miller says with anticipation. 'I always look forward to working with Curt and Charis and Marc, and I am enjoying getting to know Peter. And I am always excited to learn new material and new music.'
Ruskin Group Theatre Opens A RAISIN IN THE SUN Featuring Starletta DuPois - Begins July 22nd in Los Angeles
Savannah Gannon and Mary Ellen Smith star in Arts Center of Cannon County's Always Patsy Cline, the award-winning play by Nashville's own Ted Swindley, opening tonight and running through June 18 in Woodbury. The show's a favorite among Tennessee theater-goers, and now's your chance to get to know director Matt Smith's two-woman cast who bring the show to life…
For the first time, Belushi's widow Judith Belushi Pisano has agreed to cooperate with the making of a film about the late comedian's life, and provided the exclusive photo of John from her private collection.
The Lyric Stage Company of Boston's 2015-16 season closes with an acclaimed new play (partly inspired by the theatricality of Nicholas Nickleby) that uses ingenious stagecraft, the talents of a dozen of our favorite actors, and the limitless possibilities of your imagination to create theatrical magic.
The Lyric Stage Company of Boston's 2015-16 season closes with an acclaimed new play (partly inspired by the theatricality of Nicholas Nickleby) that uses ingenious stagecraft, the talents of a dozen of our favorite actors, and the limitless possibilities of your imagination to create theatrical magic.
California Musical Theatre announced the 2016-17 Broadway Sacramento season at the Community Center Theater, featuring four shows not previously presented in the series, one of which has been produced in the round at Music Circus a number of times but never before part of Broadway Sacramento.
Following the critical success of their recent co-productions of In Fog and Falling Snow and Blood + Chocolate, York Theatre Royal will once again join forces with Pilot Theatre, this time to stage the world premiere of The Machine Stops, Neil Duffield's exciting new adaptation of E.M. Forster's chilling short story predicting and exploring our increasingly intricate relationship with technology in our lives.
Based on the 1994 Disney animated film of the same name, The Lion King tells the story of Simba, a young lion who is supposed to succeed his father Mufasa, as King of Pride Rock. But when Simba's Uncle Scar kills Mufasa, Simba runs away from home after being tricked into thinking that he was responsible. As he comes of age, Simba learns some valuable perspective to go back and take his rightful place as King.
The only Equity theatre company dedicated exclusively to developing and producing new work by Native American artists, Native Voices presents the world premiere of Frank Henry Kaash Katasse's THEY DON'T TALK BACK in association with La Jolla Playhouse and Perseverance Theatre.
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