The Public Theater (Artistic Director, Oskar Eustis; Executive Director, Patrick Willingham) announced additional casting today for the 2013 season of free Shakespeare in the Park at the Delacorte. This summer, all performances for THE COMEDY OF ERRORS and LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST, A NEW MUSICAL will begin at 8:30 p.m. with running times of approximately 90 minutes, no intermission.
The Public Theater announced today that Kevin Kline will reprise his Tony Award-winning role of The Pirate King with Glenn Close as Ruth, Eric Idle as the Sergeant, and Martin Short as Major-General Stanley in the one-night-only concert performance of THE PIRATES OF PENZANCE for The Public's annual gala. Co-chaired by Sir Howard Stringer, Arielle Tepper Madover, and Renee Beaumont, this unforgettable summer evening will also honor the late Nora Ephron who was a long-time board member and consummate lover of The Public's Shakespeare in the Park.
Today in 2000, the second Broadway revival of The Music Man openened at the Neil Simon Theatre, where it ran for 699 performances. The Music Man is a musical with book, music, and lyrics by Meredith Willson, based on a story by Willson and Franklin Lacey. The plot concerns con man Harold Hill, who poses as a boys' band organizer and leader and sells band instruments and uniforms to naive townsfolk before skipping town with the cash. In 1957, the show became a hit on Broadway, winning five Tony Awards, including Best Musical, and running for 1,375 performances. The cast album won the first Grammy Award for 'Best Original Cast Album'. The show's success led to revivals and a popular 1962 film adaptation and a 2003 television remake.
The Public Theater (Artistic Director, Oskar Eustis; Executive Director, Patrick Willingham) announced additional casting today for the 2013 season of free Shakespeare in the Park at the Delacorte. This summer, all performances for THE COMEDY OF ERRORS and LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST, A NEW MUSICAL will begin at 8:30 p.m. with running times of approximately 90 minutes, no intermission.
Author Roy G. Williams makes a bold attempt to preserve, present, and recount the journey of The Jamaican-Canadian Association (1962-2012) through the release of this informative book. Readers will join the author as he delves deeper into the association's promising flight for five decades.
Music Director Marin Alsop and the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra (BSO) announce the Orchestra's 2013-2014 season, its seventh under the direction of Maestra Alsop.
BroadwayWorld.com, the largest theatre site on the Internet, is excited to announce a new feature to its comprehensive regional coverage - the Featured Regional Theater of the Week! Each week, BWW will introduce its readers to a regional theater located in one of our (over 130!) coverage cities. By exploring these different venues, their history and showcasing the production seasons, BWW continues its commitment to expand our presence in communities and cities across the United States. This Week's Featured Regional Theater: Great Lakes Theater in Cleveland, Ohio
The winter of 1962-63 in Norwich, Connecticut, had been unbearable. Snow, ice, and subfreezing temperatures added to an already gloomy and drawn-out New England winter, one that had seen its onset begin virtually at the end of the summer of 1962. Spaulding Pond in Mohegan Park, a large wooded enclave in the northern section of town, was again abundantly full this Wednesday, March 6. So full in fact that it again challenged the 110-year-old dam by which it was held in place and where a small leak, another in an ever-growing line of recent "seepages," was discovered this afternoon by park workers and reported up to the Public Works director, himself a witness to these myriad other leaks and who would summarily dismiss it this day as understood leakage.
New York Theatre Company will present DUCK AND COVER, opening February 15 at the West End Studio Theatre in Portsmouth, NH.
The Martha Graham Dance Company (Janet Eilber, Artistic Director; LaRue Allen, Executive Director) will present 15 performances at The Joyce Theater, February 20-March 3, 2013. The season continues the company's innovative thematic presentations with Myth and Transformation-three compelling programs that explore how artists reinvent iconic stories to make bold contemporary statements. The two-week season features Graham masterworks including Phaedra, Cave of the Heart, Night Journey, Errand into the Maze, and Diversion of Angels alongside new commissions and premieres from Richard Move, Luca Veggetti, and Doug Varone. A reconstruction of a Graham solo, Imperial Gesture (1935), will also be presented. Performances will take place Wednesday, February 20 to Sunday, February 24; and Tuesday, February 26 to Sunday, March 3.
The Picture Show at Bay Street Theatre has announced announce that Peconic Landing is sponsoring its long-running, classic Picture Show Series for the 2013 Season.
Today we are thrilled to be talking to a nine-time Tony Award-winning performer/director/choreographer all about his illustrious career onstage and behind the scenes working on classic musicals such as THE BEST LITTLE WHOREHOUSE IN TEXAS, NINE, GRAND HOTEL, THE WILL ROGERS FOLLIES and many more as well as all about his new solo piece premiering at Feinstein's At Loews Regency this weekend - the one and only Tommy Tune. Taking a look back at his near-peerless legacy as the top director of the 1980s and 1990s on Broadway, Tune imparts his candid insights about show business and reflects upon many aspects of the aforementioned hit shows - from their inception and creation to their critical and public reception and their ultimate legacy - as well as shares stories about his time as a performer, both then and now, with the star-studded tales cumulatively involving such legendary luminaries as Gene Kelly, Barbra Streisand, Michael Bennett, Hal Prince, Maury Yeston, Ken Russell, Jane Krakowski, Sutton Foster and many more. Plus, Tune gives us an enticing glimpse of his new Feintein's At The Regency showcase, TAPS, TUNES AND TALL TALES, playing November 18-26, and casts his sights on the future, near and far, and discusses the types of projects he would like to tackle next - including, first up, finding the perfect NYC location for his environmental new theatre piece, 54. All of that, tons of taps, top hats and tails and much, much more!
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 Segal Centre for Performing Arts and BMO Financial Group will present the Montreal premiere of RED by John Logan, a captivating look into the life of iconic Abstract-Expressionist painter Mark Rothko. Directed by Canadian stage legend Martha Henry, this six-time Tony Award-winning play will be presented in the Segal Theatre from November 25th to December 16th, 2012.
Few musicals have had the impact of Lerner and Loewe's timeless classic My Fair Lady. Sitting in the middle of an era dominated by such seminal figures as Rodgers and Hammerstein, Frank Loesser, and Leonard Bernstein, My Fair Lady not only enjoyed critical success similar to that of its rivals but also had by far the longest run of a Broadway musical up to that time. From 1956 to 1962, its original production played without a break for 2,717 performances, and the show went on to be adapted into one of the most successful movie musicals of all time in 1964, when it won eight Academy Awards. Internationally, the show also broke records in London, and the original production toured to Russia at the height of the Cold War in an attempt to build goodwill. It remains a staple of the musical theater canon today, an oft-staged show in national, regional, and high school theaters across the country.
The Public Theater's $40 million revitalization of its downtown home at Astor Place will be unveiled October 4, 2012 and celebrated through a series of events designed to engage the entire New York community and marking a rededication to its founding principles. The eight weeks of community events will be anchored by a free block party and open house on Saturday, October 13, 12pm-5pm, during which Lafayette Street between Astor Place and East 4th Street will be partially closed to traffic and The Public's historic building will be open to all. A physical expression of the Company's core mission of sparking dialogues, fostering artistic development and experimentation, and increasing public accessibility, the revitalization project opens up the landmark building to the street and community, and transforms the lobby into a public piazza for artists, students, and audiences.
Big changes are coming to Seattle's downtown waterfront - a new seawall that protects the city and improves habitat, the world's largest-diameter bored tunnel to connect the city and the region, and 26 blocks of new parks, paths and public space that will reconnect Seattle to Elliott Bay. As part of The Next Fifty - a six-month celebration of the 1962 Seattle World's Fair and its legacy - Seattle Center is hosting a special event on Monday to help people envision what the future holds.
Lee Meriwether and Theatre Island Productions present THE WOMEN OF SPOON RIVER: THEIR VOICES FROM THE HILL as part of the 16th annual New York International Fringe Festival - FringeNYC, August 10-17.
The New York premiere of a poignant oratorio about a frontier tragedy and Britten's equally unsettling War Requiem frame the Oratorio Society of New York's 2012/13 concert season at Carnegie Hall. Kent Tritle will lead the 200-voice chorus, New York City's second-oldest cultural organization, in its 140th season. Also this season, the Oratorio Society will perform Handel's beloved Messiah, as it has every year since 1874. Rounding the season is the 37th annual Lyndon Woodside Oratorio-Solo Competition, the only competition to focus exclusively on oratorio singing.
Public Theater Executive Director Patrick Willingham announced last night from the Delacorte Theater stage that the Bernard and Anne Spitzer Charitable Trust has generously donated $4 million to The Public Theater to support free Shakespeare in the Park and the capital campaign for the revitalization of its landmark Astor Place building, which includes five theaters and Joe's Pub. Members of the Spitzer family were in the audience on Wednesday evening to enjoy the free Shakespeare in the Park production of Into the Woods. The Spitzers' first gift to the theater will be gratefully acknowledged with a plaque at the Delacorte Theater.
The Public Theater will begin previews on Monday, July 23 for Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine's beloved musical INTO THE WOODS, the second show of The Public's 50th Anniversary season at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park. Directed by Timothy Sheader with co-direction by Liam Steel, INTO THE WOODS will continue for five weeks through Saturday, August 25, with an official press opening on Thursday, August 9.
Lee Meriwether and Theatre Island Productions present THE WOMEN OF SPOON RIVER: THEIR VOICES FROM THE HILL as part of the 16th annual New York International Fringe Festival - FringeNYC, August 10-17.
It's 1962 Baltimore, where racial tension and segregation provide a backdrop for teen angst and lots of catchy tunes by Marc Shaiman (lyrics by Shaiman and Scott Wittman) performed to stage-defying choreography by JR Bruno who manages to get some 15 ensemble members bopping around at times without crashing into each other on the small stage.
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.
The Next Fifty progresses through its second of six months of activities in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the 1962 Seattle World's Fair. Here are a few of the highlights through the end of July.
| 1962 | Off-Broadway |
Off-Broadway |
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