These are the Times 1950 - Articles Page 3

What did our critic think of BYE BYE BIRDIE at The Noel S. Ruiz Theater At CMPAC?

Birdland Jazz Club and Birdland Theater are open this August with a full slate of nightly performances!  At Birdland Jazz Club, catch John Pizzarelli Trio, Sam Gravitte, Alexa Tarantino Quartet, Karen Mason, Artemis, John Yao Orchestra Plays Bird, Bobby Conte, and more.

Terence Anthony's offering at this year's Contemporary American Theater Festival, 'The House of the Negro Insane,' will sweep you up in a tornado of emotions and deliver a few gut-punches as well, with riveting characters whose challenges make our own problems look as trivial as that fly landing on your picnic blanket. A polished piece of playwriting, this piece-now finally launched, after the long COVID hiatus-should find its place on stages across the country.

Americana and the Golden Age of the Broadway musical has happily landed at the Shaw Festival in their knock it out of the park production of DAMN YANKEES. After years without a staged musical at the Festival Theatre and repeated cancellations of it's production of GYPSY (thanks Covid!), the magic of the American musical comedy can be seen once again.

Madison Lyric Stage Presents Double-Feature of Two Rare Works: The Seven Deadly Sins and Curlew River

The Washington Stage Guild has finally had the opportunity to stage D. W. Gregory's searing study of innocence, hardened cynicism and totalitarian self-delusion, 'Memoirs of a Forgotten Man.' In spite of the long hiatus from its premiere four years ago (pre-COVID), the play continues to challenge us, throwing the mirror up to our flawed natures.

Sky Masterson, Nathan Detroit, Sarah Brown, and of course Miss Adelaide… these names are often familiar to Broadway aficionados of all ages. Guys and Dolls, the third joint production to be presented by MNM Theatre Company, the City of Lauderhill, and North End Theater Company will bring these iconic characters (along with Nicely Nicely Johnson, Harry the Horse, Angie the Ox, and others) to life on the Lauderhill Performing Arts Center (LPAC) stage from April 1st through April 16th. 

Sky Masterson, Nathan Detroit, Sarah Brown, and of course Miss Adelaide...these are names that are often familiar to Broadway aficionados of all ages.  Guys and Dolls, the third joint production to be presented by MNM Theatre Company, the City of Lauderhill, and North End Theater Company will bring these iconic characters (along with Nicely Nicely Johnson, Harry the Horse, Angie the Ox, and others) to life on the Lauderhill Performing Arts Center (LPAC) stage from April 1st through April 16th. 

MNM Theatre Company, North End Theatre Company, and the City of Lauderhill present what is often called 'the perfect musical comedy! Set in Damon Runyon’s mythical New York City, with music and lyrics by Frank Loesser and book by Abe Burrows and Jo Swerling, Guys and Dolls is a classic beloved by theatre goers of all ages.

Hoff-Barthelson Music School's Spanning the Centuries Music Festival, celebrating music composed between 1750 and 1950, takes place Friday, March 12, 2022, through Saturday, March 19, 2022. The Festival, featuring music of the great Germanic composers – Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert and Brahms –  as well as masters from other lands, includes student recitals and instrumental and choral ensemble concerts. 

When an Uber driver asked Charles B. Moss Jr. what area of the film industry he worked in, Moss responded with “the boring part”. All I can say is, after picking up Magic in the Dark, I’m sure you’ll agree that is a vast understatement. But you'll have to see for yourself...Magic in the Dark is more a time capsule than a book, unlocking stories and histories about the movie industry that you won't believe have gone untold.

Flying Over Sunset follows writer Aldous Huxley (played by Harry Hadden-Paton); playwright, diplomat, and congresswoman, Clare Boothe Luce (Carmen Cusack); and film legend Cary Grant (Tony Yazbeck) - each of whom in real life experimented with the drug LSD.

The most important figure in musical theatre history is gone; let's celebrate his life by listening to his incredible works. Reviewer Peter Nason gets you started by listing his choices for the 91 greatest Sondheim songs.

Center Theatre Group has selected participants for the 2021-2022 L.A. Writers' Workshop, where local playwrights are invited to spend a year in residence at the company researching and writing new works with the feedback from artistic staff and their fellow writers.

Tonight, in their debut show at Don’t Tell Mama, Quentin Harris and Bryce Edwards added their own names to the list of performing teams who use opposition to their advantage. They bill themselves simply as MR. HARRIS AND MR. EDWARDS. If this sounds like a throwback to vaudeville days, it’s not entirely an accident. Harris and Edwards owe much to those old-time show business acts and most of their musical material is drawn from the Great American Songbook and from jazz standards. Quentin Harris knows a great deal about jazz and plays piano in the style of Oscar Peterson and many of the other jazz greats. Bryce Harris is a charmingly off-kilter one-man band, who plays ukulele, banjo, and the world’s most cumbersome looking kazoo. His style is bombastic and more than a little Jolson-esque. Both men are young, still in school, in fact, and so their show is a little rough around the edges as they find their footing. But they have the bones of a really interesting and unique act.

On October 10, pianist Jeffrey Siegel officially relaunches indoor Hylton Presents performances in Merchant Hall with his concerts with commentary Keyboard Conversations Classics Declassified. Siegel hands off the baton to the Metropolitan Jazz Orchestra on October 30 for their Big Band Era performance Swingin' with the Met.

Corn Stock Theatre has announced that theatre will once again be held under the tent in Upper Bradley Park this summer and will be kicked off by My Way: A Tribute to Frank Sinatra playing July 8th through July 25th.

There is no better time than summer to relax by the pool and curl up with a great book, and you're in luck, because this year, Broadway's best have put pen to paper to turn out theatre page-turners of every kind. From theatre biographies to theatre fiction; theatre books for kids to theatre history; check out our collection of 30 new Broadway books for every theatre lover's summer reading!

The acting is all over the place, hit and miss, in this production of an American classic.

It is 1950, and on a rainy South African afternoon in the St. George’s Park Tea Room, Hally (Nick Apostolina) is becoming himself. He was a boy – one prone to arrogance and self-pity, certainly but vulnerable, and capable of sweetness and hope. But now he is becoming a man – a brutal man, “MASTER HAROLD”, who embraces the world’s ugliness and claims it as his own. He does this by spitting in the face of Sam (L. Peter Callender), a Black man who had sheltered him to that point from the world’s worst, including his own father. In this primal way Master Harold joins the oppressors as a way of not joining the oppressed.

After the myriad stresses of the past year, we could all use some straight-up entertainment and 42nd Street Moon is providing just that with Don’t Touch That Dial: DC and Peter’s Glorious Romp Through the Golden Age of TV Theme Songs. Conceived and directed by DC Scarpelli and Peter Budinger, the show promises, a light-hearted, celebratory stroll down memory lane as Scarpelli and Budinger guide us through the decades of catchy sitcom themes and the evolution of television. The large, diverse cast also includes Moon stalwarts like Meg McKay and Keith Pinto among a host of multi-talented performers who may be new to you. Don’t Touch That Dial is available to stream from June 5 – 27, 2021 as part of 42nd Street Moon’s paid virtual ticketed MoonBeams series. Tickets and further information are available at www.42ndstmoon.org/moonbeams. ​​​​​​​I had the pleasure of speaking with Budinger and Scarpelli last week as they were still putting the finishing touches on the video presentation. As Scarpelli says, “We’re not satisfied with any musical number until it’s utterly dripping with charm and delight.” If you ever run into them at a party, these are definitely the guys you want to talk to as they are both a barrel of fun and an endless font of information about classic TV and musical theater. A married couple, the two have been working together for years as well as performing individually, and their combined theater credits read like a recent history of Bay Area musical theater. The freewheeling conversation covered how they conceived the show and put it together, which obscure songs didn’t make the final cut, and shows they’d love for Moon to mount in the future.

The sun will come out tomorrow. That's because after over a year of waiting, New York officials have at last spread word that Broadway is indeed back. Which shows will return when? BroadwayWorld has gathered all of the latest news on the return of live theatre. Check back regularly for updates!

Here For Now Theatre Company has announced their 2021 New Works Festival, which features eight world premiere one-act plays and a reading series, centred around the timely theme of connection and relationship.

On 4 and 10 June 2021, Esa-Pekka Salonen conducts the final concerts of his pioneering 13-year tenure as Principal Conductor & Artistic Advisor of the Philharmonia Orchestra, at the end of a season disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Actors' Gang Theater announces a new Axis Mundi evening as part of its digital season: Axis Mundi – In Conversation with Tim Robbins and theatrical legend and visionary director, Peter Brook. The free event, produced in partnership with Fundación Teatro a Mill, will be translated into French and Spanish and will be streamed Thursday, March 25th at 7 pm PST through Zoom and Facebook Live. The live translation is only available through Zoom.