Annie - 1997 - Broadway Articles Page 12

"I had been looking for a reason to come back, and do another show here, so I was pleased when my managers sent me to audition for TREASURE ISLAND [A MUSICAL ADVENTURE]. Doing new work is always great; I love that process where I get to be more involved in the actual creation." Broadway star Aaron Ramey is explaining how he has come to find himself back in Maine to play the plum role of Long John Silver in MSMT's East Coast premiere of Marc Robin and Curt Dale Clark's new epic musical which plays at the Pickard Theater from June 26 - July 13, 2019. Ramey had been an intern in 1997 while he was still a student at Otterbein University. "Ironically," he notes, "that was the summer of renovatios and MSMT performed at Crooker Auditorium, so this production will actually be my first time on the Pickard stage." He recalls the shows from that season: "I was in SWEENEY TODD, CAROUSEL, and TOMMY. I wasn't a good enough dancer to be in THE MUSIC MAN, but I did get to carry the pool table across stage, and in A CHORUS LINE, I played trombone in the pit," he laughs. "And then, too, I knew Michael Nigro [who plays Jim Hawkins] from a workshop we had both been in in New York, and he had urged me to audition."

The 72nd Annual Tony Awards are this Sunday June 10th at 8/9c hosted by Josh Groban and Sara Bareilles. It's the biggest award show of the Broadway season and it closes out a long awards season for Broadway and Off-Broadway musicals and plays. We can't help but wonder what chances this year's Best Musical and Best Play nominees have of taking home the ultimate prize...

The Walt Disney Company UK and Ireland has today announced the principal company for the UK and Ireland tour of the landmark musical THE LION KING which will open in Bristol in September 2019 before moving on to Edinburgh in December 2019. Further cities will be announced in due course.

New York company Fiasco Theater has announced plans to expand its training programs beginning this fall. 

Today, D23, the official Disney fan club, has announced the eleven recipients for the 2019 Disney Legends Award. This year's recipients are Bette Midler, Wing Chao, Robert Downey Jr., Jon Favreau, James Earl Jones, Kenny Ortega, Barnette Ricci, Robin Roberts, Diane Sawyer, Ming-Na Wen, and Hans Zimmer. 

Currently celebrating its 25th Silver Anniversary, The Way Off Broadway Dinner Theatre is set to end the season with a bang this summer when the smash-hit musical Mamma Mia! arrives at the theatre. With over 60 million people having seen this worldwide phenomenon, for its 25th Anniversary Season, Way Off Broadway is bringing this international sensation to the Frederick stage for the very first time.

IFC Center today announced an impressive and wide-ranging lineup for the third annual Split Screens Festival (www.splitscreensfestival.com) taking place Wednesday, May 29 through Monday, June 3, 2019, at the IFC Center in New York City. The festival consists of special events offering a variety of looks at history, identity and the mystery of existence itself, including panels on series that explore dystopian realities and alternate timelines, and screenings that transport us into any number of time periods and places, be it a late-1800s South Dakota town or the height of 1980s ballroom culture in New York City.

What makes a Broadway theatre? Technically any venue with 500 seats or more, located along Broadway in New York City's Theatre District is a Broadway theatre, and the art that is produced in these special places is widely considered the highest form of theatrical entertainment in the world. Today, forty-one theatres are technically Broadway houses, each with their own rich history. Below, we're giving you the scoop on the life of every one of them!

Over 40 years, Clean Break has commissioned some of the most progressive and brilliant women writers to write ground-breaking plays, alongside developing the writing skills of the women it works with in its London studios and in prisons. As part of the company's 40th Anniversary year, Methuen Drama publishes a collection of monologues from this canon.

David Henry Hwang's M. Butterfly, a tale of obsession, perception and the allure of fantasy, will conclude South Coast Repertory's 2018-19 season. Hwang's break-out hit-a Tony Award-winner and Pulitzer Prize finalist-is about more than steamy seduction and fantasy; inspired by a true account, it's a compelling story of espionage, East-West relations and betrayal. Desdemona Chiang, in her SCR debut, directs the show on the Segerstrom Stage, May 11-June 8. Tickets are available online at www.scr.org.

'Magic Tree House: Showtime with Shakespeare,'a new hip hop adventure for young audiences, embarks on a 13-city tour beginning March 11 in Las Vegas and concluding on May 31 at New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC).

I thought throwing out my Annie CDs would be easy--I thought I only had one! Obviously that would be the indispensable Original Broadway Cast Recording with Dorothy Loudon and Andrea McArdle. How wrong I was! I knew that, as a kid, I had the tape of the 1982 movie soundtrack with Carol Burnett and Aileen Quinn (and an all-star supporting cast!), but I didn't remember buying it on CD. And when the hell did I get the CD of the 1999 TV version (with Kathy Bates and an all-star cast)? And, oh yeah... I forgot about this studio album from the 90s with studio cast queen Kim Criswell--I think I bought back in the day somehow convincing myself Ruthie Henshall was playing Annie. (Spoiler alert: She plays Grace.) Oh, and I do remember this '30thAnniversary' deluxe production with Chicago area diva (and original star of the sequel, Annie Warbucks) Alene Robertson as Miss Hannigan plus a lot of bonus material. To add insult to injury, I also have a Blu-Ray of the recent Hollywood remake with Cameron Diaz. I don't even have a Blu-Ray player! This thing is definitely going into the trash along with all the audio, but I will listen to a few tracks online for my edification.

The famous mezzo soprano Fredericka von Stade is in San Diego this week rehearsing Three Decembers, one of several works written with her in mind by her close friend Jake Heggie. The chamber opera for three singers and 11 musicians will be performed three times next weekend at the 500-seat Patrick Henry PHAME Theatre. Von Stade recognized Heggie's talent long before he wrote his first opera and has been an influential champion ever since. Their friendship and collaboration have benefitted both. In my interview with her in a San Diego Opera rehearsal room she said, 'He's given me a second career with parts in Dead Man Walking and Great Scott, and a lot of song cycles. He's my guy.'

The League of Professional Theatre Women (Kelli Lynn Harrison and Catherine Porter, Co-Presidents), an organization which has been leading the gender parity conversation and championing women in the professional theatre for over 35 years, will present the 2019 Theatre Women Awards at The Sheen Center for Thought & Culture (18 Bleecker Street, New York, NY 10012) on Monday, March 25 at 7pm (doors open at 6:30pm). For more information on the 2019 TheatreWomen Awards, and to purchase tickets, please visit www.theatrewomen.org.

Manhattan Concert Productions (MCP) has just announced lead casting for their concert performance of Frank Wildhorn and Nan Knighton's musical comedy The Scarlet Pimpernel. One of today's greatest leading men, Tony Yazbeck, will star as Percy Blakeney at David Geffen Hall, Lincoln Center on February 18, 2019 at 8:00 pm.

On Wednesday, March 6, 2019 at 7:30pm, Bang on a Can will present the 2019 Bang on a Can People's Commissioning Fund (PCF) concert, one of the most anticipated and reliable launching pads for composers in New York and beyond. The performance is presented as part of Kaufman Music Center's Ecstatic Music Festival at Merkin Hall (Kaufman Music Center, 129 W. 67th St.) and a New Sounds Live co-presentation with host John Schaefer, streamed live at www.newsounds.org. 

The League of Professional Theatre Women (Kelli Lynn Harrison and Catherine Porter, Co-Presidents), an organization which has been leading the gender parity conversation and championing women in the professional theatre for over 35 years, will present the 2019 Theatre Women Awards at The Sheen Center for Thought & Culture (18 Bleecker Street, New York, NY 10012) on Monday, March 25 at 7pm (doors open at 6:30pm). For more information on the 2019 Theatre Women Awards, and to purchase tickets, please visit www.theatrewomen.org. 

The Chan Centre for the Performing Arts at the University of British Columbia presents the dazzling multimedia work No Blue Memories: The Life of Gwendolyn Brooks on February 24, 2019, at 7pm in the Chan Shun Concert Hall as part of the Beyond Words series. The late poet was a radical and disruptive presence within the national literary scene, becoming the first African-American to win the Pulitzer Prize in 1950. In this ambitious creation, innovative art-collective Manual Cinema collaborates with Chicago-based poets Eve L. Ewing and Nate Marshall to craft an inspiring biographical narrative, featuring a live six-piece band and original score by Jamila Woods and Ayanna Woods.

Good morning, BroadwayWorld! We hope all of our northeast readers survived yesterday's windstorm. Settle in to this much quieter morning by reading the top Broadway stories.

Walnut Street Theatre continues its landmark 210th season with the uproarious Ken Ludwig's A COMEDY OF TENORS. Directed by and starring Frank Ferrante, this over-top-top comedy from Tony Winner Ken Ludwig begins previews on January 15th, opens on January 23rd, and runs through March 3rd on the Walnut's Mainstage.

From December 20 to 23, La MaMa Experimental Theater in association the GOH Productions will present the fourth annual production of East Village Dance Project's The Shell-Shocked Nut, an alternative Nutcracker set in the East Village, featuring an intergenerational cast of dancers and musicians.  The piece is recommended for family audiences.

Two-time TONY Award nominee, Joey McKneely, teams with award-winning playwright, Randall David Cook, to bring you a new dance musical with music and lyrics by Edison Woods, Maxim Moston, and Karen Bishko.

Two-time Tony Award nominee, Joey McKneely, teams with award-winning playwright, Randall David Cook, to bring you a new dance musical with music and lyrics by Edison Woods, Maxim Moston and Karen Bishko.

Walnut Street Theatre continues its landmark 210th season with the uproarious Ken Ludwig's A COMEDY OF TENORS. Directed by and starring Frank Ferrante, this over-top-top comedy from Tony Winner Ken Ludwig begins previews on January 15th, opens on January 23rd, and runs through March 3rd on the Walnut's Mainstage.

From December 20 to 23, La MaMa Experimental Theater in association the GOH Productions will present the fourth annual production of East Village Dance Project's The Shell-Shocked Nut, an alternative Nutcracker set in the East Village, featuring an intergenerational cast of dancers and musicians.  The piece is recommended for family audiences.