Annie 1976

Playwrights Foundation named four playwrights, directors, and dramaturgs for the 47th Bay Area Playwrights Festival, set for readings in San Francisco with on-demand recordings to follow.

Rise and shine, BroadwayWorld! It is September 4, 2026 and it's time to catch up on all of the theatrical happenings you may have missed in the last 24 hours.

Goodspeed Musicals has announced that Tony nominee Emily Skinner will play Miss Hannigan in its 50th anniversary production of Annie. The musical, which premiered at Goodspeed in 1976 before transferring to Broadway, returns to The Goodspeed in East Haddam, Conn., from Oct. 30 through Dec. 27, 2026. The official press opening is set for Nov. 11 at 7:30 p.m.

The Steve Bardwil Band has released an official video for the title track from its new studio album STARDUST IN DISGUISE, produced by Grammy-winning producer Joe Chiccarelli.

Martha Graham Dance Company will present masterworks, new commissions, and Lamentation Variations while touring the US, Canada, England, Spain, Mexico, and China.

Go inside Goodspeed Musicals' 50th anniversary celebration of ANNIE, where Laiken Jules was introduced as Annie alongside Scotty as Sandy. See photos and video from the event.

Goodspeed Musicals shared the second episode of its Search for Sandy series, introducing Scotty, the shelter mutt cast to play Sandy in the theatre's 50th anniversary staging of Annie. Check out the video here!

Theatre has always intersected with politics, and the presence of American presidents in Broadway, off-Broadway, and regional theatre plays and musicals is a major part of this. Did you know that all of our heads of state have been featured in shows, whether as characters or as plot points that are part of the action? Dramatizing current and former leaders of our nation is a way to examine their affect on society at the time and how political events, even those of many years ago, still impact us all. 

The Arvada Center will open its 2026-2027 season with a stage adaptation of Stephen King's MISERY on the Main Stage Theatre.

The American Theatre of Actors will present Shakespeare's RICHARD II, directed by ATA founder James Jennings, featuring Sam Cruz in the title role alongside a 17-member ensemble cast.

The Skirball Cultural Center's Sunset Concerts series will close its 29th season with performances by Annie and The Caldwells and The Campbell Brothers.

This play had been a powerful emotional experience, one I would have delightedly seen again, even before I’d mastered the fact pattern.

New York, please look after this bear. As BroadwayWorld reported last month, the record-breaking, smash hit, seven-time Olivier Award-winning Best New Musical  PADDINGTON The Musical will begin performances Tuesday, March 30, 2027 and officially open Sunday, April 18, 2027  at Broadway’s Al Hirschfeld Theatre.

Patchogue Theatre for the Performing Arts announced a screening of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, featuring original 'Magenta' actress Patricia Quinn, with a live shadow cast, costume contest, and VIP meet-and-greet available.

The 79th Annual Tony Awards are this Sunday, June 7, 2026. It's the biggest awards show of the Broadway season and it closes out a long awards season for Broadway and Off-Broadway musicals and plays. Which Best Musical and Best Play nominees will take home the ultimate prize?

Goodspeed Musicals has released the first episode of The Search for Sandy, a video series documenting the search for the shelter dog who will play Sandy in the company's 50th Anniversary production of ANNIE, opening October 30, 2026.

What is a pro-shot and how is it different than an adapted film? Pro-shot is an abbreviation for professionally shot, denoting a stage play that was captured in its native habitat: a theatre. In general, a pro-shot seeks to film the exact experience that audience members would have at a live performance of the show, in contrast with a feature film which actually adapts the piece into a new form, including different locations, the removal of theatrical aesthetic, and changes to make the script work as a film as opposed to as a live theatrical show.

Porchlight Music Theatre announced Klaus Peter Schuller as its new executive director and Michael Weber as The Elaine Cohen and Arlen Rubin Artistic Director, with Schuller set to join the Chicago company later this year.

Goodspeed Musicals and William Berloni Theatrical Animals have launched a national search for the next shelter dog to play Annie's beloved sidekick Sandy in Goodspeed Musicals' 50th Anniversary production of Annie this fall.

The heightened reality replete with elongated pauses –(do people really wait this long in real life to answer one another?) that emanates from the stage of the Pulitzer- Prize and Tony -winning production of Stereophonic –now being produced in a touring /edited two hour and 50-minute version at the National Theatre-- certainly grabbed my attention.

It’s… Hairspray! BroadwayWorld is taking a look back at what the cast of this beloved musical has been up to since the show first graced the Broadway stage!

It's time to meet Broadway's best on The Muppet Show tonight! With the new special now streaming, we have rounded up some of the best of Broadway talent during the show's original run.

Mint Theater Company has revealed the complete cast of Zack, led by Jordan Matthew Brown in the title role of Zack by Harold Brighouse, Caroline Festa and more.

Next week, Marquee TV will release a documentary centering on Ukrainian ballet dancers from executive producer Sarah Jessica Parker. Front Row, directed by Miriam Guttmann, will debut on the streamer on Monday, December 8.

BroadwayWorld is saddened to report that Harriet Slaughter, a Broadway actress and longtime director of labor relations at the League of American Theater Producers, died on November 12.