Are You With It? - 1945 - Broadway Articles Page 14

Directed with grace and wit by Tennessee Women's Theater Project founder Maryanna Clarke, Sistas the Musical is now onstage through May 19 at The Z. Alexander Looby Theatre, located conveniently just off Rosa Parks Boulevard in north Nashville, a historically black enclave that has been central to the civil rights struggles of the citizens of Tennessee's capital city.

The Tony Award-winning Broadway musical, Bandstand, will launch its first national tour this fall. Originally directed and choreographed by three-time Tony winner and Hamilton choreographer, Andy Blankenbuehler, this poignant and inspiring new American musical explodes with infectious music and high-octane, heart-stopping dancing.

Pittance Chamber Music, known for featuring the extraordinary resident artists of the Los Angeles Opera pit and stage, presents A Tale of Two Emigres with James Conlon. LA Opera Music Director James Conlon curates and conducts a unique program that tells the tale of Jewish emigre composers Erich Wolfgang Korngold and Arnold Schoenberg, who left their homelands and ultimately settled in Los Angeles as a result of the Nazis' rise to power. The program will include a talk by Maestro Conlon, who will also conduct works by Korngold and Schoenberg performed by a large ensemble from the Los Angeles Opera Orchestra. The concert takes place at Zipper Hall, Colburn School in downtown Los Angeles on Saturday, June 15, 2019 at 3:00 p.m.

'For time is the longest distance between places' but in the case of an iconic play like The Glass Menagerie, time seems to melt away. Tennessee Williams based the play on his 1943 short story 'Portrait of a Girl in Glass.' The Glass Menagerie premiered in 1944 in Chicago where it caught the attention of critics Ashton Stevens and Claudia Cassidy. With their help, the producers were able to move the play to Broadway, where it opened at the Playhouse Theatre in 1945. In The Glass Menagerie, the character Tom serves as both narrator and character in a play that is memory and yet somehow very real and present. The Glass Menagerie runs April 4-April 14 at Hershey Area Playhouse.

The nonprofit AT&T Performing Arts Center today announced the 2019/2020 season of its Broadway Series, featuring Once on This Island; Bandstand; The Band's Visit; The SpongeBob Musical; An American in Paris and The Color Purple. Season subscribers will also have the option to add Once and Blue Man Group to their season subscription.

The New Juilliard Ensemble (NJE), led by founder and director Joel Sachs, performs world premieres by Juilliard alumnus Ross S. Griffey and current student Sato Matsui alongside works by Polish composer Zygmunt Krauze, and Finnish composer and Juilliard alumnus Jukka Tiensuu on Monday, April 1, 2019, at 7:30pm in Alice Tully Hall.

With the critically-acclaimed Equus and The Funeral Director currently touring the UK, English Touring Theatre today announces the full tour dates for its Autumn 2019 Season. The company, in a co-production with Royal & Derngate, present the revival of August Wilson's Two Trains Running directed by the 2018 winner of the RTST Sir Peter Hall Director Award, Nancy Medina. Then, in a co-production with Sheffield Theatres, they present the world premiere stage adaptation of Matt Haig's Reasons to Stay Alive.

Fences, August Wilson's towering, Pulitzer Prize-winning drama about an embittered black man denied his dream and the soul-searing wounds he inflicts on his family, opens at Palm Beach Dramaworks on Friday, March 29 (8pm) at the Don & Ann Brown Theatre. Performances continue through April 21, with specially priced previews on March 27 and 28.

The U.S. tour of the National Theatre's multiple award-winning production of J.B. Priestley's classic thriller, AN INSPECTOR CALLS, presented by ArtsEmerson at Emerson Cutler Majestic Theatre, features masterful direction by Stephen Daldry (who also directed the 1992 West End revival), Ian MacNeil's grand-scale set, spectacular design elements (lighting, sound, and music), as well as a sterling cast of British actors in the principal roles, making you feel as if you have crossed the pond and are in attendance at the venerable National Theatre. Written in 1945 at the end of World War II, Priestley set the action in the fictional town of Brumley, England, in 1912, when the winds of the Great War were in the offing, and these bookends provide a sociopolitical arc to the plot. Pitting the attitudes of the wealthy proponents of industrial capitalism against the socialist view of the needs of the working class, the play strikingly resonates with the current climate of privilege, income inequality, and #MeToo.

It's become second-nature for many in the dance world to refer to Jerome Robbins as a second rate choreographer these days. Or should I say even 40 years ago?

Fences, August Wilson's towering, Pulitzer Prize-winning drama about an embittered black man denied his dream and the soul-searing wounds he inflicts on his family, opens at Palm Beach Dramaworks on Friday, March 29 (8pm) at the Don & Ann Brown Theatre. Performances continue through April 21, with specially priced previews on March 27 and 28.

After a long week of treading the boards, what better way for performers to unwind than with the affection of a furry friend? In BroadwayWorld's Tails of Broadway, photographer Jessica Fallon Gordon is capturing priceless moments between Broadway's brightest stars and their pets.

Leonard Maltin, curator of the DVD release of the Silly Symphony series, said "Walt Disney was a visionary.  He used his Silly Symphonies to expand the medium of animation to the limits of his imagination.  They are among Walt's greatest achievements and deserve to be seen and enjoyed by a new generation."

Four symphonic orchestras, a major heritage museum and one of Los Angeles' leading performing arts centers will join forces in 2020 for an ambitious collaborative initiative that will bring to life the sounds of music once lost. 

Matthew Bourne's 'Cinderella' from New Adventures, presented by Center Theatre Group is now on stage at the Ahmanson Theatre through March 10, 2019.

Adapted by William Kent Williams from Eleanor Estes' 1945 Newbery Honor-winning novel of the same title, The Hundred Dresses is the second play of Metro Theater Company's 46th season. Suitable for young theatre patrons, families, and for educators as well, this is the story of Wanda Petronski (Sophie Murk), a young Polish immigrant, who is the new kid in an American town.

Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater announces the full company for Ruth and Augustus Goetz's melodrama, The Heiress, suggested by the Henry James novel, Washington Square. After growing up subjected to her father's disinterest and strong resentment, a young woman in the 1850s discovers what love is in her journey towards independence, growth and strength, without an impactful female role model in her life. Directed by Deputy Artistic Director Seema Sueko, The Heiress runs February 8 - March 10, 2019 in the Fichandler Stage.

The York Theatre Company (James Morgan, Producing Artistic Director; Evans Haile, Executive Director), dedicated to the development of new musicals and rediscovery of musical gems from the past, will present a return engagement of the hit Off-Broadway musical, Enter Laughing: The Musical with book by Joseph Stein, music and lyrics by Stan Daniels, based on the play Enter Laughing by Joseph Stein from the novel by Carl Reiner, produced in association with Riki Kane Larimer and Alene Daniels. Enter Laughing: The Musical returns to kick off The York's year-long 50th Anniversary Celebration at The York Theatre Company at Saint Peter's (entrance on East 54th Street, just east of Lexington Avenue).

Every January I look forward to attending THE MANOR by Katherine Bates, presented by Theatre 40 inside the historic Greystone Mansion in Beverly Hills where the story upon which it is based actually took place. Now celebrating its 17th year, the annual production has become a Los Angeles/Beverly Hills institution with several performances selling out even before tickets go on sale to the public. Its popularity, no doubt, is due to the scandalous true story as told by the talented actors, costumed to time-period perfection, as well as the chance to be inside the grand and glorious architectural landmark in which the events of 90 years ago actually took place, performed in two acts taking place 10 years apart. The names of all characters in the Doheny saga have been changed, of course, "to protect the guilty" as we are told before the play begins by the mansion's loyal butler, James (Daniel Lench who has masterfully played the part for 6 years).

Cincinnati Shakespeare Company continues its 25th Anniversary Season at The Otto M. Budig Theater with August Wilson's "Fences", directed by Christopher V. Edwards and features "ranney" [sic] as Troy Maxson, Torie Wiggins as Rose and Crystian Wilshire as Cory. This production is generously sponsored by Frost Brown Todd, BB&T, and Johnson Investment Council.

The Town Hall presents Broadway By The Year©: Broadway Musicals of 1928 and 1935 on Monday, February 25 at 8pm. Created, written, hosted and directed by Scott Siegel for The Town Hall, the evening marks the beginning of Broadway By The Year©'s 19th season at The Town Hall (123 W. 43rd Street).  

A Modest Little Man tells us something of the man and his achievements, Clement Attlee surrounded by egos and rivals (talented though) in this gem of a political comedy.

The Apollo Theater will bring the New York premiere of TWISTED MELODIES, an intimate one-man production about the life, artistry, and struggles of 1970s soul singer and composer Donny Hathaway, to its iconic stage, 45 years after Hathaway himself last performed on it. From his hits with Roberta Flack, his solo songs, and his work as both an arranger and studio musician for artists such as Aretha Franklin, Curtis Mayfield, and the Staples Singers, to his diagnosis of schizophrenia, Hathaway's personal struggles both inspired and hampered his music. On the 40th anniversary of his untimely death, Hathaway will be honored posthumously with the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in February 2019, celebrating his influence and contributions to the music industry that continue today. Directed by Derrick Sanders and featuring Kelvin Roston Jr., this limited engagement at the Apollo Theater opens on Thursday, May 30 and runs through Sunday, June 2. Ahead of the production, a free Live Wire conversation with musician Gordon Chambers, "Everything is Everything, the Music of Donny Hathaway," will take place on May 13 at 6:30p.m. as part of the Theater's education series that honors iconic artists who have impacted the arts and culture.

Cincinnati Shakespeare Company continues its 25th Anniversary Season at The Otto M. Budig Theater with August Wilson's "Fences", directed by Christopher V. Edwards and features "ranney" [sic] as Troy Maxson, Torie Wiggins as Rose and Crystian Wilshire as Cory. This production is generously sponsored by Frost Brown Todd, BB&T, and Johnson Investment Council.