As You Like It - 1945 - Broadway Articles Page 9

For the past several seasons, Stratford's Festival Theatre stage has been home to classic musical theatre productions with catchy tunes that audiences might find themselves humming long after the company had taken its final bow. This season, the musical living on that stage is a little different. It is not a classic from the golden age of broadway, the music, while moving, is likely not that familiar ear worm that you will wake up singing, and the story is as gritty and high stakes as many of the Shakespearean productions we have seen on that stage in recent years. BILLY ELLIOT officially opened to a raucous standing ovation on Tuesday evening, making it clear that Stratford audiences are more than happy to branch out to something a little different.

'I hope they laugh at times, cry at times, and walk away filled with love for everyone!'

Wise Children's adaptation of Enid Blyton's Malory Towers, co-produced by York Theatre Royal in association with Bristol Old Vic, will star Rebecca Collingwood as Gwendoline Lacey, Mirabelle Gremaud as Irene Bartlett, Vinnie Heaven as Bill Robinson, Izuka Hoyle as Darrell Rivers, Renee Lamb as Alicia Johns, Francesca Mills as Sally Hope and Rose Shalloo as Mary Lou Atkinson. Adapted and directed by Emma Rice, the musical opens on 25 July 2019 at The Passenger Shed in the company's home city of Bristol, before embarking on a national tour to Cambridge, York, Exeter, Manchester and Oxford.

The National Theatre's 2019-2020 Broadway at the National season continues with an unprecedented lineup of a dozen shows.

Benzel-Busch Motor Car announces the 2019 Benzel-Busch Concert Series at Bergen Performing Arts Center (bergenPAC) in Englewood, NJ.

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.

It was just announced by Pulitzer Prize Administrator Dana Canedy that Jackie Sibblies Drury's Fairview has officially won the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

'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.

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?

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. 

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.

AN INSPECTOR CALLS has been described in the Washington Post as, 'an episode of 'The Twilight Zone' wrapped in an Agatha Christie mystery,' and after seeing the show at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts in Beverly Hills, I must say that about sums up the play for me. Running at almost two hours without an intermission, at first it seemed to be just a bunch of talking heads yelling loudly with strong British accents – that is until the end when a Rod Serling-like phone call delivers a twist that sets the whole thing into the realm of “what just really happened?”

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).

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.

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.

Stephen Daldry ('The Crown,' Billy Elliot, The Inheritance) directs his National Theatre of Great Britain's landmark production of J.B. Priestley's classic thriller An Inspector Calls, hailed as the theatrical event of its generation and winner of an unprecedented number of awards, including three Olivier's, four Tony's and seven Drama Desk Awards, with an exclusive West Coast engagement at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts from Tuesday, January 22 to Sunday, February 10, 2019.

The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP), a professional membership organization of songwriters, composers and music publishers, announces the top ASCAP holiday songs of 2018. According to an ASCAP analysis of streaming and terrestrial radio data, the hit classic “All I Want for Christmas Is You,” written by ASCAP songwriter Walter Afanasieff and pop star Mariah Carey, holds the #1 song position for the second year in a row.