Avenue Q - 2007 - US Tour Articles Page 9

Amidst Performance Space New York's exhilarating first series of interdisciplinary works under the new leadership of Executive Artistic Director Jenny Schlenzka, the organization's 2018 gala will celebrate game-changing and iconic figures from the arts sector (April 14).

The Play Company (PlayCo), led by Founding Producer Kate Loewald and Managing Director Robert G. Bradshaw, today announces the complete cast for Toshiki Okada's Time's Journey Through a Room, marking PlayCo's third collaboration with Okada, translator Aya Ogawa, and director Dan Rothenberg, May 10 - June 10, 2018. This haunting play, set in post-Fukushima Japan, will star three Japanese born performers, all of whom are now based in New York: Yuki Kawahisa (Honoka), Maho Honda (Arisa) and Kensaku Shinohara (Kazuki). The play is both an intimate examination of how we move forward from life-altering events, and a study of how we experience time, asking whether we can ever be alive to the present moment. 

As part of the 2018 PEN World Voices Festival of International Literature, the International Play Festival will showcase play readings by ten voices from around the globe. With playwrights hailing from four different continents, the Festival aims to enrich awareness of global dialogues, by bridging American audiences and international theatre-makers. All readings will be followed by a discussion with the playwright and director.

Jazz Choreography Enterprises, Inc. presents New York Jazz Choreography Project for its semiannual dance concert devoted exclusively to jazz. JCE features works from emerging to established choreographers.

The early music virtuosi of TENET return to Five Boroughs Music Festival (5BMF) this season with The Sounds of Time, an exploration of 12th and 13th century songs by the French trouveres. The program is presented in Queens on Friday, May 11, 2018 at 7:00 p.m. at King Manor Museum and on Saturday, May 12, 2018 at 7:30 p.m. at Christ Church Riverdale in the Bronx. Led by guest music director and baroque violin virtuoso Robert Mealy, the program showcases the great lyric tradition of the troubadours, who adapted the musical forms invented by their Provencal counterparts and infused them with a lighter vein that produced a memorably tuneful body of music.

THE GREEN ROOM 42 - Broadway's newest intimate concert venue - will present the debut of Israeli music and comedy star, Nansi Brandes on Thursday, April 19 at 8:00 PM. In a New York evening celebrating the 70th anniversary of Israel's independence, the musician and comedian returns to personal stand-up comedy. He shares humorous stories of his second marriage to a woman thirty years younger, his children and the long time he spent in the hospital, struggling against a small, violent, deadly bacterium that threatened to pass him on to the next world.

Acclaimed singer/actress Gina Gershon Makes Her Cafe Carlyle Debut with Wild Women Don't Get the Blues, June 5-16. Gina Gershon has enjoyed a successful and diverse career in entertainment, earning acclaim as a film, television and stage actor, as a singer/songwriter/musician and most recently as an author.

Opera Saratoga's Artistic and General Director Lawrence Edelson announced the complete casting and programming for the company's 2018 Summer Festival, which will feature new productions of four operas at The Spa Little Theater in Spa State Park, along with a wide variety of free and ticketed concert events from May 26th through July 15th at venues throughout the region. Single tickets, as well as subscription packages, are on sale now at www.operasaratoga.org.

The Soraya's Great Hall will be transformed into the coolest of the cool intimate New York nightspot as "Jazz Club" arrives at The Younes and Soraya Center for the Performing Arts this spring.  Grammy Award-winning vocalist Cecile McLorin Salvant kicks off "Jazz Club" with her unmatched range that soars to the rafters and dives to earthy depths. She continues the legacies of the greats-Sarah Vaughan, Ella Fitzgerald, and Billie Holiday-and tackles racial stereotypes by performing forgotten numbers from the vaudeville and minstrel eras stretching back more than a century. McLorin Salvant performs two nights, April 18 & 19 at The Soraya's Jazz Club located on the campus of CalState University, Northridge.

Jazz Choreography Enterprises, Inc. presents New York Jazz Choreography Project for its semiannual dance concert devoted exclusively to jazz. JCE features works from emerging to established choreographers.

George Street Playhouse, today announced Ann Harada (TV's Smash), Colin Hanlon (TV's Modern Family, Broadway's Falsettos), Kate Reinders (Broadway's Wicked and Something Rotten), Zach Shaffer (TV's Six Feet Under, Broadway's A View From the Bridge) and Stephen Wallem (Showtime's Nurse Jackie), will join the previously announced Jonathan Kite (TV's 2 Broke Girls) in Larry Shue's The Nerd, on stage April 24 - May 20, 2018. Hayden Bercy (National Tour, A Christmas Story, The Musical) rounds out the cast as 8-year-old Thor Waldgrave.

Japan Society presents a staged reading of Manhood by Japanese playwright Hideto Iwai, led by director Sarah Hughes, taking place Monday, March 26 at 7:30 PM at Japan Society (333 East 47th Street). Manhood marks the 13th installment of the Society's Play Reading Series of contemporary Japanese plays in English translation, introducing topical plays from up-and-coming playwrights in Japan to artists and audiences in the U.S. This event, part of Japan Society's 110th Anniversary Season, aligns with the Spring 2018 Performing Arts focus on deepening the Society's relationship with New York artists.

Philadelphia Theatre Company is reinventing its annual gala. Instead of staid speeches and silent auctions, the Suzanne Roberts Theatre will become the home to Play Brawl!, a brand new PTC fundraiser that showcases prominent local business leaders living out their acting dreams alongside professional actors on the PTC stage. Audience members can then vote with their tax-free donations through a mobile bidding app to help declare a winner. In the vein of Dancing with the Stars and So You Think You Can Dance, this fun event takes the stage Friday, April 6 at 6 p.m at the Suzanne Roberts Theatre (480 S. Broad Street). Tickets and sponsorships for the event start at $150 and are available online at www.philadelphiatheatrecompany.org or by calling 215-985-1400 x 117.

MasterVoices - dedicated to celebrating the power of the human voice through the art of musical storytelling - presents two performances of a new production of Orphic Moments, in conjunction with producers Anthony Roth Costanzo and Cath Brittan. 

Shakespeare Theatre Company today announces the cast of Lerner and Loewe's multiple Tony Award-winning musical Camelot. Directed by STC Associate Artistic Director Alan Paul (Kiss Me, Kate; Man of La Mancha), the classic musical will play at Sidney Harman Hall (610 F St NW) from May 22 through July 1, concluding STC's 2017-2018 mainstage season.

Following its sold-out one-night-only performance at Carnegie Hall last year, the French Institute Alliance Francaise (FIAF), New York's premiere French cultural center, joins forces with Gil Marsalla and Directo Productions to present the international musical hit PIAF! THE SHOW from Wednesday through Friday, April 18-20 at 7:30pm at FIAF's Florence Gould Hall, 55 East 59th Street, between Madison & Park.

NACL Theatre presents the New York City premiere of SHAKESPEARE'S WILL by award-winning Canadian playwright Vern Thiessen, whose acclaimed play Of Human Bondage premiered at Signature Theatre in a Soulpepper production in 2017. It stars Tannis Kowalchuk as Anne Hathaway, the woman who married William Shakespeare.  Directed by Mimi McGurl, performances run though April 1 at HERE.

The Cultural Services of the French Embassy and the French Institute Alliance Francaise (FIAF) are pleased to announce programming for the third annual Tilt Kids Festival, featuring six premieres of whimsical, thoughtful, and rigorously made works for children across six venues throughout New York City, March 3-18. Described by The New York Times as "French in origin, fantastical in concept, and freewheeling in execution," the festival will engage kids of all ages with the work of renowned artists across multiple disciplines. Many events are free; for ticketed events, please visit www.tiltkidsfestival.org.

Sel Kardan, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Colburn School, today announced that this leading institution for music and dance has selected Frank Gehry to design a campus expansion adjacent to its existing facilities in the heart of Downtown Los Angeles. Andrew Millstein, Chairman of the Colburn School, and Carol Colburn Grigor, Life Chairman Emeritus, joined Kardan in announcing the project, which will heighten the School's presence in a cultural corridor that includes Walt Disney Concert Hall, The Music Center, the Museum of Contemporary Art, and The Broad, and will make this area of Downtown one of the largest concentrations in the world of performing and visual arts organizations.

The Living Libretto: Opera in Eden gives audiences a first glimpse at three new one-act operas being written by first year resident artists in American Lyric Theater's Composer Librettist Development Program (CLDP)

It was announced today that due to continued popular demand, off-Broadway's Sweeney Todd will extend through August 26, 2018. The production celebrated its one year anniversary this week, continuing its streak as the longest running musical to play New York's Barrow Street Theatre (27 Barrow Street).

REPRISE 2.0 is now announced, presenting a season of three classic American musicals at UCLA's Freud Playhouse, by Marcia Seligson, Producing Artistic Director of the new performing arts organization.  REPRISE 2.0 is partnering with the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television's Department of Theater (UCLA TFT), chaired by Brian Kite. 

Japan Society presents a staged reading of Manhood by Japanese playwright Hideto Iwai, led by director Sarah Hughes, taking place Monday, March 26 at 7:30 PM at Japan Society (333 East 47th Street). Manhood marks the 13th installment of the Society's Play Reading Series of contemporary Japanese plays in English translation, introducing topical plays from up-and-coming playwrights in Japan to artists and audiences in the U.S. This event, part of Japan Society's 110th Anniversary Season, aligns with the Spring 2018 Performing Arts focus on deepening the Society's relationship with New York artists.

The Grand Theatre is thrilled to announce a first-time collaboration with the American Conservatory Theater (A.C.T.), bringing A THOUSAND SPLENDID SUNS to the Spriet Stage. This acclaimed stage adaptation, based on the award-winning novel by Khaled Hosseini, had its world premiere in San Francisco in July 2016 and became the bestselling production in A.C.T.'s history. The Grand's production will premiere an all new, all Canadian cast with original staging by A.C.T. Artistic Director Carey Perloff. The Title Sponsor for A THOUSAND SPLENDID SUNS is London's Selectpath.