Co-Optimists 1925 West End — Photo Coverage Page 2

Photo Flash: First Look at San Francisco Opera's AIDA — Opening TONIGHT!

by Ashlee Latimer • Nov 5, 2016

San Francisco Opera presents Giuseppe Verdi's Aida in a new production directed by Francesca Zambello and featuring designs by Los Angeles-based, contemporary visual artist RETNA (Marquis Duriel Lewis). A co-production with Washington National Opera, Seattle Opera and Minnesota Opera, this striking and bold vision for Verdi's enduring classic will feature soprano Leah Crocetto and tenor Brian Jagde in their role debuts as the lovers at the heart of the opera, the enslaved princess Aida and the Egyptian war hero Radames. Mezzo-soprano Ekaterina Semenchuk is Amneris, the daughter of the king who desires Radames' love, baritone George Gagnidze portrays Aida's vengeful father, Amonasro, and bass Raymond Aceto is Ramfis. The international cast and San Francisco Opera Orchestra will be conducted by Company Music DirectorNicola Luisotti. Resident Conductor Jordi Bernàcer will conduct the final performance on December 6.Ian Robertson is Chorus Director.

Cumberland County Playhouse, Scopes Fest's FRONT PAGE NEWS Coming to Dayton

by Jeffrey Ellis • Jun 25, 2015

Following last year's successful run, Cumberland County Playhouse and the Scopes Trial Festival of Dayton, Tennessee, will once again co-produce Front Page News: Dayton and the World-Famous Scopes Trial, July 17-26, presented in the famous courtroom where Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan battled in 1925.

Photo Flash: First Look at Retro Productions' THE BUTTER AND EGG MAN

by BWW News Desk • May 18, 2015

Retro Productions is celebrating their 10th anniversary with, The Butter and Egg Man by George S. Kaufman. Perhaps one of Kaufman's lesser known works, The Butter and Egg Man is a wonderful comedy about producing theater and was one of Kaufman's biggest Broadway successes when it opened at the Longacre Theatre in 1925. The production is directed by Ricardo Rust, who co-produced Retro Productions, An Appeal to the Woman of the House which was nominated for 3 New York Innovative Theater Awards and won an award for Heather E. Cunningham for Outstanding Actress in a Lead Role. BroadwayWorld has a first look at the cast in action below!

BWW Reviews: 'Don't Sit Under the Chandelier with Anyone Else But Me' - PHANTOM Haunts the Orpheum

by Joseph Baker • Sep 29, 2014

When Gaston Leroux published THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA back in 1911, little did he realize the numerous chandeliers that would come crashing down through the decades, and I've witnessed a good number of them. First, in 1925, there was 'the Man of a Thousand Faces,' Lon Chaney, Sr., who frightened poor Mary Philbin (a well-done version, even IF the film was silent); then, for Universal in 1941, Claude Rains (Bette Davis' favorite co-star) was a more subdued vocal coach for soprano Susanna Foster (a wooden Nelson Eddy, alas, is a greater impending horror as 'Raoul'). I could go on - even Herbert Lom, the actor who was the harried police superior to Peter Sellers' 'Inspector Clousseau,' took a swing on the old light fixture. (And let us not forget diminutive Paul Williams in the slightly askew PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE.) All of these pale, of course, in comparison to the legendary interpretation by Michael Crawford in the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, which first brought the audience to its feet in 1986.