Eve-olution - 2004 - Off-Broadway Articles Page 12

AVENUE Q will welcome the return of Veronica J. Kuehn beginning February 18, as Kate Monster/Lucy. Ms. Kuehn resumes the role having last performed in the production from July 20, 2011 through February 9, 2015. Shereplaces current cast member Gizel Jimenez, who will play her final performance on February 17, 2019.

Following last year's momentous 50th anniversary celebrations, The Isle of Wight Festival today announces the first artists for the 2019 event, which kicks off the British festival season on  13th - 16th June.

For legions of musical theater fans brought up on daily trips to Sesame Street, thanks to the fine folks at Children's Television Workshop, there is quite possibly no show more beloved than Avenue Q - the grown-up version of the kind of programming directed at children in hopes of helping them navigate the vagaries of childhood and adolescence. To be certain, Avenue Q is not for the easily offended or politically conservative, but the Tony Award-winning best musical of the 2004 Broadway season is an ideal outing for anyone with a highly developed sense of humor and a fondness for pushing the envelope, musical theatre-wise.

The sensational feel-good musical MAMMA MIA! will have its star-studded gala premiere at the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts tonight, 17 January 2019. The Gala Night audience will include invited VIPs, show sponsors and a host of local celebrities such as Stephen Chan, Cissy Wang, Ankie Beilke, Cecil Chao, Bianca Wu, Snowy Choi, Icy Wong, Janet Ma and Sabrina Leung.

AVENUE Q - winner of three 2004 Tony Awards including Best Musical - will celebrate its 15+ year run on the BroadwayCon MainStage this weekend, Saturday, January 12, when Original Broadway Cast and Creative Team members will reunite for a special Q&A Panel. Robert Lopez, Carmen Ruby Floyd, Howie Michael Smith, Erin Quill, Stephanie D'Abruzzo, and Ann Harada are confirmed to attend. BroadwayCon moderators, Ben Cameron and Danny Jordan will host the event scheduled to take place from 4:40-5:30pm at the Ziegfeld Ballroom, (141 West 54 St.) in Manhattan.

The Off Broadway Alliance, the organization of Off Broadway producers, theaters, general managers, press agents, and marketing firms, will hold the next event in its Seminar series focused on the "Off Broadway Producing Experience" on Saturday, January 26th 2019.

Il Natale. Non c'e nulla di piu bello dell'albero che illumina la stanza con le sue lucine colorate, o dei regali perfettamente impacchettati che lo circondano. Per non parlare poi degli immancabili dolci e della perenne lotta tra chi ama il pandoro e chi invece il panettone. Eppure, non sarebbe davvero Natale senza le canzoni che, con le loro note allegre, fanno da colonna sonora a questo giorno di festa. Per gli amanti dei musical, abbiamo selezionato dieci canzoni, dalle piu classiche alle piu recenti, che vi terranno compagnia durante questa giornata di festa, dalla preparazione del grande pranzo natalizio alla delicata procedura di spacchettare i regali.

Yale Repertory Theatre will present the world premiere of Good Faith: Four Chats about Race and the New Haven Fire Department by Karen Hartman, directed by Kenny Leon, February 1-23, 2019 at Yale Repertory Theatre (1120 Chapel Street). Opening Night is Thursday, February 7.

Jacob's Pillow announces the full season lineup of Festival 2019 including world premieres, new commissions, international artists, anniversary celebrations, Pillow-exclusive engagements, and work developed at the Pillow Lab. Entering its 87th consecutive summer, Jacob's Pillow is home to the longest-running dance festival in the United States, a National Historic Landmark, a National Medal of Arts recipient, and has steadily expanded its reach in the field and its local community as a year-round center for dance research and development. Festival 2019 opens June 19, attracting audiences both on and off its site in the Berkshires of Western Massachusetts, through August 25.

Gettysburg Community Theatre, the non-profit 501c3 organization located inside 49 York Street in historic downtown Gettysburg, will kick off its 11th Season with the musical comedy AVENUE Q. Winner 2004 Tony Award Triple Crown with Best Musical, Best Score, Best Book, AVENUE Q is

Irving Berlin's WHITE CHRISTMAS is a 2000 musical based on Paramount Pictures 1954 film of the same name featuring the songs of Irving Berlin. The film itself was a remake of the film Holiday Inn. The new book is by David Ives and Paul Blake and features all of the songs from the 1954 film, along with some trunk songs, all by Irving Berlin and hews remarkably close to the plot line of the film, with a few exceptions. It premiered in St. Louis in 2000 at The Muny, after which it opened in San Francisco in 2004. This new stage musical played a limited engagement of 53 performances on Broadway at the Marquis Theatre in 2008. It received two 2009 Tony nominations and seven Drama Desk Award nominations.

A mainstay of the Belmont Theater District, Mercury Theater Chicago's critically acclaimed production of AVENUE Q moves into its final weeks with a closing date of December 30. With incredible runs on the Mercury stage in 2014 and 2018, this lovingly revived Broadway musical comedy appealed to the heart and humor of more than 40,000 audience members, earning widespread critical acclaim with coverage from the Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun Times, WTTW's "Chicago Tonight" and WGN Radio, and awards from Broadway World and the Joseph Jefferson awards, including 12 Broadway World Award nominations for the 2018 production. By its closing date, AVENUE Q will have played 355 performances over 12 months, placing it as one of the longest-running homegrown musicals in Chicago history.

In advance of the full Festival announcement in mid-December, Jacob's Pillow announces four companies that will be presented in 2019. Following the record-breaking ticket sales of Festival 2018 and amidst a robust season of artist residencies in the Pillow Lab and new programming which serves Berkshire County's year-round population, America's longest-running dance festival gears up for its 87th consecutive summer, June 19-August 25. Compañia Irene Rodriguez brings a particular vision of flamenco that is both Spanish and Cuban, featuring a world premiere; Caleb Teicher & Company presents More Forever, a highly anticipated new collaboration with innovative composer/pianist Conrad Tao; the Martha Graham Dance Company celebrates female power with Graham classics, a suite of Lamentation Variations, and a new work by Maxine Doyle and Bobbi Jene Smith; and Boston Ballet returns for the first time in over a decade with works by William Forsythe, resident choreographer Jorma Elo, and twentieth century Russian choreographer Leonid Yakobson.

The countdown is on! Christmas and New Year are fast approaching - and MAMMA MIA! tickets are the perfect gift for your loved ones. The smash hit musical is returning with a new cast from the UK, for a strictly limited season at the Lyric Theatre, Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts, from 16 to 27 January 2019.

The King's Head Theatre, Making Productions and RGM Productions are delighted to announce the full cast for the West End transfer of Kevin Elyot's Coming Clean.

Enjoy a treasured holiday tradition with family and friends at southern California's most spectacular production of The Nutcracker from critically acclaimed Inland Pacific Ballet. The Nutcracker comes to life in this magnificent ballet with beautiful sets, dazzling costumes, and more than 80 dancers on stage. This annual holiday production tells the story of a young girl named Clara who receives a magical nutcracker doll on Christmas Eve and sets out on a wondrous journey to the Land of the Snow and the Kingdom of Sweets. Toy soldiers, life-sized dancing dolls, and a fantastic dream with battling mice, dancing snowflakes, waltzing flowers, and the delightful Sugar Plum Fairy stir the imagination. Meet the cast after the performance for photos and autographs. This is family entertainment at its best.

Anna Netrebko brings her acclaimed portrayal of the passionate real-life French actress at the heart of Francesco Cilea's Adriana Lecouvreur to the Metropolitan Opera for the first time in a new production that opens in a special New Year's Eve gala performance and continues through January 26, 2019. Anita Rachvelishvili, who starred opposite Netrebko in Verdi's Aida earlier this season, is the Princess of Bouillon, renewing their onstage rivalry. Piotr Becza?a is Maurizio and Ambrogio Maestri is Michonnet, the two men in love with Adriana. Rounding out the cast are Carlo Bosi as the Abbé and Maurizio Muraro as the Prince of Bouillon. Maestro Gianandrea Noseda returns to the Met to conduct Cilea's elegant score. Sir David McVicar's production—the work's first new staging at the Met in more than 50 years—brings the world of the theater to vivid life, with all of the drama playing out in a working replica of a Baroque playhouse. On January 23 and 26, the title role is sung by Jennifer Rowley.

It's beginning to SOUND a lot like Christmas! "Iowa's Own Pianist" Jim McDonough and his orchestra and singers are set to tour the state this holiday season with a sensational all-new production show benefitting Camp Courageous of Iowa.

BAAD! The Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance proudly presents Los Nutcrackers: A Christmas Carajo, written by Charles Rice-Gonzalez and directed by Fernando Vieira. This year marks the play's 15th anniversary and the first year that Vieira helms the work. The play interweaves two holiday classics, The Nutcracker and A Christmas Carol, and creates a queer, Latino play about a gay couple who go on a psychedelic trip through their lives one Christmas Eve. The playdates are November 30, December 1, 6, 7, 8, 14 and 15 at 8pm; Saturday, December 8 at 3pm at BAAD!, 2474 Westchester Avenue in the Westchester Square section of the Bronx. Tickets are $25 with discounts offered for seniors and students.  For tickets call 718-918-2110 or visit www.BAADBronx.org. BAAD! can be reached by the #6 train to Westchester Square.

Over the Rhine, the Cincinnati-based, husband-and-wife team of Karin Bergquist (vocals, acoustic guitar, tenor guitar) and Linford Detweiler (vocals, acoustic guitar, keyboards), has been a prolific, music-making, folk-pop duo for more than two decades. For their 2018 tour, they will perform as a trio, leaning into three-part harmonies and making an intimate and holy ruckus of Christmas music and tunes from their many records along the way.

It's the night before Christmas, and everyone has heard the story of Santa Claus. But as all women know, it's the women who decorate the house, buy the presents and add the father's name to the gift tag. Are things any different at the North Pole? It's 2018, and women's truths are coming out! Mrs. Claus' knows the true story of Christmas Eve...

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, New York City Center's Principal Dance Company, returns to the theater's stage from November 28 - December 30, 2018 for a milestone season. During the Company's Ailey Ascending 60th Anniversary celebration, Artistic Director Robert Battle leads Ailey's 32 extraordinary dancers during this five-week holiday engagement that will elevate a legacy of excellence in artistry with premieres by some of today's most revered and prolific choreographers, including world premieres by Rennie Harris and Ronald K. Brown; a company premiere by Wayne McGregor; a new production of by Robert Battle; the return of a recent premiere by Jessica Lang, and special performances of rarely seen works by Alvin Ailey himself.

Les Pêcheurs de Perles (The Pearl Fishers) returns to the Metropolitan Opera for seven performances November 14–December 8, 2018. Bizet's opera tells the story of a beautiful Hindu temple priestess pursued by rival pearl divers competing for her love. The cast is led by soprano Pretty Yende as Leïla, tenor Javier Camarena as Nadir, and baritone Mariusz Kwiecien as Zurga, led by conductor Emmanuel Villaume.

TORONTO INTERNATIONAL BALLET THEATRE (TIBT), in collaboration with BOLSHOI BALLET, proudly presents an unforgettable production of THE NUTCRACKER. This classic presentation will feature ballerina powerhouses Anastasia Stashkevich and Vyacheslav Lopatin, principal dancers of the world-renowned Bolshoi Ballet in Moscow. THE NUTCRACKER will be presented at the Sony Centre for the Arts on December 22, 2018, for two shows only, 2pm and 7pm.

San Francisco Opera presents the West Coast premiere of It's a Wonderful Life by composer Jake Heggie and librettist Gene Scheer in nine holiday-season performances from November 17 through December 9. The two-act work, a co-commission and co-production between San Francisco Opera, Houston Grand Opera and the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, is based in part on Frank Capra's 1946 film It's a Wonderful Life and The Greatest Gift, a story by Philip Van Doren Stern.