How to Make a Man - 1961 - Broadway Articles Page 12

Actress/singer/comedienne Kaye Ballard remains one of the great living legends of stage, screen and television. She did comedy and sang with bandleader Spike Jones. She was the costar of TV's The Mothers-In-Law and The Doris Day Show, and the very funny film The Ritz among many others and too many Broadway musicals and road shows to mention. This lady brings mirth and goodwill wherever she appears. Animals are close to her heart, so it is no wonder that she, Lee Roy Reams and Liliane Montevecchi are mounting Doin' It For Love, for two nights only at the Wilshire Ebell Theatre March 9 and 10 to benefit PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals). In our chat she talks about PETA, her love of animals and offers choice bits about her accomplishments and costars.

The Manhattan Association of Cabarets & Clubs (MAC) has announced the nominees for the 26th Annual MAC Awards. The winners will be announced live at the MAC Awards Show on Thursday, March 29th, at the world-famous B.B. King Blues Club & Grill.

Though Eugene O'Neill was a grownup thirty-one years of age when Beyond The Horizon, his first full length play, opened on Broadway in 1920, the landmark domestic drama is boiling over with so much youthful angst you might expect its trio of lovers to start whipping out microphones to belt out emo rock numbers.

Lee Blessing gives us a three-dimensional look at baseball legend Ty Cobb in his fiercely honest one-act Cobb now onstage at Group rep in NoHo. Superbly staged by Gregg T. Daniel and gloriously acted by an ensemble of four, Cobb is represented at the beginning, middle and end of his life by three actors who play simultaneously around and against each other, as the man, like all men, attempts to sum up his life and make sense of his accomplishments.

Roundabout Theatre Company in association with Don Gregory, has announced the full company for the new Broadway production of Mary Chase's Harvey starring Jim Parsons (Elwood P. Dowd), Jessica Hecht (Veta Louise Simmons), Charles Kimbrough (William R. Chumley, M.D.), Larry Bryggman (Judge Omar Gaffney), Carol Kane (Betty Chumley), Peter Benson (E.J. Lofgren), Tracee Chimo (Myrtle Mae Simmons), Holley Fain (Ruth Kelly, R.N.), Angela Paton (Mrs. Ethel Chauvenet), Rich Sommer (Duane Wilson), Morgan Spector (Lyman Sanderson, M.D.) and directed by Scott Ellis.

The New York Philharmonic will present Anywhere I Wander: The Frank Loesser Songbook, a celebration of the late legendary Broadway composer of Where's Charley?, Guys and Dolls, The Most Happy Fella, Greenwillow, and the Pulitzer Prize-winning How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, Monday, March 26, 2012, at 7:30 p.m. Directed and conducted by Tony Award winner Ted Sperling, the evening will feature an all-star cast that includes Ann Hampton Callaway, Victoria Clark, Robert Morse, Bryn Terfel, a special appearance by Loesser's widow and leading lady Jo Sullivan Loesser, and others to be announced. The program will be choreographed by Andrew Palermo.

The potential prospect of the entertainment behemoth known as GLEE taking on perhaps the finest American musical ever written - WEST SIDE STORY - is enough to make any Broadway baby near-exultant, yet when the songs of the classic Bernstein/Sondheim score then are allowed to act as all-too-apt musical commentary on risque dramatic content in the highly controversial episode itself - all-too-appropriately named "The First Time" - a cataclysmic consequence can almost be counted on to inevitably arise. And, it did. Again. And again. And again - all night long. While it may have very well been Kurt, Rachel and Blaine's first roll in the hay, it would be akin to searching for a needle in a haystack to find much - if any - fault whatsoever with GLEE's button-pushing and excellently played tribute to Tony and Maria. Given what resulted from the doomed coupling of those Shakespeareans - Tony and Maria being more modern-day answers to Romeo and Juliet, of course - the ire of all the up-in-arms conservative helicopter parents in the country - and Capulets and Montagues, too, for that matter - could not even dare to try and contain the joy, excitement and sheer pleasure of what is undoubtedly one of GLEE's finest hours to date. There was a message or two to be learned, too. Yes, indeed, GLEE taking on WEST SIDE STORY went all the way - and then some. So, whether you are a Jet or Shark, you must be compelled to give it up for GLEE and its ode to WEST SIDE STORY.

For the 40th year, Peter Schumann's Bread and Puppet Theater (www.breadandpuppet.org) will return to Theater for the New City with two new works, one for adults and one for family audiences.

The onetime Broadway musical It Girl is about to open in her 4th play off-Broadway this year.

Kupferberg Center for the Arts announces its 2011/2012 season of classical music, theater, dance, special events and family programming.

Kupferberg Center for the Arts announces its 2011/2012 season of classical music, theater, dance, special events and family programming.

La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club has announced that the New York premiere of Now the Cats With Jewelled Claws by Tennessee Williams and directed by Jonathan Warman, will begin performances Thursday, October 27, at 10pm, at The Club at La MaMa, (74A E 4th Street between 2nd Avenue and Bowery).

La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club has announced that the New York premiere of Now the Cats With Jewelled Claws by Tennessee Williams and directed by Jonathan Warman, will begin performances Thursday, October 27, at 10pm, at The Club at La MaMa, (74A E 4th Street between 2nd Avenue and Bowery).

La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club has announced that the New York premiere of Now the Cats With Jewelled Claws by Tennessee Williams and directed by Jonathan Warman, will begin performances Thursday, October 27, at 10pm, at The Club at La MaMa, (74A E 4th Street between 2nd Avenue and Bowery).

The Signal Season of Dummy Hoy, by Allen Meyer and Michael Nowak, is the tale of William Ellsworth Hoy, one of the first deaf baseball players to make it to the major league - and the man some people credit with the creation of baseball signals. The play opened last week at Lakewood Theatre Company in Old Hickory, running through August 27, in a production directed by John Carpenter.

The New York Musical Theatre Festival (NYMF) has announced a full slate of musical productions, a developmental reading series and special events for their eighth annual festival. This year's Festival will begin September 26th and continue through October 16th.

Little Angel Theatre Announces September to December 2011 Listings:

Come join the celebrations in June, where once again Adelaide Festival Centre will be transformed into Cabaret mode and experience some of the best Cabaret at one of the world's most unique festivals for the genre.

People's Light & Theatre presents the Philadelphia premiere of Horton Foote's Dividing the Estate. It runs May 11 - June 5, 2011 on the Main Stage. Artistic Director Abigail Adams directs. People's Light & T

Joe's Pub at The Public Theater debuted in October 1998 and has quickly became one of New York City's most celebrated and in-demand showcase venues for live music and performance.

Co-curators Mark Murphy (REDCAT), Diane Rodriguez (Center Theatre Group) and Mark Russell (The Public Theater's Under the Radar Festival) announce the line-up for RADAR L.A., running June 14-19, 2011 at REDCAT, LATC and partner venues around the city.

Tony Award winner and Academy Award nominee Julie Taymor rounds out the renowned host of keynote speakers at the Theatre Communications Group (TCG) annual National Conference in Los Angeles, June 16-18, 2011. Speaking to the largest forum for the national theatre community, Taymor will address the central question of the conference and TCG's year-long 50th anniversary celebration: 'What if...?' 'What if...?' is the guiding question behind the imaginative impulse to create, to improve and to ultimately make change.

When the 1920s crooner heartthrob Rudy Vallee made his return to Broadway in the 1961 original production of How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying, he wasn't exactly known as an actor, and certainly not known as a comedian who might excel in a scalding satire of the ups and downs of the corporate ladder.  So when director Abe Burrows guided him through the role of J.B. Biggley, the feared and revered President of World-Wide Wickets, he gave him specific instructs... don't be funny.  Since the brilliant comic scribe Burrows was also writing the book for How To Succeed... (starting from Jack Weinstock and Willie Gilbert's straight play draft) he knew exactly how to surround the star with daffy characters and plant him into silly situations while keeping him obliviously normal.  By not really giving a performance, but by being Rudy Vallee saying lines and singing songs, the used-to-be has-been had audiences rolling with laughter.

Joe's Pub at The Public Theater debuted in October 1998 and has quickly became one of New York City's most celebrated and in-demand showcase venues for live music and performance.

People's Light & Theatre presents the Philadelphia premiere of Horton Foote's Dividing the Estate. It runs May 11 - June 5, 2011 on the Main Stage. Artistic Director Abigail Adams directs. People's Light & T