If - 1927 - Broadway Articles Page 8

Downton Abbey opened nationwide on September 20, 2019. Let's see what the critics are saying...

There is an old adage: the show must go on. And the shows have gone on at Ritz Theatre Company in Haddon Township, NJ for more than three decades now, and the historic theatre has become a staple to the Delaware Valley community. But, a recent post on the Ritz Theatre Company Facebook page has really gotten audiences in South Jersey wondering if the curtain might go down forever on the iconic theatre.

Dumb... dumber... dumbest? Open Fist Theatre Company presents the world premiere of Neil Simon's Musical Fools, an adaptation of the Simon play Fools, with book and lyrics by Neil Simon and music and lyrics by Phil Swann and Ron West (deLEARious, The People Vs Friar Laurence). West also directs, with music direction by Jan Roper and choreography by Louisa Kendrick Burton. Neil Simon's Musical Fools opens Oct. 12 at Atwater Village Theatre, where performances will continue through Nov. 17; pay-what-you-want previews begin Oct. 4.

Jesse Cook, Juno winning master guitarist, known for his intoxicating fusion of world music, will be performing at the Capitol Center for the Arts on Fri, October 18 at 8PM.

The New Jersey City University Center for the Arts presents the 7th Annual NJCU Alumni Jazz Big Band Concert on Friday, September 6 at 6 p.m. on the J. Owen Grundy Pier, Exchange Place, in Jersey City. Conducted by Professor Emeritus Richard Lowenthal, this free concert features trumpeter Wynton Marsalis and vocalists Allan Harris and Antoinette Montague.

The New Jersey City University Center for the Arts presents the 7th Annual NJCU Alumni Jazz Big Band Concert on Friday, September 6 at 6 p.m. on the J. Owen Grundy Pier, Exchange Place, in Jersey City. Conducted by Professor Emeritus Richard Lowenthal, this free concert features trumpeter Wynton Marsalis and vocalists Allan Harris and Antoinette Montague.

The New York Philharmonic will present the US Stage Premiere of director / set and lighting designer Bengt Gomér's production of Schoenberg's Erwartung and Bartók's Bluebeard's Castle, conducted by Jaap van Zweden. Bluebeard's Castle will feature soprano Nina Stemme (New York Philharmonic debut), recipient of the 2018 Birgit Nilsson Prize, as Judith and baritone Johannes Martin Kränzle (debut) as Duke Bluebeard; Erwartung will feature mezzo-soprano Katarina Karnéus as A Woman (debut). The performances will take place Thursday, September 26, 2019, at 7:30 p.m.; Friday, September 27 at 8:00 p.m.; and Saturday, September 28 at 8:00 p.m.

As I took my seat in the lobby of Stratford's Festival Theatre on Monday night, the eager patron next to me leaned in and proclaimed a?oeThere is quite the buzz in here!a?? She was absolutely right. We had both arrived early enough to grab seats for WHY WE TELL THE STORY: A CELEBRATION OF AFRICAN-AMERICAN MUSICAL THEATRE--A much anticipated cabaret event conceived by Festival actor Marcus Nance who can currently be seen in LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS and BILLY ELLIOT. After initially selling out months before the Festival season even began, the high demand of this show led to more chairs being added and eventually to 'standing room only' tickets being sold so that as many people as possible could witness what indeed turned out to be a magical night of words and song.

Merrimack Repertory Theatre (MRT) today announced a lineup change to the 2019-20 Season with the addition of Erma Bombeck: At Wit's End by Allison Engel and Margaret Engel. A one-woman tour-de-force, At Wit's End celebrates the life of one of the 20th Century's most beloved humorists, who wrote more than 4,000 columns for 900 newspapers and 30 million readers.

The 30th anniversary season of the Bard Music Festival a?" an exploration of a?oeKorngold and His Worlda?? a?" opens this Friday, August 9, with Weekend One: Korngold and Vienna. The first of the weekend's six themed concerts, Program One: a?oeErich Wolfgang Korngold: From Viennese Prodigy to Hollywood Master,a?? offers a broad overview of the composer's multi-faceted career.

This Anastasia is impeccably performed, gorgeously rendered, and entertaining to be sure. Still, to me, the new songs don't soar alongside the old ones. I wonder how I'd feel if I didn't already know those old songs by heart. That's the risk the show's creators took in translating Anastasia for Broadway.

Following on the footsteps of Hotsy Totsy Burlesque's successful Disney, Harry Potter, The Big Lebowski, Mad Men, Doctor Who and Star Wars 1978 Holiday Special tribute shows, Cherry Pitz and Joe the Shark present a burlesque tribute to Downton Abbey. 

The Cape Playhouse at the Cape Cod Center for the Arts announces complete casting for their upcoming production of the Tony and Pulitzer Prize winning musical A Chorus Line.

Dequina Moore is a marvel as the titular role of Josephine Baker. She plays this wide eyed and breathless, a girl who knows she is on the verge of something more and impatient to get there. She dances with abandon and sings like an angel.

Viola Davis, Chadwick Boseman, Glynn Turman, Colman Domingo and Michael Potts are set to star in the Netflix film adaptation of August Wilson's play Ma Rainey's Black Bottom.

Sometimes walking into a theatre, you know next to nothing about a show. Now that can end up being an experience where you are counting down the minutes until it is over or where you end up being so enthralled by the production that you are sad when the lights come up. The IT Girl is definitely the latter of those two examples. Playing until June 23rd, the final show of Meadow Brook Theatre's season brings the classic silent movie musical to life with an extremely talented cast lead by Sara Kmiec (Betty Lou Spence) and Nathan Cockroft (Jonathan Waltham) that truly makes you feel like you have stepped back in time right inside a black and white movie. The IT Girl is a wonderful piece of Michigan Theatre!

You might think SHOW BOAT is impossibly quaint and politically incorrect. Well, it is, but an excellent CPCC Summer Theatre cast keeps the ol' boat afloat on 'Ol' Man River.'

Now in its ninth year, bi-annual work-in-progress festival Ferment Fortnight is back and ready to showcase some of the finest talent in the South West. Once again, the festival will take place in The Weston Studio, a flexible space designed to be a home to innovation and the theatre-makers of tomorrow and in Coopers' Loft for meet-ups.

Acclaimed late-night TV show host Jay Leno will treat audiences to an intimate evening of conversation and comedy when he comes to the Capitol Center for the Arts (Concord, NH) on  Thu, November 21 at 7:30PM.  In addition to Leno's unforgettable years as the host of The Tonight Show, the admired stand-up comedian is also a best-selling children's book author, an in-demand corporate speaker, a lovable TV and movie voice-over artist, a pioneering car builder and mechanic, and a philanthropist.

What makes a Broadway theatre? Technically any venue with 500 seats or more, located along Broadway in New York City's Theatre District is a Broadway theatre, and the art that is produced in these special places is widely considered the highest form of theatrical entertainment in the world. Today, forty-one theatres are technically Broadway houses, each with their own rich history. Below, we're giving you the scoop on the life of every one of them!

Boston Landmarks Orchestra (LO) under the direction of Music Director Christopher Wilkins, and Executive Director Jo Frances Meyer, announces its 2019 season of free concerts at the DCR's Hatch Memorial Shell on the Esplanade. The free, public concerts will be held every Wednesday evening at 7pm from July 17 to August 21, 2019.

Mint Theater (Jonathan Bank, Producing Artistic Director) will present the American Premiere of The Mountains Look Different by Micheal mac Liammoir, hailed as 'a courageous play in which there is no beating about the bush' by The Christian Science Monitor. Performances will begin May 30th and continue through July 14th only at Theatre Row (410 West 42nd Street). Opening Night is set for June 19th.

Michael Rader, Producing Artistic Director of The Cape Playhouse, today announced the creative teams for the 2019 summer season. The six-play season features three plays and three musicals- and includes directors Hunter Foster, Marcia Milgrom Dodge, Matt Lenz, Joyce Chittick and more.

In 2017, the Broadway musical version of Anastasia (which opened at Hartford Stage nice months earlier), based on the 1997 film, featuring music by Stephen Flaherty, lyrics by Lynn Ahrens and a book by Terrence McNally debuted to much fanfare, and now Nashville audiences are in the thrall of the cast and crew of the national touring company, onstage at Tennessee Performing Arts Center's Andrew Jackson Hall through Sunday, March 24.

The timeless music of George and Ira Gershwin plus an aviator, a Channel swimmer, exuberant dance numbers, sparkling costumes, romance, comedy, and America in 1927 equals My One and Only, Stage Door Theatre's upcoming production at the Lauderhill Performing Arts Center (LPAC). The show will open on March 8th and run through March 24th.