Only the Heart - 1944 - Broadway Articles Page 5

BWW Reviewer Peter Nason chooses the best film musicals since the sound era began; see if your favorites made the list!

The wait is over! Popejoy Hall announces the 2020-2021 season headlined by HAMILTON.

With the topic of illegal immigration so prevalent in today's news, now is the perfect time to take a very personal look at the trials and tribulations of those who immigrated, both legally and illegally, to our country in THE NEW COLOSSUS, a new play co-written by The Actors' Gang ensemble and its Artistic Director Tim Robbins, who also directs the production. In it, twelve of the acting troupe's members tell their ancestors' stories, reflecting their great diversity, struggles and journeys from oppression to freedom, a real personal testament celebrating the courage and great character of the refugees who came to this country throughout the last 200 years.

2019 has come and gone, which means it's time to get excited for the new shows coming in 2020! This year will bring anticipated revivals of Company, West Side Story, and The Music Man, fan favorite Six, brand new musicals Diana, Mrs. Doubtfire, and MJ, and many more.

'Oklahoma! Is and will always be my first love,' explained Brynna Horswell, who portrays Laurey in Charleston Light Opera Guild's (CLOG) upcoming production of the Rodgers and Hammerstein classic. 'It was the first musical I remember being exposed to as a very little girl. I grew up singing and dancing to those songs and dreamed that one day I'd be Shirley Jones with my own Gordon MacRae.'

Following its top selling run at the Orange Tree Theatre this autumn, Maya Arad Yassur's strikingly original and audacious play Amsterdam will take to the road in early 2020. The three-way co-production, between Actors Touring Company, the Orange Tree Theatre and Theatre Royal Plymouth embarks on a tour that opens in Plymouth in February and stretches across the UK. Amsterdam is directed by Matthew Xia as his inaugural production as artistic director of ATC.

Artistic Director Brigid Larmour today announces programming to complete Watford Palace Theatre's season for September 2019 - June 2020, following the world première of Mushy: Lyrically Speaking earlier this month. The co-production with Rifco Theatre Company is now on tour across the UK until 5 October.

Memory is very precious. It connects us to our past and helps guide us to our future. In Tennessee Williams' magnum opus THE GLASS MENAGERIE, memory is a force of gravity and as the season opener for The Tennessee Williams Theatre Company's fifth season, a grounded production is one rarely seen but feels so uncompromisingly right.

This autumn will see Matthew Xia's inaugural production as artistic director of Actors Touring Company. The UK premiere of Amsterdam by Maya Arad Yasur will open the Orange Tree Theatre's Autumn season before embarking on a tour beginning at Theatre Royal Plymouth in February 2020.

The Stamford Symphony presents One Singular Sensation - Marvin Hamlisch 75 on Saturday, September 28, 2019 at 7:00 p.m. at The Palace Theatre, 61 Atlantic Street, Stamford, CT 06901. The Gala Benefit is the only official 75th birthday celebration and will be hosted by Terre Blair-Hamlisch. This special evening will celebrate the genius of the legendary composer.

Actress Fay McKenzie Waldman passed away peacefully in her sleep on the morning of April 16th at the age of 101. She was born February 19, 1918 into a show business family where she was the youngest of two sisters and an actress cousin, and made her screen debut at only ten weeks old in "Station Content" (1918) in which she was carried in the arms of Gloria Swanson. Her parents, Eva & Bob "Pops" McKenzie were already veteran performers and apparently wanted their daughter to get an early start in films. She nearly stole the show from Oliver Hardy as "the baby" in the Alice Howell short "Distilled Love" (filmed in 1918 but released two years later). By the time she was six, Fay was considered an old hand, having played diverse parts in her father's stock company. Among her early films was the 1924 Photoplay Medal Winner, "The Dramatic Life of Abraham Lincoln." 

Sit in a crowded attic room, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. You never get to go outside, and during the day you can't make any noise. If you do, monstrous people will find you can take you away to be killed simply because you're different from them. Do this for two years. Now, one last thing, have a positive attitude the entire time. Such is the ordeal Anne Frank, a 13-year-old girl, her family and others had to endure during the German occupation of Amsterdam between 1942 and 1944 and, of course, the subject of one of the most famous accounts during World War II, "The Diary of Anne Frank", currently being presented in play form at Seattle Children's Theatre. But beyond the lovely performances and impactful presentation, hopefully viewers will come away realizing how fortunate we are for the freedoms we still have and how important it is to look out for those that are being marginalized.

'For time is the longest distance between places' but in the case of an iconic play like The Glass Menagerie, time seems to melt away. Tennessee Williams based the play on his 1943 short story 'Portrait of a Girl in Glass.' The Glass Menagerie premiered in 1944 in Chicago where it caught the attention of critics Ashton Stevens and Claudia Cassidy. With their help, the producers were able to move the play to Broadway, where it opened at the Playhouse Theatre in 1945. In The Glass Menagerie, the character Tom serves as both narrator and character in a play that is memory and yet somehow very real and present. The Glass Menagerie runs April 4-April 14 at Hershey Area Playhouse.

BroadwayWorld's local experts put together a list of some of the top venues to check out when visiting Israel - including Haifa, Tel Aviv, and more!

Four symphonic orchestras, a major heritage museum and one of Los Angeles' leading performing arts centers will join forces in 2020 for an ambitious collaborative initiative that will bring to life the sounds of music once lost. 

The Lyceum Theatre will open its exciting new 8 show season on June 6, 2019 with the Lyceum premiere of Rodgers & Hammerstein's Cinderella, followed by All Shook Up, 9 to 5 The Musical, Murder For Two, Fully Committed, Crimes of the Heart, Swingtime Canteen, and the sixth annual production of the Lyceum's unique adaptation of the Charles Dickens' classic, A Christmas Carol, closing on December 22, 2019.

Riverside Theatre, led by Producing Artistic Director/CEO Allen D. Cornell and Managing Director/COO Jon R. Moses, present one of Broadway's great musicals, Evita. Sponsored by Bobbie Olsen and Riverside Theatre's Patron Producers Group, Evita performs on the Stark Stage from January 8-27, 2019.

Next up in Town Hall Theatre's staged reading series IN THE WINGS is a one-night only reading of BOY, a moving new play about gender identity by Anna Ziegler.  BOY will have one performance only on Monday, February 4, 2019, at Town Hall Theatre Company, 3535 School Street, in Lafayette, CA.  Tickets are $10 general admission and free to subscribers, and are available through the Box Office at (925) 283-1557 or online at www.TownHallTheatre.com. 

Riverside Theatre, led by Producing Artistic DirectorCEO Allen D. Cornell and Managing DirectorCOO Jon R. Moses, present one of Broadway's great musicals, Evita. Sponsored by Bobbie Olsen and Riverside Theatre's Patron Producers Group, Evita performs on the Stark Stage from January 8-27, 2019.

Riverside Theatre, led by Producing Artistic Director/CEO Allen D. Cornell and Managing Director/COO Jon R. Moses, present one of Broadway's great musicals, Evita. Sponsored by Bobbie Olsen and Riverside Theatre's Patron Producers Group, Evita performs on the Stark Stage from January 8-27, 2019.

Riverside Theatre, led by Producing Artistic Director/CEO Allen D. Cornell and Managing Director/COO Jon R. Moses, present one of Broadway's great musicals, Evita. Sponsored by Bobbie Olsen and Riverside Theatre's Patron Producers Group, Evita performs on the Stark Stage from January 8-27, 2019.

For the third show of its season Around Town, Theater J brings Lanford Wilson's Pulitzer Prize-winning romantic comedy Talley's Folly to GALA Hispanic Theatre December 7 - 30. A funny and heartwarming theatrical duet, Talley's Folly, is set on a moonlit night in 1944 Missouri, where Matt Friedman, a middle-aged Jewish accountant, has only one chance to win the heart of Sally Talley, a 31 year-old 'old maid' from a bigoted Protestant family. After a lifetime of believing they'll never truly belong in the world around them, they reawaken one another to love, ultimately finding that they do belong - together.

The Pasadena Playhouse announces that Simon Helberg will play George Bailey in its holiday production of It's a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play adapted from the film by Joe Landry, and directed by Cameron Watson, for 15 performances only December 12 to 23 (Press Opening: December 13, 8 p.m.).  Additional casting is still to be announced.

PuSh Festival, which celebrates its milestone 15th anniversary in 2019. See the full lineup below!

The Pasadena Playhouse presents the largest holiday celebration in its history - the mainstage holiday production It's a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play for 15 performances only (December 12 to 23), performances of Bob Baker's Nutcracker in the Carrie Hamilton Theatre (November 24 to December 31); and the Playhouse District Association Tree Lighting Ceremony in the Playhouse Courtyard - an event that is free to the public on Friday, November 30 at 7:00pm. An additional free holiday concert will be held in the Playhouse Courtyard on December 14 at 6 p.m. in association with the Playhouse District Association.