Play Yourself - 2002 - Off-Broadway Articles Page 6

New Hampshire Theatre Project will be offering two exciting workshops for adults in June.  Instructors can accommodate both beginners and advanced students.

A Broadway Baby for years in supporting and featured roles, Billy Porter won his Tony Award for 'Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical' in his first leading role on Broadway as Lola in Cyndi Lauper and Harvey Fierstein's KINKY BOOTS in 2013. Billy will be bringing his dulcet vocals and his razor-sharp wit to The Soraya June 2, 2018 in his THE SOUL OF RICHARD RODGERS. Billy managed to take a break from his non-stop schedule of creativity to chat with me.

SOFT POWER, the first collective creation of Tony Award winners David Henry Hwang and Jeanine Tesori, will world premiere at the Ahmanson under the auspices of Center Theatre Group, in association with East West Players and the Curran, opening May 16, 2018. We had the wonderful opportunity to chat with a frequent collaborator of both David Henry Hwang and Jeanine Tesori, actor/singer Francis Jue who portrays DHH in SOFT POWER.

LAByrinth Theater Company (Artistic Director John Ortiz) recently announced that they will present the World Premiere of Devil of Choice by LAB Member Maggie Bofill (Winners, Drawn and Quartered). They are thrilled for performances to begin Wednesday, May 23, and will run through Saturday, June 9, 2018, at The Cherry Lane Theatre (38 Commerce Street, New York, NY 10014). An official opening night has been set for Monday, May 28, 2018. Tickets are available for $20 each and can be purchased online at www.labtheater.org/shows-and-events

The Apricot Brandy have been playing soul music all around Northwest Connecticut since 1968. Through the years, band members have come and gone, but James "Moon" Maraia and Jim "Schultz" Buonocore play on and are currently joined by Robert Grillo on drums, Allen Gunn on vocals, Greg Dolecki on sax, RJ Avalone on trumpet and Jeff Shea/Joe Bouchard on keyboards.

Second Stage Theater (Carole Rothman, Artistic Director; Casey Reitz, Executive Director) has announced additional casting for the New York Premiere of TRACY LETTS' acclaimed play, MARY PAGE MARLOWE.

Lookingglass Theatre Company announces its complete 2018-2019 season lineup. The season begins with the World Premiere of The Steadfast Tin Soldier: A Christmas Pantomime, conceived and directed by Ensemble Member Mary Zimmerman from the story by Hans Christian Andersen. Following The Steadfast Tin Soldier is the World Premiere of Act(s) of God written by Ensemble Member Kareem Bandealy and directed by Ensemble Member Heidi Stillman.

It's in the spirit of the arts as a conduit for education that I found myself drawn to the theater for young audiences, with a particular interest in the work of Atty. Vincent Tañada and the Philippine Stagers Foundation (PSF). Tañada's work--as it relates to the current demands for the arts in schools--will be my main focus of this discussion.

Join host Emily Ludolph and a special guest, superstar playwright and librettist David Henry Hwang, at Dedicate It, a live show and podcast that zeroes in on the dedication page.

Second Stage Theater has announced that Tony Award winner BLAIR BROWN will join the previously announced EMMA GEER, TATIANA MASLANY and SUSAN POURFAR in the New York Premiere of TRACY LETTS' acclaimed play, MARY PAGE MARLOWE, directed by LILA NEUGEBAUER.

Second Stage Theater (Carole Rothman, Artistic Director; Casey Reitz, Executive Director) has announced that EMMA GEER will join the previously announced TATIANA MASLANY and SUSAN POURFAR in the New York Premiere of TRACY LETTS' acclaimed play, MARY PAGE MARLOWE, directed by LILA NEUGEBAUER.

Second Stage Theater (Carole Rothman, Artistic Director; Casey Reitz, Executive Director) has announced that SUSAN POURFAR will join the previously announced TATIANA MASLANY in the New York Premiere of TRACY LETTS' acclaimed play, MARY PAGE MARLOWE, directed by LILA NEUGEBAUER.

Second Stage Theater (Carole Rothman, Artistic Director; Casey Reitz, Executive Director) has announced that Emmy Award Winner TATIANA MASLANY, star of the hit BBC America series, "Orphan Black," will appear in the New York Premiere of TRACY LETTS' acclaimed play, MARY PAGE MARLOWE, directed by LILA NEUGEBAUER.

Broadway producer Scott Sanders is the mastermind behind this kind of experiential entertainment and he's telling us all about how the concept came to be.

David Sedaris, one of America's pre-eminent humor writers, returns to the Valley by popular demand on Saturday, Nov. 18, at 8 p.m., to read some of his latest works and answer questions from the audience. A book signing will follow. His appearance at the Orpheum Theatre in Downtown Phoenix is part of the new Scottsdale Arts Presents series, in which artists and programs are presented at venues beyond the downtown Scottsdale campus.

We're so excited to return to our childhood roots with a very special, Family-Friendly 'Another Round'...of juice boxes. This week the Broadwaysted crew is keeping it #PlaygroundRules and sipping apple juice with the brilliant creators of ADDY & UNO, a new Family Musical about disability, bullying, and friendship! Book writer Nava R. Silton shares about how her passion for her role as a Developmental Psychologist and her work with Sesame Street and Nickelodeon inspired a comic version of ADDY & UNO.

If not for the fact that she is already one on Broadway, it could be said that Rachel Potter's performance in Mamma Mia! - which opened last night at Nashville's historic Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre - was, without doubt or without danger of fulsome exaggeration a "starmaking turn." With a glorious voice and stage presence to spare, Potter's Sophie seized control of the opening night audience from the very first moment she stepped onto the stage, never relinquishing control for one second, even when sharing the stage with the redoubtable Martha Wilkinson, the undisputed queen of musical theatre in Music City.

Here's an oft-proven truism, if not a fact, about theater in Nashville: If Martha Wilkinson is the star of a particular show - any show, whether it's Noises Off, Chicago, Little Shop of Horrors, Sister Act (well, you get my drift) - you can rest assured that she will (A) play the role to the hilt, (B) knock your socks off with her timing and delivery and (C) you'll believe that, no matter how many times you've seen a show, any show, it was as if you were seeing it for the first time.

One of the most thrilling quarterbacks to ever play in the National Football League, four-time NFL Pro Bowler Michael Vick joins FOX Sports as a studio analyst for FOX NFL KICKOFF

Producers Nelle Nugent, Steve Traxler, Kenneth Teaton, Benjamin Feldman, Doug Morris and Spencer Ross today announce full casting for the first Broadway revival of David Henry Hwang's Tony Award®-winning play, M. BUTTERFLY, directed by Tony Award® winner Julie Taymor.

When David Moscow made his 'Big'-screen debut in 1988, it was huge. Penny Marshall had plucked this precocious, 11-year-old kid from the Bronx to play the younger version of Tom Hanks' character, Josh Baskin. This comic fantasy-fable about a boy who literally became 'Big' overnight, was a giant box-office hit. Moscow was nominated for a Young Artist Award for Best Young Actor in a Comedy. And in that same season, another kid won for Best Young Actor in a Drama: Christian Bale for 'Empire of the Sun.'

The dialogue in Adam Rapp's searingly and brutally honest play NOCTURNE is so beautifully written with remarkably descriptive phrases, it will awe your imagination into immersing yourself into one man's journey after, as a teen, he unwittingly caused the death of this younger sister in a late-night, tragic car accident on a country road due to failing brakes. The Son, whose name we never learn, is brilliantly portrayed by Jamie Wollrab who engulfs his entire being into telling one man's journey of redemption in this gut-wrenching yet hauntingly lyrical mediation on guilt and grief, all of which begins with the repeated line, "Fifteen years ago, I killed my sister."

In celebration of the fourth annual World Emoji Day (@WorldEmojiDay) on Monday, July 17, audiences can get excited for the film by getting their tickets early - and Sony Pictures Animation is joining the fun by orchestrating a series of events and appearances as we all salute to the emoji, the means of communication that crosses borders and language.

Kevin McCollum produced some of Broadway's biggest shows, including MOTOWN THE MUSICAL, playing now in Minneapolis. Read along with my engaging conversation with him and learn some tidbits about an upcoming project and what drives his storytelling.