Put It in Writing - 1963 - Off-Broadway Articles Page 5

This week at Joe's Pub at The Public, February 24-March 5, will feature: Fly: A Musical Tribute to Damon Intrabartolo, The Return of Radiant Baby, Stephanie McKay, Bridget Everett, Dom La Nena & Piers Faccini, Dawn Landes, Greg Laswell, Henry Wagons, The Hot Sardines, Ramya Ramana, The Greg Proops Chat Show, Schoolhouse Rock, Murray Hill Oscars Party, Kelly Joe Phelps, Shirve Alive, Queen of the Beatniks, Gia Mora & Einstein's Girl, Juan Perro and the Employee of the Month Show. Details belo

Month in and month out, medici.tv takes music lovers to one-of-a-kind concert happenings around the world - the next best thing to being there. The next great medici.tv experience is tomorrow, Friday, February 7, at 2pm EST, with the live webcast of Charles Wuorinen's opera Brokeback Mountain, in its much-anticipated premiere production at Madrid's Teatro Real. Wuorinen, the 75-year-old composer who has both a Pulitzer Prize and a MacArthur 'genius' grant to his credit, based his opera on the short story of the same name by fellow Pulitzer-winner Annie Proulx, who also penned the libretto (her first). The heartbreaking story of a complex emotional-sexual relationship between two Wyoming cowboys over 20 years starting in 1963 earned wide renown in Ang Lee's 2005 film version, which won three Academy Awards among many other international prizes. The New York Times first-night review of the Madrid production called Wuorinen's opera 'a serious work, an impressive achievement,' praising the 'intricate, vibrantly orchestrated and often brilliant score that conveys the oppressiveness of the forces that defeat these two men.' The review also described the stage production by Belgian director Ivo van Hove as 'starkly beautiful,' with the conducting by Titus Engel drawing 'a pulsing, incisive performance' from the orchestra. The opera stars Canadian bass-baritone Daniel Okulitch and American tenor Tom Randle as the closeted ranch hands Ennis del Mar and Jack Twist. The Times review pointed out: 'The cast, to a member, embraces every chance to maximize every lyrical bit in the vocal writing.'

Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter Mary Chapin Carpenter will make her New York Philharmonic debut in Mary Chapin Carpenter with the New York Philharmonic and Special Guests, a retrospective program featuring songs from throughout her career, some newly arranged for orchestra.

In 1994, The Beatles' Live at the BBC was released to worldwide acclaim - hitting number one in the U.K., number three in the U.S. and selling more than five million copies within six weeks. A new companion to The Beatles' first BBC collection, On Air - Live at the BBC Volume 2, is out as of today, Monday, November 11 in 2CD and 180-gram vinyl packages with a 48-page booklet. On Air's 63 tracks, none of which overlaps with The Beatles' first BBC release, include 37 previously unreleased performances and 23 previously unreleased recordings of in-studio banter and conversation between the band's members and their BBC radio hosts.

In Richie's Fantastic Five: Kurosawa, Mizoguchi, Ozu, Yanagimachi & Kore-eda, Japan Society's Film Program honors Richie's legacy, presenting five timeless classics and hard-to-see gems over five months in glorious 35mm presentations. Curated by Hirano, a former Japan Society Film Program Director, the series highlights five seminal Japanese directors, who first became known throughout the world through Richie's work. Co-presented with The Japan Foundation, the series launches with Akira Kurosawa's High and Low (October 18); continuing with Kenji Mizoguchi's The Life of Oharu(November 16); Yasujiro Ozu's Equinox Flower (December 12), screening on Ozu's birthday and the 50th anniversary of his death; Mitsuo Yanagimachi's Himatsuri (January 24), unavailable on DVD; and Hirokazu Kore-eda's After Life (February 19), marking the one-year anniversary of Richie's death.

Symphony Space's In the Salon series gets underway tonight, October 18 (7:30 pm) in the Leonard Nimoy Thalia with a program devoted to Benjamin Britten's music, in celebration of the composer's centenary year.

NYLON magazine online is streaming the BEATLES REIMAGINED album starting today (October 4).

Hotel Nikko San Francisco and Michael Feinstein have announced the upcoming lineup at the all-new Feinstein's at the Nikko for the months of October, November and December. Artists include Emmy Award winning actress Megan Mullally ('Will and Grace) and actress Stephanie Hunt ('Friday Night Lights,' 'Californication') and their band Nancy & Beth; actress, producer and singer Rita Wilson; Broadway star and recording artist Linda Eder; soul and jazz vocalist Oleta Adams; and more!

In Richie's Fantastic Five: Kurosawa, Mizoguchi, Ozu, Yanagimachi & Kore-eda, Japan Society's Film Program honors Richie's legacy, presenting five timeless classics and hard-to-see gems over five months in glorious 35mm presentations. Curated by Hirano, a former Japan Society Film Program Director, the series highlights five seminal Japanese directors, who first became known throughout the world through Richie's work. Co-presented with The Japan Foundation, the series launches with Akira Kurosawa's High and Low (October 18); continuing with Kenji Mizoguchi's The Life of Oharu(November 16); Yasujiro Ozu's Equinox Flower (December 12), screening on Ozu's birthday and the 50th anniversary of his death; Mitsuo Yanagimachi's Himatsuri (January 24), unavailable on DVD; and Hirokazu Kore-eda's After Life (February 19), marking the one-year anniversary of Richie's death.

In 1994, The Beatles' Live at the BBC was released to worldwide acclaim - hitting number one in the U.K., number three in the U.S. and selling more than five million copies within six weeks.

Under the direction of Gerard Mortier, the Teatro Real is fast becoming one of the world's most innovative and exciting opera houses. With eight performances scheduled for early 2014-January 29 to February 11-Teatro Real will mount the first-ever production of Charles Wuorinen and Annie Proulx's BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN.

Under the direction of Gerard Mortier, the Teatro Real is fast becoming one of the world's most innovative and exciting opera houses. With eight performances scheduled for early 2014—January 29 to February 11—Teatro Real will mount the first-ever production of Charles Wuorinen and Annie Proulx's BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN.

Symphony Space's In the Salon series gets underway on Friday, October 18 (7:30 pm) in the Leonard Nimoy Thalia with a program devoted to Benjamin Britten's music, in celebration of the composer's centenary year. Tenor Rufus Müller and guitarist David Leisnerjoin forces to present a rare performance of Britten's complete oeuvre for the combination. This ravishing and often profound body of work was written for Britten's life partner, Peter Pears, and their friend, guitarist Julian Bream. It comprises Folk Song Arrangements (Vol. 6),Songs from the Chinese, and The Second Lute Song of the Earl of Essex from Gloriana. The program also includes Nocturnal for solo guitar (1963), an acknowledged masterpiece of the genre. It is presented in collaboration with Guitar Plus

Hotel Nikko San Francisco and Michael Feinstein have announced the upcoming lineup at the all-newFeinstein's at the Nikko for the months of October, November and December. Artists include Emmy Award winning actress Megan Mullally ('Will and Grace) and actress Stephanie Hunt ('Friday Night Lights,' 'Californication') and their band Nancy & Beth; actress, producer and singer Rita Wilson; Broadway star and recording artist Linda Eder; soul and jazz vocalist Oleta Adams; and more! Additional artists will be announced at a later date.

Performers were originally brought to Goodspeed directly from New York City, typically by Steamboat. Though we are now brought by the Goodspeed Guild members in vans and buses, it is still exciting to come down the side of the river valley and near the swing bridge and see the towering Goodspeed Opera House on the other bank.

Four songs into Lauren Robert's show at Iridium this past Tuesday night (her third appearance at the jazz club since last August), she was already producing her usual pulsating, percussive, and passionate presentation of hard-driving blues and soulful pop when the show took a transformative turn and reached a higher ground. The mature, sultry, blue-eyed blonde, whose sound goes beyond blue-eyed soul, put on her Louisiana accent cultivated from years playing down south with her old band, Mojo Hand, and told her audience that the set's fifth song was 'inspired by the swamps and sexy action of N'awlins.' Then Robert and her new band, which included three members of the old gang, really got their mojo going, jumped into a musical swamp boat and navigated through a Robert original called 'Two Alligators' (from Mojo Hand's 1992 album Zulu Parasol), an intense and rhythmic mix of blues, hard rock n' roll, and Zydeco, and that featured a cool background vocal arrangement and Robert playing a washboard-better known as a fotoi (fo-twa)-draped down her chest. Like an alligator, the song stalked and then snapped, and with Noe Matos supplying some frenetic percussion, it was a draw-dropping number that wouldn't let you stop bouncing in your seat.

In this new, in-depth interview below, RAIDING THE ROCK VAULT's Howard Leese [guitarist] and John Payne [Lead Vocals, Bass and producer of the show] discuss how the show was born, its evolution from premiering in Los Angeles last year (November) to kicking off a year-long engagement in Las Vegas

Fifty years after he started writing it, Quasimodo, a major musical by Oliver! composer Lionel Bart, will finally get its World Premiere at the King's Head Theatre in London this month, March 2013.

Russia's profound and far-reaching impact on 20th-century culture will be explored at the 2013 annual Bard SummerScape festival, which once again offers an extraordinary summer of music, opera, theater, dance, film, and cabaret, keyed to the theme of the 24th annual Bard Music Festival, Stravinsky and His World. Presented in the striking Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts and other venues on Bard College's bucolic Hudson River campus, the seven-week festival opens on July 6 with the first of two performances of A Rite (2013) by the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company and SITI Company, and closes on August 18 with a party in Bard's beloved Spiegeltent, which returns for the full seven weeks. Complementing the Bard Music Festival's exploration of “Stravinsky and His World,” some of the great Russian-born composer's most captivating compatriots provide key SummerScape highlights. These include the first fully-staged American production of Sergey Taneyev's opera Oresteia; the world premiere of an original stage adaptation of Mikhail Bulgakov's seminal novel The Master and Margarita; and a film festival titled “Between Traditions: Stravinsky's Legacy and Russian Emigré Cinema.” Together, SummerScape's offerings will continue Bard's yearlong tenth-anniversary celebrations for the Frank Gehry-designed Fisher Center, which commence with a month of special performances in April.

Fifty years after he started writing it, Quasimodo, a major musical by Oliver! composer Lionel?Bart,will finally get its World Premiere at the King's Head Theatre in London in March 2013.

Main Street Theatre has been a staple in the Houston theatre scene since Rebecca Udden found the company in the 1970s. Over time, the company has continued to evolve and grow. It seems that Houston audiences may not be fully aware of just how dynamic this stellar theatre company is. To help set the record straight, Rebecca Udden, Founding and Executive Artistic Director, and Vivienne St. John, Theater For Youth Producing Director, spoke with me about this fantastic and multifaceted theatrical company.

So many cabaret shows, so little time . . . to write reviews that is. During his almost two years as a cabaret reviewer, BroadwayWorld.com critic Stephen Hanks managed to do a pretty good job of writing critiques during a show's run or soon after the run ended. But this summer he just couldn't keep up. Finally, here are observations on 10 performances over the past two months.

It's becomes very clear very quickly, when talking to Rupert Holmes, that writing the libretto for The Nutty Professor-which paired him with composer Marvin Hamlisch-has been an astonishing and inspiring experience for the man whose resume is filled with noteworthy achievements in theater, music, publishing and, practically, any endeavor of self-expression that one can name. Yet, as Holmes remembers his friend, his collaborator and his fellow musical theater legend, it is apparent that Hamlisch's sudden death this week has left an indelible imprint upon him.

Danny Young grew up in the small Wisconsin town of Viola (population 500), the son of a band director, so it should come as absolutely no surprise that he's now plying his trade as a professional musician-a drummer, to be exact-and he's part of the blue-ribbon orchestra playing a brand-new Marvin Hamlisch score every night during performances of The Nutty Professor, A New Musical now onstage at the Tennessee Performing Arts Center.

Last week we launched The Nutty Five as our way of welcoming all these talented people into our midst-even the ones who have Nashville connections, like today's star of the show Danny Young, who is the drummer for The Nutty Professor band (who may be just as jazzed up about his new drum set for the show as he is working with Jerry Lewis).