Ragtime - 2005 - Milburn, NJ (Regional) Articles Page 8

BWW Reviewer Peter Nason chooses the best musical theatre characters from 1940-2020; see if your favorites are on our list of the best characters from Broadway musicals.

Today's top stories: The Actors Fund's Ragtime concert has been rescheduled for the fall, and more!

The 2020 Boston Pops spring season, which was to take place May 16-June 13, has been canceled due to ongoing concerns over the spread of COVID-19. The 2020 Boston Pops season was designed as a celebration of Keith Lockhart's 25th anniversary season.

Theater suffered a huge loss this week when the playwright Terrence McNally died at 81, of complications of our current plague, the coronavirus. It was a sad irony since many of McNally's plays dealt with the effects of a previous plague, AIDS, in the 1980s.

Broadway By The Year: Volume 2: Broadway Musicals of 2005-2009 has been rescheduled for Monday, July 27.

The Town Hall will present Broadway By The Year©: Volume 2: Broadway Musicals of 2005-2009 on Monday, March 30 at 8pm. Created, written, hosted and directed by Scott Siegel for The Town Hall, the evening will continue Broadway By The Year©'s 20th landmark season at The Town Hall (123 W. 43rd Street).

This Month, FEINSTEIN'S/54 BELOW will present some of the brightest stars from Broadway, cabaret, jazz, and beyond. To purchase tickets or for more information, visit www.54Below.com/Feinsteins or call (646) 476-3551.

Dessa Rose, the second installment of Olney Theatre Center's Applause Concert series bows for its single performance on Friday, March 6 at 8:00pm on the Mainstage. The musical, presented in a concert recital directed by Monique Midgette is a 2005 work by the famed duo Lynne Ahrens (Book and Lyrics) and Stephen Flaherty (Music) based on the 1986 novel by Sherley Ann Williams. Christopher Youstra, Olney Theatre's Associate Artistic Director/Director of Music Theatre and the series curator serves as music director and conductor. Awa Sal Secka plays the title role, Gracie Jones co-stars as Ruth. Members of the cast of Miss You Like Hell fill-in the supporting roles. Limited tickets remain. ($60/$50 Olney Theatre Center Members) Purchased online at olneytheatre.org/dessa or call the Box Office (301-924-3400).

Fifteen years after its first production of the musical, Musical Theatre West revisits the Tony Award-winning musical RAGTIME for only its second time---smartly reviving the musical in a similarly lavish production that beautifully converges the show's classic staging and vibe with wonderfully integrated 21st Century tech upgrades that help elevate the material rather than hinder its storytelling. Under the enlightened direction of Paul David Bryant (who also provides the production's high-energy choreography), this brand new, spectacularly engrossing production bellows with an emotional fervor and is one of my favorite iterations of this musical I have seen in recent years. This local revival---which continues performances at the Carpenter Center for the Performing Arts in Long Beach through February 23, 2020---is a feast for the senses.

After spending a year on an extended visit to his original hometown of Chicago, Illinois, veteran and award-winning stage actor and play director Darryl Maximilian Robinson, The Founder, Artistic Director and Producer of the multiracial, non-Equity professional chamber theatre, The Excaliber Shakespeare Company of Chicago and Los Angeles-based theatre artist, has returned to The City of Angels, and will discuss both his most recent on-and-off stage endeavors in Chicago and Los Angeles on the Monday December 30, 2019 edition of the internet performing arts program 'The Actor's Choice' hosted by long-time entertainment journalist Ron Brewington in a program that can be viewed live on Youtube at 11:00 am PST.

After spending a year on an extended visit to his original hometown of Chicago, Illinois, veteran and award-winning stage actor and play director Darryl Maximilian Robinson, The Founder, Artistic Director and Producer of the multiracial, non-Equity professional chamber theatre, The Excaliber Shakespeare Company of Chicago and Los Angeles-based theatre artist, has returned to The City of Angels, and will discuss both his most recent on-and-off stage endeavors on the Monday December 30, 2019 edition of the internet performing arts program 'The Actor's Choice' hosted by long-time entertainment journalist Ron Brewington in a program that can be viewed live on Youtube at 11:00 am PST.

The Actors Fund, the national human services organization for everyone in performing arts and entertainment, will hold its Annual Gala on Monday, April 6, 2020. The evening will celebrate Tony Award-winning actor Matthew Broderick and Emmy Award-winning actor, producer and designer Sarah Jessica Parker; Tony Award-winning actor and Chairman of The Actors Fund Brian Stokes Mitchell; Academy Award-winning producer, co-owner of the New York Football Giants, and philanthropist Steve Tisch; and American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) President Richard L. Trumka as they receive The Actors Fund's Medal of Honor.

FEINSTEIN'S/54 BELOW, Broadway's Supper Club, will present a special celebratory concert to mark the 10th anniversary of the musical Yank! opening off-Broadway. When this romantic gay love story set during WWII opened in 2010 at the York Theatre it was a surprise hit, garnering rave reviews and a raft of award nominations (Best New Musical and Score from the Outer Critics Circle, Outstanding Musical by the Lucille Lortel Awards, and 6 Drama Desk nods, including Best Musical, Music and Lyrics).

The award-winning Suncoast Theatre presents THE 25th ANNUAL PUTNAM COUNTY SPELLING BEE from Friday, November 8 to Sunday, November 10 in the auditorium of Suncoast Community High School.

Broadway star Brian Stokes Mitchell will make his LA Opera debut in the company's upcoming production of The Light in the Piazza. 

Join us in High-heeled heaven!! The winner of six Tony Awards, including Best Musical, Kinky Boots hits the Ogunquit Playhouse stage September 18 through October 27.

Interested in seeing a recent Broadway classic in Royal Oak? From September 13th to October 6th, you can check out Stagecrafters' production of Ragtime at their famous Baldwin Theatre. Here to tell you more about Ragtime and what you can expect from Stagecrafters' upcoming production is Dez Walker, who plays Coalhouse Walker Jr in this production.

Today's top stories: the soundtrack to JUDY is coming September 27 featuring Renee Zellweger, and more!

WaterTower Theatre will round out its 2019-2020 season with a special limited-engagement, concert-style production of the inspiring 1960s musical Golden Boy. Adapted from the 1930s drama by Clifford Odets, and featuring a book by Odets and William Gibson, Golden Boy tells the story of Joe Wellington, a young black man trying to rise from the Harlem ghetto as a prizefighter. Wellington, originated on Broadway in 1964 by the iconic Sammy Davis, Jr., is enticed by the boxing world's promise of fame and fortune, but he makes one critical mistake: falling for his manager's white girlfriend, Lorna.

For the opener of its 20th Anniversary Season, Showtunes is bringing this legendary work home to the theatre where it began. Join them as The Light in the Piazza returns to Seattle in one of the biggest concerts ever, featuring the full, Broadway orchestration.

Porchlight Music Theatre's 25th anniversary season began with the 14th Annual Chicago Sings concert: Chicago Sings 25 Years of Porchlight, Monday, Aug. 5 at 7 p.m., at The Museum of Contemporary Art, 220 E. Chicago Ave, directed by Christopher Pazdernik and Artistic Director Michael Weber with music direction by David Fiorello and a band featuring Kelsey Boltz, Cara Hartz, John McCreary, Greg Strauss, Celeste Park and Jake Saleh.

The Color Purple is beautiful, and it's here in Edmonton at the Citadel Theatre Sept. 21 through Oct. 13. THE COLOR PURPLE is an inspiring family saga that tells the unforgettable story of a woman who, through love, finds the strength to triumph over adversity and discover her unique voice in the world. This musical adaptation of Alice Walker's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel (and the popular 1985 Steven Spielberg film) spotlights Celie, a downtrodden young woman whose personal awakening over the course of 40 years forms the arc of this epic story.

From Duke Ellington's rocking rhythms, Thelonious Monk's melodious thunks to Mary Lou Williams' spiritual swing and Michel Camilo's island improvisations, the Newport Jazz Festival has been the premier showcase for pianists for decades. This year's edition features a wide variety of keyboardists, shaping the state of jazz to come.

Over the Tavern opened to a full house Sunday at Theatre at the Center in Munster. The play by Tom Dudzick is directed by Ericka Mac with Janet Ulrich Brooks as Sister Clarissa, Logan Baffico as Rudy, Cory Goodrich as Ellen, Isabelle Roberts as Annie, Eric Slater as Chet, Julian Solis as Georgie and Seth Steinberg as Eddie. Over the Tavern offers a hilarious look at family life in the 1950s.  Over the Tavern continues its run through August 11.

With a legendary book by Fred Ebb and Bob Fosse, music by John Kander and lyrics by Fred Ebb, Chicago is now the #1 longest-running American musical in Broadway history.