Say When - 1928 - Broadway Articles Page 7

Starting today, the Fine Arts Center is delivering a love letter to musical comedy with The Drowsy Chaperone, a show the New York Times praised as 'a revved-up spoof of a 1920s song-and-dance frolic.' At a recent dress rehearsal I was able to sit down with several members of the cast and crew, beginning with Scott RC Levy, director of the Fine Arts Center who is making his Colorado acting debut as Man in Chair, the character guides the audience through the cast recording of the titular Jazz Age musical.

Berkshire Theatre Group and Artistic Director/CEO Kate Maguire have announced the complete casting for Berkshire Theatre Group's 85th summer season.

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.

With news coming late this week of a revised and reworked edition of the Cole Porter/Abe Burrows Golden Age musical CAN-CAN aiming for a reading in October and the possibility of a potential major production thereafter, now seems like a tres bien moment in time to glance back at the underappreciated charms of this alluring, Paris-set show. Plus, from Gwen Verdon, Patti LuPone, Eartha Kitt, Shirley MacLaine and Chita Rivera to Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Kelly Clarkson, MAD MEN's Christina Hendricks and many more, this clip collection has more than just an errant bright bulb or two to add to the already magnificent and romantic sights of the city of lights.

Berkshire Theatre Group and Artistic Director/CEO Kate Maguire have announced a Spring 2013 line-up at The Colonial Theatre filled with outstanding music, theatre, comedy and family programming.

Berkshire Theatre Group and Artistic Director/CEO Kate Maguire have announced a Spring 2013 line-up at The Colonial Theatre filled with outstanding music, theatre, comedy and family programming.

The Play About the Baby previews tonight, September 7-9 and runs through October 7 at Gough Street Playhouse.

The Play About the Baby previews September 7-9 and runs through October 7 at Gough Street Playhouse.

Today we are talking to Patricia Kelly, the widow of one of the most iconic and influential performers in entertainment history, Gene Kelly, all about her husband's incomparable career on Broadway and in Hollywood, in honor of his centennial. Tracing Gene Kelly's journey from his theatre roots starring in Cole Porter's LEAVE IT TO ME!, Rodgers & Hart's PAL JOEY and William Saroyan's Pulitzer Prize-winning THE TIME OF YOUR LIFE on Broadway to his unforgettable screen appearances in many of the greatest movie musicals ever made - COVER GIRL, SINGIN' IN THE RAIN, THE PIRATE, AN AMERICAN IN PARIS and many more included - Mrs. Kelly gives us a look into the life of one of the most important artists of the twentieth century. In addition to behind-the-scenes stories involving Kelly's frequent collaborators - such as esteemed director Vincente Minnelli, songwriter and producer Arthur Freed, arranger Saul Chaplin and others - Mrs. Kelly also shares candid anecdotes involving her husband's involvement with directing Rodgers & Hammerstein's FLOWER DRUM SONG on Broadway, helming the feature film adaptation of HELLO, DOLLY! starring Barbra Streisand, as well as his appearing in two idiosyncratic movie musicals later in his life, LES DEMOISELLES DE ROCHEFORT (THE YOUNG GIRLS OF ROCHEFORT) for Jacques Demy, as well as his au revoir to movie musicals in form of the Olivia Newton-John roller disco starrer XANADU. Additionally, Mrs. Kelly fills us in on all the details about this weekend's two-night Gene Kelly retrospective celebration, which she leads and narrates, as part of GENE KELLY @ 100 and her future plans for the multimedia presentation - each evening titled AN EVENING OF GENE KELLY and CHANGING THE LOOK OF DANCE ON FILM, respective - as she begins to tour the show across the country. Plus, reflections on SINGIN' IN THE RAIN's 60th anniversary and the recent Fathom HD premiere presentation in theaters, the impact of Kelly's work behind the camera, his choreographic legacy, what a legend is like at home, memories of attending the opening night of THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA (starring HELLO, DOLLY! lead Michael Crawford), what the master would say about GLEE, SMASH, BUNHEADS and today's movie musical renaissance, as well as much, much more!

THE DROWSY CHAPERONE is truly a gay, show-within-a-show romp for the ages. At first I was like 'What gay holy hell is this?!'

Eugene O'Neill's Hughie opened last week at The Theatre Centre, and it is the inaugural presentation of the new Alley Theatre Workshop. Director David Ferry and actor Michael Kash spoke withe BWW about why they chose this particular piece, and about why it is relevant in today's troubling times.

Headlining the most successful entertainment of all time, THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA, Michael Crawford was actually not the first name the creative team considered for the gothic musical undertaking during its creation in the mid-1980s, believe it or not. Steve Harley famously recorded the original single of the title song with composer Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber's muse Sarah Brightman and subsequently starred in the grandiose Ken Russell fever dream music video. While the public and critics alike assumed Harley's bid for the lead role in the gestating show was all but guaranteed after the video debut, it was not meant to be. Master director Hal Prince had his sights set on a British stage and screen star who had made a name with American audiences decades before in the troubled film versions of two Broadway hits - A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO THE FORUM and HELLO, DOLLY! - as well as made a name for himself the world over in the British sitcom SOME MOTHERS DO 'AVE 'EM. Crawford had also cemented his place in the musical theatre with his roles in FLOWERS FOR ALGERNON and BILLY, but it was PHANTOM that would catapult him into the ranks of iconic musical megastar. So, today, let us take a look at what made Michael Crawford's performance in THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA so unforgettable as we celebrate this week's US release of the simply spectacular DVD/Blu-ray of the 25th anniversary production mounted late last year at the Royal Albert Hall starring Ramim Karimloo and Sierra Boggess, loving assembled and presented by original lead producer Cameron Mackintosh and featuring a grand finale complete with original PHANTOM cast-members Sarah Brightman and Michael Crawford, among a host of other glories.

BroadwayWorld.com has learned details about a recent reading of the Guthrie Theatre's upcoming production of ROMAN HOLIDAY in Minneapolis. Starring in the reading, directed by John Miller-Stephany were Laura Osnes as Princess Ann and John Behlmann as Joe Bradley. They rest of the reading cast featured many of the area's top local talent. We're told that the reading went quite well, and that the song choices, which of course include some of Porter's biggest hits like 'Easy to Love,' 'Begin the Beguine,' 'Ev'ry Time We Say Goodbye' and 'Riding High' also included many rarely heard gems that 'fit perfectly into the story.' Also in attendance for the staged reading were book writer Paul Blake and other members of the creative team.

After nearly 100 productions of the play around the world, including two by the Royal Court Theatre in London, Soho Rep and The Play Company, in association with John Adrian Selzer, will present the New York premiere February 1-26, 2012.

Woodie King Jr's New Federal Theatre's acclaimed production of Knock Me a Kiss by Charles Smith will be featured at this year's National Black Theater Festival in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Performances will be August 2nd to 4th only.

Woodie King Jr's New Federal Theatre's acclaimed production of Knock Me a Kiss by Charles Smith will be featured at this year's National Black Theater Festival in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Performances will be August 2nd to 4th only.

Always edgy and never dull, Theatre Out--Orange County's Gay and Lesbian Theater company--has continually presented some interesting theater offerings since its remarkable debut in 2006. Its current production, a rambunctious revival of Andrew Lippa's topsy-turvy musical THE WILD PARTY, is no exception, as it corrals a huge pool of talents to tell the story of a bacchanal gone horribly, horribly awry. The show plays at the Empire Theatre in the Santa Ana Arts District through July 2.

I'm reminded of the old joke: It's only funny till someone gets hurt; then it's hilarious. Jacobean audiences liked the stage littered with corpses at the end; we settle for one or two corpses and people's lives shattered. And that this show certainly delivers. There may not be much depth to it, much in the way of a philosophical point, but it's absorbing to see.

Marx Brothers 1928 Broadway musical can still make 'em laugh, but is at its best when Minnie's boys are upstaging everyone else.

Executive Producer Lou Spisto today announced that The Old Globe will produce the World Premieres of four new plays and musicals in its 2011-12 Winter Season. The season will feature the World Premiere musicals Some Lovers by music legend Burt Bacharach and Tony Award winner Steven Sater and Nobody Loves You by Gaby Alter and Itamar Moses, as well as the West Coast Premiere of John Kander and Fred Ebb's The Scottsboro Boys, recently nominated for 12 Tony Awards including Best Musical, directed and choreographed by five-time Tony Award winner Susan Stroman. The two plays receiving World Premiere productions are Somewhere by Globe Playwright-in-Residence Matthew Lopez and The Recommendation by Jonathan Caren. The new season also includes revivals of Richard O'Brien's The Rocky Horror Show and the Eugene O'Neill classic Anna Christie directed by Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award winner David Auburn. Special events include the World Premiere of Odyssey by Todd Almond, a music theater event conceived and directed by Lear deBessonet celebrating the Globe's 75th Anniversary, The Old Globe/University of San Diego Graduate Theatre Program production of Twelfth Night and Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas!, which returns for its 14th consecutive year.

Award-winning actress and best-selling author Carol Burnett will appear at Indiana University Auditorium April 18 at 8 p.m.

Award-winning actress and best-selling author Carol Burnett will appear at Indiana University Auditorium April 18 at 8 p.m.

Rochelle Slovin, Director of Museum of the Moving Image, today announced the complete schedule for the screenings and programs that will celebrate the grand re-opening of America's only museum dedicated to film, television, and digital media.

The latest in unauthorized gossip and buzz from the heart of Chicago's showtune video bars, and musical theater news from Chicago to Broadway. The January-May lineup of national tours, Lea Salonga, 'Chicago Theatre Rock Stars,' Davenport's, a Mary Martin surprise, more....

Rochelle Slovin, Director of Museum of the Moving Image, today announced the complete schedule for the screenings and programs that will celebrate the grand re-opening of America's only museum dedicated to film, television, and digital media.