Summer Night - 1939 - Broadway Articles Page 5

Obie Award winner Metropolitan Playhouse revives Robert Ardrey's THUNDER ROCK for a limited run from January 16 through February 9, 2020, at the Playhouse home: 220 E 4th Street. Artistic Director Alex Roe directs.

It's been 38 years since Andrew Lloyd Webber's mega-hit CATS made its stage debut. 42 years earlier, T.S. Eliot had unknowingly penned the musical's lyrics in Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats, his 1939 collection of feline inspired poetry. While his poems were an unexpected source material for a song-and-dance operetta, the family-friendly musical quickly became a Broadway landmark, adopting the tagline a?oeNow and Forevera?? during its impressive 18-year New York City run.

The award-winning Equity professional East Lynne Theater Company presents two events in time for Halloween: 'Poe by Candlelight' on Saturday, October 19 at 8:00p.m. and the classic silent thriller, 'The Cat and the Canary,' accompanied by Wayne Zimmerman on the organ, on Sunday, October 20 at 7:00p.m., both at The First Presbyterian Church, 500 Hughes Street in Cape May, where the theater is in residence.

After a hugely successful premiere run at the Liverpool Empire Theatre last October, five more venues have been added to the Spring 2020 UK Tour of Helen Forrester's By The Waters Of Liverpool.

Continuing a Halloween-season tradition, Bucks County Playhouse will revive its popular production of Richard O'Brien's a?oeThe Rocky Horror Showa?? live on stage beginning Friday, October 11 through Sunday, October 27.

Murder! Mayhem! Madcap fun! This side-splitting comedy broke all East Lynne Theater Company box office records in 2018, and returns by popular demand. The production received excellent reviews including from Terry Teachout for 'The Wall Street Journal' who wrote: 'It's hard to imagine a more diverting piece of summer fun than Gayle Stahlhuth's revival of 'Arsenic and Old Lace' at ELTC. It crackles flawlessly.'

The final three cast members for the Spring 2020 UK Tour of Helen Forrester's By The Waters Of Liverpool have been revealed.

NYU Skirball's season opens on September 6, 2019 with the N.Y. premiere of JoAnne Akalaitis's BAD NEWS! i was therea??, a site-specific processional work performed throughout NYU Skirball's lobbies and backstage

Granbury Theatre Company will continue its 2019 Broadway on the Brazos season with the musical The Wizard of Oz on July 26-August 25, 2019, at the historic Granbury Opera House in Downtown Granbury.

14 months ago I and a group of students from my college (Pitt-Johnstown) embarked on a project working with a local Summer Stock theater in our area to commemorate their 80th anniversary. The Mountain Playhouse is local professional equity theatre in Jennerstown, PA that got its start in 1939 being created from an old Gristmill. Other than being shut down during the war, and a fire, this theater has been putting shows on every year.

National New Play Network, the country's alliance of nonprofit theaters that collaborate in innovative ways to develop, produce, and extend the life of new plays, announces three new Rolling World Premiere productions opening this week. Grace McLeod's Herland concludes its Roll at Greenway Court in Los Angeles, CA (May 31 - June 23;); meanwhile, Ready Steady Yeti Go by David Jacobi also wraps up its Roll in California at Venice's Rogue Machine Theatre (June 1 - July 29). Across the country in Atlanta, GA, Jump by Charly Evon Simpson continues its Roll at Actor's Express (June 1 - June 23).

Alfred Uhry, the playwright most well-known for Driving Miss Daisy, penned The Last Night of Ballyhoo based on his own childhood memories. The Last Night of Ballyhoo is set in Atlanta, Georgia in December 1939. It was originally performed at Atlanta's Alliance Theatre as part of the Summer Olympics Arts Festival. In 1997 it made its way to the Helen Hayes Theatre on Broadway. The play explores questions of prejudice and identity through the eyes of a Jewish family in Georgia, who have assimilated to the culture around them-even displaying a Christmas tree in their house, and Joe Farkas, an Eastern European Jew whose presence forces the family to examine their inter-Jewish racism. The term Ballyhoo in the title refers to a cotillion ball being held at the country club to which the family belongs. The Last Night of Ballyhoo takes on these questions of identity with a healthy dose of southern humor and can be seen now at Oyster Mill Playhouse under the direction of Aliza Bardfield and Michael Hosler through May 12th.

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." 

Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra (LACO) Music Director Designate Jaime Martin makes his only appearance this season on LACO's Orchestral Series when he conducts the West Coast premiere of the LACO-co-commissioned song cycle Voy a Dormir by Bryce Dessner, known to many as a guitarist with Grammy Award-winning alternative rock band The National and one of the most sought-after composers of his generation, on Saturday, April 27, 8 pm, at the Alex Theatre, and Sunday, April 28, 2019, 7 pm, at Royce Hall. Dessner's work was written for and features Grammy Award-winning mezzo-soprano Kelley O'Connor, who is also spotlighted in Mozart's Requiem with soprano Sarah Shafer, tenor Thomas Cooley, bass Dashon Burton and the USC Thornton Chamber Singers. Martin begins his tenure with LACO in the 2019-20 season.

In Her Shoulders is pleased to present a staged reading of Wine In The Wilderness by Alice Childress, directed by Bianca LaVerne Jones today, March 15, 2019. Doors open at 6:45pm for a 7:00pm start with The Play in Context by Arminda Thomas, who situates the script in its historical time and place, followed by the reading and a post-performance Q&A with refreshments. Admission is by Donation ($10 suggested).The performance is at The New School, Starr Foundation Hall, 63 Fifth Avenue, Room UL102. R.S.V.P. to OnHerShouldersReservations@gmail.com.

Had Lucy's family stayed in Trenton, history might have been very different, but the Garden State stayed peripherally involved the Queen of Comedy's life and work.

In Her Shoulders is pleased to present a staged reading of Wine In The Wilderness by Alice Childress, directed by Bianca LaVerne Jones on Friday, March 15, 2019. Doors open at 6:45pm for a 7:00pm start with The Play in Context by Arminda Thomas, who situates the script in its historical time and place, followed by the reading and a post-performance Q&A with refreshments. Admission is by Donation ($10 suggested).The performance is at The New School, Starr Foundation Hall, 63 Fifth Avenue, Room UL102. R.S.V.P. to OnHerShouldersReservations@gmail.com.

'Genesis' is a world-class choreographic competition, offering dancers and audiences alike the chance to break from tradition, experience something more contemporary, and discover new talent that will shape the Milwaukee ballet scene in the year to come.

The Jazz Ensembles of Mount Holyoke College present the 14th edition of The Big Broadcast! on Saturday, March 2 at 2PM & 7:30PM at Chapin Auditorium, Mount Holyoke College, in South Hadley, MA.

Dunwoody's own professional theatre, STAGE DOOR PLAYERS, kicks off the 2019 leg of their Sapphire Season with a celebration of heritage in Alfred Uhry's Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award award winning THE LAST NIGHT OF BALLYHOO, directed by Mira Hirsch. Originally designed as a series of vignettes based on Uhry's childhood memories, this character study of intra-ethnic bias and identity was commissioned for the 1996 Summer Olympics, seeing its premiere at the Alliance Theatre. 

The 2019 season opens with THE GAME'S AFOOT by Ken Ludwig. It is December 1936 and Broadway star William Gillette, admired the world over for his leading role in the play Sherlock Holmes, has invited his fellow cast members to his Connecticut castle for a weekend of revelry. But when one of the guests is stabbed to death, the festivities in this isolated house of tricks and mirrors quickly turn dangerous. It is then up to Gillette himself, as he assumes the persona of his beloved Holmes, to track down the killer before the next victim appears. The danger and hilarity are non-stop. - March 22 - April 7

Dunwoody's own professional theatre, STAGE DOOR PLAYERS, kicks off the 2019 leg of their Sapphire Season with a celebration of heritage in Alfred Uhry's Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award award winning THE LAST NIGHT OF BALLYHOO, directed by Mira Hirsch. Originally designed as a series of vignettes based on Uhry's childhood memories, this character study of intra-ethnic bias and identity was commissioned for the 1996 Summer Olympics, seeing its premiere at the Alliance Theatre. 

This winter and spring Bucks County Playhouse offers a full slate of entertainment representing a wide variety of musical, comedy and special event performances as part of the Visiting Artists Series at the Playhouse.

The Deck Restaurant and Bar at Bucks County Playhouse made its debut on Sunday, December 9, 2018 when it opened for an extended preview period prior to an official Grand Opening on Sunday, February 10, 2019.

Curator and producer Peter Musante (Andrew Schneider's YOUARENOWHERE; Blue Man Group; Trusty Sidekick's Up and Away, a groundbreaking show for kids with autism, called 'immersive theater at its most thoughtful' by the New York Times) joins West Coast physical comedienne Summer Shapiro ('raises the craft of clowning to new levels'- NYTheatre.org) to conceive of a new immersive theater festival for the entire family, inspired by the community organizing principles of Jane Jacobs. With seven new works based on true events from Greenwich Village history, the festival brings together leading NYC experimental theatre artists, musicians, physical comedians and clowns for two programs, each consisting of an interactive pre-show and four short stories that bring the surrounding neighborhood to life. The event, recommended for ages 5 and up, is presented by New Ohio Theatre as part of its Theatre for Young Minds holiday series. The performances run from December 20 thru 31 at 154 Christopher Street, NYC. Tickets are $25 ($18 for groups of three or more with the code 'family') and can be purchased through OvationTix (https://web.ovationtix.com/trs/pr/1001863) or by calling 866-811-4111.