The Big Life - 2005 - West End Articles Page 16

Roundabout Theatre Company has announced the third season of The Refocus Project, its multi-year project to elevate and restore marginalized plays to the American canon. This year's series of readings will feature Asian American and Pacific Islander playwrights: Prince Gomolvilas, Velina Hasu Houston, Victoria Nalani Kneubuhl, and Anuvab Pal.

Artistic Director Marti Lyons and Remy Bumppo Theatre Company, currently presenting the world premiere of Jessica Dickey's Galileo's Daughter through May 14, have announced its 2023 - 2024 season.

With Marjorie Prime currently running at the company's home base in South London and Funny Girl on Broadway, the Menier Chocolate Factory announced forthcoming programming for 2023. Learn more about the lineup here!

Tony Award-nominated Broadway legend Ann Hampton Callaway is heading out on tour in 2023 to promote her new album, Fever: A Peggy Lee Celebration!

The World Premiere of ALI will be presented in Ali's hometown of Louisville, at the Kentucky Center for the Performing Arts, in Fall 2024. Learn more about the show here!

In addition to her “Wonderland”—a song conceived of at the Alice in Wonderland statue in New York’s Central Park and co-written with Sprague— she ends the EP with her rendition of Jeff Lynne’s “Mr. Blue Sky,” from Electric Light Orchestra’s 1977 album Out of the Blue. (The music video for “Wonderland” will be released with the album in April).

Due to the New York Rangers Game 3 against the New Jersey Devils in the Stanley Cup Playoffs at Madison Square Garden, Billy Joel's concert scheduled for Saturday, April 22, 2023 has been rescheduled for Tuesday, April 25, 2023.

 Performing Arts Houston has announced its 23/24 Season of national and international touring artists and new works from artists in the Houston community. The arrival of the new season will coincide with major advances in the multi-year renovation of Jones Hall, including the installation of new auditorium seating, expanded restrooms, and more.

GRAMMY, EMMY, and Tony Award-winner Billy Porter will star in and co-write a new biopic based on the life of author and human rights activist James Baldwin. Porter has stated that it has been a career-long goal to bring Baldwin's story to the big screen. Baldwin's work includes 'Go Tell It on the Mountain,' 'If Beale Street Could Talk,' and more.

Do you remember what it was like to be 17? Excited, angsty, passionate, confused, and hopeful all at once. And maybe you fell in love for the first time with someone who was oh-so-wrong but also perhaps oh-so-right. If any of that sounds familiar, and especially if you happened to be a teenager in the 90s, Jessica Wallenfels’ GREAT WIDE OPEN should be on your radar.

GRAMMY Award-nominated act In This Moment and hard rock giants Motionless In White have announced an epic co-headline run across North America this summer featuring special guests Fit For A King and From Ashes To New. “The Dark Horizon Tour'' will see the two bands alternating closing sets each night and performing across the country.

TheatreWorks Silicon Valley has announced its 53rd season to be presented October 2023 through June 2024.

Is it time to take your acting skills to the next level?  Register now for the seven-week Meisner Acting Technique class at WaterTower Theatre and start taking control of your craft now!

The DOWNTOWN URBAN ARTS FESTIVAL will present 16 plays (nine shorts and seven one-acts.) The festival kicks off on Friday, May 5 and Saturday, May 6 when Savion Glover and Reg E. Gaines (Bring in da Noise Bring in da Funk) make a much-anticipated return to The Public Theater with the centerpiece production If Trane Wuz Here. 

All of these theaters had programming that was - you know, sort of your tent poles on the mainstage, your occasional blockbuster musical. On the second stage, there was riskier work, new work being developed that might not appeal to a 700-seat audience. I thought that was incredible - you're doing these blockbuster Broadway musicals, the best of the best plays, and then new work that is exciting and thrilling. And that sort of became part of my DNA as I was thinking about directing.

Prospect Theater Company's annual Spring Gala will be co-hosted by Ali Ewoldt and Jelani Remy, and will feature presenters including Renée Elise Goldsberry, Telly Leung and more. Learn how to purchase tickets!

Birdland Jazz Club and Birdland Theater are open this April with a full slate of nightly performances! See who is performing and learn how to purchase tickets!

Laguna Playhouse announced, in association with Gare St. Lazare, Ireland and the Rubicon Theatre Company, Faline England, Sorcha Fox, Conor Lovett and Joe Spano starring in the rolling Southern California premiere of THE REALISTIC JONESES, written by Will Eno and directed by Judy Hegarty-Lovett.

What did our critic think of COME ON, GET HAPPY! at Riveview Performing Arts Center?

Nickel Creek—mandolinist Chris Thile, violinist Sara Watkins and guitarist Sean Watkins—were featured on “CBS Saturday Morning” this past weekend as part of their “Saturday Sessions” series, performing three songs from their acclaimed new album, Celebrants: “Where the Long Line Leads,” “Holding Pattern” and “To The Airport.”  Watch the video now!

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, starring Tony and Grammy-nominated multi-platinum recording artist Josh Groban and Tony Award winner Annaleigh Ashford, returns to Broadway tonight, March 26. The revival is directed by Thomas Kail, and featuring music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, and a book by Hugh Wheeler, from an adaptation by Christopher Bond, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. Check out what the critics had to say!

Across 18 tracks, the group addresses love, friendship and time with lyrics both poetic and plain-spoken, as they see bridges built, crossed, burned and rebuilt. Recorded at Nashville’s RCA Studio A, the album was produced by longtime collaborator Eric Valentine (Queens of the Stone Age, Grace Potter, Weezer) and features Mike Elizondo on bass.

The highly anticipated Broadway musical, Jimmy's Buffett's Escape to Margaritaville opened last Friday at Arizona Broadway Theatre (ABT) with a nearly sold-out performance. ABT is the first professional theatre in Arizona to produce and premiere this Broadway musical.

The Huntington and SpeakEasy Stage will co-produce the Tony Award-winning musical The Band’s Visit which features music and lyrics by David Yazbek and book by Itamar Moses, as part of their respective 2023-2024 seasons.

John Farmanesh-Bocca is a multi-award-winning physical theatre director, the Founding Artistic Director of both Not Man Apart - Physical Theatre Ensemble (2005-2015) and Shakespeare Santa Monica (2003-2014). Now he has shifted gears to go on a search for America by directing the sensual, passionate, and delightfully funny Pulitzer Prize winning play Picnic by William Inge, with his version featuring an entirely Black American cast. I decided to speak with him about his vision for presenting the quintessentially American play and the unique challenges faced while shifting gears from physical movement to character development.