The Connection - 1959 - Off-Broadway Articles Page 6

Theatre Tuscaloosa's production of 'Grease' is definitely automatic, systematic and hydromatic. Watching talented young actors breathe life into this classic musical is well worth the trip. 'Grease' is definitely still the word.

Bruce Norris' Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning play, Clybourne Park, opens Friday, June 28. The Lyric Repertory Company (Lyric), part of the Caine College of the Arts at USU, features their third venue of the season-the Black Box Theatre.

Collaboraction Theatre Company will launch its 2019-20 mainstage season at Kennedy-King College (KKC) at 63rd and Halsted in the college's 292-seat, state-of-the-art mainstage theater, with its fourth annual Peacebook Festival, Thursday through Saturday, August 15-17.

Garry Marshall Theatre presents Deidrie Henry in the Broadway play Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill by Lanie Robertson for 15 performances May 15 to June 2, 2019 (press opening is Friday, May 17). The director is Gregg T. Daniel and playing Jimmy Powers is musical director Abdul Hamid Royal. Daniel most recently directed The Mountaintop for Garry Marshall Theatre.

Garry Marshall Theatre presents the Broadway play Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill by Lanie Robertson for 15 performances May 15 to June 2, 2019 (press opening is Friday, May 17).  The time is 1959, a seedy bar in Philadelphia. The audience is about to witness one of Billie Holiday's last performances, given four months before her death. More than a dozen musical numbers - including "What a Moonlight Can Do," "Crazy He Calls Me," "Easy Living," "Strange Fruit," "Taint Nobody's Biz-ness If I Do," and "God Bless the Child" -- are interlaced with salty, often humorous, reminiscences to project a riveting portrait of the lady and her music.

The 2019 Sonoma International Film Festival (SIFF) is celebrating 22 years of film, food, wine, and spirits Wednesday, March 27 to Sunday, March 31, 2019. All films are shown at intimate venues within walking distance of Sonoma's historic plaza. In total, 123 films from around the world, from over 28 countries and 200 filmmakers, will be showcased as all eyes turn to Sonoma for a Festival that consistently attracts the most prominent names in the film industry and has become a marquee destination for film lovers, as well as lovers of world class food and wine!

In an extraordinary concert-film event, only the second such screening ever in the United States, the blockbuster film Titanic will be shown on a vast LED outdoor screen with James Horner's epic score performed live by the New West Symphony's renowned orchestra on Saturday night, June 22, in Thousand Oaks.   The special showing will take place at the William Rolland Stadium on the campus of California Lutheran University.

Composer Joan Tower, one of America's most significant living composers, will receive the League of American Orchestras' highest honor, the Gold Baton, at the League's 74th National Conference in Nashville, June 3-5, 2019.

Mack Avenue Records is excited to share Julian Lage's new video ahead of his soon-to-be-released album, Love Hurts, out February 22. The live performance video is a beautiful document of this incredible trio at work (Lage with bassist Jorge Roeder and drummer Dave King of The Bad Plus) performing the Roy Orbison classic, 'Crying.' The trio will be celebrating the release of Love Hurts with a show at New York City's Le Poisson Rouge on March 5. Tickets are available now.

From the very top of James McClure's one-act Laundry and Bourbon, best friends Elizabeth (Savannah Shoenecker) and Hattie (Kristin Towers-Rowles) gossip in heavy Texas accents and drink bourbon with such fierce intensity that you will end up either loving or hating them; there is no in-between. Midway Amy Lee (Sarah Zuk) makes her entrance. She is quieter but also creates trouble in her own irritating way.What is it about comedies set in the deep South? Steel Magnolias and Crimes of the Heart pull us in the same way. The women put their claws out yet support one another and have hearts of gold ... and their men?  We hear about them via their wives. They act like jerks, love to talk sex in raw detail and treat their cars with more love and respect than their spouses. Unlike the other plays, we actually see the men, apart from their wives, for there is a male companion piece to Laundry and Bourbon. It's entitled Lone Star, after the beer, and it presents Elizabeth's husband Roy (Nick Paonessa), maladjusted since his service in Viet Nam, his younger and weaker brother Ray (R.J. DeBard) and like his wife Amy Lee, the outsider in the group, her husband Skeeter (Todd Andrew Ball).

The Philly POPS presents Jazzed! The Philly POPS BIG Band with Terell Stafford, a swinging program honoring Philadelphia's unique contributions to the history of jazz, January 18 20 at The Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts. This performance is a part of The Philly POPS 40th Anniversary Season, which celebrates artists and music with connections to Philadelphia and the POPS.

The Philly POPS presents Jazzed! The Philly POPS BIG Band with Terell Stafford, a swinging program honoring Philadelphia's unique contributions to the history of jazz, January 18-20 at The Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts. This performance is a part of The Philly POPS 40th Anniversary Season, which celebrates artists and music with connections to Philadelphia and the POPS.

Irish Repertory Theatre is excited to announce The Sean O'Casey Season, a comprehensive retrospective of the work of renowned Irish playwright Sean O'Casey, to take place from January through May of Irish Rep's 30th Anniversary Season.

Talented cast knows how to some some laughs.

Tony Award nominee Lainie Kazan and Emmy Award winner William Shatner, whose Broadway stage careers have spanned six decades, reveal personal stories of their Jewish upbringing in the new PBS special Hanukkah: A Festival of deLights. The program airs nationwide on PBS stations in the week leading up to and through the holiday (check local listings) and in the New York metropolitan area on PBS as follows: on WLIW/21 on Sunday, November 25 at 7:30 pm (check wliw.org for additional airings) and on the first and last nights of Hanukkah on Thirteen -- Sunday, December 2 at 2:30 pm and Sunday, December 9 at 8 pm.

Julien's Auctions, the world–record breaking auction house, has announced that ICONS & IDOLS: ROCK–N–ROLL their two–day music extravaganza to take place Friday, November 9 and Saturday, November 10 live in Hard Rock Café in New York and online at www.juliensauctions.com. The all star lineup featuring hundreds of historical items of music giants Prince, Michael Jackson, Madonna, Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, Elvis Presley, The Beatles and more joins the previously announced auctions of Bernie Taupin and Aretha Franklin.

The 62nd BFI London Film Festival in partnership with American Express® today announces its full programme, featuring a diverse selection of 225 feature films from both established and emerging talent. This 12-day celebration of cinema illustrates the richness of international filmmaking, with films to delight and entertain audiences, and also films that probe and interrogate issues of significance.

Skylight Music Theatre Artistic Director Ray Jivoff announced today that he will leave his position as of June 29, 2019. This marks 20 years on the staff of the company, 30 years since he first performed with Skylight and will follow soon after his 65th birthday.

Southampton Arts Center presents a series of illustrated talks with influential photographers, specially created by the International Center of Photography (ICP), to shine a light on the power of images to raise awareness, create connection, and effect change in today's world.

MOTOWN is not just a company. It is an icon. This was the soundtrack of decades of change in America and still serves as the inspiration for current innovators in music. So it only seems inevitable that someone would see that this needed to be adapted for the musical theatre stage.

Stephen Sondheim (Lyrics), Jule Styne (Music) and Arthur Laurents (Book) famous musical GYPSY, based on the memoirs of Gypsy Rose Lee, comes to the Hayes Theatre, 59 years after it made its Broadway debut in 1959. 

Turner Classic Movies (TCM) will pay homage to the glittering world of Hollywood musicals with Mad About Musicals!, a special month of programming celebrating timeless movie musicals such as The Wizard of Oz, Singin' in the Rain and Cabaret. TCM is once again partnering with Ball State University and Canvas to offer a free online multimedia course tied to this programming special about the history of the musical genre and its evolution with cultural and technological shifts. Enrollment is open until June 17 and fans can sign up for the course at musicals.tcm.com.