The Last Word... - 2007 - Off-Broadway 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.

BWW Reviewer Peter Nason chooses the best TV episodes from the 1950's to 2020; see if your favorites made the list!

BWW Reviewer Peter Nason chooses the best film musicals since the sound era began; see if your favorites made the list!

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.

Peter Karp is known for many things. An assertive singer, a skilled guitarist and a passionate performer, he's also an individual who writes songs that frequently reflect tales told as part of life's journey, spawned by passion and personal experience.

John Goodwin, President of Galaxy Press, announced today a newly rescheduled date for The 36th Annual L. Ron Hubbard Achievement Awards Gala.

How do we make a list of the 101 greatest show tunes from the past 100 years? Well, we did the near-impossible task.  Check out our full list here! 

The Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music, America's longest running festival of new orchestral music, celebrates its 58th season July 26 - August 9, 2020, with a remarkable season of timely, topical, and thought-provoking new works.

Joe's Pub ends this week on a more chill note with Gary Lucas; Justin Vivian Bond's new show inspired by a Marianne Faithfull song; charismatic performer Susan Werner; country stars Bobby Pinson and RaeLynn as part of the Bob DiPiero Songwriters Series; and swinging, electrifying music, featuring Bernard Purdie along with entertaining stories retold by David Haney. Next week, the volume cranks up with Ryan Raftery's latest hilarious satire IVANKA 2020; the annual celebration of the intersection art and mental health Love is EleMental; Joe's Pub Working Group 2020 member Salty Brine continues their dazzling exploration of pop music with Living Record Collection - THESE ARE THE CONTENTS OF MY HEAD: The Annie Lennox Show; the third in a five-part concert series exploring Shakespeare's women, black female ambition, and music, Whitney White: Think, And Die; the Joe's Pub performance of the tour of MICHA Música In Transit; a concert from multi-award-winning platinum-selling musician Sarah Harmer with opener Chris Pureka; the fascinating coming of age story of a young woman growing up in New York City with Kelli Sae: Disco, Dicks And Dykes!; and BlackIssuesISSUES, an event that is as much a serenade and celebration of Blackness as it is an indictment of a system and society that is so toxic, it renders Blackness a burden.

The popular cabarettist, Molly Pope, took some time off from the scene but she is back now... with a vengeance.

The Vancouver International Dance Festival (VIDF) celebrates its 20th anniversary season, from March 6 to 28, 2020, by offering 31 performances including 12 free shows, 20 free dance classes, 7 free life drawing sessions with dancers as models, and a free art exhibition of photography by Flamenco Rosario Musical Director and guitarist Victor Kolstee.

Joe's Pub has released its schedule for Feb 12-22! Brown Girls Burlesque: Love Got Game - Valentine's Edition (Feb. 12), Isaac Oliver Is Your Valentine (Feb. 13), and Lea DeLaria: f**k Love and more will take to the stage!

On the heels of winning her fourth Grammy Award, Angélique Kidjo concludes her Perspectives series with Daughter of Independence on Saturday, March 14 at 8:00 p.m. in Stern Auditorium/ Perelman Stage.

From February 27 to March 15, Theater for the New City (TNC) will present comedian/actor/broadcaster Donald E. Lacy Jr. updating his one man show, 'ColorStruck,' a bittersweet examination of how cultural assumptions drive American society. Since national politics provide a never-ending supply of new material, the piece is continually reshaped. The velocity of change since TNC presented the show's New York debut last year (Feb-March, 2019) has inspired Lacy to initiate a new version that reflects pressing current events.

In what has become an annual ritual, a total of 40 established and emerging composers, lyricists, and librettists will converge on the Goodspeed campus from mid-January through mid-February 2020 to participate in the Johnny Mercer Foundation Writers Colony at Goodspeed Musicals. The writing teams, representing 15 new musicals, will populate the campus, creating a truly exciting environment for discovery and inspiration.

Roundabout Theatre Company (Todd Haimes, Artistic Director/CEO) has announced the ninth annual Roundabout Underground Reading Series, a five-night event that includes nightly readings of new works written and directed by emerging artists, as well as post-show receptions. The Reading Series will feature new works by Benjamin Benne, Majkin Holmquist, Shayan Lotfi, Nick Mecikalski and Harrison David Rivers.

La MaMa's 58th Season continues to celebrate the centennial of La MaMa's celebrated founder, the late Ellen Stewart with the announcement of its Winter/Spring lineup in its 58th season. The season features dozens of artists, playwrights, choreographers, directors, and award-winning theater companies and composers, including Elizabeth Swados, Anne Bogart, Noche Flamencia, Culture Hub, Hideki Noda/Tokyo Metropolitan Theatre, Nick Payne, En Garde Arts, Split Britches, and more.

Since its founding in 2007, Origin's 1st Irish is the world's only theatre festival dedicated to showcasing the work of contemporary Irish playwrights with a mix of new and acclaimed productions from both sides of the Atlantic. 

Orlando was a deeply engaging, intriguing and thought-provoking exploration whose pondering, messages, striking soundscapes and visuals reverberated and lingered long after the curtain had closed. It is a highly ambitious undertaking but Neuwirth and her colleagues were up for the challenge. What is most exciting is what has now been established for a venue such as The Wiener Straatsoper as we move into a new decade of uncertain times when it is vital that radical expressions of art and activism combined are given such a grand stage with which to proclaim their truths.

25 Shows & Performances in the Tampa Bay Area That Rocked Our World from 2010 to 2019!

Julien's Auctions, the world-record breaking auction house, will pay tribute to the British singer and songwriter who the BBC's Garry Mulholland called 'the pre-eminent vocal talent of her generation' with PROPERTY FROM THE LIFE AND CAREER OF AMY WINEHOUSE, a two-day auction event taking place live Friday, November 6 and Saturday, November 7, 2021 at Julien's Auctions in Beverly Hills and online at juliensauctions.com. Hundreds of Amy Winehouse's most iconic stage, photo shoot and performance worn dresses, shoes, jewelry and accessories that were synonymous with the individualistic style and signature artistry of the five-time GRAMMY Award®-winning retro-soul music superstar and pop diva as well as her most personal items will be presented for the first time at auction. All proceeds from the auction will benefit The Amy Winehouse Foundation. Every penny received by the estate will go directly to supporting disadvantaged young people. The Amy Winehouse Foundation was established by her parents Mitch and Janis Winehouse with its mission of raising awareness and support for vulnerable, young adults with addiction problems.

As the year winds to a close, and the holiday hustle and bustle keeps us spinning our wheels, it can be a salve for the spirit and rest for the weary to sit in a darkened theater for a couple of hours. There is a plethora of seasonal fare competing for your entertainment dollars, but may I suggest something completely different from the colorful, holly jolly? A departure from the ballerinas, Christmas ghosts, and department store Santas? How about a two-time Tony Award-winning musical (1999 Best Book/Best Score) written by Pulitzer Prize-winner Alfred Uhry (DRIVING MISS DAISY) and Tony Award-winner Jason Robert Brown (SONGS FOR A NEW WORLD, THE LAST FIVE YEARS), that will pump the blood to your heart, and push you back in your seat until the very end, when you will rise up and salute this Moonbox Productions' PARADE.

Austin-based duo Pike & Sutton recently announced their new self-titled band project earlier this fall. Led by 'hometown favorites' (Austin American-Statesman) Patrice Pike and Wayne Sutton, the band has evolved out of the longtime alternative rock band Sister 7 and will release their debut full-length Heart Is A Compass in early 2020. To close out the year, they've teamed up with Blues Traveler's John Popper for a reimagined version of Otis Redding and Carla Thomas' classic 'New Year's Resolution.'

Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater announces the company for A Thousand Splendid Suns, adapted for the stage by Ursula Rani Sarma and based on the 2007 New York Times bestselling novel by Khaled Hosseini (Kite Runner). Set in 1992 in war-torn Afghanistan, this gripping story centers around a friendship that develops between two Afghan women following a tragedy. While facing insurmountable odds of a brutal and oppressive way of life, the two form an unlikely bond in a heart-rending fight for survival. Directed by Carey Perloff, A Thousand Splendid Suns runs January 17 - March 1, 2020 in the Kreeger Theater.

After many millennia, and in just 90 minutes, God (award-winning comedian Zoe Lyons as seen on 'Mock The Week' and 'Celebrity Masterchef') assisted by her devoted angels Michael (Matt Tedford, aka 'Margaret Thatcher Queen of Soho') and Gabriel (Tom Bowen, Johnny Castle in 'Dirty Dancing the Musical') will answer some of the deepest questions that have plagued mankind since creation.