They Wrote That? - 2004 - Off-Broadway Articles Page 1

The World/Inferno Friendship Society will reissue its classic double LP Red-Eyed Soul on vinyl for the first time since its original release, via Ernest Jenning Record Co.

Japanese band SIM released its new album HOOMAN AFTER ALL via UNFD, featuring singles FIVE TIMES DEAD, BLINDEYES and FREEZE ME UP. Tickets are on sale now for the HOOMAN AFTER ALL World Tour.

BroadwayWorld looks back at the 2001 Off-Broadway cast of the musical 'Bay Boy,' which included a young Kerry Butler before her star turn as Meredith Parker.

Making his debut with the Boston Pops at Tanglewood on August 11, Hugh Jackman dazzled his sold-out audience – under the Koussevitzky Music Shed and stretching as far as the eye could see on the lawn that surrounds it – from the moment he took the stage.

Playwright Stephen Sheffer's new play LEAN-TO, directed by Jesse Jou, will run Off-Broadway at 59E59 Theaters, presented by New Light Theater Project and Pendragon Theatre.

New Light Theater Project and Pendragon Theatre will present Stephen Sheffer's new play about a hiker and a couple forced to share a woodland shelter, directed by Jesse Jou Off-Broadway.

Japanese band SiM will release the album HOOMAN AFTER ALL via UNFD, with frontman MAH describing it as a tribute to rock's late-nineties and early-2000s era.

Theatre has always intersected with politics, and the presence of American presidents in Broadway, off-Broadway, and regional theatre plays and musicals is a major part of this. Did you know that all of our heads of state have been featured in shows, whether as characters or as plot points that are part of the action? Dramatizing current and former leaders of our nation is a way to examine their affect on society at the time and how political events, even those of many years ago, still impact us all. 

ARIEL QUARTET will release the third volume of its complete Beethoven string quartet cycle on Orchid Classics, ahead of a box set marking the composer's 200th anniversary.

Let's go crazy! BroadwayWorld has just learned that 42 years to the day since Prince’s legendary film premiered, and three weeks since the album re-entered the Billboard 200, the stage adaptation of PURPLE RAIN will arrive on Broadway. PURPLE RAIN will premiere next spring at the Majestic Theatre, beginning previews on  Friday, March 12, 2027, and officially opening on Monday, April 12, 2027. We have all of the details here!

Since The Lost Boys took Broadway by storm this spring, there has been much chatter about the “vampire curse” on Broadway being lifted. In the early 2000s, Broadway received a string of three vampire musicals, which all closed relatively quickly. Dance of the Vampires (2002), Dracula (2004), and Lestat (2006) each received attention in their own right, but they also received attention as a group, since it was remarkable that they came along in such quick succession. But the early 21st century wasn’t the first time vampires thirsted on Broadway. The play adaptation of Dracula was a hit all the way back in 1927 and an even bigger hit in a 1977 revival. And there have been vampires lurking in the theatre district in all sorts of other projects too…

Annika Low portrays Mary Poppins at Dutch Apple Dinner Theatre June 26-August 8!

Jesse Eisenberg's The Debut gets its first teaser posters! The A24 musical comedy stars Julianne Moore, Paul Giamatti, Bernadette Peters & more.

'...today's musical theater performer kids are smart...they understand...that there is an innate honesty to the material, all the while inhabiting this kind of stylistic choice in allowing it to be bigger than life.'

Tony and Emmy Award-winner Billy Crystal’s new one-man show, 860 will play a limited run at Broadway’s Imperial Theatre, beginning in October of 2026. The complete creative team will be announced in the coming weeks. 

It's the end of an era on Broadway. As BroadwayWorld reported last month, the curtain has officially come down on Boneau/Bryan-Brown, the iconic Broadway press office founded by ATPAM-members Chris Boneau and Adrian Bryan-Brown, after more than three decades representing theatre on Broadway, Off-Broadway and around the world.

Much has been written about the proliferation of pop singer-songwriters writing new musicals for Broadway and off-Broadway. Less covered is the trend of pop singers performing on Broadway, which has made for a number of memorable appearances in current and recent seasons. 

The stage production does make a lot of strides that strengthens the endurance and popularity of this love story. It repeats iconic moments from the popular 2004 film, but isn’t aping the original screenplay in any way. A new libretto offers a fresh take that borrows the basic structure of the novel and memorable film moments, whilst breathing in new voices and new scenes that add different layers to these familiar characters.

There’s a strange dichotomy that exists in live theater. I may not like the material, but will still find reason to love its execution. And at Theater West End, they’ve culled together a company of players who help elevate the material of POTUS into a comedy that now exists thanks to their approach to the characters. They form a symbiotic relationship with the audience throughout the two acts to make us still care for them, for their arcs, and for their resolutions – no matter how far-fetched it may seem. This is where the production of POTUS shines.

Ahead of the debut PBS airing of Suffs, BroadwayWorld caught up with Shaina Taub to discuss the origins of the Suffs proshot, the importance of arts accessibility, and why PBS was the right platform to spotlight this history-making musical. 

Tony and Emmy Award-winner Billy Crystal will return to Broadway this fall in a new one-man show, 860, written and performed by Mr. Crystal and directed by Olivier Award-winner Scott Ellis. We have all of the details!

Seven years ago, an already hot summer in Boston heated up even more during a pre-Broadway tryout of a truncated version of playwright Matthew Lombardo’s “Tea at Five” at the Huntington Theatre when its star, Academy Award winner Faye Dunaway, was fired after allegations that she physically and verbally assaulted crew members on the troubled production.

BroadwayWorld is featuring Ismael Loutfi in a special Off-Broadway Debut of the Month! Read BroadwayWorld's full interview with Ismael as he talks about performing Ismael Loutfi: Heavenly Baba Off-Broadway at SoHo Playhouse.

The biggest change from prior years is at The New York Times, where Helen Shaw became the first female chief theater critic at the paper of record earlier this year. Previously, The Times has had plenty of female second-string critics, but the top seat was always held by a man.

Broadway has a long history of one-person shows, including many that have been added to the canon in this century.  Seeing one actor powerfully create a whole world on stage can be an exceptional experience. Of course, one handers are hardly one-person projects; while there may only be one actor on stage, they are collaborating with an entire team of creatives, designers, and behind-the-scenes personnel to bring a show to life.