You Got Older - 2014 - Off-Broadway Articles Page 14

Playwrights Horizons presents the New York premiere of 2015 Pulitzer Prize finalist Marjorie Prime, a new play by Jordan Harrison (Maple and Vine, Doris to Darlene at PH; Amazons and Their Men; Kid-Simple; 'Orange is the New Black'). Commissioned by Playwrights Horizons and directed by Obie Award winner Anne Kauffman (Detroit, Maple and Vine, Your Mother's Copy of the Kama Sutra at PH; Belleville; This Wide Night; The Thugs), the play is the third production of the theater company's 2015/2016 Season. The first preview is tonight, November 20 at 8PM at Playwrights Horizons' Mainstage Theater (416 West 42nd Street). The production has an Opening Night set for Monday, December 14 and will play a limited engagement through Sunday, January 3.

On Tuesday night, RODGERS & HAMMERSTEIN'S CINDERELLA opened a week-long run at Orlando's Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts. Running through Sunday, I was fortunate enough to attend the tour stop's opening night, as was fellow BWW Orlando editor Kimberly Moy. As we did when we discussed THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA, first show of the 2014-2015 Orlando Broadway Series, we had a back-and-forth conversation about CINDERELLA. While I tend to look at things from a more historical and critical point of view, Kim is an admitted fan girl.

Playwrights Horizons begins accepting entries today, Wednesday, November 11, for the LIVEforFIVE online lottery for $5 tickets to their New York premiere of 2015 Pulitzer Prize finalist Marjorie Prime, a new play by Jordan Harrison (Maple and Vine, Doris to Darlene at PH; Amazons and Their Men; Kid-Simple; 'Orange is the New Black').

Question: Would you buy an orchestra ticket (or any ticket for that matter) to an experimental Broadway musical called The Sweaty Smorgasbord where the 11 o'clock number is "Supper Sings Tonight?" How about checking out a derivative Jason Robert Brown musical titled The Gassy Breakthrough, where the song "Too Soon" is about whether the protagonist should fart on the first date? Here's one that potential musical theater show investors would love: A new Disney style musical called The Sticky Snake. Of course these aren't real or even prospective Broadway musicals. They are ideas that have emerged from the creative minds of some young composers and lyricists who might very well have their musicals gracing Broadway theaters some day. But in the meantime they have been conjuring up these wild concepts in Tune In Time, a musical theater game show staged semi-regularly at The York Theatre Company on East 54th Street (the next installment will be on Monday, November 9 at 7:30 pm) that could have been created by some hybrid of Chuck Barris (of The Gong Show fame) and Mel Brooks. As the show's creators and producers Amy Engelhardt and Heather Shields are fond of promoting about Tune In Time, "Anything goes . . . and usually does."

The 'American in Paris' star and owner of 2 dogs will perform with other Broadway talents at the 54 Below benefit.

The Secret Theatre and Artistic Director Richard Mazda are proud to announce that 19 solo shows have been chosen for the FLYING SOLO 3 festival at the Secret Theatre, the 3rd Festival of one-person shows at the theatre.

Sometimes it seems there is so much theater happening that it's difficult to keep track of it all. From personal experience, despite all the datebooks, smart phones, tablets, desktop computers and laptops...it's hard to keep everything straight in this wacky business of the show.

The Secret Theatre and Artistic Director Richard Mazda are proud to announce that 19 solo shows have been chosen for the FLYING SOLO 3 festival at the Secret Theatre, the 3rd Festival of one-person shows at the theatre.

CHARLES BUSCH, author and star of such plays as Psycho Beach Party, Times Square Angel, The Lady in Question, Red Scare on Sunset, You Should Be So Lucky, Shanghai Moon and The Divine Sister brings his iconic Cabaret stylings to The COPA Palm Springs for two 'sure to be sell-out' performances, October 16 and 17 at 8:00 pm. His most recent plays are Judith of Bethulia, produced at Theater for the New City in 2012 and The Tribute Artist, which reunited him with Julie Halston, produced by Primary Stages Theatre Company in 2014. In 2003, Mr. Busch received a special Drama Desk Award for career achievement as both performer and playwright and was honored with a star on the Playwrights Walk outside the Lucille Lortel Theatre. I had the chance to catch up with Mr. Busch as he was preparing fort his cabaret performances this week in San Diego and Palm Springs. Here are a few excerpts from that conversation:

Kate Mulgrew and Anne-Cecilie Engell Speyer hosted Vineyard Theatre's Annual Emerging Artists Luncheon on Wednesday, September 30 from noon-2 p.m. at the National Arts Club  in Manhattan.

Kate Mulgrew and Anne-Cecilie Engell Speyer host Vineyard Theatre's Annual Emerging Artists Luncheon today, September 30, from noon-2pm at the National Arts Club (15 Gramercy Park South) in Manhattan.

NeekOn will feature Live Music, Dance (including a Persian Folklore Dance Flash Mob), Visual Arts, and Food from multiple cultures around the world. (Neek means kindness.)

Kathryn Gallagher talks making her Broadway debut as the voice of Martha Bessell, a young girl who struggles to keep the abuse she suffers at the hands of a father a secret from those around her.

Dapper, debonair and devastatingly quick-witted, Alexander Armstrong is instantly recognisable - as much for his perfectly enunciated voice as his impeccably groomed appearance. He is also a man who likes to take chances. Alexander made his name in comedy at the turn of the millennium, as one half of the BAFTA winning duo Armstrong & Miller. Then in 2009, on the back of his success as a regular guest host on "Have I Got News For You", he was offered a permanent role as the host of BBC1's "Pointless". Always one for a new challenge, Armstrong leapt at the chance. Now, he is branching out again.

Choice Hotels International, Inc. (NYSE: CHH), one of the world's leading hotel companies, announced today that Comfort Inn will join Comfort Suites in implementing a 100-percent smoke-free policy beginning July 1, 2016, making Comfort the largest hotel brand in the United States to do so with more than 1,700 properties across the country. Becoming the largest hotel brand to provide a smoke-free environment reinforces the Comfort brand's commitment to wellness and helping travelers feel refreshed while on the road.

With her current role downtown in Max Posner's 'Judy', the award-winning actress is helping launch another playwright's career.

NeekOn will feature Live Music, Dance (including a Persian Folklore Dance Flash Mob), Visual Arts, and Food from multiple cultures around the world. (Neek means kindness.)

Joe's Pub at The Public has announced its upcoming nightly performances, tonight, August 26, through September 6, 2015.

Joe's Pub at The Public has announced its upcoming nightly performances, August 26 - September 6, 2015.

Though most of us think of Gyllenhaal as the kid from the 1999 film OCTOBER SKY who grew up to receive an Oscar nomination for BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN and has of late sported a rockin' beard, many people may not know that he has also graced both the London and Broadway stages. With these credits under his belt, might a Broadway musical be Gyllenhaal's next venture?

Kate Mulgrew and Anne-Cecilie Engell Speyer will host Vineyard Theatre's Annual Emerging Artists Luncheon on Wednesday, September 30 from noon-2pm at the National Arts Club (15 Gramercy Park South) in Manhattan. Chaired by members of the Vineyard Council, the event will feature the presentation of the 2015 Paula Vogel Playwriting Award to Boo Killebrew (MILLER, MISSISSIPPI). Clare Barron (YOU GOT OLDER), Vineyard's 2014 Paula Vogel Playwriting Award winner, will also be recognized at the luncheon.

Single tickets for the Fabulous Fox Theatre's 2015 - 2016 U.S. Bank Broadway Series shows will go on sale Saturday, September 12 at 10:00 a.m.

'You really don't choose this business; it chooses you,' Jessica Lee Goldyn says of her becoming a professional dancer and actress while still in her teens. That bright career which has taken her to Broadway and around the country performing in musical theatre now brings her to Brunswick, Maine, to reprise the role of Elizabeth in Mel Brooks' Young Frankenstein, which opened at Maine State Music Theatre August 6th. The role of Frederick Frankenstein's glamorous and fickle wife has been tailored to her extraordinary dancing abilities by director Marc Robin, and, as she tells Broadway World a few days before opening, she is enjoying the experience enormously!

Local theatres each tend to have a niche audience based on the venue's play selection. Dobama leans toward intellectual contemporary which are having their local premiers. convergence-continuum tilts toward off-beat writers and plots, many with homosexual themes. Cleveland Public Theatre thrives on a diet of creative, often devised theater offerings. Beck Center for the Arts is noted as the place for family offerings and scripts that appeal to the more conservative tastes of its older patrons (e.g., 'Mary Poppins,' 'Beauty and the Beast' and 'She Loves Me.')

An alt folk opera written by and starring husband and wife duo Shaun and Abigail Bengson, Hundred Days is the fierce, triumphant story of a young couple who fall in love, only to have their time together cut short by a fatal illness. With the brash intensity of youth, they decide to try and live the 100 days they have left together as though it were the 60 years they had imagined they would have.