The New Word Revival

McCarter Theatre Center announced its upcoming Dance and Music Series, featuring London City Ballet, Ronald K. Brown/EVIDENCE, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, and the Monteverdi Choir performing Bach's ST. MATTHEW PASSION.

Multiple lost Broadway theaters intersect with the Hammerstein family. This follows since Oscar Hammerstein I was a theater owner and builder. In addition to Hammerstein’s which was named after him and is now the Ed Sullivan, and the New Victory which he originally built, there is also the Hammerstein Ballroom. Read more here!

One of the operas at the top of my list for next season at the Met is the Deborah Warner staging of Tchaikovsky’s EUGENE ONEGIN that brings back soprano Asmik Grigorian for the first time since her 2024 debut in MADAMA BUTTERFLY. Not that there’s anything wrong with Puccini, the major composer I’ve heard her sing. The first was that Met debut with her golden-throated, heart-breaking Cio-Cio San, followed by her blonde bombshell of a Freudian Turandot (plus a recital) at the Vienna State Opera. Very recently, there was this season’s justifiable cheering from the audience--myself included--when she took on the three soprano roles in IL TRITTICO at the Paris Opera’s home at the Bastille.

Stratfest@Home will begin streaming the 2024 production of Shakespeare's Cymbeline and the 2023 production of Alice Childress's Wedding Band. New original content includes the music series Never Doubt I Love and the short film The Understudy.

As I sat in the audience, waiting for the performance of War Horse In Concert, a Pops presentation for the Wichita Symphony, I overhead several audience members discussing their expectations for what they were about to experience. “Is this a play?”  “It looks like there are narrators!” “Is this different from a regular concert?” Most “In Concert” performances are based on well known musicals, but War Horse In Concert is based on War Horse Suite 2022, a symphonic work derived from the score of the play with the same name. The play is based on the original story written by Michael Morpurgo. War Horse: The Story in Concert premiered at London’s Royal Albert Hall in 2016, with music composed by Adrian Sutton, and the narration was adapted from the play script written in 1982 by Nick Stafford. The performance consisted of a very simple staged version of the piece, with multiple actors playing multiple roles, supplying dialogue at the important points in the story. There was also a main singer and a chorus to help convey the emotions that the spoken word can fail to supply. This allows the orchestra to feature the score so the story to be told by both the music and the word. A concert version is usually a scaled down production, sans sets, props, elaborate costumes, and in the case of War Horse, the puppets used to portray the horses. The audience is asked to use their imaginations, and their mind’s eye, to fill in the remainder of the story.

The cast and creative team have been announced for Sankofa: The Soldier's Tale Retold, presented by Art of Time in association with The Royal Conservatory's Glenn Gould School and Koffler Arts.

Rise and shine, BroadwayWorld! It is November 10, 2023 and it's time to catch up on all of the theatrical happenings you may have missed in the last 24 hours: 

It is safe to say that Carnegie Hall has been the premiere showcase for what is great in American Art and Culture for over 130 years. It is not hyperbole to say that the concert given Monday night by Broadway and television star Lea Michele will be remembered as one of those defining zeitgeist events. Her two-hour intermission-less journey through her career so far was the kind of powerhouse performance that people talk about for years.

Photoville, the Brooklyn-based nonprofit that brings breathtaking photography within reach of New Yorkers in all boroughs—free of charge—will present Photoville NYC 2023 (June 3 - 18).

The Pulitzer Prize Board has just announced that English, by Sanaz Toossi has won the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Other finalists included: On Sugarland by Aleshea Harris and The Far Country by Lloyd Suh.

The City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs (DCA) Performing Arts Division (PERF) launched a new initiative to spotlight and celebrate women who have impacted and redefined the human experience and who epitomize empowerment through the arts, activism, and social justice.

The Joan W. and Irving B. Harris Theater for Music and Dance has announced its 20th anniversary season, bringing pioneering artists from around the globe to Chicago and continuing to champion the world-class ensembles and arts organizations that call the city home.

Wilmington resident and theatre veteran Gerri Weagraff comes to The Playhouse as the Dowager Empress in the national tour of ANASTASIA. Six performances from February 9 – 12. Music and lyrics are by the award-winning team of Flaherty and Ahrens (RAGTIME, SUESSICAL THE MUSICAL and ONCE ON THIS ISLAND) with a book written by Broadway legend Terrance McNally.

Founder and Artistic Director Thomas Crawford leads the American Classical Orchestra (ACO), New York City’s foremost period instrument orchestra, in a program of much-loved Bach cantatas at the beautiful Gothic-style Church of St. Vincent Ferrer in Manhattan on Thursday, March 2, 2023 at 8 pm.

Birthright: A Black Roots Music Compendium is an expansive overview of American Black roots music. Produced by author, professor, and GRAMMY®-nominated music historian Dr. Ted Olson, along with GRAMMY-winning producer, musician, and author Scott Billington, Birthright offers an introduction to the rich and often nuanced world of Black roots music.

When Paul Moravec calls himself as “a sort of Method composer,” in describing his work on A NATION OF OTHERS, commissioned for the Oratorio Society of NY, debuting at Carnegie Hall on Nov. 15, he’s likening his writing to the “Method Acting” technique: getting inside the heads of his characters, understanding their inner motivation and emotions, connecting his own life to theirs.

The American Opera Project (AOP), a Brooklyn based opera think-tank at the forefront of contemporary opera development and collaboration, announces the world premiere of Letters That You Will Not Get: Women's Voices from the Great War, July 29-August 7 at The Space at Irondale.

The American Classical Orchestra (ACO), New York City’s leading period instrument orchestra, has announced its 2022-23 season of four orchestral concerts conducted by Founder and Artistic Director Thomas Crawford, beginning on Thursday, September 22, with the first of three performances at Alice Tully Hall, and continuing through May 18, 2023. The soloists will include soprano Yulan Piao, mezzo-soprano Heather Petrie, tenor Lawrence Jones, bass Joseph Charles Beutel, pianist Petra Somlai, and violinist Rachell Ellen Wong.

TFANA has extended the run of Alice Childress’s Wedding Band, directed by Awoye Timpo, to May 22. (The production, which began previews April 28—postponed from an original date of April 23 due to two COVID-19 cases—was formerly set to close May 15).

TFANA is currently bringing to the stage the first New York production of Alice Childress's Wedding Band since the show's premiere in 1972. Directed by Awoye Timpo, this American classic will run through May 15. Read an interview with the show's stars.

TFANA will present Alice Childress’s Wedding Band. Director Awoye Timpo’s new staging, running April 23–May 15, brings Childress’s masterpiece to New York audiences for the first time since 1972, when it made its New York premiere in a production directed by Childress and Joseph Papp.

Multi-awarded cabaret singer Jeff Harnar will make his Feinstein’s at Vitello’s debut with his cabaret act I KNOW THINGS NOW: JEFF HARNAR SINGS SONDHEIM September 30, 2021. With a lengthy resume as an opening act. Jeff has played some of the biggest venues, including Carnegie Hall, all over the world. Had the chance to find out what THINGS Jeff KNOWS NOW.

After spearheading a $3M renovation of Austin’s largest theater, Executive & Artistic Director Bob Bursey has announced his first curated season of music, dance, theater, and performance for Texas Performing Arts. A dozen live productions will mark its 40th Anniversary season in 2021-2022.

Winter Opera Saint Louis rises from its pandemic slumber with a very lovely production of one of Puccini’s more rarely performed works—Suor Angelica.

The song is from Ghost of Vroom's debut album, GHOST OF VROOM 1, out via Mod y Vi Records Friday, March 19. Pre-orders are available now.