When a friend called me and invited me to join her for a middle school production of SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS:THE MUSICAL last week, I think it fair to say it wasn’t high on this reviewer’s list of things to do on a free Saturday night.
Production photos have been released for the Austin premiere of Head Over Heels with band musical direction by Rock-N-Roll Hall of Famer and Go-Go bassist Kathy Valentine. Check them out here!
Getting on the phone with Albert Poland totally swept me away and into the world we love for a glorious 45 minutes...
As BroadwayWorld sadly reported yesterday, stage star Phyllis Newman passed away yesterday, September 15, at the age of 86.
Newman got her start in show business at 4 years old imitating Carmen Miranda in theatres and clubs. Her portrayal of Martha Vail in the Jule Styne/Comden and Green musical Subways Are For Sleeping - costumed only in a bath towel - earned her a Tony Award. Her other Broadway credits include Bells Are Ringing, The Apple Tree, On the Town, The Prisoner of Second Avenue, Awake and Sing, Wish You Were Here, First Impressions, and her one-woman musical The Madwoman of Central Park West, which she co-authored with Arthur Laurents. She garnered a Tony Award nomination for her highly-acclaimed performance in Neil Simon's Broadway Bound.
The award-winning "For The Record" series returns to Los Angeles with For the Record: The Brat Pack, where classic 80's movie soundtracks come to life in an immersive, theatrical rock n roll experience. Audiences will travel back in time when they enter Break Room 86 inside The LINE Hotel in the heart of Koreatown. For The Record and Breakroom 86 will take patrons on a totally excellent adventure where they are surrounded by classic video arcade games, high-school lockers, old-school vending machines, vintage band posters, retro furniture, boomboxes, and cassettes. The 360-degree new wave cabaret, features a hit setlist including 'Rebel Yell,' 'Try A Little Tenderness,' and 'Don't You Forget About Me,' from favorite 1980's teen flicks 'Sixteen Candles,' 'Fast Times At Ridgemont High,' 'The Breakfast Club,' 'St. Elmos Fire,' 'Pretty In Pink,' "Valley Girl," 'Ferris Bueller's Day Off,' 'Some Kind Of Wonderful' and 'Say Anything.' Be kind and rewind into the 80's teenage dream, beginning March 15 every Thursday - Sunday through June 9.
As 2018 comes to a close, we are reflecting on those we have lost in the Broadway and theatre communities throughout the year.
The second play in this year's Block Party is AMERYKA, written and directed by Critical Mass Performance Group Artistic Director Nancy Keystone, which continues through April 29, 2018 at the Kirk Douglas Theatre in Culver City. Plan to arrive early so you can take advantage reading all the information posted in several areas of the lobby (as well as in the two main theater entrances) about Tadeusz Ko?ciuszko, a Polish freedom fighter who assisted Thomas Jefferson in the formation of our country, as his remarkable life and beliefs are central to the plot of this play.
Children of a Lesser God opened last night, April 11, 2018. BroadwayWorld was on hand at the big night and we're taking you inside the cast's opening night party! Check out the photos below.
In an era when female power and rights are being asserted and America was on the verge of its first female president, Imara Savage opens Sydney Theatre Company's 2018 season with Caryl Churchill's TOP GIRLS.
Chilling, sinister, thought-provoking and wickedly funny. Antaeus Theatre Companypresents a fully partner-cast production of Harold Pinter's seldom seen dark comedy, The Hothouse. Directed by Nike Doukas, The Hothouse opens on Jan. 25 and Jan. 26 (one opening for each cast), running through March 11 at the Kiki & David Gindler Performing Arts Center in Glendale. Low-priced previews begin on Jan. 18.
Theatre, television, and film legend Mandy Patinkin saw Come From Away on July 6, and posed for a photo with the cast after the show. Check out the photo!
There's a party at the Bourbon Room and you're invited. Get out that 1980's gear you've got stuffed in the back of your closet and head over to ROCK OF AGES. This show is the most fun I've had in a long while! I've seen it on Broadway and more recently in Las Vegas, but the Omaha Community Playhouse production is not only on par, it exceeds them both in heart and personality. I liked it more.
As BroadwayWorld sadly reported last week, Tony Award winner Mary Tyler Moore - best known as a television icon for The Mary Tyler Moore Show- passed away at 80 years old. According to her publicist, she was with her husband and friends at the time of her passing.
American Theater Company (ATC) opens musical comedy Xanadu, the final production of its Legacy Season, this Sunday, June 5. Presented as a tribute to ATC's late Artistic Director PJ Paparelli-a not-so-secret fan of this camp classic-Xanadu is directed by Lili-Anne Brown and runs at ATC now through July 17, 2016. The production has music and lyrics by Jeff Lynne and John Farrar and a book by Douglas Carter Beane, based on the 1980 Universal Pictures film of the same title.
Friends in Theater Company and State of Play Productions' THE SECRET GARDEN, a Broadway benefit for the Make-A-Wish Foundation, presented the first of two sold-out performances last night, January 11, at 7:30 p.m. at the Lucille Lortel Theater. The fully staged production, directed/choreographed by Curtis Holbrook, was led by Rebecca Luker as Lily, Gabriella Pizzolo as Mary, and Bradley Dean as Archie with Tom Deckman, Ali Ewoldt, Frances Mercanti-Anthony, Bill Nolte, Eli Tokash, Max von Essen, and Cortney Wolfson. Additionally, composer Lucy Simon and original cast member Daisy Egan co-hosted the night. BroadwayWorld was there for the special event and you can check out photos from the curtain call and after party below!
Below, BroadwayWorld sends a fond farewell to those who passed away in 2015.
They are two of the UK's best-loved stars of stage and screen, but have never performed together - until now.
Al Hirschfeld immortalized celebrities, politicians, Broadway productions, films, television shows and beyond with his iconic linear drawings for nine decades, establishing himself as one of the most important contemporary portrait artists. Over a decade since the legendary artist drew his final line drawing, he continues to inspire. This spring, Hirschfeld will be celebrated with the publication of a new book and a major exhibition at the New-York Historical Society. Just last night the New-York Historical Society celebrated the launch of The Hirschfeld Century: The Art of Al Hirschfeld. the first major retrospective of Hirschfeld. Below, check out photos from insode the special cocktail party!
Broadway fans had plenty of reasons to celebrate this year, with dozens of shows having opened since January, hundreds of actors having made their debuts, and many more having returned to the stage for critically acclaimed performances. Not all news was good though, as we also suffered a loss of an incredible amount of talent.
Below, BroadwayWorld sends a fond farewell to those who passed away in 2014.
The Drama Desk and Obie Award-winning Keen Company's revival of Middle Of The Night by Academy Award winner Paddy Chayefsky, starring Tony and Drama Desk Nominee Jonathan Hadary (Gypsy, Awake & Sing, Gemini, As Is) along with Todd Bartels (Bingo With the Indians, Church), Amelia Campbell (Our Country's Good [Tony nomination], A Streetcar Named Desire, Waiting in the Wings, The Herbal Bed), Alyssa May Gold (Arcadia, Keen's Lemon Sky), Nicole Lowrance (Peter and the Starcatchers, Dividing the Estate), Denise Lute (Harry Outside, Bug), and Melissa Miller (Merchant Of Venice with F. Murray Abraham, Keen's I Never Sang for My Father), directed by Keen Artistic Director Jonathan Silverstein, opening February 27th. This limited engagement runs through March 29th. BroadwayWorld has a first look at the cast in action below!
Tony winner Richard Greenberg (Take Me Out, The American Plan) and MTC begin their 10th collaboration with the world-premiere production of THE ASSEMBLED PARTIES. MTC Artistic Director Lynne Meadow (Wit, Collected Stories) directs the cast that includes Tony nominee Jessica Hecht (A View from the Bridge, Harvey), Tony and 2-time Emmy winner Judith Light (Other Desert Cities, Lombardi) and Tony nominee Jeremy Shamos (Glengarry Glen Ross, Clybourne Park).
The show opened yesterday; check out the curtain call and after party below!
Drury Lane Theatre, 100 Drury Lane, presents the effervescent Broadway musical XANADU, which opened last night, September 13 at 8 p.m. and runs through October 28, 2012. The cast of XANADU is led by Gina Milo as "Clio/Kira" and and Chris Critelli as "Sonny". Check out photos of the stars at opening night below!
Continuing its 12-year relationship with Athol Fugard, The Fountain Theatre celebrates the master playwright's 80th birthday with the U.S. premiere of his newest play. Directed by Stephen Sachs and starring Morlan Higgins, Julanne Chidi Hill and Jacqueline Schultz, The Blue Iris opens at the Fountain tonight, August 24. Get a first look at the cast onstage in the photos below!
19 cast members of the original 1981 Broadway production of Stephen Sondheim's Merrily We Roll Along, including leading actors Lonny Price, Ann Morrison and Jim Walton, were reunited at New York City Center for a reception and performance of the City Center Encores! production of Merrily We Roll Along yesterday. Check out our exclusive photos of the evening.
Stephen Sondheim joined original and Encores! cast onstage for the reception and during the curtain call.
Last night, February 2, Roundabout Theatre Company opened its new production of John Osborne's Look Back in Anger, directed by Roundabout Associate Artist Sam Gold. The cast features Adam Driver as "Cliff," Sarah Goldberg as "Allison," Charlotte Parry as "Helena," and Matthew Rhys as "Jimmy". BroadwayWorld gives you an exclusive look at the opening night after party. See the photos below!
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