Today’s Highlights:
Group Rep‘s Normal Noises, world premiere of 6 short plays written & directed by Clara Rodriguez, featuring Melissa Bontempt, Cynthia Bryant, Cheryl Crosland, Michael Gabiano, Mareli Mitchel-Shields, Lloyd Pedersen, Alec Reusch, Neil Thompson and Sascha Vanderslik, opens at North Hollywood’s Lonny Chapman Theatre.
30th Annual Young Playwrights Festival concludes at Hollywood’s Blank Theatre.
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Complete casting has been announced for the world premiere of Kate Nash, Andy Blankenbuehler & Ted Malawer’s Only Gold, to run Oc. 5 – Nov. 27 (opening Nov. 7) at MCC Theater, directed & choreographed by Blankenbuehler.
Kate Nash, Terrance Mann, Karine Plantadit, Gaby Diaz, Hannah Cruz, Ryan Steele, and Ryan VanDenBoom, with Haley Fish, Jennifer Florentino, Jacob Guzman, Tyler Hanes, Thayne Jasperson, Reed Luplau, Morgan Marcell, Ximone Rose, Ida Saki, Ahmad Simmons, DeAnne Stewart, Voltaire Wade-Greene, Katie Webber, Jacob Burns, Phil Colgan, Bradley Dean, Victoria Fiore, Samantha Pollino, and Eleri Ward.
A royal family’s arrival in Paris sets a flurry of activity into motion, forcing nobility and townsfolk alike to examine the choices they’ve mad. As loyalties and loves are tested, will they find the courage to follow their hearts?
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Complete casting has been announced for 42nd Street, to run Sept. 16 – Nov. 6 (opening Oct. 5) at CT’s Goodspeed Musicals, directed & choreographed by Randy Skinner, with music direction by Adam Souza.
Max von Essen (Julian Marsh), Kate Baldwin (Dorothy Brock), Blake Stadnik (Billy Lawlor), Carina-Kay Louchiey (Peggy Sawyer), David Jennings (Abner Dillion), Patrick Oliver Jones (Pat Denning), E. Clayton Cornelious (Bert Barry), Lisa Howard (Maggie Jones), Eloise Kropp (Annie Reilly), and Lamont Brown (Andy Lee), with Willie Clyde Beaton II, Sarah Dearstyne, Berklea Going, Candice Hatakeyama, Danielle Jackman, Edward Juvier, Taylor Lane, Brian Shimasaki Liebson, Brady Miller, Christian Probst, Christopher Shin, Kirsty Fuller, and Derek Luscutoff.
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The world premiere of Victor I. Cazares’ american (tele)visions will run Sept. 9 – Oct. 16 (opening Sept. 29) at New York Theatre Workshop, directed by Rubén Polendo.
Clew, Raúl Castille, Ryan J. Haddad, Elia Monte-Brown, and Bianca “b” Norwood.
The memory play follows “Hero of Ages Lost” Erica as she pushes her shopping cart through a ’90s Walmart, telling the story of an undocumented Mexican family, using live performance, live camera feeds, and pre-recorded video.
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“Our Son,” directed by Bill Oliver, has wrapped production. The release date is TBA.
Billy Porter, Luke Evans, Andrew Rannells, Phylicia Rashad, Isaac Powell, Robin Weigert, Kate Burton, and Cassandra Freeman.
The film follows the emotional story of a couple fighting for the custody of their eight-year-old son as they divorce.
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An all-new musical celebrating the life and times of Marvin Gaye is currently in development, by Marvin Gaye III & Je’Caryous Johnson.
Audiences can expect an authentic and transparent behind-the-scenes accounting of Gaye’s life against the background of Gaye’s incomparable song catalogue, which will be featured in the musical when it debuts in 2023.
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Daniel Henning, the Artistic Director of Hollywood’s Blank Theatre, is stepping down on Oct. 8, after 32 years. Henning founded the Blank Theatre in 1990.
Click here to celebrate with Daniel.
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Babylon, NY’s Argyle Theatre has announced its 2022-23 season:
Beauty and the Beast (Nov. 11 – Jan. 23, 2023)
West Side Story (Feb. 9 – Apr. 2)
Rock of Ages (Apr. 27 – June 16)
Grease (July 6 – Aug. 27)
Creative teams and casting TBA.
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The world premiere of Ken Ludwig’s Lend Me A Soprano will run Sept. 16 – Oct. 9 at Houston’s Alley Theatre, directed by Eleanor Holdridge.
Ellen Harvey (Mrs. Wylie), Mia Pinero (Jo), Alexandra Silber (Elena Firenzi), Orlando Arriaga (Pasquale), Steven Good (Le0), Brandon Hearnsberger (jerry), Susan Koozin (Julia), and Skyler Sinclair (Beverly).
The play is set in 1934, when the clever and combustible Lucille Wiley, Manager of the Cleveland Grand Opera Company, is ready to welcome the world-class soprano Eleana Firenzi for her one-night-only-starring role in Carmen. Alas, Elena arrives late, her impassioned husband Pasquale has a fit of jealousy, and it remains to be seen whether Mrs. Wiley’s mousy by determined assistant Jo can save the day. Based on Ludwig’s Lend Me A Tenor, the roles are reversed, and the ladies take the lead in this madcap screwball comedy.
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The Unofficial Bridgerton Musical: Live in Concert, scheduled for Sept. 20 at London’s Royal Albert Hall, has been canceled.
The future of the concert staging was in doubt after Netflix filed a lawsuit over the musical, which is based on the characters and plot lines of the Netflix series.
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RIP: Tony-winning Broadway producer Chase Mishkin has died at the age of 85 following two strokes and struggles with dementia.
Mishkin did not begin her theatrical career until the death of her husband in 1993, when she was nearly 60 years old. She produced Trish Vradenburg’s The Apple Doesn’t Fall…, about Vradenburg’s time taking care of her mother with Alzheimer’s, at Los Angeles’ Tiffany Theatre before bringing it to Broadway’s Lyceum Theatre in 1996, Mishkin’s Broadway debut. Directed by Leonard Nimoy, the production would turn out to be short lived, playing just 19 previews and one performance.
But Mishkin was undeterred going on to shepherd 31 Broadway shows, via producing or investing, over her career, including The Beauty Queen of Leenane, It Ain’t Nothin’ But the Blues, A Moon for the Misbegotten, the 2000 revivals of A Moon for the Misbegotten and The Music Man, Dirty Blonde, A Class Act, Urban Cowboy, Little Women, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Chita Rivera: A Dancer’s Life, Passing Strange, the Daniel Radcliffe-led Equus revival, Superior Donuts, End of the Rainbow, and Hands on a Hardbody.
Mishkin would have her greatest successes with the Broadway run of Dame Edna: The Royal Tour.
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The New York Pops has announced its 40th season at Carnegie Hall, conducted by Steven Reineke.
The Music of Star Wars (Oct. 21 at 8 PM ET)
Broadway Blockbusters (Nov. 18 at 8 PM ET), with special guests Nikki Renée Daniels, Jordan Donica, Matt Doyle, Melissa Errico, and Essential Voices USA.
Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree (Dec. 16 at 8 PM ET), featuring Ingrid Michaelson and Essential Voices USA.
Winter Song: A Holiday Evening with Ingrid Michaelson (Dec. 17 at 8 PM ET).
One Night Only: An Evening with Heather Headley (Feb. 10, 2023)
The Marvelous Marilyn Maye (Mar. 24 at 8 PM ET)
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Lin-Manuel Miranda has spoken out following an illegal and unauthorized production of Hamilton at Texas church The Door McAllen.
In addition to presenting the musical without permission to do so, changed lyrics include biblical references and closed performances with a sermon containing anti-LGBQ+ rhetoric.
In a two-Tweet thread, Miranda calls the production “illegal” and “Unauthorized,” indicating that further legal troubles are ahead for the church.
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Helen Park: Light the Night will take place Tues. Aug. 16 at 7 PM ET at NYC’s 54 Below, with music direction by Sujin Kim-Ramsey.
Zachary Noah Piser, Luna, Julia Abueva, Toren Nakamura, Jiho Kang, Amy Keum, Lina Rose Lee, and Abraham Lim.
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New casting has been announced for Cabaret at the Playhouse Theatre, directed by Rebecca Frecknall.
Callum Scott Howells (Emcee Oct. 3 – Jan. 28, 2023), Madeline Brewer (Sally Bowles Oct. 3 – Jan. 28, 2023), Emily Benjamin (Sally Bowles at certain performances). Sid Sagar (Cliff Bradshaw as of Oct. 3), Danny Mahoney (Ernst Ludwig as of Oct. 3), and Michelle Bishop (Fraulein Schneider as of Oct. 3), with Gabriela Benedetti, Charles Croysdill, Laura Delany, Sally Frith, Matthew Gent, Ying Ue Li, Ela Lisondra, Chris O’Mara, Grant Neal, Hicaro Nicolai, Adam Taylor, Toby Turpin, Patrick Wilden, and Sophie Maria Woina.
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Off-Broadway’s Vineyard Theatre has announced its 2022-23 season:
Sandra (Nov. 3 – Dec. 11), by David Cale, directed by Leigh Silverman.
The one-woman thriller follows its title character as she works to solve the disappearance of her friend.
This Land Was Made (Winter 2023), by Tori Sampson, directed by Taylor Reynolds.
The play takes place in a bar i Oakland in 1967, when the city was ready for some radical change.
New Musical (Spring 2023), title and information are under wraps.
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Writer, director, and producer Je’Caryous Johnson and Marvin Gaye III, eldest son of Marvin Gaye, Jr., are collaborating on a new bio-musical about and featuring the song catalogue of Marvin Gaye, know as Prince of Soul.
The new work, to be co-written and co-produced by the duo, will debut in 2023. With Gaye’s son on the project, the team promises an authentic behind-the-scenes account of the recording artist.
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Blackstar Symphony, The Music of David Bowie will run Sept. 16-17 at the Charlotte International Arts Festival, with the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra.
John Cameron Mitchell.
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Sunset Boulevard will run Sept. 10 – Oct. 2 (opening Sept. 11) at Norwalk’s Musical Theatre of Connecticut, directed by Kevin Connors, with choreography by Corinne C. Broadbent, and music direction by David John Madore.
Elizabeth Ward Land (Norman Desmond) and Trevor Martin (Joe Gillis), with more TBA.
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The Idle Muse Theatre Company has announced complete casting for the world premiere of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, adapted by Michael Dalbert, to run Sept. 22 – Oct. 23 at The Edge Off-Broadway Theater, directed by Morgan Manasa.
Brandi Jiminez Lee (Dr. Henri Jekyll, Jack Sharkey (Mr. Edward Hyde), Joel Thompson (Dr. Hastie), Shane Richlen (Gabriel John Utterson), Timothy Griffin (Sir Danvers Carew/Poole), Ian Saderholm (Enfield), and Hanna Beth Mitchell (Maid), with Whitney Ann Bates and Chris Sylvie.
Dr. Henri Jekyll struggles to endure in Victorian England, the cards are heavily stacked against her. With her father gone and professional prospects sabotaged, she finds herself isolated and trapped. Forced to look inward for reprieve, she manifests her own savior in Mr. Edward Hyde, but finds the road to salvation is paved with ruin.
