Merle Louise News

International City Theatre will open its 2024 season with the world premiere of Yankee’s deeply personal comic drama, Marilyn, Mom & Me.

Although Anita Gillette & Penny Fuller have been in show business for a very long time, their close friendship is not even a decade old yet. Fans frequently mistake them for each other. This is the premise of their show SIN TWISTERS which will open at 54 Below Monday, August 16. The title, of course, is a Spoonerism.  Fuller and Gillette explain that, and the mystery of their mistaken identities in the show. They also sing lots of fantastic numbers from the many stages of their careers. I recently caught up with Anita and Penny on Zoom. It was a chatty, delightful afternoon. 

El uno de marzo de 1979, el musical de SWEENEY TODD, basado en la obra homónima de Christopher Bond de 1973, se estrenaba en el Uris Theatre de Broadway.

Érase una vez… en un teatro de Broadway llamado Martin Beck Theatre, se estrenaba el musical INTO THE WOODS en 1987 un día como hoy con un reparto de lujo, un libreto excelente de mano de James Lapine y una partitura que permanecería en el imaginario colectivo desde entonces como una de las grandes obras maestras de Stephen Sondheim.

To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the original Broadway production of Company, a new video was posted to the official Twitter page of the Broadway revival. In the video, Stephen Sondheim tells director Marianne Elliott about a scene that was cut from the show.

Today marks 50 years since Company first opened on Broadway. The current production of Company is flashing back to the original, with this video of the cast recording the title number for the cast album.

We're feeling electricity because we're looking back at the 2009 Tony Award winner for Best Musical, Billy Elliot! Take a look at the show's opening night at Broadway's Imperial Theatre with the show's stars David Alvarez, Gregory Jbara, Santino Fontana, and more! Be sure to check out all the footage!

El proximo 14 septiembre llega al Teatre Tivoli de Barcelona la nueva produccion de LA JAULA DE LAS LOCAS, dirigida y protagonizada por Àngel Llacer, que comparte cartel con Ivan Labanda, y que mejor motivo para hacer un repaso por la historia de este clasico de Broadway que tantas barreras ha roto.

Clive Cholerton takes the demon barber's ballads into new dimensions of cruelty and possibility.

Name an opera or operetta and it is likely listed in soprano Sarah Rice's repertoire. Over her long and illustrious career, she has starred and performed in a myriad of productions all across the map, from Broadway to Teatro La Fenice in Venice, Italy. Strauss, Salieri, Sondheim--- it's there. Now, in her first solo show since 2013, Rice will debut her new show Music of the Night (borrowing, of course, from Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera, in which Rice played Christine in the National Tour) at Pangea Restaurant Pangea Restaurant (2nd Avenue between 11th and 12th streets) on August 17, 18, and September 20, all at 7 pm. Alongside pianist Matthew Martin Ward (Eric Sedgwick for the September show) and special guest David Vernon, she will sing and play a set aimed to explain 'the things that go through your head at 4:00 AM,' covering classical, Celtic, television and movie themes, and musical theatre.

Dare to Defy Productions announces the company's 2015-16 season today. Featuring six productions presented in either the Mathile Theatre in the Schuster Center or the Victoria Theatre in downtown Dayton, the season includes Into the Woods, Godspell, Footloose, The Great American Trailer Park Musical, Wild Party and American Idiot!

Dare to Defy Productions announces the company's 2015-16 season today. Featuring six productions presented in either the Mathile Theatre in the Schuster Center or the Victoria Theatre in downtown Dayton, the season includes Into the Woods, Godspell, Footloose, The Great American Trailer Park Musical, Wild Party and American Idiot!

According to the New York Times, a revival of KISS OF THE SPIDER WOMAN could be heading to Broadway! A reading for the show was held just last week starring Audra McDonald, Alan Cumming, and Steven Pasquale in the roles of Aurora, Molina, and Valentin respectively. Tony winner John Tiffany (Once, The Glass Menagerie) directed the reading. Producer Tom Kirdahy, who put the reading together, told NYT: "I think everyone is interested in having further conversations, but there is no game plan for a production at this point."

Heather has grown up on Broadway, going from Baby June to Little Who to Ballet Girl to a partly adult role now.

Today we are talking to a celebrated comedienne and actress known for her decades-spanning career on screens and stages large and small - from making her Broadway debut in the original Jerome Robbins production of GYPSY on Broadway in 1960 to her many musical roles throughout the 60s to her countless game show and variety show appearances following that all the way to creating an unforgettable character in MOONSTRUCK in the 1980s, as well as her subsequent oft-Neil Simon stage work; now, playing Tina Fey's sweet and daffy mom on NBC's 30 ROCK and, most recently, appearing in Nora & Celia Ephron's LOVE, LOSS AND WHAT I WORE and the Playwright's Horizons premiere production of THE BIG MEAL in the new millennium - the one of a kind Anita Gillette. Analyzing her nearly sixty-year career and sharing candid stories of her brushes with some of Broadway and Hollywood's brightest talents - Jule Styne to Ethel Merman to Irving Berlin to Burt Lancaster and beyond - Gillette paints a vivid portrait of the tail end of the Golden Age of Broadway and the heady game show days of TV in the 1960s and 70s to her lauded stage work with Neil Simon and many of the great comedy and musical writers in the years since. Additionally, Gillette and I discuss her current essaying of the role of Mae Peterson in the new Regal Music Theatre production of Charles Strouse and Lee Adams's BYE BYE BIRDIE in Massachusetts as she looks towards opening night tomorrow and relates her joy in participating in a production that has some behind-the-scenes help by her loving granddaughter (while another attends their summer camp). Plus, Gillette's observations on sharing a soundstage with Alec Baldwin, Tina Fey, Elaine Stritch and Buck Henry for a recent 30 ROCK shoot, reflections on her fondest and most celebrated comedy roles, hilarious memories of appearing in some short-running flops (JIMMY, SKYSKRAPER) as well as in some big hits (GYPSY), her upcoming series of master classes titled "Life In The Business", her return to Birdland with her concert show, AFTER ALL, her role in an upcoming Ed Burns film and maybe even a role in a new Alexander Payne film - all of that, all about attending the Diamond Jubilee celebration in the United Kingdom and much, much more!

Last night, Jason Graae 'stumbled upon' a reunion party, thrown by Ron Raines for his wife Dona D. Vaughn with a few members of the original Broadway cast of COMPANY. When we saw the photo, we just had to ask for permission to run it- check it out below!

Today we are taking a listen to Stephen Sondheim's musicals of the 1980s, each a striking artistic achievement attempting to do something never done before in Broadway history and improving the very genre of musical theatre itself with his work on these three very different shows. MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG, SUNDAY IN THE PARK WITH GEORGE and INTO THE WOODS...

BroadwayWorld is proud to present a look at the extensive work of Stephen Sondheim on Broadway! Check out these Sondheim on Broadway facts!

'Bernadette Peters: A Special Concert for Broadway Barks Because Broadway Cares' was an astounding success on Monday evening, raising $615,000 to benefit Broadway Barks and Broadway Cares/ Equity Fights AIDS. Tony, Grammy and Golden Globe Award winning actress, and long-time BC/EFA friend and Trustee Bernadette Peters performed the special one night only concert at Broadway's Minskoff Theatre, produced by BC/EFA. BroadwayWorld.com's cameras were there for the very special evening of song.

'Bernadette Peters: A Special Concert for Broadway Barks Because Broadway Cares' was an astounding success raising $615,000 to benefit Broadway Barks and Broadway Cares/ Equity Fights AIDS. Tony, Grammy and Golden Globe Award winning actress, and long-time BC/EFA friend and Trustee Bernadette Peters performed the special one night only concert last night at Broadway's Minskoff Theatre, produced by BC/EFA.