Ain't Supposed to Die a Natural Death

As BroadwayWorld reported in March, Melvin Van Peebles' musical 'Ain't Supposed to Die a Natural Death' has been planning for a Broadway next year. The production will proceed, despite the recent death of the playwright, who passed away earlier this week at the age of 89. The show will now be dedicated to Peebles.

Today's Theater Stories features the Ethel Barrymore Theatre! Learn about Ethel Barrymore herself, shows to have graced the theatre's stage, including An Evening with Patti LuPone and Mandy Patinkin, Chaplin, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, The Band's Visit, The Inheritance, and many more!

Melvin Van Peebles' musical 'Ain't Supposed to Die a Natural Death' is set to be revived on Broadway next year.

The criteria are that these shows have been nominated for Best Musical from the 3rd Tony Awards (the ceremony that started the Best Musical category) in 1949 to the nominations of what will now be the 74th Tony Awards in 2021. I will be determining their signs based upon their Broadway premiere date. With those rules in mind, here we go!

BWW Reviewer Peter Nason chooses the 101 greatest protest songs from 1939-2020. See if your favorite songs or artists made the list!

According to the New York Times, actress Rosemary Harris, musician Harold Wheeler and playwright Terrence McNally will all be honored with Lifetime Achievement Awards at the 2019 Tonys.

THE WIZ was part of a growing trend of the 1970s when urban black stories and music were making their way to Broadway.

Actor Arthur French has been named to receive the 2015 Paul Robeson Citation Award presented by the Actors Equity Foundation.              

New Brooklyn Theater has announced casting today for its site-specific production of Edward Albee's The Death of Bessie Smith at Interfaith Medical Center in Brooklyn. This rare revival will run for eight performances between today, January 9 and 19, 2014.

New Brooklyn Theater has announced casting today for its site-specific production of Edward Albee's The Death of Bessie Smith at Interfaith Medical Center in Brooklyn. This rare revival will run for eight performances between January 9 and 19, 2014. Each performance will be followed by talkbacks or panel discussions with leaders in the arts, government, labor, and health. These discussions are intended to raise critical questions about health access, race, class, and the arts in New York.

As an undergraduate theater major in the early 1970s, I heard music everywhere. It seemed to pour out of every office and workspace around the department. (And in the LP era, if you wanted more than the radio, this meant schlepping a twenty pound record player and a dozen or so albums from your home to the campus, sometimes requiring back-and-forth trips from the car. If you go to that much trouble, you want to keep the music playing.) In the hushed costume shop with its quietly industrious all female staff, Broadway ruled, with Stephen Sondheim's recent Company and Follies in heavy rotation. It was 'men only' in the scene shop where I listened to male balladeers like James Taylor and Gordon Lightfoot while unhappily working off assigned crew hours. Jazz classes (my favorites) in the dance department were conducted to the pre-disco sounds of Isaac Hayes and the Temptations. And late night cast parties were never complete without spins of Bette Midler's first two albums.