Broadway Documentary to be Released in New York in May

The 2005 documentary ShowBusiness, featuring Rosie O'Donnell, Idina Menzel and Sarah Jessica Parker, among other stars, will be released in New York on May 11th.

Show Business, written by director Dori Berinstein and Richard Hankin, goes backstage to trace the theatrical lives of four musicals as it follows them from inception to the 2004 Tony Awards.  The musicals profiled are Stephen Schwartz' Wicked (now at the Gershwin Theatre), Robert Lopez' and Jeff Marx' Avenue Q (the 2004 winner of the Best Musical Tony, which continues to run at the Golden Theatre), Boy George's Taboo, and Jeanine Tesori's and Tony Kushner's Caroline, or Change.

The film was previously seen at the 2005 Tribeca Flm Festival.  Its was a finalist for the International Documentary Association (IDA) Distinguished Documentary Award and a feature finalist for Best Documentary of 2006, as well as the winner of the 2006 Florida Film Festival's Best Documentary Feature Grand Jury Prize.

Berinstein, whose next documentary Some Assembly Required follows kids competing in a national toy invention contest, has produced such shows as Thoroughly Modern Millie and Enchanted April on Broadway (she is also on the producing team of the upcoming Legally Blonde).  She has also worked as a director and executive producer of "The Isaac Mizrahi Show," and "Eavesdropping," starring Alan Cumming.

ShowBusiness will be released in more U.S. cities following its New York release.

Photo of Idina Menzel by Tristram Kenton