Eddie Varley - Page 219

Andrew Lloyd Webber confirmed his future (and very active) plans for Phantom: Love Never Dies, the sequel to his worldwide mega hit musical The Phantom of the Opera. His statement was posted on his official website, www.andrewlloydwebber.com.

SPRING AWAKENING, Broadway's Tony Award-winning musical is returning to Joe's Pub for an encore of the sold out Holiday Celebration benefit concert. The December 29th concert will feature the current cast of the Broadway show 'Spring Awakening' as well as OBC member Lilli Cooper.

UK theatre website WhatsOnStage.com reports that a number of West End musical stars recorded a special edition of the BBC's Weakest Link quiz show, due for broadcast on New Year's Eve.

The Associated Press reports that Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced that while New York City attracted a record number of visitors this year, the growth in the city's tourism industry has slowed amid a worldwide economic downturn.

Miramax's Doubt, which stars Meryl Streep, Amy Adams, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Viola Davis successfully expanded from 39 theaters to 1,267 reports Variety. Doubt came in No. 10 for the three-day weekend, grossing $5.7 million for a per-screen average of $4,479 and a current total of $8.8 million in its third weekend.

Melora Hardin, star of the hit NBC comedy 'The Office,' will make her Broadway stage debut as fame-hungry murderess Roxie Hart in the Tony Award-winning smash hit musical CHICAGO. Hardin will play a seven-week limited engagement beginning tonight, Monday, December 29, 2008 at Broadway's Ambassador Theatre (219 W. 49th St.).

The Times of London has reported some new details regarding PHANTOM: LOVE NEVER DIES, Andrew Lloyd Webber's upcoming sequel to the mega hit musical The Phantom of the Opera. Most interesting so far is that Lloyd Webber hopes is to have a simultaneous premiere of the musical sequel on three continents, a first in the history of the theatre.

Jeffrey Finn Productions presents a special return holiday engagement of THE MUSIC OF ANDREW LLOYD WEBBER for two weeks only at the Kennedy Center's newly-renovated Eisenhower Theater. The production runs through Sunday, January 4, 2009. The engagement marks the first return of the special concert since a sold out holiday run at the Kennedy Center Opera House in December 2004.

After an absence of 82 years, Puccini's bittersweet romance La Rondine returns to the Met in a new production with a gala premiere performance on New Year's Eve. La Rondine stars Angela Gheorghiu as Magda, the Parisian socialite, and Roberto Alagna as Ruggero, her lover. Lisette Oropesa, Marius Brenciu, in his Met debut, and Samuel Ramey are the other principal singers. Marco Armiliato conducts.

Only the second theater company in the nation to produce DISNEY HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL 2, NSMT is presenting the New England Regional Premiere of the hit show through January 11, 2009. The record-breaking movie debuted on August 17, 2007 and was seen by 17.2 million viewers, making it the most-watched basic-cable telecast in history. Over 3,500 licensed productions of High School Musical: On Stage, the first part in the series, have been produced in the United States and abroad making the title one of the most popular available from Disney.

BWW TV sat down with the filmmakers to learn how the music and message of HAIR inspired them to create the passionate documentary.

Will Ferrell's upcoming new one-man show 'You're Welcome America A Final Night with George W Bush' tickets are now on-sale to the general public. While the show doesn't open at the Cort Theatre until 2009, Will Ferrell and the folks at FunnyOrDie.com shared with BWW a very special message from the 'President of the United States' about his Broadway debut!

PAGE SIX in The New York Post is reporting that former Speed-The-Plow star and 'mercury poisoning sufferer' Jeremy Piven hopped a flight from LAX to Bangkok in the last few days.

WhatsOnStage.com is reporting that world-renowned director Trevor Nunn is rumoured to be planning a stage adaptation of the classic film Breakfast at Tiffany's for the West End stage.

Eminent artist friends and peers of this year's six honorees converged in Washington, D.C.on Dec. 7th to present entertaining and heartfelt tributes at THE 31ST ANNUAL KENNEDY CENTER HONORS, an entertainment special to be broadcast Tuesday, Dec. 30th (9:00-11:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network, with Caroline Kennedy as host for the sixth consecutive year. Morgan Freeman, George Jones, Barbra Streisand, Twyla Tharp, Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey were all present at the black-tie gala in their honor. CBS.com is offering a preview of the telecast on their website in advance of the upcoming airing.

Variety has reported the sad news that playwright Dale Wasserman, best known for 'Man of La Mancha' and the stage version of 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest has died of heart failure in Arizona. He was 94 years old.

Broadway, film, and television stars including - Alec Baldwin '94 (30 Rock), Broadway legend Elaine Stritch (At Liberty), Rainn Wilson '89 (The Office) and Mariska Hargitay (Law & Order: SVU) - were all on hand at Tisch on Stage, the annual gala benefiting NYU's Tisch School of the Arts. Baldwin, along with philanthropist and patron of the arts Iris Cantor; inventor, philanthropist, and patron of Tisch's Kanbar Institute of Film and Television Maurice Kanbar; and 'architect of American regional theater' Zelda Fichandler were honored at the gala on November 17th at the Frederick P. Rose Hall, Home of Jazz at Lincoln Center.

Film and stage superstar Nicole Kidman was featured on 'The View' this morning, Friday, December 26th, at 11am on the ABC television network. Kidman discussed a number of topics, including the upcoming Rob Marshall directed big screen transfer of the stage hit NINE.

Broadway's Patrick Page, who just finished a successful run in A Man For All Seasons and his wife, Boeing-Boeing star and host of TLC's Trading Spaces, Paige Davis invited the New York Post into their Upper West Side apartment for a peek at the couple's real life 'Trading Spaces'!

Repo! The Genetic Opera launched a successful 'Road Tour' several months ago, due to the demand for more up close and personal screenings, new dates for 2009 have been announced.