Faetra Petillo - Page 60

KLEA BLACKHURST and BILLY STRITCH will celebrate the release of their new CD Dreaming Of A Song: The Music of Hoagy Carmichael with two weeks worth of performances at the Metropolitan Room.

On September 22nd, the 2008 Ovation Award Nominees were announced. Now in its 19th year, the LA Stage Alliance Ovation Awards will celebrate the 168 theatre companies, 390 registered productions, and over 2,000 individual artists who participated in the September 1, 2007 to August 31, 2008 season

Variety is reporting that a stage version of 'American Psycho' is currently in development with the intention of heading to Broadway. Based off of a 1991 Bret Easton Ellis novel, 'American Psycho' tell the story of a Wall Street banker by day who is a serial killer by night.

Alan Cumming and Alice Ripley lead a star-studded cast for Lance Horne's L.A. Debut on Fri & Sat, Sept 19-20, 2008. Upright Cabaret presented OPEN ALL NIGHT: The Songs of Lance Horne starring Alice Ripley, Jennifer Leigh Warren and Tracie Thoms with Tom Lowe and Julie Garnye and special guest Alan Cumming featuring the composer at the piano.

Years ago I was traveling across the country in a U-Haul truck. The New Orleans World's Fair had gone bankrupt, stiffing my theatre company in the process, and I was moving to LA to try my hand at writing television. My U-Haul could only go 55, had no air-conditioning and only an AM radio. I reached a point about half way across Texas where I couldn't even pick up the feeble signals from the Mexican stations I had been listening to. So I started singing to amuse myself, creeping along through the desert, windows open and inhibitions cast to the Texas wind. Maybe the locale was the inspiration, but without my even realizing it, I had begun writing a musical called Idaho. By the time I made the California border I had a verse and chorus each of about half a dozen songs.

The new intergalactic musical comedy, 'I Come for Love,' is an original new musical with book, music and lyrics co-authored by Terrence Atkins and Jeffery Lyle Segal, who are co-producing this production at NYMF. Actor, director and film maker Michael Berry will direct and choreograph.

Hot off sold-out runs in Washington D.C., Chicago and New York, Political Idol, a hilarious spoof of the presidential elections, returns to Off-Broadway's Triad Theatre opening on Tuesday, October 14 (9PM) for a three week run and will play preview performances on Tuesday, Sept. 30th at 9pm and Thursday, October 2nd at 9pm.

Twilight in Manchego, official Next Link selection of the 2008 New York Musical Theatre Festival, begins performances September 25th at the ATA Chernuchin Theater. Presented by The New York Musical Theater Festival, Laura Brandel and Patrice Miller, Twilight in Manchego will feature the talents of Tony Award Winner Chuck Cooper (The Life, Caroline or Change), Natalie Venetia Belcon (Avenue Q, The Glorious Ones, TV's Johnny and the Sprites), Adam Halpin (Glory Days), Leslie Alexander (The Boy From Oz, Mamma Mia), Alex Brightman (Glory Days), Jenna Coker-Jones (Evil Dead: The Musical), Paul Downs Colaizzo (Dyllun von Ritter from 'Cubby Bernstein'), Alex Covington, Kevin Curtis, Jill Ginsberg, Alexis Grausz, Jessica Phillips (Next To Normal, The Scarlet Pimpernel), Lucas Steele (The Threepenny Opera), and Valerie Wright (Annie Get Your Gun, Steel Pier), and will be directed by Billy Porter. The show, with music, lyrics and book by Jonathan Larson Award Winner Matt Gould, will play six performances at the ATA Theater (314 W. 54th Street) September 25th - October 4th, 2007.

Farah Alvin, currently starring in the The Marvelous Wonderettes Off-Broadway will be performing tonight, September 24th 2008 at Ars Nova in New York City.

Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus' global smash hit musical MAMMA MIA! welcomes Sean Alan Krill as 'Sam Carmichael,' Allison Case as 'Sophie Sheridan' and Chris Peluso as 'Sky' to the Broadway company when they begin performances at the Winter Garden Theatre (1634 Broadway), tonight, Wednesday, September 24th, 2008.

Rooms, a rock romance is currently running at the Geva Theatre in Rochester, New York. Performances began September 19 and it will play through October 26, 2008 Music and lyrics are by by Paul Scott Goodman with a book by Paul Scott Goodman and Miriam Gordon. It is directed by Scott Schwartz

Tony Award-winning actor and Broadway star Ben Vereen is partnering with sanofi-aventis, a world leader in diabetes care, to launch Take the Stage for Diabetes Awareness, a national awareness campaign designed to educate people living with diabetes about their condition. Since he was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes in 2007, Mr. Vereen has worked hard to manage his condition and is now urging others living with diabetes to work with their healthcare providers to find the best overall treatment plan for them.

The Annex Theatre in Seattle, WA will present Mike Daisey's The Moon is a Dead World directed by Chris Comte. The cast will feature Zach Robinson, Jack Hamblin, Pamala Mijatov and Clayton Weller.

The Harold Clurman Festival of the Arts will kick off with a symposium discussing Art and Social Activism: Spotlight on Africa with participants Nima, Elbagir, Mira Sorvino, Winter Miller, Melissa Fitzgerald, John Prendergast and others.

The Falcon Theatre presents Richard Alfieri's Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks, the second production in its 2008-2009 'Bringin' the FUNNY' All-Comedy subscription season. Constance Towers, star of Broadway and the popular soap opera General Hospital, and Jason Graae, award-winning musical theater and TV actor, star in this revival of the Broadway and international hit play, directed again by Arthur Allan Seidelman and choreographed by Kay Cole.

The Purple Rose Theatre Company is pleased to announce the release of the original cast recording from Jeff Daniels' new comedy Panhandle Slim & The Oklahoma Kid.

Variety is reporting that filmmaker Lawrence Page has bought and renovated The Actors' Playhouse in downtown New York City. Page will supposedly be using the playhouse as the backdrop and setting for a new reality show about dueling theater troups.

he John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation today named 25 new MacArthur Fellows for 2008. This past week, the recipients learned in a single phone call from the Foundation that they will each receive $500,000 in 'no strings attached' support over the next five years. The new Fellows work across a broad spectrum of endeavors and include a neurobiologist, a saxophonist, a critical care physician, an urban farmer, an optical physicist, a sculptor, a geriatrician, a historian of medicine, and an inventor of musical instruments. All were selected for their creativity, originality, and potential to make important contributions in the future.

Thirteen will be filming the San Francisco Symphony's opening night gala tomorrow night, September 24, 2008. The concert will take place at Carnegie Hall as part of their celebration of their 118th season. The performance will feature Christine Ebersole as vocalist. The evening is musically directed and performed by Michael Tilson Thomas.

On October 6th at 8pm, at Judson Memorial Church, Danny Glover will star in a staged reading of Emmett, Down in My Heart by Clare Coss.