James Sims - Page 9

Following a personal battle with the disease Endometriosis, The Color Purple's Stephanie St. James is now actively raising awareness of the serious condition that often goes undiagnosed in women and girls. BroadwayWorld's own James Sims spoke with St. James at Sterling's Upstairs at Vitello's, speaking to the actress about The Color Purple as well as giving her an opportunity to address her personal struggles as March is Endometriosis Awareness Month.

The Geffen Playhouse honored actress Annette Bening and Walt Disney Company's President and CEO Robert Iger during Monday's Backstage at the Geffen, a star-studded event raising $575,000 for the Geffen's Stage for Any Age education and outreach programs...

Disney's Broadway musical Mary Poppins will play the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles beginning November 2009, according to Center Theatre Group's Artistic Director Michael Ritchie, marking an early announcement for the 2009-2010 season...

Los Angeles' Center Theatre Group has announced that two world premiere musicals, 9 to 5: The Musical and Minky's will be part of the 2008-2009 Ahmanson season, along with Spring Awakening and Frost/Nixon...

BroadwayWorld's own James Sims stopped by the Pasadena Playhouse during Mask's last minute rehearsals and talked with cast members Michelle Duffy, Greg Evigan and Allen Read, along with director Richard Maltby, Jr., discovering how this heartbreaking story of family and love made its way onto the stage, in musical form, more than 20 years after debuting on the big screen...

The Geffen Playhouse honored actress Annette Bening and Walt Disney Company's President and CEO Robert Iger during Monday's Backstage at the Geffen, a star-studded event raising $575,000 for the Geffen's Stage for Any Age education and outreach programs.

The classic television sitcom 'The Brady Bunch' will get a musical treatment with the world premiere of A Very Brady Musical in Hollywood beginning in June at Theatre West. With the TV show's creator Sherwood Schwartz onboard as executive proudcer, son Lloyd J. Schwartz has written the new musical and is also set to direct, while sister Hope Juber has co-written the book and penned the lyrics and music with her husband Laurence Juber...

With a continued resurgence of Sondheim revivals on Broadway, listening to the composer opine for over an hour lived up to the hype, and with Rich's insight, a conversation between the two was a once-in-a-lifetime experience for any theatre aficionado...

BroadwayWorld's own James Sims recently joined actors Judy Kaye, David Hess, Lauren Molina and Edmund Bagnell in the Ahmanson lobby to discover their own visions of Sweeney Todd and understand why Sondheim's work continues to remain popular nearly 30 years since first bowing on Broadway.

AIDS Project Los Angeles received nearly $350,000 from the 24th annual Southland Theatre Artists Goodwill Event (S.T.A.G.E.), celebrating the music of composer Burt Bacharach, on March 8 and 9 at the Wilshire Theatre in Beverly Hills...

In No Child?, Sun's highly entertaining and message driven one-woman play, now running at the Kirk Douglas Theatre, the life altering affect theatre can have on children is thrown center stage...

Jekyll & Hyde will never be a perfect musical, but with a terrific cast and in this first-rate production, it is well worth a visit...

BroadwayWorld's own James Sims sat down for an exclusive interview with Megan Hilty and Shoshana Bean at the Chamberlain Hotel in West Hollywood, getting the witchy duo to dish on their time performing in Wicked together, both on Broadway and the National Tour, and found out a little of what they are planning for their upcoming Upright Cabaret show...

The national touring production of Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street, will begin performances at the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles beginning with one preview on March 11 at 8 p.m. and is set to run through April 6.

Jil Aigrot, the critically acclaimed singer and voice behind the role of Edith Piaf in this year's 2-time Academy Award winning/Golden Globe-winning film, 'La Vie En Rose,' performed last week at the Upright Cabaret at the Viceroy in Palm Springs alongside Wilson Cruz, Jennifer Leigh Warren and others...

BroadwayWorld's own James Sims recently caught up with Joan Rivers before an evening performance, talking to the comedienne about her long-lasting career, including re-inventing television's coverage of red carpet events, her future on the internet with America Online and a possible transfer of A Work in Progress by a Life in Progress to New York.

Almost Maine, the delightful, new comedy enjoying its Los Angeles premiere at the Colony Theatre in Burbank, is the best advertisement for our country's northern most state that any chamber of commerce could hope for...

If ever there were a time to make a strong argument in support of public broadcast television, today would be the day, as the vultures are circling. With government funding getting slashed quicker than George Bush's approval ratings can drop, and The New York Times posing questions like, 'is PBS still necessary?' perhaps only Stephen Sondheim can mount a worthy fight. On February 20, the series Great Performances is set to air a filmed evening of the recent Sondheim Broadway revival of Company, which proves as a shining beacon for poor endangered PBS...

With the production coming to a close in New York, BroadwayWorld's own James Sims caught up with The Color Purple's composers/lyricits Allee Willis and Stephen Bray, in Los Angeles, to discuss how the pair, along with Brenda Russell and Marsha Norman (libretto), turned a Pulitzer Prize winning novel and Oscar nominated film into a Broadway musical...

For anyone wishing to catch a glimpse of a bright star that by all means of logic should have faded decades ago, then Joan Rivers: A Work in Progress by a Life in Progress is a fantastic showcase of laughs and tears. And a note to any network executives reading this review, neither Ryan Seacrest nor Lisa Rinna can ever come close to the genius that is Joan Rivers on the red carpet...