Nicole Rosky - Page 186

CHICAGO, Broadway's longest running American musical, just held a celebratory cocktail reception yesterday at New York City's The Palm Restaurant West Side location to officially launch the show's 20th anniversary year. Lead producer Barry Weissler addressed the crowd to toast the occasion and announce initiatives taking place over the next year in the lead-up to the official anniversary celebration and performance this November. Click here to check out out those initiatives -- plus some killer new promo shots for the show!

Today in 2000, Aida opened at the Palace Theatre, where it ran for 1852 performances. Aida is a musical with music by Elton John, lyrics by Tim Rice, and book by Linda Woolverton, Robert Falls, and David Henry Hwang. Aida was nominated for five Tony Awards and won four Tony Awards in 2000, including Best Musical Score and Best Performance by a Leading Actress. Aida was also named by Time Magazine in 2000 as one of the top ten theatre productions of the year. The First National tour was nominated for nine National Broadway Theatre awards (now 'Touring Broadway Awards') and won five awards, including Best Musical, Best Direction, Best Actor, and Best Actress.

BroadwayWorld was in the rehearsal room with the cast today, where they treated us to a sneak peek of 'Till Then' (performed by Santino Fontana and Christiane Noll) and 'Sit Down, John'. Check out the numbers and meet the cast and creative team below!

BroadwayWorld was in the rehearsal room with the cast today, where they treated us to a sneak peek of 'Till Then' (performed by Santino Fontana and Christiane Noll) and 'Sit Down, John'.

Sondheim is the winner of an Academy Award, eight Tony Awards, including the Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre, multiple Grammy Awards, a Pulitzer Prize and the Laurence Olivier Award. Described by Frank Rich of the New York Times as 'the greatest, and perhaps best-known artist working in musical theatre', his most famous scores include (as composer/lyricist) A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Company, Follies, A Little Night Music, Sweeney Todd, Sunday in the Park with George, Into the Woods, and Assassins. He also wrote the lyrics for West Side Story and Gypsy. Lloyd Webber has composed 13 musicals, a song cycle, a set of variations, two film scores, and a Latin Requiem Mass. He has also gained a number of honours, including a knighthood in 1992, followed by a peerage from the British Government for services to Music, seven Tony Awards, three Grammy Awards, an Academy Award, fourteen Ivor Novello Awards, seven Olivier Awards, a Golden Globe Award, and the Kennedy Center Honors in 2006. Several of his songs, notably 'The Music of the Night', 'I Don't Know How to Love Him', 'Don't Cry for Me, Argentina' and 'You Must Love Me', 'Any Dream Will Do' and 'Memory' have been widely recorded and were hits outside of their parent musicals.

AMERICAN PSYCHO, the American premiere of a new musical based on the novel by Bret Easton Ellis -- which celebrates the 25th anniversary of its publication this March -- will begin performances on Broadway at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre (236 West 45th Street) on Thursday, March 24, 2016. The Opening Night is scheduled for Thursday, April 21, 2016. Below check out the just-released TV spot for the show, as well as a behind the scenes look!

Rehearsals began just last month for Andrew Lloyd Webber's Sunset Boulevard at the English National Opera. Since then, star Glenn Close stopped by Graham Norton to chat about the production and revealed her hopes that it will lead into something more. She said, 'I'm hoping very much that this will lead directly to making a movie... this like a revving up. It's a very elaborate rehearsal.' Check out the full interview below!

With direction by Tony Award winner Walter Bobbie and choreography by Josh Rhodes, Bright Star began performances on Thursday, February 25th, 2016 at the Cort Theatre (138 West 48th Street), with an official opening night set for Thursday, March 24th, 2016. Below, check out the track for the single version of 'Sun Is Gonna Shine,' performed by Carmen Cusack.

Just last week, Vineyard Theatre presented its 2016 Gala honoring award-winning actress and Vineyard Board President Kathleen Chalfant and New York theatrical press agent Sam Rudy, hosted by Michael Urie and Ryan Spahn. BroadwayWorld was on hand at the Edison Ballroom for the special event and you can check out highlights from inside the event below!

Today in 2002, Oklahoma! opened at the Gershwin Theatre, where it ran for 388 performances. Oklahoma! is the first musical written by the team of composer Richard Rodgers and librettist Oscar Hammerstein II. The musical is based on Lynn Riggs' 1931 play, Green Grow the Lilacs. Set in Oklahoma Territory outside the town of Claremore in 1906, it tells the story of cowboy Curly McLain and his romance with farm girl Laurey Williams. The original Broadway production opened on March 31, 1943. The 2002 revival featured Josefina Gabrielle as Laurey, Shuler Hensley as Jud, Patrick Wilson as Curly and Andrea Martin as Aunt Eller.

The delicious hit comedy, Fully Committed, starring five-time Emmy Award nominee Jesse Tyler Ferguson as more than 40 outrageous characters, begins performances Friday, April 1 and officially opens Monday, April 25, 2016 on Broadway at the Lyceum Theatre (149 West 45th Street). This is a strictly limited engagement through July 24, 2016. 

The King is back! Tony nominee Ken Watanabe just returned to The King and I, where he will play the King of Siam through April 17. Below, check out a video of his first curtain call back in action!

How do Broadway shows raise so much money for BC/EFA every year? Well KINKY BOOTS does it with the help of their genius leading man, Wayne Brady. Below, watch as he spits some rhymes about Trump, Hillary and more in support of Broadway's favorite charity!

Playing the radiant Martha Jefferson will be Nikki Renne Daniels, whose extensive Broadway credits include THE BOOK OF MORMON, PORGY AND BESS, ANYTHING GOES, and LES MISERABLES. Rehearsals for the production have only just begun and Nikki checked in with BroadwayWorld earlier this week to tell us all about her preparations. Check out the full interview below!

In honor of Throwback Thursday, BroadwayWorld is celebrating the past with a new series that will take you back in time with some of our favorite vintage video features. That's right- we are opening up the BroadwayWorld Vaults to reminisce on shows are long gone from the Broadway-scene, but have left an indelible mark on the world of theatre as a whole. In today's special St. Patrick's Day edition, we bring you a vintage video from 2009. Relive the magic of FINIAN'S RAINBOW below!

Second Stage Theatre, in association with Stacey Mindich Productions, will soon present the new musical, Dear Evan Hansen. The company will include several performers who appeared in the World Premiere production at Washington D.C.'s Arena Stage, featuring Ben Platt as the title character, Evan Hansen, in a performance that was called 'extraordinary, bordering on heroic' by Peter Marks in the Washington Post. Also reprising their performances from the 'splendid' (Marks, Washington Post) cast are Laura Dreyfuss as Zoe, Mike Faist as Connor, Rachel Bay Jones as Heidi, Will Roland as Jared, Jennifer Laura Thompson as Cynthia. New cast members John Dossett (Larry) and Kristolyn Lloyd (Alana) complete the company. The cast just met the press yesterday and you can meet the cast below!

Today in 2011, Priscilla Queen of the Desert opened at the Palace Theatre, wehre it is still running (currently 415 performances). Priscilla, Queen of the Desert is a musical with a book by Australian film director-writer Stephan Elliott and Allan Scott, using well-known pop songs as its score. Adapted from Elliott's 1994 film The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, the musical tells the story of two drag queens and a transsexual, who contract to perform a drag show at a resort in Alice Springs, a resort town in the remote Australian desert. The original Broadway cast includes Will Swenson as Tick (Mitzi), Tony Sheldon, again, reprising his role of Bernadette, and Nick Adams as Adam (Felicia).

Today in 1998, the second Broadway revival of Caberat opened at the Stephen Sondheim Theatre (then called the KIt Kat Klub), where it ran for 2377 performances. Cabaret is a musical based on a book written by Christopher Isherwood, music by John Kander and lyrics by Fred Ebb. The 1966 Broadway production became a hit and spawned a 1972 film as well as numerous subsequent productions. Set in 1931 Berlin as the Nazis are rising to power, it focuses on nightlife at the seedy Kit Kat Klub and revolves around the 19-year-old English cabaret performer Sally Bowles and her relationship with the young American writer Cliff Bradshaw. Overseeing the action is the Master of Ceremonies at the Kit Kat Klub which serves as a constant metaphor for the tenuous and threatening state of late Weimar Germany throughout the show.

Happy Birthday, Sutton Foster! Foster's portrayal of Reno Sweeney in Roundabout Theatre Company's production of Anythng Goes earned her the 2011 Tony Award Best Leading Actress in a Musical. Sutton also starred on Broadwayas Princess Fiona in Shrek: The Musical, for which she was honored with Tony and Drama Desk nominations, and the Outer Critics Circle Award. Prior to that, Sutton was Inga in the Mel Brooks musical, Young Frankenstein, Janet Van De Graaff in The Drowsy Chaperone (2006 Tony and Drama Desk Award nominations, LA Ovation Award) and Jo March in Little Women: The Musical (2005 Tony, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle Award nominations). She is the recipient of the 2002 Tony, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle, and Astaire Awards for her performance as Millie Dillmount in Thoroughly Modern Millie, a role she created in the 2000 La Jolla Playhouse premiere.

Today in 2005, Spamalot opened at the Shubert Theatre, where it ran for 1575 performances. Monty Python's Spamalot is a musical comedy 'lovingly ripped off from' the 1975 film Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Like the film, it is a highly irreverent parody of the Arthurian Legend, but it differs from the film in many ways, especially in its parodies of Broadway theatre. Eric Idle, a member of the Monty Python team, wrote the musical's book and lyrics and collaborated with John Du Prez on most of the music. The original 2005 Broadway production, directed by Mike Nichols, won three Tony Awards, including the Tony Award for Best Musical of the 2004-2005 season and received 14 Tony Award nominations.