Nicole Rosky - Page 195

BroadwayWorld has just exclusively learned that RENT, the Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning landmark rock musical written by Jonathan Larson, will return to the road in a 20th Anniversary production that promises to be as impactful and exciting as the original.

Madonna may have launched her Rebel Heart Tour months ago, but it has taken until now for her to perform one of our favorite songs. The music legend just visited in Miami, and while she was there she performed 'Don't Cry for Me, Argentina' from EVITA- a film for which she won a Golden Globe Award in 1997. At the song's conclusion, she said: 'I've been dying to sing that song for the entire tour and this is the first time I've done it.' Check it out below!

10,512,000 minutes. It might not sound as catchy, but it's a number that certainly makes an impression. 10,512,000 minutes ago, the world was changed forever when a new musical called RENT rocked New York for the first time. It was January 25, 1996 when Mimi, Roger, Mark, Collins, Maureen, Benny, Joanne and Angel came to life onstage at the 150-seat New York Theater Workshop- a run that would precede the show's 12-year stint on Broadway.

WGN America's new original scripted drama 'Outsiders,' premiering Tuesday, January 26 at 9:00 p.m. ET/PT,explores the epic battle of the Farrell Clan, a tight-knit family of renegades who have lived atop the rugged Shay Mountain for over two hundred years, as they fight to defend their land and their way of life from the town below and anyone who would dare to challenge them.Below, we've got an exclusive clip, in which Asa (Joe Anderson) speaks to the leader, Lady Ray (theater vet Phyllis Somerville) about the outside world from which he's just returned. Check it out below!

Deaf West Theatre's acclaimed Broadway production of SPRING AWAKENING closed just yesterday, after 129 performances. The production will have life after Broadway, however, with a national tour scheduled to launch in 2017. Below, watch as the cast takes their final bows!

Today in 1938, Pygmalion opened at the Maxine Elliott's Theatre. Written by Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw, the play centers on Professor of phonetics Henry Higgins. He makes a bet that he can train a bedraggled Cockney flower girl, Eliza Doolittle, to pass for a duchess at an ambassador's garden party by teaching her to assume a veneer of gentility, the most important element of which, he believes, is impeccable speech. The play is a sharp lampoon of the rigid British class system of the day and a comment on women's independence, packaged as a romantic comedy.

Laura Benanti (Amalia), Zachary Levi (Georg), Gavin Creel (Kodaly), Michael McGrath (Sipos), Jane Krakowski (Ilona) and Byron Jennings (Maraczek) will star in Roundabout's new Broadway production of SHE LOVES ME, directed by Scott Ellis, choreographed by Warren Carlyle with musical direction by Paul Gemignani. This classic musical comedy features a book by Joe Masteroff, lyrics by Sheldon Harnick and music by Jerry Bock. The company met the press just yesterday, and BroadwayWorld brings you a sneak peek at the stars below!

Second Stage Theatre will soon present the New York premiere production of SMART PEOPLE, the new play by LYDIA R. DIAMOND (Stick Fly), directed by Tony® Award winner KENNY LEON (A Raisin in the Sun, The Wiz Live!). MAHERSHALA ALI (House of Cards), JOSHUA JACKSON (The Affair), ANNE SON (My Generation), and TESSA THOMPSON (Creed) will co-star in the production.

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. Today, we bring you a vintage BroadwayWorld 'STAGE MAGIC' video from 2009. Watch as Stage Manager Marybeth Abel reveals the magic behind WICKED below!

Just last night, Tony Award nominee Ramin Karimloo performed his sold-out solo show at London's Union Chapel - with special guests including Ashleigh Gray and Hadley Fraser. Below, check out Ramin and Hadley's stunning duet of 'Bring Him Home.'

Today in 2010, A View From the Bridge opened at the Cort Theatre, where it ran for 81 performances. Written by American playwright Arthur Miller, the show was first staged on September 29, 1955 as a one-act verse drama with A Memory of Two Mondays at the Coronet Theatre on Broadway. The play is set in 1950s America, in an Italian American neighborhood near the Brooklyn Bridge in New York. It employs both a chorus and a narrator (Alfieri). Eddie, the tragic protagonist, has an improper love of, and almost obsession with, Catherine. The 2010 revival starred Liev Schreiber, Scarlett Johansson and Jessica Hecht.

Today in 2005, Little Women opened at the Virginia Theatre (now the August Wilson Theatre), where it ran for 137 performances. Based on Louisa May Alcott's classic 1869 semi-autobiographical novel, it focuses on the four March sisters - brassy, tomboy-like, aspiring writer Jo, romantic Meg, pretentious Amy, and kind-hearted Beth - and their beloved Marmee, at home in Concord, Massachusetts while the family patriarch is away serving as a Union Army chaplain during the Civil War. Intercut with the vignettes in which their lives unfold are several recreations of the melodramatic short stories Jo writes in her attic studio. The Broadway cast included Sutton Foster, Maureen McGovern, Janet Carroll, Jenny Powers, Megan McGinnis, and Amy McAlexander.

Today in 1942, the first revival of Porgy and Bess opened at the Majestic Theatre, where it ran for 286 performances. First performed in 1935, with music by George Gershwin, libretto by DuBose Heyward, and lyrics by Ira Gershwin and DuBose Heyward, it was based on DuBose Heyward's novel Porgy and subsequent play of the same title, which he co-wrote with his wife Dorothy Heyward. All three works deal with African-American life in the fictitious Catfish Row in Charleston, South Carolina, in the early 1920s. Originally conceived by George Gershwin as an 'American folk opera', Porgy and Bess premiered in New York in the fall of 1935 and featured an entire cast of classically trained African-American singers-a daring artistic choice at the time.

Today in 1957 Waiting for Godot opened at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre, where it ran for 6 performances. An absurdist play by Samuel Beckett, it revolves around two characters, Vladimir and Estragon, who wait endlessly and in vain for someone named Godot to arrive. Godot's absence, as well as numerous other aspects of the play, have led to many different interpretations since the play's premiere. Since its US premiere in 1956, several notable revivals have been produced, including the 1988 production featuring Robin Williams and Steve Martin, and the 2009 revival starring Nathan Lane and Bill Irwin.

Our Mother's Brief Affair, the new play by Tony Award winner Richard Greenberg, directed by MTC's award-winning artistic director Lynne Meadow, is now in previews and opens tonight, January 20 at MTC's Samuel J. Friedman Theatre (261 West 47th Street). Check out a first look at the cast in action below!

Today in 1903, The Wizard of Oz opened at the Majestic Theatre, where it ran for 293 performances. Based on The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum, which was originally published in 1900, much of the original music was by Paul Tietjens and has been mostly forgotten, although it was still well-remembered and in discussion at MGM in the late 1930s, when the classic film version of the story was made. The main plot of the show, as recounted in newspapers of the time, is Pastoria's attempts to regain the throne from the Wizard of Oz. The original protagonists' search for the Wizard puts them on the wrong side of the law. Since then, many new incarnations have been created, including the 1939 film, and the 2011 West End musical.

Squeals of delight and blood-curdling screams of fright fill Cleveland Play House's Allen Theatre, and that's partially due to Joey Taranto. The Centennial Season continues with a humorous and heartfelt production of LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS (now through February 7), led by Ari Butler (Seymour), Lauren Molina (Audrey), and Taranto as the dentist with a mean-streak, Orin, as well as other various roles.

The DCPA Theatre Company will soon present Robert Schenkkan's Tony-Award winning play All The Way, which will be directed by Anthony Powell (Lord of the Flies), Jan. 29-Feb. 28 in the Stage Theatre. Below, watch as the cast highlights the Civil Rights Act of 1964 in honor of MLK Day.

Happy Birthday Michael Crawford! In 1981, Crawford starred in the Original London production of Cy Coleman's Barnum (1981) as the illustrious American showman P. T. Barnum. He is best known for starring opposite Sarah Brightman in the original cast of Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera as the title character. In 1986, Crawford began his performance in London, continuing on to Broadway in 1988, and then Los Angeles a year later, in 1989. He played the role for 2½ years and over 1,300 performances, winning an Olivier Award (Best Actor in a Musical) and a Tony Award (Best Performance By An Actor in a Lead Role, Musical). Beginning in February 2011, Crawford has played the role of the Wizard in Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice's musical version of The Wizard of Oz at the London Palladium.

Known to Broadway audiences as 'Archie,' (one of the teens from Jason Robert Brown's 2008 musical, 13) Gross is all grown up and broadening his theatrical horizons as a student, director, and performer. Below, check out what he had to say about GYPSY, Broadway, and beyond!