Nicole Rosky - Page 515

According to TMZ, theatre veteran and disco legend Donna Summer passed away this morning, May 17 in Florida after a battle with cancer. She was 63 years old.

Earlier this month, the 2012 Tony Awards Nominations were announced by Tony winning actress Kristin Chenoweth and Emmy and Golden Globe-winning actor Jim Parsons. The Tony Awards will be broadcast in a live three-hour ceremony from the Beacon Theatre, on the CBS television network on Sunday, June 10, 2012. BroadwayWorld was there for this year's official Tony Brunch, and got a chance to chat with this year's nominees! Today we bring you Jack Feldman, nominee for Best Score for NEWSIES.

Original Four Seasons frontman Frankie Valli recently visited WCBSFM, where he chatted about the Broadway hit JERSEY BOYS making its way to the big screen. While he was there he revealed that the film, set to feature a screenplay by John Logan, will begin filming next year and will be released by the end of 2013. Check out what he had to say about casting the film, the Broadway leading men, and more in the video below!

The Tony-nominated Best Musical NICE WORK IF YOU CAN GET IT will get an Original Broadway Cast Recording on the Shout! Factory label to be distributed by Sony. The album will be recorded at Kaufman Astoria Studios in Long Island City, NY on May 20th and 21st. The release date will be announced soon. The album will be produced by six-time Grammy® nominee Robert Sher.

Earlier this month, the 2012 Tony Awards Nominations were announced by Tony winning actress Kristin Chenoweth and Emmy and Golden Globe-winning actor Jim Parsons. The Tony Awards will be broadcast in a live three-hour ceremony from the Beacon Theatre, on the CBS television network on Sunday, June 10, 2012. BroadwayWorld was there for this year's official Tony Brunch, and got a chance to chat with this year's nominees! Today we bring you Cynthia Nixon, nominee for Best Actress in a Play for WIT.

Nick Jonas - the popular singer/songwriter who is currently starring in the Tony-nominated How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying - will serve as master of ceremonies as hundreds of students from middle and intermediate New York City Public Schools in Brooklyn, Bronx, Queens and Manhattan make their Broadway debut on stage at the Shubert Theatre (225 W. 44 St.) on Tuesday, May 29 at 10:30 a.m., the culminating event of the 7th annual Shubert Foundation/MTI Broadway JR. Student Program. The students will perform a song from their school's production of a student version of a Broadway musical, including Annie JR., Once on this Island JR., Disney's Aladdin JR., Guys and Dolls JR., Bugsy Malone JR., Meredith Willson's The Music Man JR., Dear Edwina JR., Fame JR., Roald Dahl's Willy Wonka JR., and Thoroughly Modern Millie JR. (A list of schools participating in the May 29 celebration follows.)

Happy Birthday, Judy Kuhn! Kuhn made her Broadway debut was in The Mystery of Edwin Drood. She then played Cosette in the 1987 multiple award winning Broadway production of Les Misérables brought her the first Tony Award nomination. The following year, Kuhn took on a transfer from London's West End, playing one of the main roles (Florence Vassy) in the Trevor Nunn-directed Chess, with music by Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus (formerly of ABBA) and lyrics by Tim Rice. Later in 1993, Kuhn played the role of Betty Schaefer in the U.S premier production of Sunset Boulevard at the Shubert Theatre in Los Angeles. Kuhn sang the title role in the 1995 Disney animated film, Pocahontas, the film included her rendition of the song Colors of the Wind, which won the Academy Award for Best Original Song for its composers Alan Menken and Stephen Schwartz. On October 23, 2007, Kuhn returned to the Broadway Production of Les Misérables after 20 years, but this time assuming the role of Fantine.

Today in 1946, the second Broadway revival of Showboat opened at the Ziegfeld Theatre, and ran for 418 performances. Show Boat is a musical in two acts with music by Jerome Kern and book and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II. It was originally produced in New York in 1927 and in London in 1928, and was based on the 1926 novel of the same name by Edna Ferber. The plot chronicles the lives of those living and working on the Cotton Blossom, a Mississippi River show boat, from 1880 to 1927. The show's dominant themes include racial prejudice and tragic, enduring love.

Today in 1955, Finian's Rainbow opened at City Center, where it ran for 15 performances. Finian's Rainbow is a musical with a book by E.Y. Harburg and Fred Saidy, lyrics by Harburg, and music by Burton Lane. The 1947 Broadway production ran for 725 performances. Finian moves to the southern United States (the fictional state of Missitucky is a humorous combination of Mississippi and Kentucky) from Ireland with his daughter Sharon, to bury a stolen pot of gold near Fort Knox, in the mistaken belief that it will grow. A leprechaun follows them, desperate to recover his treasure before the loss of it turns him permanently human. Complications arise when a bigoted and corrupt U.S. Senator gets involved, and when wishes are made inadvertently over the hidden crock.

Today in 1985, Broadway book writer Abe Burrows passed away. Burrows wrote or directed such shows as Make a Wish, Two on the Aisle, Three Wishes for Jamie, Say, Darling, Guys and Dolls, How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, Cactus Flower, Four on a Garden, Can-Can, Silk Stockings, Breakfast at Tiffany's, Good News (1974 revival), and many others. With his collaborator Frank Loesser, Burrows won a Pulitzer Prize for How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.

Academy Award winner Stephen Schwartz will be honored with Desert Ensemble Theatre Company's inaugural Melpomai Award at When You Believe: A Conversation With and Tribute To Stephen Schwartz May 19 in Palm Springs. The 8 PM event, which will be held in the Annenberg Theater at the Palm Springs Art Museum, will feature a conversation with Schwartz as well as performances of his stage and movie musical hits. Check out a preview of the event below!

Khanisha Foster is a mixed race artist, the Associate Artistic Director of 2nd Story and an ensemble member of Teatro Vista. She was chosen for the Theatre Communication Groups's Young Leaders of Color 2009 and an artist exchange with the Citizen's Theatre of Scotland in Glasgow. She is a Sarah Siddon's Society Scholarship recipient and a finalist for the PEN Emerging Voices Fellowship. Her teaching artist work was honored by the White House this year. Her writing has been published with CellStories and Podcast through 2nd Story. She is the live event's Producer for Mixed Roots Film and Literary Festival. She has performed with Teatro Vista, the Goodman Theatre, Steep Theater, and Collaboraction, among others. She can be seen in the film CHICAGO BORICUA, official selection the Tribeca Film Festival, the Chicago Latino Film Festivals, and closing night selection for the New York Latino International Film Festival.

Robert Falls' major revival of THE ICEMAN COMETH, O'Neill's towering portrait of hope and disillusionment, just opened on May 3 at Chicago's Goodman Theatre. The production is led by Tony Award-winning stage and screen star Nathan Lane as Theodore 'Hickey' Hickman, the quintessential purveyor and slayer of pipe dreams. The 18-member cast is one of the largest ensembles to take the Goodman stage in recent years. Tony Award-winner Brian Dennehy portrays one-time syndicalist-anarchist Larry Slade, joined by mix of local and out-of-town actors as the motley assortment of former soldiers of fortune, entrepreneurs, political dissidents and social outcasts in Harry Hope's saloon. BroadwayWorld brings you performance highlights below!

Next week on the season finale of GLEE, graduation is finally here, as McKinley High's class of 2012 looks to the past and present, all while contemplating the future in the all-new "Goodbye" season finale episode. Check out photos from the episode below!

Theatre Sheridan makes its downtown Toronto debut with the ground-breaking musical RENT at the Panasonic Theatre from May 15-June 3. Get a first look at the production in the photos below! 32 performers from the graduating class of Sheridan College's prestigious Music Theatre Performance Program take the stage as audiences are treated to the next generation of talented young artists who are going to take the theatre world by storm.

According to the BBC, Queen frontman Freddie Mercury will be making a return to the stage the West End production of WE WILL ROCK YOU- via hologram. Mercury, who passed away in 1991, will appear in an optical illusion for the show's upcoming 10th anniversary. Queen's Brian May told the BBC that the hologram 'is something we've looked at ourselves but I think probably for a show that runs eight shows a week it's not really quite practical.'

Following an acclaimed season which included the world premiere of Paul Weitz's Lonely, I'm Not and a critically lauded second staging of Paula Vogel's Pulitzer Prize-winner, How I Learned To Drive, Second Stage Theatre (Carole Rothman, Artistic Director) has just announced two of the four mainstage productions in the company's upcoming 34th season. For subscription or ticket information, please call the Second Stage Box Office at 212-246-4422 or visit the company's website, www.2ST.com. All productions are staged at Second Stage's Tony Kiser Theatre, 305 West 43rd Street (just west of Eighth Avenue).

"THE TALK" just welcomed the legendary Liza Minnelli for the first time yesterday, May 15. While she was there, Minnelli chatted about her new CD Liza Minnelli Live At The Winter Garden which was recently released by Masterworks Broadway. Check out her full appearance below!

With the 2012 election coming up in November, political parodies are everywhere, and it's about time that some gave the race a Broadway twist. In the video below, Roy Zimmerman puts a different spin on SWEENEY TODD with 'Romney Mitt, the Demon Barber of Wallstreet.'

The new off-Broadway show OLD JEWS TELLING JOKES will begin performances on Tuesday May 1 and open on May 20 at The Westside Theatre (407 West 43rd Street). BroadwayWorld brings you production shots below!