The streaming service is serving up two brand new musical series from the creative forces behind GLEE and LA LA LAND.
Everything old is new again in Hollywood and no greater evidence of that fact is the spate of silver screen revivals coming fast and furious from the House of Mouse. The enviable worldwide box office receipts of recent live-action revivals of CINDERELLA, THE JUNGLE BOOK and BEAUTY AND THE BEAST to the collective tune of $2 billion is proof in the pudding that audiences are lapping up the opportunity to revisit the popular properties that informed their childhoods, while also introducing the internationally recognized entities to an entirely new generation. This holiday weekend, Disney offered the preliminary glimpse of the silver screen reboot of a particularly beloved animated masterpiece from 1994, THE LION KING, to universal adulation.
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Sitting center stage at the Geffen Playhouse, Broadway sensation and Hamilton creator and star Lin-Manuel Miranda and his father Luis A. Miranda Jr., enlightened the audience for 90 minutes about theatre, Puerto Rico and Lin-Manuel’s new movie role in Mary Poppins with moderator Soledad O’Brien. Together this father and son team are very entertaining.
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The most innovative and successful director in Broadway history is feted in an original documentary premiering tonight on PBS stations across the United States.
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A Tasty PROMISES, PROMISES Thanksgiving Treat
One of the most spectacular choreographic achievements in Broadway history salutes today's turkey-themed holiday.
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CATS Leaps To The Big Screen
Major stars of the stage and screen will don whiskers and fur for the major motion picture adaptation of the celebrated mega musical.
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It's the run up to Christmas which means theatres are preparing for Panto season. However, in the case of the Edinburgh Playhouse, it's preparing for a busy November and December which features two fantastic musicals. In December they have the fabulous “Kinky Boots” stomping it's way through their doors, but first, “Motown the musical”, which gives audience members the ultimate experience of Soul music.
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IT'S TODAY! FOSSE/VERDON & All That Jazz
Casting is now complete for the hotly anticipated small screen miniseries all about the iconic partnership of Broadway legends Bob Fosse and Gwen Verdon.
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IT'S TODAY! MOULIN ROUGE! Can Can-Can
Everyday, OnStage Blog shines a special spotlight on the biggest and most buzz-worthy news of the moment with a critical column examining an exciting entity particularly pertinent to the theatrical zeitgeist of the moment... today? MOULIN ROUGE! comes to Broadway.
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Last month, I wrote about an issue at a Texas community theatre where directors and board members knowingly employed a registered sex offender for shows involving children and worse yet, kept bringing Kevin Clark Sutton back even after complaints of sexual harassment from cast members.
When this news came to light and outrage arose, it resulted in the resignation of several board members. It also resulted in the theatre adopting new policies regarding hiring employees and reporting sexual misconduct.
But the issues don’t stop there.
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I want to introduce you to Lisa Finegold and Tanner Ray Wilson. Lisa and Tanner currently serve as the Dance Captain’s as well as Swings with Lisa understudying the role of Philoclea (played by Alexandra Socha) in “Head Over Heels” which features the music of the Go-Go’s on Broadway at The Hudson Theatre. Other credits for them include Lisa performing on Broadway in “Rock of Ages” and the tours of “Wicked” and “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat” and Tanner performing on Broadway in the revival of Cats and the tour of “Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Cinderella”.
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Last week, news broke in Redlands, CA that a high school drama teacher was arrested on suspicion of having sex with two underage students and possession of child pornography. Joel Everett Chandler Koonce was taken into custody on November 9th. While these accusations are terrible, what’s even more terrifying is that this is the third teacher accused of sexual abuse over the past five years and the number of victims coming forward is climbing.
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Last month, furor erupted within the theatre department at Bowling Green State University in OH over the casting of its production of “Little Shop of Horrors”. The controversy arose when the director of the production cast three white actresses in the roles of Crystal, Ronette and Chiffon, known as the “urchins”.
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Just a block off the New Haven green you’ll find EBM Vintage, a market that specializes in all sorts of antique goods from the ‘50s, ‘60s and ‘70s. If you go past the typewriters and kitchen gadgets, rotary phones, books, home décor and a few racks of clothes, you’ll find a small, cozy black box theater that’s home to the New Haven Theater Company. About 40 seats are lined up in three or four rows. The stage, only raised a step off the ground, is currently split into two settings; a homey apartment complete with couch sits to the right with a dilapidated and dirty living room to the left. The New Haven Theater Company [NHTC] is gearing up for the first show of their season, “Love Song” by John Kolvenback, which will be followed by Jordan Harrison’s “Marjorie Prime” and Dale Wasserman’s “One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest.”
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With the vast amount of Broadway productions opening this season, some are already off to strong starts while others not so much.
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Women in Theatre is a new series where I will be highlighting an inspiring female identifying person within the heavily male dominated theatre industry. In a 2017 study released by the NY Times, women and minority actors/creatives obtain fewer jobs within the entertainment industry. I was fortunate to sit down for an interview with Kate Lumpkin of Kate Lumpkin Casting and learn about her remarkable journey as a casting director and why she loves what she does.
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This past month, Disney unveiled the first teaser trailer for “Aladdin”, its latest remake of their animated classics set to release in Spring 2019. In addition to some glimpses of Iago flying above some epic CGI-generated landscapes, we also got to see a quick look at the Cave of Wonders and hear some pretty familiar dialogue,
“Only one may enter here,” the Cave says. “One whose worth lies far within. A diamond in the rough.”
I’m 100% sure we’re going to hear some of the more iconic lines of the original animated films in this remake. However, apparently Disney is being more than a bit stingy when it comes to paying the original writers of the animated film.
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Cancer is not a subject that one would think of for centering a comedy around, though Maura Campbell's new play “Massive” takes on the daunting task of taking a serious and often somber topic and making us able to still laugh at the people on stage.
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Developing new musicals often happens outside the shiny marquee lights of New York City. Recently, Chicago and Boston have played host to a number of new shows while a few theaters in Connecticut have done similar work, both recently and as far back as “Annie” and “Oklahoma.” But even further away in Alberta, Canada a new musical is taking the stage for the first time.
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