James Gleason News

The stage door alley at the Barrymore Theatre was filled with Broadway’s best last night all to congratulate the cast of Barry Manilow and Bruce Sussman’s Harmony and star Chip Zien. See photos!

Perhaps, as suggested by playwright Peter Lefcourt in his world premiere play THE DEATH AND LIFE OF MARY JO KOPECHNE, she had also been drinking and could not say no to a man of considerable power and influence, a man who could help advance her career, a man she also may have admired after the death of his brother Robert the previous year. Certainly, this dilemma has become particularly prominent in the #MeToo era in which we are now living where men of power are being taken to task for making unwanted sexual advances on those working for them who go along with it for career gain. What we do know is that Kennedy survived and she did not. But who was Mary Jo Kopechne?

Musical Theatre Guild, the winner of the Los Angeles Drama Critic's Circle Margaret Harford Award for sustained excellence in the theatre, will present HOLLYWOOD REVISITED as a special benefit to support Musical Theatre Guild's extensive youth outreach programs. The event, a perfect tie in with the company's "MTG Goes To The Movies" season theme, will take place at Burbank's Colony Theatre on Monday, March 26, 2018 at 7:30 pm.

The temptation to take a film classic and turn it into a Broadway musical is a road fraught with peril. How do you take something perfect and make it better? This was the question posed in 1972 when producer David Merrick decided to musicalize the uproarious 1959 farce Some Like It Hot. The result was Sugar, which enjoyed a respectable 14-month run on Broadway (505 performances) and received four Tony nominations, including one for lead actor Robert Morse, who played Jerry/Daphne. The 86-year-old Morse was on hand at the Alex Theatre in Glendale Sunday night as Musical Theatre Guild presented a rousing staged reading of the musical. Morse and the audience clearly enjoyed the show (he could be seen doing a virtual karaoke act of the score from his seat), but most of what works for the show is what worked for the film, with little new of substance added to the musical.

L.A. Theatre Works' all-star recording of Top Secret: The Battle for the Pentagon Papers, directed by John Rubinstein and featuring Gregory Harrison, John Heard, Susan Sullivan, John Vickery, Channing Chase, Bo Foxworth, James Gleason, Russell Soder, Peter Van Norden, Tom Virtue and Geoffrey Wade will become available for podcast from Wondery on NPR One, Stitcher, Google Play and Apple One on iTunes beginning Thursday, May 11.

The corn was high as an elephant's eye at the Alex Theatre in Glendale last Sunday as Musical Theater Guild presented a staged reading of Rodgers and Hammerstein's bucolic musical State Fair, the only musical R&H wrote specifically for the screen. State Fair wasn't adapted for the stage until 1996, the final show produced by David Merrick, Broadway's notorious 'abominable showman.'

Musical Theatre Guild, the winner of the Los Angeles Drama Critic's Circle Margaret Harford Award for sustained excellence in the theatre, concludes the 2016-2017 season by taking family audiences to the fair!

The acclaimed Fiasco Theater production of INTO THE WOODS, the celebrated new production of the Tony Award-winning musical by Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine, launched a national tour in December, and will continue to San Francisco, Los Angeles and Dallas this spring. Book writer James Lapine and original Broadway cast member Joanna Gleason recently visited the touring company in Purchase, NY - scroll down for photos of them with the cast!

Musical Theatre Guild, the winner of the Los Angeles Drama Critic's Circle Margaret Harford Award for sustained excellence in the theatre, will celebrate Black History Month with the rarely produced HALLELUJAH, BABY!. The one-night-only concert event took place at Glendale's historic Alex Theatre yesterday, February 12, 2017 at 7:00 PM with original cast members Frieda Payne and Robert Hooks in attendance. Scroll down for photos!

Arizona Theatre Company's adaptation of David Javerbaum's AN ACT OF GOD, directed by Marsha Mason and featuring Paige Davis, is mildly entertaining, short on solid laughs, and relatively painless.

God isn't happy and She (that's right....She) is coming to Arizona to set the record straight in no uncertain terms about Her thinking and Her works in Emmy-winner David Javerbaum's irreverent, sinfully funny new comedy, An Act of God.

The Drama Book Shop welcomed author James Grissom for a discussion and signing of his acclaimed book, Follies Of God: Tennesse Williams and the Women of the Fog.

In a long overdue attempt to set the record straight, God (for the first time a woman) and her devoted angels answer a few of the deepest questions to haunt mankind since the beginning of time itself.

God isn't happy and She (that's right....She) is coming to Arizona to set the record straight in no uncertain terms about Her thinking and Her works in Emmy-winner David Javerbaum's irreverent, sinfully funny new comedy, An Act of God.

God isn't happy and She (that's right....She) is coming to Arizona to set the record straight in no uncertain terms about Her thinking and Her works in Emmy-winner David Javerbaum's irreverent, sinfully funny new comedy, An Act of God.

God isn't happy and She (that's right....She) is coming to Arizona to set the record straight in no uncertain terms about Her thinking and Her works in Emmy-winner David Javerbaum's irreverent, sinfully funny new comedy, An Act of God.

God isn't happy and She (that's right....She) is coming to Arizona to set the record straight in no uncertain terms about Her thinking and Her works in Emmy-winner David Javerbaum's irreverent, sinfully funny new comedy, An Act of God.

The Drama Book Shop will welcome author James Grissom for a discussion and signing of his acclaimed book, Follies Of God: Tennessee Williams and the Women of the Fog.

The second coming of David Javerbaum's hit comedy, AN ACT OF GOD, which first came to Broadway in May of 2015 with Jim Parsons in the title role, will be ending its blessed 14-week limited engagement at the Booth Theatre (222 West 45th Street) on Sunday, September 4th, and its Tony nominated and Emmy winning star Sean Hayes is counting down the remaining performances.

A heavenly reminder! The hit Broadway comedy An Act of God, starring Tony nominee and Emmy winner Sean Hayes, will conclude its 14-week strictly limited engagement on Sunday, September 4, 2016 at the Booth Theatre (222 West 45th Street).