The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band Marks 50th Anniversary with New PBS Appearances
by BWW News Desk - May 13, 2016
The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band made their first public appearance 50 years ago May 13, 1966 and now they're marking that milestone with more airings of their star-studded televised PBS Pledge Special. Click here to find dates and times for when the PBS Pledge Special airs in your market.
BIG RIVER, THE NEW YORKERS and THE GOLDEN APPLE Will Return to the Stage Next Year in Encores! Season
by Nicole Rosky - May 10, 2016
New York City Center's Tony-honored Encores! series, led by Artistic Director Jack Viertel and Music Director Rob Berman, begins its 24thseason with Roger Miller's 1985 retelling of Mark Twain's classic novel, Big River: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn; followed by Cole Porter's 1930 Prohibition romp The New Yorkers, and The Golden Apple, John Latouche and Jerome Moross' 1954 reinvention of the Greek epic poems The Iliad and The Odyssey into an all-American fable.
Showtime's EPISODES to Conclude Run Following Fifth Season
by Tyler Peterson - Apr 11, 2016
After four critically-acclaimed seasons, the hit SHOWTIME comedy series EPISODES begins production next week on its fifth and final season, it was announced today by Gary Levine, President of Programming, Showtime Networks Inc. The series, starring Matt LeBlanc in his four-time Emmy(R) nominated and Golden Globe-winning role playing a fictionalized version of himself, is created by award-winning writing partners David Crane and Jeffrey Klarik. Klarik will direct all seven episodes, which will film in London and premiere on the network in 2017.
Breaking News: Chuck Cooper, LaChanze, Norm Lewis & More to Lead Encores! CABIN IN THE SKY; 1776, DO I HEAR A WALTZ? Creative Teams Set
by Tyler Peterson - Dec 7, 2015
Encores! Artistic Director Jack Viertel today announced the creative teams for New York City Center's 2016 Encores! season. J. Bernard Calloway, Chuck Cooper, Marva Hicks, Carly Hughes, LaChanze, Norm Lewis, Forrest McClendon, and J.D. Webster will star in Vernon Duke and John Latouche's jazz?filled fable Cabin in the Sky, running for seven performances at City Center from February 10-14. The 1940 musical will be directed by Tony Award winner Ruben Santiago?Hudson with choreography by Camille A. Brown.
Goodspeed Sets Starry Group of Writing Teams for 2016 Mercer Writers Colony
by BWW News Desk - Nov 20, 2015
In what has become an annual ritual, a total of 36 established and emerging composers, lyricists, and librettists will converge on the Goodspeed campus from mid-January through mid-February 2016 to participate in the Johnny Mercer Foundation Writers Colony at Goodspeed Musicals. The writing teams, representing 19 new musicals, will populate the campus, creating a truly exciting environment for discovery and inspiration. BroadwayWorld is excited to report that Goodspeed has announced its 2016 participants. Scroll down for details!
Washington National Opera Announces Full Schedule for American Opera Initiative
by Matt Smith - Aug 27, 2015
WASHINGTON)—Washington National Opera (WNO) today announced details for the fourth season of the American Opera Initiative, its comprehensive commissioning program that brings contemporary American stories to the stage while fostering the talents of rising American composers and librettists. Three pairings of new opera composers and librettists—Christopher Weiss and John de los Santos, David Clay Mettens and Joshua McGuire, and Sarah Hutchings and Mark Sonnenblick—will premiere new one-act operas, each based on a contemporary American story, in a semi-staged concert performance on December 2, 2015 in the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater. Composer Luna Pearl Woolf and librettist Caitlin Vincent, an alumnus of the program's second season, will present their new hour-long work Better Gods—based on the life of Queen Lili'uokalani, the last monarch of Hawaii—on January 8 and 9, 2016 in the Terrace Theater.