By: Randie Levine Miller
September 24, 2022. Broadway Babe, Randie Levine Miller, has unearthed some rare nostalgic gems including the Gypsy Rose Lee TV program, (yes, that Gypsy!) with Eartha Kitt and Lainie Kazan; Jerry Herman in London; Frank Sinatra’s 75th birthday celebration produced by Dean Martin’s company; and a long gone cabaret/piano bar with some cabaret greats!
Read more >
Aminah Brenda Lynn Robinson (1940-2015)
September 17, 2022: ACA Galleries, 520 West 29th Street in the Gallery District, announced a solo exhibition of work by Aminah Brenda Lynn Robinson on view through October 29, 2022. Aminah Robinson, born in Columbus, Ohio, was an African American artist, activist and cultural historian of epic Black migrations. She was an instrument of memory; gathering stories, totems and fragments of the past.
Read more >
World Premieres of Gilbert & Sullivan’s H.M.S. Pinafore and Broken Wings: The Musical will stream exclusively on BroadwayHD beginning September 22nd.
September 17, 2022: BroadwayHD, the premiere streaming service for live theatre, announced they will debut the exclusive worldwide release of Broken Wings: The Musical and Sasha Regan’s All-Male H.M.S. Pinafore to their platform on September 22nd.
Read more >
Queer Maximalism X Machine Dazzle – Fabulous!
By: Alix Cohen
September 16, 2022: “I’m more interested in what a costume is about, rather than how it’s made. I don’t need precise lines. I want the story…I’m an audience-oriented designer.” Machine Dazzle
Read more >
By: Paulanne Simmons
September 14, 2022: The Covid-delayed “Seth Rudetsky’s Broadway with Jane Krakowski” was finally presented at Town Hall on Monday, Sept. 12. Only that happened to be the very same night as the Emmy Awards.
Read more >
Billy Crystal in Mr. Saturday Night: A New Musical Comedy is heading to BroadwayHD fresh off its critically acclaimed Broadway run. “Musical comedy heaven!” NY Daily News and “The funniest show on Broadway in years.” Variety.
September 13, 2022: BroadwayHD, the premiere streaming service for live theatre, announced today that they will debut the exclusive worldwide streaming release of Billy Crystal’s five-time Tony-Award nominated musical, Mr. Saturday Night: A New Musical Comedy, on their platform after the production concluded its Broadway run on September 4. The exact airing dates will be forthcoming.
Read more >
By: Paulanne Simmons
September 13, 2022: Ann Talman first met Elizabeth Taylor when she played Taylor’s daughter in the 1981 Broadway revival of Lillian Hellman’s The Little Foxes. The show toured for 18 months, but their friendship lasted until Taylor’s death. What’s more, the glamorous star remained a profound influence on Talman – a mentor, a confident and a warm-hearted surrogate mother.
Read more >
The Spectacular Renovation and Dedication of the James Earl Jones Theatre Honors the Veteran Actor and National Treasure
By: Ellis Nassour
September 12, 2022 — The Shubert Organization unveiled the James Earl Jones Theatre to honor veteran award-winning EGOT and national treasure James Earl Jones. The event, which stopped traffic on West 48th Street, between Sixth and Seventh Avenues with performances by Tony winner Brian Stokes Mitchell and Tony nominee Norm Lewis, saluted the $47-million top-to-bottom, east-to-west, and north-to-south renovation and expansion of the 110-year-old Cort Theatre, where Jones made his Broadway debut in 1958 in Sunrise at Campobello.
Read more >
Broadway Babe’s YouTube Picks
September 12, 2022: Broadway Babe, Randie Levine-Miller, has unearthed some truly nostalgic performances including Donna McKechnie‘s first club act; a Broadway themed concert with Brian Stokes Mitchell; Kitty Carlisle Hart at almost 90 reminiscing in song and stories and a TV show with Sid Caesar, from 1957! Enjoy some of these gems.
Read more >
By: Alix Cohen
September 12, 2022: Preternaturally mature 15 year-old Charles Kirsch apparently got the Broadway bug at seven when he saw the revival of On the Town. August 2022, with pandemic time on his hands, the teenager inaugurated weekly theater podcast Backstage Babble. Knowledge, insight, grace, and appreciation mark signature interviews. One hundred twenty episodes and two years later a beautifully produced anniversary celebration arrived at 54Below with bells on. Kirsch is as well spoken and gracious on stage as he is without an audience. 54/Below was packed and buzzing.
Read more >
Broadway Update: Christmas Carol; Sweeney Todd; Etc.
By: David Sheward
September 8, 2022: Tony and Drama Desk winner Jefferson Mays (I Am My Own Wife, A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder) will bring his one-man version of A Christmas Carol to Broadway. The stage adaptation will begin previews at the Nederlander on Nov. 8 in advance of a Nov. 21 opening for a limited 66-performance run. Mays will leave his current role of Mayor Shinn in The Music Man at the Winter Garden on Oct. 23.
Read more >
Broadway Update: New York, New York; Laura Linney Gabriel Byrne; Ella Fitzgerald Musical
By: David Sheward
August 30, 2022: Summertime and the livin’ ain’t easy. We keep getting bulletins about future shows. The latest is a new musical loosely based on the 1977 Martin Scorsese film New York, New York which starred Liza Minnelli and Robert DeNiro. Deadline reports the show which is aimed for Broadway in Spring 2023 will feature an all-star team behind the scenes. Dig this line up. The score will feature songs from the film by John Kander and Fred Ebb including the iconic title song immortalized by Minnelli and Frank Sinatra in separate recordings. New songs will be written by Kander with lyrics by Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda. The book will be David Thompson who worked with Kander and Ebb on such projects as The Scottsboro Boys and Steel Pier, and Sharon Washington, who was in the cast of Scottsboro Boys and was seen most recently in the Central Park Richard III. Five-time Tony winner Susan Stroman (helmer of Scottsboro) will direct and choreograph. According to Deadline, the plot will bear little resemblance to that of the original film which followed the rocky relationship of bandleader DeNiro and his lead singer and love interest Minnelli. The new story will be set in 1946 in the title metropolis as it recovers after WWII.
Read more >
By: Alix Cohen
United Solo is BACK – October 3rd through November 20th, 2022
August 29, 2022: The 13th Annual United Solo Festival is the world’s largest of its kind. This year’s seven week roster includes a selection of local and international pieces framed in storytelling, puppetry, dance, multimedia, stand-up, magic, music, and drama. Productions hail from Israel, Turkey, France, the United Kingdom and all over the U.S.
Read more >
Nostalgic Treasures from Broadway Babe, Randie Levine Miller.
August 27, 2022: Broadway Babe Randie Levine Miller, has unearthed some more nostalgic treasures, including a star- studded tribute to Marvin Hamlisch (4 months after his death in 2012) with the New York Philharmonic; a German produced 70th birthday salute to Stephen Sondheim with some of the best orchestral interpretations of his work; a tribute to Kander and Ebb at the 1984 Tony Awards; and Sinatra getting the Kennedy Center Award in 1983.
Read more >
Broadway Update: Sweeney Todd, Merrily, Take Me Out, Raisin
By: David Sheward
August 24, 2022: Philip Boroff reports in Broadway Journal that pop superstar Josh Groban and Tony winner Annaleigh Ashford will headline a revival of Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler’s Sweeney Todd, aiming for a Broadway opening next April. Boroff reports that Rent and Hamilton producer Jeffrey Seller is raising $14.5 million for the production which will be directed by Hamilton helmer Thomas Kail and possibly play the Lunt-Fontanne next April in time for the 2023 Tony Awards. No information about the show has been conformed as of yet. (Sidenote: Before he hit the big time, Jeffrey Seller directed me in a Brooklyn community theater production of The Fantasticks. Andrew Lippa, who later wrote the music for the Off-Broadway Wild Party and The Addams Family, was the music director and played El Gallo).
Read more >
