Passion 1997 - Articles Page 7

Scheduled to illuminate Give Kids The World Village November 12, 2021 through January 2, 2022, Night of a Million Lights is much more than Central Florida's brightest new holiday tradition. 

Set to Georges Bizet's dramatic, famous score, CARMEN will be performed to a recording by the Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra. Inspired by Prosper Mérimée's romantic novel of 1845, CARMEN is the ultimate tale of love, passion, betrayal and revenge.

Olivia Jacobs has announced that she will be stepping down as Co-Artistic Director of Tall Stories, the theatre company she co-founded with Toby Mitchell in 1997, to take on the role of Artistic Associate.

Picture yourself at the airport: the excited rush of people coming and going. The roar of planes taking off. Familiar sights of suitcases, pilots, people lining up, and—the enchanting sounds of opera?!

The criteria are that these shows have been nominated for Best Musical from the 3rd Tony Awards (the ceremony that started the Best Musical category) in 1949 to the nominations of what will now be the 74th Tony Awards in 2021. I will be determining their signs based upon their Broadway premiere date. With those rules in mind, here we go!

This week's Theater Stories features the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre! Learn about the theatre's namesake, Gerald Schoenfeld; the theatre's best-known shows like The M-Fer With the Hat, the Glengarry Glen Ross revival, The Humans, Come From Away, and much more!

Music industry veterans Carmen Murray, Founder/Co-CEO of TITLE 9 Productions, Inc. and Co-CEO Michael Michel, announced today that the entertainment company has secured a multi-million dollar investment from Loki Artist Group, a global entertainment company providing financial and industry-related services worldwide.

For 35 years, area visitors and residents have cultivated their passion for learning at the Longboat Key Education Center. The Center offers a rich range of programs, including lecture series, performing arts series, film festivals, book clubs, concerts, theatrical performances, and more.

Happy Gay Pride! BWW Reviewer Peter Nason chooses the 101 greatest LGBTQ songs and anthems from 1920-2020. See if your favorite songs or artists made the grade!

The Grammy Award-winning Oregon Bach Festival has announced a commemorative Radio Festival, featuring a lineup of historic recordings from some of the world's top classical musicians, and the rare opportunity for audiences to enjoy previously archived LIVE and studio recordings throughout the past five decades.

BWW Reviewer Peter Nason chooses the 101 greatest Motown songs from 1960-1994. See if your favorite songs or artists made the list!

Colorado Ballet Principal Chandra Kuykendall, who has called Colorado Ballet and Colorado Ballet Academy home for 31 years, will take her final bow at the conclusion of the Company's 2019/2020 season.

The Annenberg Center presents the long-anticipated Philadelphia debut of the Dunedin Consort, Scotland's Gramophone Award-winning baroque ensemble, Wednesday, January 29, at 7:00 PM at St. Mary's Church, Hamilton Village at 3916 Locust Walk on the University of Pennsylvania campus. Visit AnnenbergCenter.org for ticket information.

In what has become an annual ritual, a total of 40 established and emerging composers, lyricists, and librettists will converge on the Goodspeed campus from mid-January through mid-February 2020 to participate in the Johnny Mercer Foundation Writers Colony at Goodspeed Musicals. The writing teams, representing 15 new musicals, will populate the campus, creating a truly exciting environment for discovery and inspiration.

Following a sell-out run in 2017, the gripping revival of Karoline Leach's passion-fuelled thriller, Tryst, returns to the reinvented Chiswick Playhouse under the direction of Phoebe Barran (Four Days In Hong Kong, Orange Tree Theatre; award-winning short film Snapshots). Actor Fred Perry (Black Comedy UK Tour; The Honourable Woman, BBC) will reprise his acclaimed role alongside Scarlett Brookes (Blood Wedding, Young Vic; Macbeth, Shakespeare's Globe; The Merchant of Venice, RSC) in this stylish adaptation.

Jason O'Neill was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland. He became passionate about Irish dancing, Irish culture and music as a young boy and seeing RIVERDANCE changed his life. It became his goal to become a professional Irish dancer and perform in RIVERDANCE, which he has now done for 10 years. I had the chance to speak with O'Neill prior to his arrival in Montreal where the RIVERDANCE 25th ANNIVERSARY tour will play a limited engagement at Salle Wilfred-Pelletier, Place des Arts, January 10-12, 2020.

Soka Performing Arts Center presents internationally-acclaimed pianist Yefim Bronfman in a solo piano recital on Sunday, March 29, 2020 at 3pm. 'Listening to Bronfman play... is like being in a crowded room when suddenly a profound conversationalist begins to speak and everyone just steps back to listen with rapt attention.' (Chicago Sun Times). What more needs to be said about this titan of the piano whose playing exhibits all the elements - humor, playfulness, roguishness, nobility, and passion - of Beethoven's sonatas. The all-Beethoven program includes: Piano Sonata No.5 in C minor, Op. 10, No.1; Piano Sonata No. 6 in F Major, Op. 10, No. 2; Piano Sonata No. 7 in D Major, Op. 10, No. 3; Piano Sonata No.23 in F minor, Op.57, Appassionata

Liz Kathman Grubow, president of Cincinnati Opera's board of trustees, today announced that Christopher Milligan has been named the next Harry Fath General Director & CEO of the company. Milligan's tenure begins March 2, 2020. 

Birdland will kick-off their great week of programming with the following acts:

The following acts are performing at City Winery Chicago (1200 W. Randolph St) throughout the month. All City Winery Chicago events are open to all ages and start at 8:00 p.m., unless noted.  Tickets can be purchased by calling 312-733-WINE (9463) or by visiting www.citywinery.com/chicago.

Birdland's December 2019 schedule will feature The Joe Lovano Nonet, Stacey Kent, Monty Alexander, A Swinging Birdland Christmas, Freddy Cole Quartet, Gunhild Carling, Julius Rodriguez, Veronica Swift Holiday Show, 'Season's Swingin' Greetings!a??, Marta Sanchez Quintet, Darius de Haas, Marilyn Maye New Years Eve Extravaganza, The Lineup with Susie Mosher, Jim Caruso's Cast Party, and MORE!

The first clue that ANASTASIA was going to be different than what I expected was a note on the title page reading, “Inspired by the Twentieth Century Fox Motion Pictures.” Plural? A savvy journalist, I quickly asked Siri to bring up the imdb page for “Anastasia”. Turns out Fox made ANASTASIA twice, the 1997 animated off-brand Disney princess movie and a 1957 film that scored Ingrid Bergman's second Oscar and marked Helen Hayes' transition to the big screen. And it turns out the musical version has more in common with LES MISERABLES and RAGTIME than BEAUTY AND THE BEAST. Gone is the hell-wizard Rasputin, his talking fruit bat sidekick, and the singing demon caterpillars. At intermission, I asked my third grade niece, Adalyn, how she was liking it. “It's awesome…it's real people, like no Beast or anything. No animals.” We decide that Disney staged musicals are great but more it's more impressive when you can achieve the magic without a story that departs from reality. ANASTASIA is historical fiction hypothetical. It poses a “what if…?” that a daughter of the last czar of Russia (The Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna) escaped when the czar's family was executed in 1918. Rumors persisted for decades that Anastasia did, in fact, escape. In 2007, DNA testing confirmed the remains of all four Grand Duchesses were in the Imperial grave. In this version, Terrence McNalley's book follows Anastasia's rediscovery of her identity after surviving the attack on her family and sustaining some plot enabling amnesia. Renamed “Anya” she grows up and makes a life in post-Revolution Russia. Anastasia's grandmother, the Dowager Empress (in a staggeringly moving performance by Joy Franz) has fled to France and offered a cash reward for anyone escorting the rumored alive Anastasia to Paris. The wily duo Vlad (Edward Staudenmayer) and Dmitry (Jake Levy) pull a My Fair Lady style makeover on Anya to collect the Dowager's prize. They are pursued by Gleb (Jason Michael Evans). A Soviet officer drawn to Anya romantically but tasked with finding and eliminating the last Romanov. Anya's memory becomes somewhat coaxed back, but the Dowager has stopped seeing Anastasia claimants after too much heart-break from countless frauds. It sounds dark, but with high-tech digital scenery and inspired performances across the cast it is delightful. Stephen Flaherty (Music) and Lynn Ahrens (Lyrics), responsible for bringing us RAGTIME, ONCE ON THIS ISLAND, LUCKY STIFF, as well as the Oscar nominated songs carried over from the animated film. ANASTASIA is a perfect context for this pair. “Stay, I Pray You” (my favorite song of the evening) is evocative of RAGTIME's “New Music”. The two songs literally race my heart in a strangely specific way. My real test of a National Tour at Gammage is how fast I get the music playing in my car on the way home. At ANASTASIA I was already finding, “Stay, I Pray You” walking through the parking lot. The rest of the score is similarly haunting. Lila Coogan, as Anya/Anastasia, powers through the score with nuance, clarity, and passion. Tari Kelly, as Countess Lily, and Stadenmayer (Vlad) were Adalyn's favorite performances and I have to agree. This incredibly gifted pair take the “triple threat” designation (singer, dancer, actor) and go quadruple with the addition of flawless comic timing. The choreography by Peggy Hickey is masterful. It somehow combines inventive and traditional throughout and the ten-minute slice of “Swan Lake” infused into “Quartet at the Ballet” is the highlight of the second act. It's a fun-size version that gets an under-represented art form onto the plate. This kind of trope often means the plot putting the plot on hold. But here, it is the connective tissue between Anya, Dmitry, the Dowager, and Gleb as they each bring us up to speed heading into the show's climax. Ultimately, the show's success comes from applying a higher artistic standard to the “previously-animated-film-now-theatrically-staged” genre. It cashes in on the name draw of the 1997 film then gives the viewer something much more enriched than what they think they are coming to see.

Last week the book 'Me' was released by the legend Elton John and it got me thinking about Elton's contribution to musical theatre. His music and his generous personality have touched millions. His musical fantasy movie Rocketman, that came out earlier this year, based on his life is one of the greatest, in my opinion, films ever made. He has such a passion and love for everything he does and what he has given the magical world of musical theatre is just as extraordinary.

Based on the 1997 animated film 'Anastasia', Anastasia the New Broadway Musical, bowing on broadway in 2017, is an entertaining whirlwind of sight and sound. It will make you laugh and cry. You will undoubtedly leave the theatre with a lasting impression of grande theatricality and how it weaves its magic into our humdrum lives. Plus, it is based on fact. Currently onstage at the Hollywood Pantages until October 27 only, this Anastasia has the makings of a great big hit.

The Namâd Trio brings together three brilliant musicians in the world of Persian music. The internationally-renowned Pejman Hadadi, considered to be one of the most innovative Iranian percussionists today, is known for his work with the Dastan Ensemble and Zarbang, as well as his performances with celebrated artists from Iran and other cultures, including Hossein Alizadeh, Shahram Nazeri, Parissa, Ali Akbar Moradi, and Shujaat Khan. Saeed Kamjoo (kamancheh a?" spike-fiddle) has appeared as a guest artist with the Dastan Ensemble and been noted for his style which combines tradition with innovation. Kourosh Taghavi (setar-lute) studied with masters Mohammad Reza Lotfi and Hossein Alizadeh and has collaborated with many international and local cultural organizations to raise awareness on the importance of music in people's lives. Their critically acclaimed program, a?oeOde to Hope: A Melodic Epiphany,a?? is rooted in diverse world cultures. Featuring both ancient and modern melodies and rhythms, this haunting music provides an inner journey to passion and peace.