Joe Turner Came and Went and is Back Onstage

The August Wilson classic Joe Turner’s Come and Gone made an incredible run on the musical scene its first go-around, and today the Bartlett Sher Broadway revival of the August Wilson play opens at the Belasco Theatre in New York City. The Sher production is the first revival of Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, and with a colorful cast including Chad L. Colemen (Two Trains Running), Roger Robinson (Seven Guitars), Marsha Stephanie Blake (The Crucible) and Michael Cummings (Emancipation), this production is sure to be a crowd-pleaser.

Theatergoers are lining up to catch a presentation of Joe Turner’s Come and Gone at opening night tonight, and patrons are in for one phenomenal show, as this classic is part of August Wilson’s Century Cycle, demonstrating 20th century life for African-American culture. Joe Turner’s Come and Gone tells the story of a character named Herald Loomis and his struggle to start a new life in Pittsburgh with his young daughter. The production opened in 1988 at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre, and it will now run at the Belasco Theatre Tuesdays thru Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 3 p.m. with matinees Wednesdays and Saturdays at 2 p.m.

To get Broadway tickets, go to StubHub.com.

Permalink - Posted in General on April 16, 2009 - Post a comment

The Week in Broadway

Several Broadway musicals are taking the stage right now in lavish productions and exceptionally entertaining shows, and Reuters UK has just come in with weekly grosses for the week’s Broadway shows, giving theatergoers a glimpse at the top-selling shows across the nation. Fronting the list this week of top-grossing Broadway shows is the powerful Wicked, which grossed $1,524,141 over eight shows at the George Gershwin Theater in New York City.

Rounding off the top five performing Broadway acts this week include number two The Lion King at Minskoff grossing $1,409,411 over eight shows, number three West Side Story at Palace with $1,308,787 over four shows, number four Billy Elliot: The Musical at Imperial grossing $1,207,493 over eight shows and number five Mary Poppins at New Amsterdam grossing $1,050,779 over eight shows. Other honorable mentions in this week’s Broadway sales numbers include sixth-grossing Jersey Boys at the August Wilson Theater in New York City with $1,043,780 over eight shows, Shrek the Musical on Broadway with $1,040,066 over eight shows, Mamma Mia at the Winter Garden Theater in New York City grossing $1,021,653 over eight shows, The Little Mermaid at Lunt-Fontanne with $1,003,853 over eight shows and, rounding out the Top 10 list of the week, The Phantom at the Opera at Majestic grossing $951,710 over eight shows.

To get Broadway tickets, go to StubHub.com.

Permalink - Posted in General on April 15, 2009 - Post a comment

Is ‘Rock of Ages’ America’s New ‘Mamma Mia?’

Well, judging from the explosive popularity so far of Rock of Ages with the American middle-class male, we’d say YES! Mamma Mia features the soundtrack of ABBA, the Euro-pop sensation that was dominant in the UK in the ‘70s and ‘80s, but Rock of Ages is a medley of all-American favorites ranging from the likes of Styx, Journey, Foreigner, Poison, Quiet Riot and Mr. Big. The ‘80s hair band-worthy Rock of Ages is the perfect jukebox musical celebrating America’s tumultuous period of angsty rockers and frizzy hair, and how could every product of the ‘80s not start singing along when classics like “Hit Me with Your Best Shot,” “Every Rose Has Its Thorn” and “Here I Go Again” come blaring onto the set?

While Rock of Ages has been burning up the stage ever since its opening, this week one very famous musical lover came out to the theater to catch a show of Rock of Ages at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre in New York City – High School Musical, that is. HSM star Zac Efron enjoyed a production of Broadway’s newest hit  in the audience with his father and younger brother after spending the day promoting his upcoming film 17 Again, and If Zac Efron can appreciate this rock-heavy musical, we’d say just about anyone can!

To get Broadway tickets, go to StubHub.com.

Permalink - Posted in General on April 14, 2009 - Post a comment

The First Patrons of Broadway

As we learned the other day, the modern day street you and I know as Broadway was once the Wickquasgeck Road, a formidable dirt path cut through the woods that the Native Americans would use to walk from one end of the island to the other. That’s why Broadway, at some points, doesn’t quite run in the same block pattern as the other streets in New York City and accounts for the famous Time Square scene- Broadway intersects 7th Avenue at an acute angle. If Broadway was just a regular old street, it would intersect at right angles with the other city streets.

You were probably interested in learning about the Native Americans who used to travel along Broadway back before the Dutch and English settlers came and build a road there and started singing and dancing in venues lined along the Wickquasgeck Road. Well, the native people of the area were known as the Lenape, or the Delaware Indians. If you’ve seen the movie Last of the Mohicans, you’ll have seen people closely related to the Lenape. Even though they were the inhabitants of Manhattan at the time of it’s sale to the Dutch, they were not involved in the negotiations. Another tribe in the region sold Manhattan to the Dutch West India Company for an amount that, as tradition holds, was worth approximately 24 dollars in today’s terms. The actual amount was more like 1,000, but it was still a pretty good bargain, hindsight being 20-20.

To get Broadway tickets, go to StubHub.com.

Permalink - Posted in General on April 13, 2009 - Post a comment

Broderick Returns to Broadway

Tonight, celebrated Broadway and film star Matthew Broderick is returning to the stage in the previews of one of the newest Broadway plays The Philanthropist. The Philanthropist was written by Christopher Hampton in 1970 and is begin directed by the David Grindley, Tony Award nominee for his revival of Journey’s End. The play will be appearing for a limited time engagement until June 28 and the official Broadway opening is on April 26th.

Starring alongside Broderick are Jonathan Cake, Tate Ellington, Anna Madeley, Jennifer Mudge, Samantha Soule, and Steven Weber. It is being produced by the Roundabout Theatre Company: Todd Haimes, Artistic Director; Harold Wolpert, Managing Director; Julia C. Levy, Executive Director; Gene Feist, Founding Director. Scenic Design is by Tim Shortall; Costume Design is by Tobin Ost; Lighting Design is by Rick Fisher; and Sound Design is by Gregory Clarke.

The Philanthropist tickets tell the story of a university professor who is so completely caught up in the world of academia that he has no concept of what occurs in the outside world. He is even completely oblivious to the fact that the Prime Minister and his entire cabinet have been assassinated. The play was written by David Grindley as a response to Moliere’s The Misanthrope and is one of the must-see plays on the Broadway stage this Spring.

Permalink - Posted in General on April 10, 2009 - Post a comment

Broadway Began as an Indian Trail

Back in the wild, wild east, the street you now know as Broadway use to be called the Wickquasgeck Road. Merely a beaten, well-trodden clearing through the wilderness, the Wickquasgeck Road was a trail the natives of the Island Manhattan used to walk to get from one side to the other. Was it grand, was there lavish theatrical performances drawing millions of visitors to the thoroughfare? No. But there was, apparently, a lot of Native Americans passing daily.

In fact, the first ever description of Broadway was a mention of the Wickquasgeck Road  in one of David de Vires journals. David de Vries was a Dutch explorer who was integral in getting settlers into the region. Anyways, he once took pen to paper to write of Broadway, “the Wickquasgeck Road over which the Indians passed daily.” Who would have thought that the road that the natives walked by everyday would become such a cultural phenomena?

To get Broadway tickets, go to StubHub.com.

Permalink - Posted in General on April 9, 2009 - Post a comment

Rock of Ages Rocks Broadway

Rock of Ages, the brand new 1980s pop filled musical has now officially opened on Broadway and the stars couldn’t be brighter.  The show stars Constantine Maroulis, Amy Spanger and James Carpinello and is taking up residence at Broadway’s Brooks Atkinson Theatre.  There are a whole bunch of photos posted on Playbill.com taken on at the opening night bash, so be sure to peruse through this lively cast of actors as they ring in a rockin’ and rollicking’ new play!

Rock of Ages will likely get everyone singing along as it features some of the hottest tunes from the decade of rock and pop.  According to the website, “In 1987 on the Sunset Strip a small town girl met a big city rocker and in LA’s most famous rock club, they fell in love to the greatest songs of the ’80s.  It’s Rock of Ages, an arena-rock love story told through the mind-blowing, face-melting hits of Journey, Night Ranger, STYX, Reo Speedwagon, Pat Benatar, Twisted Sister, Poison, Asia, Whitesnake and many more.”  Don’t miss the action with your own pair of Rock of Ages tickets from Stubhub.com.

Permalink - Posted in General on April 8, 2009 - Post a comment

Know Your Roots, Broadway Fans

Broadway theatre buffs know the show tunes backwards to forwards, have the lines memorized and can tell you anything you need to know about which actor is dating which actress.  But would anyone going to see Wicked or Phantom of the Opera know why, pray tell, they named the street Broadway?  You can probably guess. It’s a wide street, so they named it broad way.  But why was the street placed where it is?  Why does it seem to meander through lower Manhattan and into the Bronx without any real connection to the other squared-off city streets?

Let us direct you to this fascinating New York Times article. This piece only barely scrapes the surface of the street known as Broadway.  The author is trying to advocate the idea that the city of New York shold have a sort of NYC version of Boston’s Freedom Trail, but it touches on the actual reason for Broadway’s existence. You see, back in the time when the Native Americans lived on the Island Manhattan (so named for those Americans), back before the Dutch and the other Europeans came to inhabit the island, the street was a simple path, cut through the brush and the forest, that the natives used as a main trail from one encampment to the other. That’s why it’s not exactly in a straight line.

To get Broadway tickets, go to StubHub.com.

Permalink - Posted in General on April 7, 2009 - Post a comment

Reasons to Be Pretty Celebration

Preview performances for the Broadway show Reasons to Be Pretty began on Friday, March 13 at the Lyceum Theatre, with an official opening night on Broadway scheduled to take place on Thursday April 2.  The celebrations were wild and you can catch photos of the extravagant and exciting affair, here, courtesy of Broadwayworld.com.

According to press notes, “Reasons to Be Pretty confronts America’s obsession with physical beauty headlong.  In this new play, Greg’s tight-knit social circle is thrown into turmoil when his off-handed remarks about a female co-worker’s pretty face (and his girlfriend’s lack thereof) get back to said girlfriend. ” Then again that is just the beginning of the saga for the main characters.  The story provides an intimate and dramatic, but also comical look at how people handle remarks about their physical appearances whether they be good or bad.  The next time that you find yourself strolling down Times Square in the Big Apple, make sure to make a date to see this brand new production and don’t forget to get your own pair of Reasons to Be Pretty tickets from Stubhub.com, your best source for all Broadway show tickets!

Permalink - Posted in General on April 6, 2009 - Post a comment

‘Finian’s Rainbow’ Revival Set for Broadway

In a report from The Associated Press producer David Richenthal revealed that he will transfer the recently acclimed City Center concert version of Finian’s Rainbow to Broadway’s St. James Theatre after Labor Day. The 1947 musical took the stage for a concert version by Encores! starring Jim Norton, Kate Baldwin, Cheyenne Jackson and Jeremy Bobb last weekend and will be adapted into a full stage production.

“The show at City Center wove a spell and played to cheering audiences, and our intention is to hold on to that magic,” said Richenthal. In a joint statment Richenthal and Jack Viertel said they hope they will be able to maintain as much of the cast and creative team for the transition to Broadway. Rob Berman will continue as musical director while Warren Carlyle will continue to direct and choreograph. Finian’s Rainbow has not appeared on the Broadway stage since 1960.

Get your theater tickets at StubHub.com.

Permalink - Posted in General on April 3, 2009 - Post a comment


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