VIDEO: Jennifer Nettles Visits Backstage LIVE with Richard Ridge- Watch Now!
Watch as Richard Ridge chats with Broadway veteran Jennifer Nettles, who justreleasedher latest album,Always Like New, from Concord Records.
VIDEO: Amanda Kloots Talks New Book & More with Richard Ridge- Watch Now!
Watch as Richard Ridge chats with Broadway veteran Amanda Kloots, who in her new book,Live Your Life, bravely reflects on love, loss, and life with her husband, Broadway star, and Tony Award nominee Nick Cordero, whose public battle with COVID-19 and tragic death made headlines around the world last year.
Playbill Vault’s Today in Theatre History: June 26
1911 Ziegfeld Follies of 1911 opens at New York’s Jardin de Paris. Irving Berlin contributes songs including “Woodman, Woodman, Spare That Tree” and “You’ve Built a Fire Down in My Heart.”
1975 The first revival of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman opens at Circle in the Square on Broadway, starring George C. Scott as tragic hero Willy Loman. The play, directed by Scott, also features Teresa Wright, Harvey Keitel, and James Farentino as the Loman family.
1991 The most recent revival of George Bernard Shaw‘s Getting Married opens at Broadway at Circle in the Square. Stephen Porter directs a cast that includes Elizabeth Franz, Patrick Tull, Simon Jones, Madeleine Potter, and Walter Bobbie. The production plays 70 performances before closing August 25.
2003 Will Power’s Flow—a co-production of New York Theatre Workshop and the New York City Hip Hop Theater Festival—opens at Performance Space 122. “A tale of seven storytellers,” the show features writer-performer Power portraying many characters using rap, rhyme, and movement. Power is accompanied live by DJ Reborn, with original music created by Power and Will Hammond.
2008 Cirque Dreams Jungle Fantasy, the family-friendly theatrical, acrobatic, and musical adventure that evokes the exotica of untamed places, opens at the Broadway Theatre for a ten week run.
2013 Tony Award-nominated composer Andrew Lippa stars as late gay rights pioneer Harvey Milk in his new oratorio I Am Harvey Milk, which receives its world with the San Francisco’s Gay Men’s Chorus. Tony Award winner Laura Benanti is also featured.
2014 The Lion, a new autobiographical solo musical written and performed by singer-songwriter Benjamin Scheuer, opens Off-Broadway at Manhattan Theatre Club, directed by Sean Williams.
2019 Halley Feiffer’s Moscow Moscow Moscow Moscow Moscow Moscow, a re-imaginging of Chekhov’s Three Sisters, opens at MCC Theater Off-Broadway.
Today’s Birthdays Kevin Adams (b. 1962). Joyce Ebert (1933–1997). Ariana Grande (b. 1993). Sean Hayes (b. 1970). Sidney Howard (1891–1939). Chris O’Donnell (b. 1970). Gedde Watanabe (b. 1955).
Look Back at More than 70 Years of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman on Broadway
SPRINGSTEEN ON BROADWAY to Launch Digital Lottery
Jujamcyn TheatersandLucky Seathave announced thatSpringsteen on Broadwayhas launched a digital lottery set to begin TODAY at 900 AM for performances beginning onTuesday, June 29,at the St. James Theatre through the final performance,Saturday, September 4.
Playbill Vault’s Today in Theatre History: June 25
1887 Birthday of legendary director George Abbott, whose long life (107 years) and colossal catalog (more than 110 Broadway shows, sometimes also as producer, writer, or even actor) remains unparalleled. Among his projects were the original productions of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, On the Town, Wonderful Town, Once Upon a Mattress, Fiorello!, Damn Yankees, On Your Toes, The Pajama Game, Where’s Charley, Pal Joey, and literally dozens more.
1952 Harold Rome‘s musical Wish You Were Here, set in the world of mountain summer resorts, opens a 598-performance run at the Imperial Theatre. Jack Cassidy, Larry Blyden, and Sheila Bond star, and Bond later wins a Tony Award as Best Featured Actress in a Musical. The show is memorable for featuring a swimming pool on stage.
1973 The Theater Development Fund’s TKTS booth opens for business at Broadway and 47th street. The booth proves a landmark of the New York theatre world by providing same-day tickets to audiences to many performances, both on Broadway and Off, at discounted prices.
1979 After delaying the start of previews twice—and the opening night once—Got Tu Go Disco finally opens on Broadway at the Minskoff Theatre. The musical about a disco-hating saleswoman who becomes the queen of her local dance club closes a week later, after eight performances. At the time, it was the most expensive musical ever mounted on Broadway.
1980 Gus Weil’s play To Bury a Cousin, originally saw the stage in 1967. It now receives an Off-Broadway revival at the Cherry Lane Theatre, where it is directed by Phillip Oesterman and features Harry Goz and Diane Tarleton.
1990 Robert Louis Stevenson is rocking and rolling Off-Broadway as his Jekyll and Hyde is turned into a rock musical, courtesy of composer Michael Skloff, with a book and lyrics by David Crane and Marta Kauffman. Seven years later, Frank Wildhorn tries his hand at the dual-personality drama on Broadway.
1991 Two couples find themselves celebrating the Fourth of July on Fire Island together when Terrence McNally‘s play Lips Together, Teeth Apart, opens at the Manhattan Theatre Club at City Center. The play stars Nathan Lane and Swoosie Kurtz, and Christine Baranski and Anthony Heald, as the two married pairs. Following a successful engagement, the production transfers to Off-Broadway’s Lucille Lortel Theatre for a commercial run in January 1992.
1998 Warren Leight‘s play Side Man opens at the Roundabout Theatre Company‘s Stage Right Auditorium as a last-minute replacement production. Under the direction of Michael Mayer is a cast including Frank Wood, Wendy Makkena, and Robert Sella. Upon its closing at the Roundabout, the jazz-themed comedy drama takes up shop for an open-ended commercial run at Broadway’s John Golden Theater, with movie star Christian Slater replacing Sella as the narrator, Clifford. Come June, the play, by now having been cited as a Pulitzer Prize finalist, wins Tony Awards for Best Play and Best Featured Actor for Wood, as the side man himself.
2004 Musical Theatre Works, the not-for-profit Off-Broadway company that created and developed new musicals for 21 years, announces that it will shutter effective immediately.
2009 A music-filled Shakespeare in the Park production of Twelfth Night, starring Raúl Esparza, Anne Hathaway, Audra McDonald, and Stark Sands, opens at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park. Directed by Daniel Sullivan, it features an original score by Brooklyn-based folk-rock band Hem.
2013 A new musical version of Roald Dahl‘s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, featuring a score by Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman, opens in London at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. The production is directed by Sam Mendes, and stars Douglas Hodge as Willy Wonka. A revised version of the musical, directed by Jack O’Brien and starring Christian Borle, opens on Broadway four years later.
2018 David Ireland’s Cyprus Avenue, starring Stephen Rea, opens Off-Broadway at the Public Theater. In it, Rea plays a “non-negotiably British” Belfast Unionist who sees an uncanny likeness between his new-born granddaughter and the Irish republican leader, Gerry Adams.
2018 The world premiere of Log Cabin, by Jordan Harrison, opens at Playwrights Horizons, directed by Tony winner Pam MacKinnon. In it, a group of gays and lesbian friends consider the new mainstream through the eyes of their transgender friend. Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Phillip James Brannon, Cindy Cheung, Ian Harvie, Talene Monahon, and Dolly Wells star.
More of Today’s Birthdays: Charlotte Greenwood (1890–1977). Peter Lind Hayes (1915–1998). Sidney Lumet (1924–2011). Mary Beth Peil (b. 1940). Lee Wilkof (b. 1951). John Benjamin Hickey (b. 1963). Hunter Foster (b. 1969). Brandi Burkhardt (b. 1979). Killian Donnelly (b. 1984). Annaleigh Ashford (b. 1985).
From Glinda to Dot: Take a Look at Annaleigh Ashford on the Stage
16th Annual Broadway Junior Student Celebration Streams June 23
The 16th annual Shubert Foundation/Music Theatre International Broadway Junior Student Finale premieres virtually on Playbill June 23. The annual event is the culmination of a program that helps NYC public schools affect school culture change through building sustainable theatre education programs. Watch the special performance above beginning at 7 PM ET.
Participating students, all from schools in the second and third years of the program, will share performances from their 2020–2021 productions, all of which were produced online. Shows represented include Annie KIDS, Disney’s The Little Mermaid JR, Once on This Island JR, Schoolhouse Rock Live! JR, and Shrek the Musical JR.
Flip through the event’s exclusive digital Playbill program:
This digital program was created using PLAYBILLder, Playbill’s custom, Broadway-quality program creation tool. Get started building your real—or fantasy—Playbill program today at PLAYBILLder.com.
“I am enormously gratified, along with Team MTI, to witness how this program has matured and expanded over 16 years,” says MTI Co-Chairman Freddie Gershon. “The unanticipated long-term impact on the students, schools, and local communities has gone beyond what any of us could have envisaged as the participating students are learning life skills, indispensable to their futures. These include the ability to collaborate, follow direction and instruction, practice self-discipline and work ethics, and use their imaginations while honing their verbal communication skills and developing social skills which will serve them well in navigating life. These are the great gifts to give a new generation, critical for success, and generally atypical of traditional curricula.”
“Each student and teacher has demonstrated their perseverance but also their desire to remain creative and share stories—a wonderful reminder of the power of theatre education and inclusivity whether virtually or on stage, in the classroom and beyond,” adds the program’s producer and NYC Department of Education Director of Theater Peter Avery.
The three-year program pairs teachers and students with master teachers and industry experts from ArtsConnection, Broadway Bound Kids, and iTheatrics to put on their school’s first-ever musical. In the second year, the partnership continues, but students and teachers are encouraged to take ownership over the production, setting the stage for fully independent productions beginning in the third year of the program.