Video Roundup: Happy Birthday, Jason Robert Brown! Watch Jeremy Jordan, Kelli O’Hara, and More Sing His Songs!
Today is Jason Robert Brown’s birthday Celebrate with us by taking a look at some of our favorite performances of his songs.
Stars in the House Welcomes Broadway Advocacy Coalition Founders Adrienne Warren and Amber Iman, More
Stars in the House, the daily live streamed concert series created by Playbill correspondent and SiriusXM Broadway host Seth Rudetsky and producer James Wesley, welcomes Broadway Advocacy Coalition Founders Adrienne Warren (Tina: The Tina Turner Musical) and Amber Iman (Hamilton)—both alums of the musical Shuffle Along…—as well as Executive Director Robb Nanus, June 20 at 8 PM. Watch the stream above.
The Broadway Advocacy Coalition works with advocates, students, artists, organizations, and communities to use the arts as an integral part of ending mass incarceration and the systems that perpetuate it.
READ: Black Lives Matter Resources 101
Money raised during the stream will go to the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, the leading nonprofit legal organization fighting to protect voting rights and equality for all.
Stars in the House launched March 16 to promote support for The Actors Fund and its services in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.
New shows—streaming Monday–Saturday at 8 PM ET with afternoon shows Wednesday, Saturday, and Sunday at 2 PM—feature performances by stars of stage and screen, in conversation and song with Rudetsky and Wesley. Streaming direction is by Peter Flynn. Click here to watch previous episodes.
To donate to the NAACP’s Legal Defense Fund, visit NAACPLDF.org. To make a tax-deductible donation to The Actors Fund visit ActorsFund.org/Donate.
BWW Interview: Norm Lewis Talks the Importance of DA 5 BLOODS and Making Changes in the Broadway Community
Broadway favoriteNorm Lewis is one of the stars of Spike Lee’s newest film, Da 5 Bloods. The film, which premiered June 12 on Netflix, follows four African American veterans, who battle the forces of man and nature when they return to Vietnam seeking the remains of their fallen squad leader and the gold fortune he helped them hide.
Act One, Starring Tony Shalhoub, Santino Fontana, and Andrea Martin, Streams Beginning June 19
James Lapine’s Act One, the 2014 stage production based on the memoir of Broadway playwright, director, and lyricist Moss Hart, launches Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts’ new Broadway Fridays series, featuring free digital streams of past Live From Lincoln Center broadcasts, June 19 at 8 PM.
The Tony-nominated play stars three Tony winners: Santino Fontana (Tootsie), Tony Shalhoub (The Band’s Visit), and Andrea Martin (Pippin, My Favorite Year). The cast also features Bob Ari, Bill Army, Will Brill, Laurel Casillo, Tony winner Chuck Cooper, Steven Kaplan, Will LeBow, Mimi Lieber, Charlotte Maier, Noah Marlowe, Greg McFadden, Deborah Offner, Lance Roberts, Matthew Saldivar, Matthew Schechter, Jonathan Spivey, Wendy Rich Stetson, Bob Stillman, and Amy Warren.
The stream is available through July 3.
The Broadway Fridays series had been scheduled to launch June 5 with Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Carousel. That concert production, featuring Tony winner Kelli O’Hara, was postponed; the June 12 stream of Douglas Carter Beane’s dark comedy The Nance, starring Tony winners Nathan Lane and Cady Huffman, was also postponed.
A previous statement from Lincoln Center read, “As noted prior to Black Out Tuesday [June 2], we are focusing on how our organization will better support change moving forward, both internally and as leaders in our field.” New streaming dates for Carousel and The Nance will be announced at a later time.
The archival broadcasts are available Fridays on Lincoln Center’s online arts portal #LincolnCenterAtHome and on Lincoln Center’s Youtube and Facebook pages.
Tony Shalhoub, Andrea Martin and Santino Fontana Star in Moss Hart Theatrical Memoir Act One on Broadway
Playbill Vault’s Today in Theatre History: June 18
1962 A New York theatregoing tradition is born as the Delacorte Theater in Central Park first opens, with a production of The Merchant of Venice starring George C. Scott. The construction of the famed home of free Shakespeare is made possible by a $400,000 donation from George Delacorte of Dell Publishing.
1963 The 1876 vintage Goodspeed Opera House in East Haddam, Connecticut, reopens after an extensive renovation as a headquarters for musicals. The first show in the new series is Oh Lady, Lady. Among Goodspeed Musicals productions to land on Broadway are Man of La Mancha, Shenandoah, and Annie.
1998 A New Brain, the latest work from Falsettos composer William Finn, opens at the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater in New York’s Lincoln Center. The musical, about a composer who faces the possibility of death from a brain tumor, stars Malcolm Gets, Mary Testa, Kristin Chenoweth, Chip Zien, and Penny Fuller.
2000 Solo performer Sarah Jones brings her Surface Transit to New York City’s downtown mecca Performance Space 122. The show headlines the First NYC Hip-Hop Theatre Festival, produced by and also starring Danny Hoch (Jails, Hospitals, & Hip-Hop). In the piece, Jones embodies eight widely varied characters that range from a raving bag lady to a widowed Russian mother to a narrow-minded Jewish grandma to a recovering hip-hop rhyming addict turned-slam poet. She later uses this experience as a springboard for her 2006 Tony-winning play Bridge & Tunnel.
2010 The City Center Encores! Summer Stars production of the Charlie Smalls–William F. Brown musical The Wiz, which boasts R&B artist Ashanti as Dorothy, opens at the New York venue. Directed by Thomas Kail, the cast also includes Orlando Jones at The Wiz, LaChanze as Glinda, Tichina Arnold as Evillene, Christian Dante White as the Scarecrow, James Monroe Iglehart as the Lion, and Joshua Henry as the Tinman .
READ: Ease On Down the Road—The Cast Reflects on The Wiz at Encores!
2012 Kevin Kline and Meryl Streep—both veterans of The Public Theater‘s Shakespeare in the Park—play star-crossed lovers Romeo and Juliet, respectively, in a one-night-only gala staged reading of the William Shakespeare classic at the Delacorte Theater. The all-star cast also includes Christopher Walken as Mercutio, Sam Waterston as Benvolio, Jeffrey Wright as Tybalt, F. Murray Abraham as Friar Laurence, and Christine Baranski as Nurse.
2018 LCT3 presents the Off-Broadway premiere of Antoinette Nwandu’s Pass Over, opening at Lincoln Center’s Claire Tow Theater. The contemporary mashup of Waiting for Godot and the Exodus saga, centers on two young black men who dream of a better existence beyond their street corner. The cast includes Jon Michael Hill, Namir Smallwood, and Gabriel Ebert.
READ: 10 Moments That Made Pass Over Possible
Today’s Birthdays: Philip Barry (1896–1949); Keye Luke (1904–1991); Sammy Cahn (1913–1993); E. G. Marshall (1914–1998); Michael Blakemore (b. 1928); George Hearn (b. 1934); Jack O’Brien (b. 1939);. Elizabeth Franz (b. 1941); Carol Kane (b. 1952); Kerry Butler (b. 1971); Erin Davie (b. 1977).
Watch highlights from the 2015 Encores! Off-Center revival of A New Brain, starring Jonathan Groff:
BroadwayWorld Seeks NYC Based Broadway Theatre Critic With Unique & Diverse Voice
BroadwayWorld is seeking a New York theatre critic with unique and diverse voices to join our team. The writer would head up a weekly column covering current trends, news, and events in the industry as well as review Broadway, off-Broadway and theatrical events in NYC.