With the recent Oscar-winning film, aoeBohemian Rhapsody,a the music of Queen is more popular than ever. In 2002, many of those hits were compiled into a rock musical experience, WE WILL ROCK YOU, which will be hitting the road once again for a North American tour starting September 3 in Winnipeg, Canada.
Performances began July 30 at Second Stage’s Tony Kiser Theater for the New York premiere of Make Believe by Bess Wohl, directed by Michael Greif. The new play from the Continuity playwright is a look inside the minds of children, their parents, and the mysteries of childhood that haunt us forever.
Make Believe features a company made up of Kim Fischer (Then She Fell, Mrs. Fletcher), Susannah Flood (The Cherry Orchard, Plano), Ryan Foust (Mary Page Marlowe), Harrison Fox (NY stage debut), Maren Heary (NY stage debut), Brad Heberlee (Mrs. Murray’s Menagerie, A Life), Casey Hilton (NY stage debut), and Samantha Mathis (Being Frank, Nomad Motel)
In Make Believe four kids, ages 5 to 10, are playing a game of house when their parents inexplicably disappear. Thirty-two years later, their search for answers continues.
The production will officially open August 15.
Wohl returns to 2ST following the Second Stage Uptown production of American Hero. Her other plays include Continuity, seen earlier this year at Manhattan Theatre Club, Barcelona, Touched, In, Cats Talk Back, and Small Mouth Sounds, as well as the musical Pretty Filthy, which she co-wrote with composer/lyricist Michael Friedman and The Civilians. Make Believe debuted at Hartford Stage in 2018.
Flip through photos from the production below:
On Tuesday morning, the cast of Hadestown performed on Good Morning America. Before the performance, the shows stars Reeve Carney and Andre De Shields made theannouncement that Hadestown is heading out on a national tour
1895 Bert Lahr (née Irving Lahrheim), the future stage and screen clown, is born in New York. Following an early career in Vaudeville, Lahr enjoys a widely successful career on Broadway in such musicals as Du Barry was a Lady and Foxy. Lahr is best remembered by today’s audiences for his performance as the Cowardly Lion in the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz.
1921 Lynn Fontanne has her first major hit in the starring role of Dulcy, a comedy by George S. Kaufman and Marc Connelly. Despite her success, she rarely performs without future husband Alfred Lunt again.
1981 Ira Levin’s thriller Deathtrap becomes Broadway’s longest-running show of that genre, as it plays its 1,445th performance. Featured in the cast of the production at the Music Box Theatre are Farley Granger, Elizabeth Parrish, Ernest Townsend, and Marian Seldes. Deathtrap opened at the Music Box on February 26, 1978, with Seldes, John Wood, and Victor Garber in the cast. Tony nominations were awarded for the play, director Robert Moore, and actors Seldes and Garber.
1997 Mere Mortals and Others, the Off-Off-Broadway success which played at Primary Stages, moves to Off-Broadway’s John Houseman Theatre. The follow-up to playwright David Ives‘ comic compilation of one-acts All in the Timing, Mere Mortals combines six other one-acts as directed by John Rando. The six plays comprising the show are: Mere Mortals; Speed-the-Play; Foreplay, Or, The Art Of The Fugue; Degas, C’Est Moi; Dr. Fritz; and Time Flies.
2001 “I love you, Butthead,” Monica Lewinsky confessed she told then-President Bill Clinton in a phone conversation with her confidante, Linda Tripp. A collection of such illuminating details from the infamous Lewinsky incident which almost led to Clinton’s removal from office, are gathered into a play with the unfortunate title Snatches. The comedy, adapted verbatim from the women’s taped talks by Laura Strausfield, begins performances at the 78th Street Theatre Lab Off-Broadway.
2011 The New York premiere of Yeast Nation (The Triumph of Life), a new musical by Urinetown‘s Mark Hollmann and Greg Kotis, starring Harriet Harris, begins performances as part of the 15th annual New York International Fringe Festival. The production sells out its entire run at La Mama ETC before the first performance.
2014 Jeremy Jordan and Laura Michelle Kelly star in the world premiere of Gary Barlow, Eliot Kennedy, and James Graham‘s musical Finding Neverland, opening at the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Diane Paulus directs the work based on the 2004 film about Peter Pan playwright J.M. Barrie. The production transfers to Broadway in 2015, with Matthew Morrison replacing Jordan in the role of J.M. Barrie.
2017 Writer, director, and actor Joseph Bologna dies at age 82. Onstage, Bologna was known for his collaborations with wife Renée Taylor; the couple wrote and co-starred in a number of Broadway shows that touched on the comedic side of romance and marriage, including Lovers and Other Strangers, It Had to Be You, and If You Ever Leave Me…I’m Going With You!
2018 Gettin’ the Band Back Together, a musical about an out-of-work banker who reunites his old high school rock band, opens on Broadway at the Belasco Theatre. The show has a book by producer Ken Davenport and the performance group Grundleshotz, and songs by Mark Allen. It runs 40 performances.
More of Today’s Birthdays: Buddy Rogers 1904. Barbara Bennett 1906. Gene Raymond 1908. John Beal 1909. Claudia McNeil 1917. James Carpinello 1975. Euan Morton 1977. Wesley Taylor 1986.
Watch Yeast Nation creators Mark Hollmann and Greg Kotis talk about the musical:
1881 Birthday of Cecil B. DeMille, who begins his career as a Broadway actor in shows including Hearts Are Trumps and To Have and To Hold, and as a Broadway playwright and producer. He later heads west to become one of the pioneering movie moguls of Hollywood.
1892 Alfred Lunt is born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. After graduating from Carroll College and scratching plans to be an architect, Lunt soon finds himself enjoying a career in the theatre, making his Broadway debut in 1917’s Romance and Arabella and achieving stardom in 1919 with Clarence. In 1922 Lunt marries actor and future stage partner Lynn Fontanne. Among their many credits together are Design for Living (1933), I Know My Love (1949), and The Visit (1958).
1915 Choreographer and director Michael Kidd is born in New York. His Broadway choreography and/or directing credits include Finian’s Rainbow, Guys And Dolls, Destry Rides Again, and The Goodbye Girl.
1982 Nebraska-born actor Henry Fonda dies at age 77. Fonda graced both the stage and the screen, earning a Tony Award in 1948 for his performance in the title role of Mister Roberts. He also starred on Broadway in Two for the Seesaw and The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial.
1987 Paul Portner’s farce Shear Madness opens for a 12-week run at Washington, D.C.’s Kennedy Center. The show later changes to an open-ended run and becomes the longest-running show in the nation’s capital. The improvisational whodunit transports the action of the play to present day Georgetown at the Shear Madness Hair Styling Salon. The performance culminates nightly with an audience vote on who is guilty and who isn’t. To date, it has run more than 13,000 performances.
1999 Though it technically started at the beginning of June with Natalie Merchant‘s special concert engagement at the Neil Simon Theatre, the 1999–2000 Broadway season begins in earnest today when John Pielmeier‘s thriller Voices in the Dark opens at the Longacre Theatre. Judith Ivey stars as a radio talk show host who finds herself menaced by a mysterious caller while staying in an isolated Adirondack cabin.
2001 Take Flight, a musical based on the lives and adventures of famous aviators, opens at the Eugene O’Neill Theatre Center. Christiane Noll plays Amelia Earhart in the show written by Richard Maltby, Jr. and David Shire (Big) and Marsha Norman (The Secret Garden).
2003 Broadway theatres dim their lights this evening to honor the life of tap-dancing actor singer Gregory Hines, who died of cancer August 9 at age 57.
2010 The world premiere of Paul Weitz’s Trust—starring Zach Braff, Bobby Cannavale, Sutton Foster, and Ari Graynor—opens at Off-Broadway’s Second Stage Theatre.
2013 The Public Theater‘s world-premiere musical Love’s Labour’s Lost, penned by Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson collaborators Michael Friedman and Alex Timbers, opens at the Delacorte Theater as part of Shakespeare in the Park. The cast includes Daniel Breaker, Colin Donnell, Rachel Dratch, Rebecca Naomi Jones, Patti Murin, and Bryce Pinkham.
2014 Stage and screen acting legend Lauren Bacall dies at age 89. She won two Tony Awards for Best Actress in a Musical, for her performances as Margo Channing in Applause (1970) and Tess Harding in Woman of the Year (1981).
More of Today’s Birthdays: Jane Wyatt 1911. Kurt Kasznar 1913. William Goldman 1931. Dana Ivey 1941.
Watch highlights from Michael Friedman and Alex Timbers’ 2013 musical Love’s Labour’s Lost:
The Promhas ended its Broadway run today, August 11th, after 23 preview and 310 regular performances. Following the final curtain call, Casey Nicholaw and Caitlin Kinnunen took the stage to give speeches, honoring the show and the cast. Watch the emotional video