VIDEO: Bianca Marroquin & CHICAGO Cast Prep for GOOD MORNING AMERICA Performance
Announced in the show’s lead roles were Ana Villafae as Roxie Hart, Bianca Marroqun as Velma Kelly, and Tony Award-winner Lillias White as Matron ‘Mama’ Morton.
Arianna Rosario Takes Over Our Instagram Today!
Arianna Rosario is taking over our Instagram today, August 22 to take our followers behind the scenes at The Muny’s production of On Your Feet, the fourth show of the theatre’s 103rd season.
Playbill Vault’s Today in Theatre History: August 22
1922 Theoni V. Aldredge, one of Broadway’s foremost costume designers of the late 20th century, is born in Greece. Her dozens of Broadway projects include A Chorus Line, Annie, Ballroom, 42nd Street, Barnum, Dreamgirls, and La Cage aux Folles.
1983 Cicely Tyson stars with Peter Gallagher as a tutor in rural Wales in a revival of Emlyn Williams‘ The Corn Is Green at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre.
1989 A.R. Gurney‘s Love Letters opens at the Promenade Theatre Off-Broadway. The play is written as a series of love letters between one Andrew Makepeace Ladd III and one Melissa Gardner from the time of their childhood up to her death. Due to the simplicity in the staging of the piece (two actors sitting at tables reading letters back and forth), the cast changes from one set of stars to another, week by week. This first week, John Rubinstein is Andrew and Stockard Channing is Melissa. Other pairings during the initial run are George Segal and Dana Ivey, Treat Williams and Kate Nelligan, Timothy Hutton and Elizabeth McGovern, and Jason Robards and Elaine Stritch. The production transfers to Broadway’s Edison Theatre on October 31, 1989, with Colleen Dewhurst and Jason Robards Jr. starring in the 96-performance run.
1989 A British Military Entertainment troupe circa the late 1940s parks Off-Broadway at the Roundabout Theatre Company for a 64-performance run of Privates on Parade. The cast includes Jim Dale and Donna Murphy.
1996 Al Pacino directs himself in Eugene O’Neill‘s Hughie at the Circle in the Square Theatre. The production runs for 56 sold-out performances.
2011 Simon Russell Beale returns to the New York stage in the U.S. premiere of Simon Stephens‘ Bluebird, in which he plays a London cabbie listening to the woes of his eclectic passengers. Presented by the Atlantic Theater Company at its intimate Atlantic Stage 2, the cast also includes Michael Countryman, Charlotte Parry, John Sharian, Kate Blumberg, Mary McCann, Tobias Segal, and Todd Weeks.
2021 Antoinette Chinonye Nwandu’s Pass Over becomes the first play to open on Broadway since COVID-19 shutdown most live theatre worldwide in March 2020. Jon Michael Hill, Namir Smallwood, and Gabriel Ebert star in this riff on Waiting For Godot that centers on two Black men killing time on a street corner until a white man enters their space.
More of Today’s Birthdays: Daniel Frohman (1851-1940). Dorothy Parker (1893-1967). Michael Langham (1919-2011). James Kirkwood (1924-1989). Diana Sands (1934-1973). Valerie Harper (1939-2019). Regina Taylor (b. 1960). Amra-Faye Wright (b. 1960). James Corden (b. 1978). Laura Dreyfuss (b. 1988).
Look Through the Theatre Highlights of James Corden
Playbill Vault’s Today in Theatre History: August 21
1923 The play Red Light Annie opens at the Morosco Theatre (which closed in 1981 and was demolished a year later). Written by Norman Houston and Sam Forrest, the play features Ann Martin, Edward Ellis, and more.
1944 Robert Wright and George Forrest put words to classical themes by Edvard Grieg to create the operetta Song of Norway, based on Grieg’s life. It runs 860 performances at the Imperial Theatre, helped by George Balanchine‘s choreography, and the success of the song “Strange Music.”
1983 The Jerry Herman–Harvey Fierstein musical La Cage Aux Folles opens at Broadway’s Palace Theatre. George Hearn and Gene Barry star in the adaptation of the classic French play and film about a middle-aged homosexual couple who are forced to hide their sexual orientation in order to meet the fiancée of one of the men’s sons, and her family. In pure musical comedy fashion, mayhem pursues. In a time when homosexuality had yet to become the basis of a big Broadway musical, La Cage proved to be a raging success, winning the Tony Award for Best Musical, and racking up 1,761 performances. Over the course of the run other actors to play either Albin or George include Larry Kert, Jamie Ross, Walter Charles, and Keith Michell. A 1996 non-musical film version of the same story called The Birdcage stars Robin Williams, Gene Hackman, Dianne Wiest, Calista Flockhart, and Nathan Lane.
1986 Major Broadway talent converges on the musical Rags, an original musical about immigrants on New York’s Lower East Side, which opens a disappointing four-performance run. Music is by Charles Strouse, lyrics are by Stephen Schwartz (returning to Broadway for the first time since Working), and libretto is by Joseph Stein. Opera star Teresa Stratas leads a cast that includes Larry Kert, Judy Kuhn, Dick Latessa, and Lonny Price.
1990 A revival of Moss Hart‘s Light Up the Sky opens Off-Broadway at the Roundabout Theatre Company. Elaine Bromka, Charles Keating, and Betsy Joslyn are featured in the cast under the direction of Larry Carpenter. A week following the opening, Jason Alexander replaces cast member Bruce Weitz.
1999 Off-Off-Broadway’s Jean Cocteau Repertory Theatre begins its 2000 season with On the Razzle, Tom Stoppard‘s take on Viennese playwright Johann Nestroy‘s Einen Jux will er sich machen. The play is the same source that inspired Thornton Wilder‘s The Matchmaker, which in turn inspired Jerry Herman’s Hello, Dolly! Cocteau Rep is no stranger to Stoppard works, as they have previously produced Travesties, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, and Rough Crossing.
2001 Signature Theatre‘s “environmental” staging of the musical Grand Hotel—spilling from the stage to the seating and out into the lobby—begins previews in Arlington, Virginia.
2002 Master dancer-choreographer Savion Glover and director George C. Wolfe‘s song-and-dance revue Bring in ‘da Noise/Bring in ‘da Funk begins a revival tour with original cast members Glover and Lynette DuPree at Atlanta’s Alliance Theatre Company. After the Atlanta run ends September 29, a new national tour kicks off, stopping in major U.S. cities including Boston; Chicago; Washington, D.C.; and Los Angeles; as well as short runs on college campuses throughout the U.S.
2016 Finding Neverland closes at Broadway’s Lunt-Fontanne Theatre after 33 previews and 565 regular performances. The show earned two Drama Desk nominations for leading actor Matthew Morrison and featured actor Carolee Carmello. The closing cast stars Tony nominee Tony Yazbeck (who replaced Morrison), and original cast members Laura Michelle Kelly and Carmello.
Today’s Birthdays: Jack Weston (1924–1996). Carolyn Leigh (1926–1983). Melvin Van Peebles (b. 1932). Mart Crowley (1935-2020). Loretta Devine (b. 1949). Kim Cattrall (b. 1956). Evan Pappas (b. 1958). Robin De Jesús (b. 1984).
Look Back at the Original Broadway Production of La Cage Aux Folles
Anthony Rapp, Bonnie Milligan, and More Take the Stage Next Week at Feinstein’s/54 Below
Next week, Feinstein’s54 Below presents some of the brightest stars from Broadway, cabaret, jazz, and beyond.
MOULIN ROUGE! THE MUSICAL to Headline 2021 US Open Opening Night Ceremony
The USTA today announced that the cast of the Tony-nominated hit Broadway musicalMoulin Rouge The Musical, led by the shows stars, Tony Award nomineeAaron TveitandNatalie Mendoza, will headline the Opening Night Ceremony at the 2021 US Open.