Tag archives: Broadway
Humorist-author-comedian-actor Mike Birbiglia, who has enjoyed success as a writer, stand-up comic, director, and actor (including a recurring role in Orange is the New Black, shows up on your computers and other devices in a special stream for UCSB A&L as part of the House Calls virtual series. Birbigs will read from his new memoir, […]
For nearly 20 years, Hershey Felder has made a career out of creating one-man shows in which he portrays and plays famous artists from recent and centuries-old history, and the novel coronavirus hasn’t caused him to slow down much at all. Ensemble Theatre Company got in the mix when it presented his Hershey Felder: Beethoven […]
Actress-singer Teri Bibb has played the role of understudy-turned-star Christine Daaé in The Phantom of the Opera more than 1,000 times, both on Broadway and with the national tour that included singing a command performance at the White House. A veteran whose experience includes appearing in more than 50 musicals across the country, Bibb’s credits […]
Cheryl L. West’s plays have been performed on and Off-Broadway and on stages in England as well as myriad regional theaters across the U.S. including Seattle Rep, Arena Stage, Old Globe, The Goodman, Indiana Rep, Williamstown Festival, Cleveland Play House, South Coast Rep. Those venues have collectively produced some of her long list of titles […]
If things were different, if the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19 hadn’t turned into a global pandemic shutting down almost everything across the world, this would have been a weekend of wonder for Otto Layman. The theater director had planned a big blowout of a show to serve as his crowning achievement in a career […]
Buddy Holly died more than 60 years ago in a famous plane crash that also killed Richie Valens and The Big Bopper. But it seems the early rock star just won’t stop touring. And the ongoing Holly performances aren’t even in the guise of tribute bands. Unlike Elvis and the Beatles, say, Holly hasn’t attracted […]
Katie Laris wasn’t moved much when she took in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time on Broadway back in 2014. Despite having enjoyed the original 2003 novel by Mark Haddon that is narrated in the first-person perspective by Christopher, a 15-year-old boy afflicted by unnamed Asperger syndrome, the veteran SBCC Theater professor […]
It’s a twofold mystery: 1) How the heck my grandniece, 13-year-old Maile Kai Merrick, had the courage, fortitude, and most of all, talent and poise, to come out cold (the two had never met) and appear onstage at the Granada in front of a full house to sing a duet with veteran Broadway star Kristin […]
Tony Award-winning actress/singer Kristin Chenoweth has no illusions about who she is and what she can do. Blessed with a brilliant voice, plucky determination, and such a bubbly personality that The Daily Beast called her “the human version of just-popped champagne,” Chenoweth has soared on Broadway as Glinda in Wicked, and earned accolades, Emmy awards […]
On a personal note, I remember Broadway icon Hal Prince, who left us for more heavenly pastures aged 91. Prince was the driving force for many of the Great White Way’s most memorable productions, including Cabaret, West Side Story, Sweeney Todd, and Phantom of the Opera, the longest running stage show in Manhattan. In his […]
Here’s one you don’t want to miss if you can help it: The Broadway Musical Cruise aboard the Condor Express. Owner Hiroko Benko invites one and all to come aboard and enjoy the best of Broadway on a smooth Saturday evening cruise with live and on-deck performers Deborah Bertling and Carol Ann Manzi, accompanied by […]
Even in today’s post-#MeToo/women’s movement era, just about every little girl in America still dreams about being a princess. Witness the number of Cinderella dresses out on the streets and trick-or-treaters just three weeks ago on Halloween. On the other hand, not too many harbor a desire to wind up as a wicked stepsister, but […]
Anne Torsiglieri has been seen on Broadway in Top Girls, Parade, Blood Brothers, and Miss Saigon, as well as in the official national tour of Les Misérables. Her off-Broadway and regional performance have taken place everywhere from Manhattan to the Pacific Northwest, and she earned DramaLogue and Garland awards for her portrayal of Catherine Sloper […]
It was some enchanted evening in the upper village when Vanity Fair writer Todd Purdum launched his new well-researched, 386-page book Something Wonderful: Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Broadway Revolution with a bibliophile bash at Tecolote, the lively literary lair. Purdum, who worked for The New York Times for more than 20 years as White House correspondent […]
My favorite kind of music is Broadway, so I was in heaven at UCSB Arts & Lectures (A&L) last Granada performance for the season highlighting the world-renowned soprano Audra McDonald. She is the winner of a record-breaking six Tony Awards, two Grammy Awards, and an Emmy Award, not to mention being named one of Time […]
