My Broadway Review

The story of the 1956 jam session involving Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Elvis Presley has made it all the way to Broadway. The Floyd Mutrux and Colin Escott written musical, Million Dollar Quartet, has leaped from resounding success in Daytona Beach, Seattle, and Chicago to Broadway’s Nederlander Theater. The show bases around the four performers meeting at Sam Phillips’ Sun Studios and the performers break out renditions of “Blue Suede Shoes”, “Great Balls of Fire”, “Folsom Prison Blues”, and many more. Million Dollar Quartet was up for three Tony Awards, and actor Levi Kreis won a Tony for Best Performance by a Featured Actor in a Musical for his performance as Jerry Lee Lewis. The musical taps into the careers of the four performers who want on to help define the musical genres of rock ‘n roll, country, rockabilly, and honky tonk. Their is still a troupe performing the musical at The Apollo Theater in Chicago.

David Hyde Pierce and Sara Ramirez the past winners of the Tony award announced this year’s nominations. “In the Heights” created by Lin- Manuel Miranda and “South Pacific”, the music revival, lead the list of nominations with thirteen and eleven nominations respectively. Lin- Manuel is nominated for best leading actor as well as for his scores in the sentimental drama. “Gypsy” and “Passing Strange” which are autobiographical plays got seven nominations each whereas “Sunday in the Park with George” received nine nominations. Tracy Lett’s August: Osage County received seven nominations including the one for Best Play category. The other major contender for Best Play is “The 39 Steps” adapted from Alfred Hitchcock’s movie.

A special show of the play “Pamela’s First Musical” presented by Broadway Cares is scheduled for May 18 at Town hall at 3 p.m. The proceeds from the show will benefit the Broadway Cares and Equity Fights AIDS in their activities. This musical play has Cy Coleman as its music director and the book work is done by Pulitzer and Tony award winner Wendy Wasserstein. The lead role of Pamela’s aunt “Louise” is done by Donna Murphy, a two-time Tony Award winner.

The artist for Pamela’s role is not yet decided, but David Garrison is going to make a guest appearance in this Broadway musical. This is the story of a young girl from suburb who happens to celebrate the birthday with her aunt along with the glamorous artists and creative people of a Broadway production. The performance on May 18th will be the First Public staging of this show. The Broadway reviews about the play are very positive as it has a very experienced creative team behind the scenes.

The event called First readings: A Benefit for Studio Dante prepared by architectural digest and conducted by Studio Dante will take place on March 31st at the Rubin Museum of Art. Two short plays that are planned to premiere in this event are “When Heaven and Earth” by Anastasia Traina and Gina Gionfriddo’s “Squalor”. Another attraction of the event is the special award presentation to Lauren Bacall.

Studio Dante was created by Michael and Victoria Imperioli in order to house the plays of the present period in the traditional architectural and design settings of the 19th century. Studio Dante is dedicated to giving proper encouragement to the writers who are ready to take up new challenges in the theater. The past productions of Studio Dante include Late Fragment, Baptism by Fire, Cyclone, and Dark Yellow etc. Patron tickets, sponsor tickets and post- performance reception are available for the evening. The event will start at 6.30 p.m with cocktails and light supper and will end at 9 p.m after the post-performance reception and desserts.

The preview of Broadway’s new musical play “A Catered Affair” will begin on Tuesday 25th March at the Walter Kerr Theater. The opening night for the play is on April 17th at 6.30 p.m. The screenplay is done by the four time winner of Tony Award, Harvey Fierstein and the director for the play is John Doyle, who is also a Tony award winner. Music is by John Bucchino and the producer of this musical is Jordan Roth, the vice president of the Jujamcyn Theaters. The play is about a mother’s effort to make her daughters wedding as special as possible, but the daughter does not understand the affection of mother.

The stars of the show includes Faith Prince as “Aggie Hurley”, the mother , Tom Wopat as “Tom Hurley” the father, Harvey Fierstein as the uncle and Leslie Kritzer as Jane Hurley, the bride to be and Matt Cavenaugh as groom to be. The design of the settings is done by David Gallo and costume is made perfect by Ann Hould –Ward. This play shows the love as well as disaffection in human relationships in a funny and heartrending way. This play discloses the real happenings in a family.

“Dirty Dancing”- the Classic Story, is an international hit on the stage and is coming to Broadway in Chicago. The ticket sale to the public will start on April 4th 2008. The play will open at the Cadillac Palace Theatre from September 28th and will continue till 7th December, 2008. “Dirty dancing”- The Classic Story on Stage is an enthralling love story which revolves around the dancer Johnny Castle and Frances ‘Baby’ Houseman. The play is about the happenings in the life of Baby, who desires to join the Peace Corps. Later she meets Johnny who has negative shades in his character. Baby and Johnny falls in love as the fate would have it and the life of Baby gets upside down.

This play features many famous and favorite songs like “I’ve had”, the Academy Award winner, “Hey Baby”, “Hungry Eyes” and “Do You Love Me” etc. The tickets are available for individuals in price range of $35- $95 and the premium tickets are available for $125- $150. As, the play has got a good opinion from the press as well as the viewers, it is expected that more theatre loving people will come to watch “Dirty Dancing” in U.S.

 “Cry-Baby” is the musical based on the 1990 movie by John Waters,  about greasers and squares in 1954 Baltimore, has announced its move into the Marquis Theater on Broadway. The musical, with songs by David Javerbaum and Adam Schlesinger  and a book by Mark O’Donnell and Thomas Meehan (who wrote the book for “Hairspray”) is scheduled to begin previews on March 15, with an opening set for April 24. Mark Brokaw is directing, and Rob Ashford is the choreographer.

The producers of “Cyrano de Bergerac” announced that the Broadway play earned back its $3.5 million capitalization, the season’s first show to make its investors whole. “Cyrano,” which closed on Jan. 6 at New York’s Richard Rodgers Theatre, paired television and movie star Jennifer Garner with Kevin Kline, featured in films and a dozen Broadway shows.

Chicago is considered to be one of Broadway’s most famous and exciting smash-hit musicals. It won six Tonys. Chicago is most notable for such hit songs as Razzle Dazzle, Funny Honey, Mr Cellophane and All That Jazz. This musical is not to be missed. It will be performed on 05/31/2008 - 05/31/2008 in Cupertino, CA,