“I want to write music. I want to sit down right now at my piano and write a song that people will listen to and remember, and do the same thing every morning for the rest of my life.” – Jon Before Jonathan Larson’s iconic “Rent” had its workshop production at the New York Theatre Workshop (NYTW) in 1993 and…
The National Alliance for Musical Theatre (NAMT) has been hard at work since 1989 introducing writers and their new musicals to significant theatre industry leaders. Now in its 28th year, NAMT attracts theatre producers from around the world for this industry-only event to discover eight new musicals presented in 45-minute concert presentations over two days. All production costs are underwritten…
The remarkable Anita Gillette, now an octogenarian, returns to the Metropolitan Room for a two-night gig with her sexagenarian friend Harold Sanditen. The pair – separated by a span of twenty years – transcends, nay transforms, the notion that age differences affect deep friendship and the misconception that age affects the quality of vocal performance. Like Harold and Maude before…
“This agony inside of me ain’t providing me any time to think/About anything beyond the sitch we’re now living/Gotta go hard, gotta be tough/gotta move forward towards a new dawn, a new dream, a new hope.” – Tong On a recent visit to Vietnam, two glaring disparities were evident: there is a noticeable divide between rich and poor Vietnamese citizens;…
Producers Paul Blake and Mike Bosner announced today the Broadway return of three-time Tony Award-winner Glenn Close in her most iconic role, Norma Desmond, in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Tony Award-winning Best Musical, Sunset Boulevard. Based on Billy Wilder’s classic Academy Award-winning film, Sunset Boulevard features a celebrated book and lyrics by Don Black and Christopher Hampton. Direct from a bravura…
“You’re not. You can hear it. That’s not listening to it. That’s different from listening./You need to follow it. The melody. Try to predict what will happen to it next. It will completely take you by surprise./That’s the secret that nobody knows about music./Music doesn’t exist in the notes. It exists in the spaces between the notes.” – Alex Priest…
This is an alert notice for the residents of Northern NJ and beyond, informing them that there are options other than trekking into the great entertainment mecca across the river to satisfy their cultural appetite. Yes, there are many reputable regional theaters in New Jersey as well as NJ PAC; but also there is a little gem that is beginning…
Mrs. Johnson muses that the role of a teacher– a high school English and Drama teacher at an unnamed public school at a non-specific time – is to provide answers to students’ questions. Whether the answers are right or wrong matters not, she ponders. What matters is grappling with the issue and discovering the truth – whatever that might be….
Joe Sutton’s “Orwell in America” imagines what might happen if George Orwell were to embark on a book tour in post-World-War II America with his publicist. How would an American audience receive his “Animal Farm” and his deep commitment to Democratic Socialism? There is really nothing new in Mr. Sutton’s exposition: other than the fictional visit to America, all of…
This is a musical you go in humming, That’s because the star is the late composer Irving Berlin. Consider this a medley of some of his greatest hits. “Holiday Inn,” playing at Studio 54, is a film-to-stage adaptation, much as “White Christmas” was a few seasons back. That one has had some success as an annual traveling vehicle. “Holiday Inn”…