|
Ira Weitzman
Ira Weitzman is an American musical theatre dramaturge and producer. He was the creator and first director of the Musical Theater Program at Playwrights Horizons from 1978 and at Lincoln Center Theater (LCT) from 1992. He also served as associate producer of musical theater at both institutions. Weitzman was involved in the development of the following productions: * William Finn and James Lapine's ''Falsettos'' trilogy * Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty's ''Lucky Stiff'' and ''Once on This Island'' * Tom Cone, Ellen Fitzhugh, and Skip Kennon's ''Herringbone'' * George C. Wolfe's New York theater debut, ''Paradise!'' * Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine's ''Sunday in the Park with George'', ''Into the Woods'', and ''Passion'' * Stephen Sondheim and John Weidman's ''Assassins'' * Jeanine Tesori and Brian Crawley's ''Violet'' * Kirsten Childs' ''The Bubbly Black Girl Sheds Her Chameleon Skin'' * James Valcq and Fred Alley's ''The Spitfire Grill'' * Ricky Ian Gordon and Richard Ne ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Musical Theatre
Musical theatre is a form of theatre, theatrical performance that combines songs, spoken dialogue, acting and dance. The story and emotional content of a musical – humor, pathos, love, anger – are communicated through words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an integrated whole. Although musical theatre overlaps with other theatrical forms like opera and dance, it may be distinguished by the equal importance given to the music as compared with the dialogue, movement and other elements. Since the early 20th century, musical theatre stage works have generally been called, simply, musicals. Although music has been a part of dramatic presentations since ancient times, modern Western musical theatre emerged during the 19th century, with many structural elements established by the light opera works of Jacques Offenbach in France, Gilbert and Sullivan in Britain and the works of Edward Harrigan, Harrigan and Tony Hart (theater), Hart in America. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jeanine Tesori
Jeanine Tesori, known earlier in her career as Jeanine Levenson, (born November 10, 1961) is an American composer and Arrangement, musical arranger best known for her work in the theater. She is the most prolific and honored female theatrical composer in history, with five Broadway musicals and six Tony Awards, Tony Award nominations. She won the 1999 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Music in a Play for Nicholas Hytner's production of ''Twelfth Night'' at Lincoln Center, the 2004 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Music for ''Caroline, or Change'', the 2015 Tony Award for Best Original Score for ''Fun Home (musical), Fun Home'' (shared with Lisa Kron), making them the first female writing team to win that award, and the 2023 Tony Award for Best Original Score for Kimberly Akimbo (musical), ''Kimberly Akimbo'' (shared with David Lindsay-Abaire). She was named a Pulitzer Prize for Drama finalist twice for ''Fun Home'' and ''Soft Power (musical), Soft Power.'' Her major works include ' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rodgers And Hammerstein
Rodgers and Hammerstein was a theater-writing team of composer Richard Rodgers (1902–1979) and lyricist-dramatist Oscar Hammerstein II (1895–1960), who together created a series of innovative and influential American musicals. Their musical theater writing partnership has been called the greatest of the 20th century. Their popular Broadway productions in the 1940s and 1950s initiated what is considered the "golden age" of musical theater. Gordon, John Steele''Oklahoma!''. Retrieved June 13, 2010 Five of their Broadway shows, ''Oklahoma!'', '' Carousel'', '' South Pacific'', '' The King and I'' and ''The Sound of Music'', were outstanding successes, as was the television broadcast of ''Cinderella'' (1957). Of the other four shows the pair produced on Broadway during their lifetimes, '' Flower Drum Song'' was well-received, and none was a critical or commercial flop. Most of their shows have received frequent revivals around the world, both professional and amateur. Among the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bernarda Alba (musical)
''Bernarda Alba'' is a one-act musical with music, lyrics and book by Michael John LaChiusa, based on Federico García Lorca's 1936 play ''The House of Bernarda Alba''. ''Bernarda Alba'' tells the story of a controlling, newly widowed mother who is challenged by her five rebellious daughters. The musical opened Off Broadway at Lincoln Center's Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater in 2006, to mixed reviews. Productions With direction and choreography by Graciela Daniele, the all-female cast starred Phylicia Rashad and Daphne Rubin-Vega. The production had a limited run from March 6 to April 9, 2006. The production received Lucille Lortel Awards and Outer Critics Circle Awards Best Musical and choreography (Daniele) nominations. The lighting designer (Stephen Strawbridge) received nominations from Lortel, Henry Hewes Design Awards, and Outer Critics Circle. Daniele also received a Callaway Award nomination for choreography. A cast recording was released by Ghostlight Records in July 2006. The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Marie Christine
''Marie Christine'' is a musical with music, lyrics, and book by Michael John LaChiusa. It opened on Broadway in 1999. While loosely based on the Greek play ''Medea'', it is set in the 1890s, in New Orleans and Chicago, and draws heavily on the biographies of (and the mythology about) a historical mother and daughter, both named Marie Laveau, who were famous practitioners of voodoo. Development Following the success of Michael John LaChiusa's 1993 musical '' Hello Again'', which premiered at Lincoln Center Theater directed by Graciela Daniele, LaChiusa and Daniele decided to develop a new musical work based on a classic text for Audra McDonald (who won her first Tony Award in the acclaimed 1994 Broadway revival of Rodgers and Hammerstein's ''Carousel'', produced by Lincoln Center Theater). The musical was in development for three and a half years and was workshopped a handful of times before its initial staging. When a production was eventually mounted, it was at the Vivian Beau ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hello Again (musical)
''Hello Again'' is a musical with music, lyrics and book by Michael John LaChiusa. It is based on the 1897 play '' La Ronde'' by Arthur Schnitzler (also titled ''Reigen''). It focuses on a series of love affairs among ten characters during the ten different decades of the 20th century. The musical premiered Off-Broadway in 1993, directed and choreographed by Graciela Daniele. Since then it has been performed in London, Sweden, Australia, Germany, The Netherlands and New York. Adaptation and plot LaChiusa's musical adaptation follows the structure of Schnitzler's original material closely, often replicating fragments of his dialogue, detailing a daisy chain of sexual encounters and love affairs among ten characters in ten scenes. His innovation, however, was to set each scene of the musical in a different decade of the 20th century and in a non-chronological order, allowing for a huge variety of musical style and pastische ranging from opera to 1970s disco while simultaneous ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Michael John LaChiusa
Michael John LaChiusa (born July 24, 1962) is an American musical theatre and opera composer, lyricist, and librettist. He is best known for musically esoteric shows such as '' Hello Again'', '' Marie Christine'', '' The Wild Party'', and '' See What I Wanna See''. He was nominated for four Tony Awards in 2000 for his score and book for both ''Marie Christine'' and ''The Wild Party'' and received another nomination in 1996 for his work on the libretto for '' Chronicle of a Death Foretold''. Biography LaChiusa grew up in Chautauqua, New York, the eldest of three boys in an Italian Catholic family. His parents had a " ry mentally abusive" relationship; Michael was not close to his father, but was encouraged by his mother to pursue his interest in music.Green, Jesse"So Many Musicals to Write, So Little Time" The New York Times, 2006-03-05. Retrieved on 2008-02-29. He taught himself to play piano at the age of seven and had little formal music training. LaChiusa was influenced early ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
My Life With Albertine
''My Life with Albertine'' is a musical with music and lyrics by Ricky Ian Gordon and book and lyrics Richard Nelson. The story was adapted from parts of the 1913-1927 seven-volume novel ''In Search of Lost Time'' by Marcel Proust. It ran Off-Broadway in 2003. The musical is set in a ''salle du théâtre'' (private theatre in a home) in Paris, 1919. For much of the story, the Narrator stands beside a piano and speaks to the audience, as the curtain opens to reveal scenes from his life. Production The musical opened Off-Broadway at Playwrights Horizons on February 18, 2003 (previews) officially on March 13, and closed on March 30. The cast starred Kelli O'Hara as Albertine, Brent Carver as older Marcel and the Narrator, and Chad Kimball as young Marcel. The cast featured Donna Lynne Champlin as the grandmother, Emily Skinner as Mlle. Lea, a lesbian cabaret singer, Brooke Sunny Moriber, and Laura Woyasz.Murray, Matthew"Review. ''My Life With Albertine'' "talkinbroadway.com, Mar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Richard Nelson (playwright)
Richard John Nelson (born October 17, 1950) is an American playwright and librettist. He wrote the book for the 2000 Broadway musical '' James Joyce's The Dead'', for which he won the Tony Award for Best Book of a Musical, as well as the book for the 1988 Broadway production of ''Chess''. He is also the writer of the critically acclaimed play cycle ''The Rhinebeck Panorama''. Personal life Nelson was born in Chicago, Illinois to Viola, a dancer, and Richard Finis Nelson, an accounting-systems analyst and some times sales representative. During Nelson's childhood, the family moved frequently to accommodate his father's work, but they settled for long stretches in Gary, Indiana, the outskirts of Philadelphia, and finally in a suburb of Detroit. Nelson's earliest theatrical influences were in musical theatre, and he estimates that he saw more than twenty-five musicals before ever seeing his first straight play. He graduated from Hamilton College in 1972, and received an honorary D ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ricky Ian Gordon
Ricky Ian Gordon (born May 15, 1956) is an American composer of art song, opera and musical theatre. Life Gordon was born in Oceanside, New York. He was raised by his mother, Eve, and father, Sam, and he grew up on Long Island with his three sisters, Susan, Lorraine and Sheila. Donald Katz based his book, '' Home Fires: An Intimate Portrait of One Middle-Class Family in Postwar America'', on Gordon's family life. Gordon attended Carnegie Mellon University. Work The death of his lover from AIDS inspired ''Dream True'' (1998), ''Orpheus and Euridice'' (2005) and the song cycle ''Green Sneakers for Baritone, String Quartet, Empty Chair and Piano'' (2007). He has composed several operas and had his music performed by Audra McDonald, Dawn Upshaw, Renée Fleming, Todd Palmer and others.Rule, Doug''Short Rounds'' ''Metro Weekly'', March 31, 2011. In 1992 Gordon set ten of Langston Hughes's poems to music for Harolyn Blackwell. In February 2007, Gordon's opera, ''The Grapes of Wrath'' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Spitfire Grill
''The Spitfire Grill'' (also known as ''Care of the Spitfire Grill'') is a 1996 American drama film written and directed by Lee David Zlotoff, and starring Alison Elliott, Ellen Burstyn, Marcia Gay Harden, Will Patton, Kieran Mulroney and Gailard Sartain. It tells a story of a woman who is released from prison and goes to work in a small-town café, The Spitfire Grill. It won the Audience Award at the 1996 Sundance Film Festival, prompting several distributors to enter into a bidding war in response to the positive buzz, but when finally released, critics as a whole responded less favorably than they had at Sundance. The film is the basis for the 2001 Off-Broadway musical of the same name by James Valcq and Fred Alley. Plot Perchance "Percy" Talbot is recently released on parole after five years at Maine Correctional Center in Windham, Maine. The young woman arrives in the small town of Gilead, Maine with hopes of starting a new life. She is given a job as a waitress at the S ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fred Alley
Fred Alley (1962–2001) was an American musical theatre lyricist and librettist who died unexpectedly just as his work gained national recognition. His collaboration on the musical '' The Spitfire Grill'' with composer James Valcq won the American Academy of Arts and Letters' prestigious Richard Rodgers Production Award for 2001. Premiered at the George Street Playhouse in New Jersey and produced Off-Broadway by Playwrights Horizons, it received Best Musical nominations from the Outer Critics Circle and Drama League, as well as two Drama Desk nominations. The cast album was released on Triangle Road Records. '' The Spitfire Grill'' has become one of the most frequently performed recent musicals with more than 600 productions to date, not only in every major American city but in Canada, Germany, South Korea, and Japan as well. In 2008 the show had its UK premiere at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Alley was the co-founder and artist-in-Residence at American Folklore Theatre ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
