The national touring company of the Tony Award-winner for best musical, “Guys and Dolls,” will hit the Fabulous Fox Theater this Tuesday for one week.
Based on the short stories of journalist Damon Runyon, the story takes place in New York City and revolves around gamblers, drinkers and the women who try to reform them.
Selected as a winner for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, the play later was made into a film starring Marlon Brando, Frank Sinatra, Jean Simmons and Vivian Blaine. Many of the shows songs became standards, including “Luck Be a Lady,” “Sit Down, You’re Rockin’ the Boat,” and “I’ve Never Been in Love Before.”
This touring company comes from Dallas Summer Musicals and is produced by Big League Productions Inc. from New York City.
“Guys and Dolls” will play the Fox through Aug. 21.
Directed by Gordon Greenberg and choreogrpahed by Patti Colombo. Cast: Ben Crawford, Steve Rosen, Erin Davie, Megan Sikora, Garth Kravitz, Jan Neuberger, Michael Scott, Jamie Ross, Brendan Averett and Glenn Rainey.
Big Bad Voodoo Daddy and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra will perform at Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre at Encore Park this Saturday, Aug. 18.
Sounding like a mix between the 70s band Stray Cats and music from the swing era and Broadway, Big Bad Voodoo Daddy will perform songs from its newest album “How Big Can You Get?: The Music of Cab Calloway,” along with BBVD classics, including “Go Daddy-O,” “You & Me & the Bottle Makes 3 Tonight (Baby),” and “Mr. Pinstripe Suit.”
Playing together for 16 years, the band was featured in the indie film “Swingers” and has appeared numerous times on “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno,” “Late Night with Conan O’Brian” and “Live with Regis & Kelly.” BBVD appeared multiple times as the Carson Daly show’s house band, and wrote, performed and recorded the show’s theme song.
Big Bad Voodoo Daddy with the ASO, Saturday at 8 p.m. Tickets are $12 to $35 and are available online at atlantasymphony.org, or by calling (404) 733-5000.
Photo: Jen Hofstetter: Pictured: Carolyn Cook, Mark Cabus, Tess Malis Kincaid, Ann Marie Gideon and Joe Knezevich
Just after reassuring a friend from New York that you really can find the caliber of theater you see on Broadway right here in Atlanta comes a show that proves it.
It would be hard to find anywhere a production of “Noises Off” anywhere that tops the production now playing at Georgia Shakespeare. The cast and the set are utterly spectacular.
While this is not one of my favorite plays, probably because I am not a fan of farcical comedy, the actors playing these outlandish characters play them so truthfully, they are a pleasure to watch.
Like so many Shakespeare productions, “Noises Off” features a play within a play. The plot revolves around a theater company that is putting on a play called “Nothing On” and features the mishaps, two-timing and sordid affairs that go on behind the scenes.
The acting is so fantastic in this show that even the most over-the-top character, Brooke (Ann Marie Gideon), a bimbo who forgets her lines, wears risqué costumes and can’t even do yogic breathing correctly, is performed so truthfully and in-the-moment that she is actually believable. In one scene in which the cast is in rehearsal, the director (Chris Kayser) lambastes her for forgetting her lines repeatedly. Later, during a performance when so many mishaps occur on stage that the entire cast improvises, except for Brooke, who sticks to the script no matter that her lines make no sense considering the circumstances.
Scenic designer Kat Conley has created a true-to-life front- and back-of the-house set that moves effortlessly from act to act. While “Noises Off” will not make my list of favorite plays, this production stands at the top of the list on greatest productions in Atlanta. It is a must see.
If you want to see what great Broadway shows are like, you need to go no further than Georgia Shakespeare.
“Noises Off” by Michael Frayne runs through Aug. 14. The cast includes some of the finest actors in Atlanta: Mark Cabus, Carolyn Cook, Joe Knezevich, Tess Malis Kincaid, Allan Edwards, Scott Warren, and Caitlin McWethy.
Eleven-year-old singing sensation Jackie Evancho will be performing with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra this Friday at 8 p.m.
If you have not yet seen her on “America’s Got Talent,” “Oprah,” “The Tonight Show With Jay Leno,” her solo concert debut on the recent PBS special “Dream With Me In Concert,” you have probably seen, read or heard about her somewhere. And with good reason. She is outstanding!
A prodigy who sounds more like a grown woman than a child, Evancho began singing at age 7 when she watched “Phantom of the Opera” starring Sarah Brightman. Evancho competed in a talent competition at 8 and came in second to a 20-year-old opera singer. Although at age 10 she came in second on “America’s Got Talent,” she got to sing a duet with her inspiration, Sarah Bightman.
This Friday, Evancho will perform selections from her new album, “Dream With Me,” which includes classical arias, pop classics and show tunes. The album has already gone gold.
Although I’m not an opera fan, her operatic performance in the video above is riveting.
Jackie Evancho and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra perform Friday, Aug. 5 at 8 p.m. at Atlanta Symphony Hall.
I don’t know who I’m more excited to see, Susan Tedeschi and Derek Trucks or the Dirty Dozen Brass Band!
When my radio alarm woke me up Tuesday morning, although I had never before heard that song, I knew who was singing. That bluesy, melodious, mellow sound reminiscent of Bonnie Raitt and angels had to be none other than Susan Tedeschi.
Turns out the Grammy nominated singer and master guitarist will be performing with her husband, Grammy Award-winner Derek Trucks, tomorrow at Chastain Park Amphitheater. The couple will be playing with their 11-piece ensemble the Tedeschi Trucks Band, which includes two fellow Allman Brothers members: guitarist Trucks and bassist Oteil Burbridge.
If that alone won’t make you stand up and applaud the folks at the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, who is bringing the concert to Atlanta, this icing on the cake should. One of the most popular jazz bands in the country, The Dirty Dozen Brass Band, which has been featured on albums by David Bowie, Elvis Costello and the Black Crowes, will open the show!
To see these two superstar headline acts on one stage—the best of New Orleans jazz with the best in blues-rock—would be like seeing Louis Armstrong open for Janis Joplin. An incredible combination!
Saturday, July 30 at 8 p.m. at Chastain Park Amphitheater. Tickets available at the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and at ClassicChastain.
Freddie Ashley and Clifton Guterman
If you think “coming out” is tough now, one can only imagine how difficult it must have been back in Victorian England, when homosexuality was against the law.
“The Judas Kiss,” by multi-award-winning playwright playwright David Hare, peeks at the later life of Oscar Wilde, who was prosecuted and imprisoned for his homosexual relationships.
Actor’s Express Artistic Director Freddie Ashley is marvelous as Wilde, who must decide whether to flee England or face a jury and prison time. Taken from the history of Wilde’s secret life, David Hare brings life and drama to the stage in a glorious play about pride and betrayal.
This is a show well worth seeing, as is anything by Hare, who was twice nominated for an Academy Award for his screenplays “The Hours” and “The Reader.” His play “Plenty” was nominated for a Tony in 1983.
“The Judas Kiss” runs at Actor’s Express through June 11.
Cast: Christopher Corporandy, Jillian Fratkin, John Stephens, Clifton Guterman, Antonio Pareja, and Brody Wellmaker.
Nick Arapoglou as Princeton and Mary Nye Bennett as Kate Monster; Photo: Horizon Theatre
It’s not like I loved three-time Tony Award-winner “Avenue Q” the first time I saw it less than a year ago when the national touring company came to town. But I wanted to see what Horizon Theatre would do with it and how it would differ.
Everyone in this show is stupendous, and Horizon’s production is outstanding. It was so great I want to shout to everyone, “Go see this play!” If you don’t like plays, you’ll love this one. If you don’t like musicals, you’ll love this one. If you don’t like comedy, you’ll laugh your ass off. If you don’t like four-letter words, you’ll get over it fast. And if you like plays, musicals and comedy, what the hell are you waiting for?
Next to “The Marriage of Bette and Boo,” it is probably my favorite show I’ve seen at Horizon, and I have liked a lot of its shows.
“Avenue Q” is about life, my life and your life. Face it, at times it sucks. And situations are funny. People are funny. But really, it sucks being you, and it sucks being me.
“Avenue Q” opens on Manhattan’s lower east side on Avenue Q. Princeton (Nick Arapoglou), who has just arrived in New York to begin his first job after obtaining his bachelor’s degree in English, spots a for rent sign on Avenue Q. He meets the superintendent, Gary Coleman (Spencer G. Stephens), the has-been “whatyoutalkinabout” child actor who reports he has been broke ever since his parents stole all his money when he was 15.
Princeton has moved to Manhattan to start work immediately. However, just after getting his new apartment, he gets a phone call from someone at the company where he is to begin work and is informed that the company was acquired and his new position has been eliminated. He starts to sing, “It sucks to me.” Pretty soon, nearly everyone on Avenue Q comes forward, divulges his or her problems, and sings why it sucks to be them.
OK, Princeton is a puppet. Most of the his new friends on Avenue Q are puppets. His new girlfriend, Kate Monster (Mary Nye Bennett) is a blue monster puppet. (Their differences spawn the song “Everyone’s a Little Bit Racist.) The puppets are controlled by people whose faces and bodies are shown center-stage moving, acting and singing along in full view. The puppets are all charming and the cast members are so truthful in their acting that no matter how outrageous their characters become they are believable.
There are so many cute scenes and funny scenes with hilarious characters: There’s the lascivious, bluesy singer Lucy (Jill Hames) who seduces Princeton; there’s the Bad Idea Bears (Jeff McKerley and Hames),who plead to Princeton and Kate Monster to get drunk and have sex; and there’s Trekkie monster, the male monster puppet who explains to teacher Kate Monster that the “Internet is for Porn.”
I wrote a review of the performance by the national touring company for “Avenue Q” about a year ago, and you can see that here. You’ll hear more of the story line, but all you really need to know is that Horizon’s production is hilarious.
Directed by Heidi Cline McKerley, “Avenue Q” runs at Horizon Theatre through July 3.
The cast includes Leslie W. Bellair, J.C. Long and Matt Nitchie.
Oh, the Alliance Theatre. How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love you for bringing Stephen King to your Taste of the Alliance Season tonight. His memoir “On Writing” sits on my night stand, and I can’t wait to see the new musical that he and John Mellencamp wrote!
I love you for bringing “Into the Woods” to the theater. It’s a show I have been wanting to see for years.
I love you for showing me a scene from the 2009 Tony Award-winning play “God of Carnage.” The scene and the acting we saw tonight were captivating.
I love you for hiring great Atlanta actors like Joe Knezevich, who performed wonderfully in a scene about an English blue’s musician in “I Just Stopped By to See the Man.” I would have thought Joe was actually from the UK had I not looked him up online and found that he is a local actor. He was such a wacky and animated Brit, I could swear I’ve seen that musician before!
I love you for daring to bring “The Wizard of Oz” to the stage. Who would dare to compete with Judy Garland? Not I. But if I had a voice like 14-year-old Paige McCauley, I would. She sounded nothing like Garland, but boy, McCauley had an ethereal, soulful voice and sang “Over the Rainbow” with her own unique emphasis on words and sounds. I was taken aback. Yeah, I would dare to bring her to my stage too.
I love you for bringing Tovah Feldshuh to reprise the role she played in New York in the longest-running one-woman show “Golda’s Balcony.” I love it when you bring great New York talent to Atlanta.
I think it is super cool that you are bringing Fred Willard to join the cast of The Second City when it performs “Sex and the Second City.”
I also love you for what you’ve done in the past: premiering “Bring it On: The Musical” — I will be shocked if it is not nominated for a Tony — and for premiering “Come Fly With Me.” They were two of the best shows I have ever seen at the Alliance. “Come Fly With Me” was one of the best shows I’ve seen anywhere.
I am so looking forward to your shows this season!
Thank you, Susan Booth.
One of the greatest Broadway performers and singers of all time, Patti LuPone, will be performing at Atlanta Symphony Hall this Friday and Saturday.
Of all the stars I’ve seen on Broadway, none stood out more than this dramatic actress with the powerful voice. I saw her play Eva Peron in “Evita,” for which she won her first Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical, and I have seen her in the Broadway production of “Sweeney Todd, which aired on PBS.
LuPone has been nominated numerous times for Best Actress in a Musical for the Tony Awards and for the Laurence Olivier Awards. She won another Tony in the same category, in 2008, for her role as Rose in “Gypsy.” Performing since she was four, LuPone has starred on Broadway numerous times, most recently in “Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown.”
LuPone is also a New York Times best-selling author for “Patti LuPone: A Memoir.”
Jill Jane Clements and Carolyn Cook; Photo: Greg Mooney
A panoply of family dysfunction — suicide, incest and drug addiction – mixed with bitter humor, “August: Osage County” at the Alliance Theatre is riveting for the whole three hours.
Yeah, this Pulitzer Prize- and Tony Award-winning play is long – it has two intermissions – but in some ways it’s not long enough. This story of the Weston family could keep on going and would still have me pinned to my seat.
Reminiscent of the plays of Christopher Durang, Sam Shepard at his tamest, and Eugene O’Neil, mixed with “Roseanne” at its best, playwright Tracy Letts introduces us to a household filled with verbal abuse, incest, suicide and tempestuous characters that hack at one another like chickens in a small caged pen.
Before Professor Beverly Weston (Del Hamilton) leaves his “cold blooded,” drug addicted wife, Violet (Brenda Bynum), he hires a young Cheyenne Indian woman, Johnna (Diany Rodriguez), to help care for her.
Although Beverly can’t stop drinking long enough to do his laundry, it is Violet who can barely walk or talk from taking too many prescription drugs. She teeters down the stairs, zig-zags across the floor, and knocks down a chair before she can greet Johnna.
When Beverly goes missing, Violet’s family arrives to console her: sister Mattie (Jill Jane Clements) with her husband and son; daughter Barbara Fordham (Tess Malis Kincaid) and her husband, Bill Fordham (Chris Kayser), with their 14-year-old pot-smoking daughter; single daughter Ivy Weston (Carolyn Cook); and daughter Karen Weston (Courtney Patterson) with her fiancé Steve (Joe Knezevich). Knezevich plays such a great, believable sleazeball that he’s at once despicable and likable, in the vein of Eric Roberts in “Star 80.”
Peyton Place, drama, comedy, lust and scandal.
Hear, hear, for Atlanta’s finest actors all on one stage in one helluva great play!
The stellar cast includes Andrew Benator, Richard Garner and Bart Hansard.
Written by Tracy Letts and directed by Susan V. Booth, “August Osage County” runs through May 8 at the Alliance Theatre.
