WHAT'S HAPPENING BROADWAY FANS?! Can you believe it's just 9 DAYS LEFT till Broadway's biggest night? However, we've been helping you start your morning with a different musical performance on our TOP 40 TONY AWARDS COUNTDOWN. Are you ready for another great performance from the past 73 years of the Tony Awards? Let's go!
At # 9 on our countdown, we travel to Israel in the year 1996. There, an Egyptian Police Band arrives there in a small quiet part due to a miscommunication for their initial destination. However the residents, let them stay for the night till they catch the bus the next morning and their lives change. This is The Band's Visit. With a score by last year's Tony winner (and nominee again this year) David Yazbek and a book by Itamar Moses, the show is bassed on an acclaimed 2007 Israeli film of the same name.
From last year's telecast, Tony winners Tony Shaloub as "Tewfiq", Katrina Lenk as "Dina", and company are chilling as a small Israeli cafe in Bet Hatikva dreaming of a certain movie star in song…. OMAR SHARIFF.
THE BAND'S VISIT was first coniced by producer Orin Wolf after seeing the original movie at a Film Festival in 2008. He was immediatly moved of how the story was. A few weeks later, the film started coming back to him so often, he gave himself the courage to reach out to the film's writer and director Eran Kolirin of adaptating it into a musical. However, Kolirin at first refused at the idea. It wasn't till something inside of him began to have a change of heart, he finally decided YES. From there, the development of the stage musical began going through several years of readings and workshops.
The show had its official world premiere OFF Broadway at the Atlantic Theater Company in 2016. It received rave reviews and a huge word of mouth following from Theatergoers everywhere, the show officially transferred to Broadway a year later. The ON Broadway run played the Ethel Barrymore Theatre and most recently closed after 38 previews and 589 regular performances. Under the direction of David Cromer, the cast included…
The show was nomianted for 11 Tony Awards last year winning 10 including Best Musical.
THE BAND'S VISIT is gearing up to launch a National Tour these next few weeks. It offical launch in Providence, Rhode Island at the end of June before making its way all over North America.
Isn't this musical so beautiful, laid back, relaxing, and intimate?
THROWBACK THURSDAY: AT NIGHT IN NEW YORK, ALL THE STARS COME OUT…. In the 1980's, majority of shows running on Broadway at the time took center stage to participate in a special commercial as part of the I LOVE NEW YORK campaign. The plan was to get more tourists to come out to the Big Apple and experience the Great White Way.
See if you can guess which shows and stars that participated in these 5 commercials.
Who thinks that the I LOVE NEW YORK company should do an updated version of the commercial with all of Broadway's current hits?!
UH, UH OH, WOKE UP TODAY, FEELING THE WAY WE ALWAYS DO when we get exciting news. It has just been revealed that the Tony Award winning smash hit Hairspray is boogieing its way back to the road next year in 2020.
Produced by NETworks on Tour, the new touring company will be a North American remounting of the original production (that ran at Broadway's Neil Simon Theatre for 2,642 performances). This will once again reunite Tony winner Jack O'Brien directing, and choreography by Tony winner Jerry Mitchell. The news come weeks after the recent announcement of the show returning to London's West End this April 2020.
For those who have been living under a rock, HAIRSPRAY tells the story of an average 16 year old girl with big hair and big dreams who ends up dancing and integrating on a local disc jockey show in Baltimore 1962. It features some of the most beloved Tony winning songs by Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman including GOOD MORNING BALTIMORE, WELCOME TO THE 60'S, WITHOUT LOVE, I KNOW WHERE I'VE BEEN, and YOU CAN'T STOP THE BEAT.
The new National Tour original staging remounting of HAIRSPRAY is set for Fall 2020.
LOVERLY NEWS! Have you ever wished of getting a Broadway cast album with replacement cast members? Here is your chance. Tony Award winner Laura Benanti is set to release a 4 Track EP of her renditions of the big songs she performs 7 times a week as "Eliza Doolittle" in Lincoln Center Theater's Award winning revival of My Fair Lady on Broadway. Produced by Tony winner Ted Sperling and David Lai, the album entitled SONGS FROM MY FAIR LADY will be released digitally and at the merchandise booths of the Vivian Beaumont Theatre beginning June 4th, 2019. Physical copies will be available June 14th, 2019 from Broadway Records.
On the EP, you will be blown away by Benanti's performances of the 4 of the musical's signature songs.. WOULDN'T IT BE LOVERLY, JUST YOU WAIT, I COULD HAVE DANCED ALL NIGHT, and SHOW ME.
If you want the music of the additional songs from the show, you can also get the 2018 Original Cast Recording downloaded on iTunes and or on shelves wherever music is sold. However for that recording, it features the production's original leading lady Tony nominee Lauren Ambrose as "Eliza Doolittle".
The Lincoln Center Theater revival of MY FAIR LADY continues to play at the Vivian Beaumont Theatre now through July 7th, 2019. Following its closing, the show will have played 39 previews and 509 performances.
PLEASE NOTE: Benanti does not perform on Tuesday Evenings. For those performances, the role of "Eliza Doolittle" is played by Ensemble member Kerstin Anderson.
