Tony-winning Broadway favorite Donna McKechnie will be jazzing things up at Birdland beginning January 6, 2014, when she’ll premiere her new talk and variety show Donna McKechnie In Good Company.
The bi-monthly event will feature special guests, including Tommy Tune, Faith Prince, Jerry Mitchell, Andrea McArdle and more. Specific appearance dates to be announced shortly.
Donna McKechnie In Good Company will feature the actress telling stories and chatting with special guests, and performing musical numbers with Broadway artists.
The new show will be a part of the “Broadway at Birdland” concert series.
Broadway star Julie Harris, who won an unprecedented five Tony Awards for best actress, has died. She was 87.
Actress and family friend Francesca James says Harris died Saturday at her home in West Chatham, Mass. She had previously suffered two strokes.
Harris’ first Tony Award was for the free-spirited Sally Bowles in John van Druten’s I am a Camera in 1952, her second in 1956 as St. Joan in Lillian Hellman’s adaptation of Jean Anouilh’s The Lark, a third in 1969 for Forty Carats, followed four years later as Mary Todd Lincoln in The Last Mrs. Lincoln by James Prideaux. In 1977, she won her unprecedented fifth Tony as Emily Dickinson in William Luce’s play The Belle of Amherst (directed by Charles Nelson Reilly).
Miss Harris also carries the laurel of receiving more Tony Award nominations than any other actor. She received four additional nominations for her work in The Au Pair Man (with Charles Durning), Marathon ’33, Skyscraper (starring opposite Charles Nelson Reilly), and Lucifer’s Child.
Television viewers knew her as the free-spirited Lilimae Clements in the 1980s series “Knots Landing.”
Harris leaped to fame at age 24 playing a lonely 12-year-old tomboy in “The Member of the Wedding.” She repeated the Broadway role in the 1952 film version. She was also James Dean’s romantic co-star in “East of Eden.”
The Friday night performance of “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark” will go on despite a cast member’s onstage injury one night earlier.
The Thursday show was interrupted near the start of its second act when dancer Daniel Curry’s right ankle became trapped in a hydraulic stage lift inside the Foxwoods Theater.
Witnesses said the 42nd St. theater echoed with Curry’s loud scream as stunned audience members looked on.
A black curtain descended to cover the stage for about 10 minutes before Curry, 23, was freed by emergency first responders.
A spokesman for the play said mechanical failure was not to blame for the mishap and the Friday night show would not be affected.
“The technical elements of the show are all in good working order and we can confirm that equipment malfunction was not a factor in the incident,” said spokesman Rick Miramontez. “Our thoughts are with Daniel and his family.”
Curry is listed in stable condition at Bellevue Hospital Center, but is the latest in a long list of injuries that have plagued the show.
Billy Porter opens the new Monday Musicals series at XL Nightclub
Monday Musicals has kicked off with an exciting lineup of special events at XL Nightclub beginning with a performance by Tony Award winning Kinky Boots star Billy Porter who helped launch the series last night.
New York City’s largest “straight-friendly” cabaret and dance nightclub is also welcomes a new face to its team. Dougie Meyer, the new Director of Promotions & Events for XL Nightclub, will carry over the concept of Musical Mondays, which will be enhanced, supercharged and dubbed “MondayMusicals at XL,” to the Hell¹s Kitchen hotspot housed within THE OUT NYC urban resort.
“After an off the charts first year in business in 2012, the addition of Dougie Meyer will help maintain XL¹s position as the number one gay nightclub in NYC,” says XL Nightclub partner Ian Reisner.
For reservations, more information and the club¹s complete calendar of events, please visit www.xlnightclub.com, call 212.239.2999 or email info@xlnightclub.com.
Photos via Kevin Thomas Garcia.
Billy Porter and two of his co-stars – THE Kinky Boots!
My dear friend of almost 19 years, Kevin Burrows, has penned a great essay about “Broadway’s Best Gay Showmances” – couples who have met, fallen in love and stayed in love. Kevin met his husband Chris Sieber at about the same time I met my husband, Michael, while Kevin and I both were in the 1995 Broadway revival of Hello, Dolly!
Kevin had recently seen an article compiling couples who had met on Broadway. Only problem? No gay or lesbian couples. WHAT???
So Kevin took it upon himself to rectify that situation.
I have to share a portion of it with you:
Last Friday, while surfing through the major Broadway websites, I came across a feature entitled “”Til There Was You’: Broadway’s Best Showmances.” It was a collection of stories of 18 Broadway couples who fell in love while performing in or working on the same show. As I scrolled through the slideshow with the love stories and images of these couples — most of whom I know — I started feeling uneasy. And by the time I got to the end of the article, I was astounded. Of the couples depicted, not one of them was a same-sex couple.
How could this be? I mean, I’m pretty sure most people are aware of this (and even if people aren’t, this major Broadway website certainly must be), but there are quite a few gay individuals in the Broadway community. I know, shocker, right?
I thought about that gay, theater-loving kid in some small town somewhere — this website offering him some hope and a connection to a potentially bright future — seeing this feature and not seeing himself represented in any way. Once again, something is making him feel different, other, alone.
I want that kid to know that we are out here. And not only are we out here, but we are out here in huge numbers. We have fantastic, successful careers, relationships, marriages, and kids! That’s what I want the next generation to see.
Plus, there’s a slideshow featuring 20 (just the tip of the LGBT Broadway couples iceberg) Broadway-born gay and lesbian couples. You might recognize number 19.
The original cast of A Chorus Line on Donahue talking about the process and experience of creating the landmark theatre piece. A Chorus Line was a big part of my career for many years, and I was fortunate to work and appear with many of these fab actors – Donna McKechnie, Baayork Lee, Kay Cole, my fabulous Thommie Walsh and many others. There’s a tradition in theatre, and particularly dance, to “pass on” knowledge and skills to the next generation. And I learned so much from all of them.
This is just one segment of the show, but I’d encourage folks to go watch the other segments on YouTube as well. Cast members perform there original numbers, and talk about the pain and joy of being a part of something iconic and personal.
Baayork mentions a book that she and Thommie Walsh helped write, On The Line, about the birthing of the project on the TV show, and you can still find it on Amazon. Simply fascinating. If you’re interested in Broadway and theatre, it’s truly a must read.
Great news! I would love to see this show come back to Broadway and receive the acclaim it deserves. I saw the original and was moved by the story and the gorgeous score. The production was nominated for four Tony Awards including Best Musical.
Erin Davie and Emily Padgett will co-star as conjoined twins Violet and Daisy Hilton in the La Jolla Playhouse-Kennedy Center co-production of Side Show, the Tony Award-nominated musical by Henry Krieger and Bill Russell, which will return to the stage in a new incarnation directed by Academy Award winner Bill Condon this fall.
Condon (“Dreamgirls”) has given new dramatic shape to the dark, pop-driven musical that has a score by Krieger (Dreamgirls) and Russell (Elegies for Angels…), who also wrote the book, and contains numerous stand-out songs, including “Who Will Love Me As I Am?”
A source close to the production told Playbill.com that the creative team is hopeful for a Broadway run following Side Show’s engagements at the La Jolla Playhouse (Nov. 5-Dec. 15) and The Kennedy Center (June 14-July 13, 2014).
My personal feeling is that the original lacked a cohesive marketing campaign. Everyone who eventually saw the show loved it, it seemed. But getting butts in the seats was difficult as the campaign didn’t really make clear the content of the show (see the original at left). Most people just heard the phrase “freak show” and thought it would be creepy or something.
Over the past 15 years the show has developed quite the cult following. And deservedly so.
Good luck to Condon and the cast. Hope to see the show soon.
According to Deadline Hollywood, “Magic Mike: The Musical” is heading to Broadway.
Per the website, producers are actively working to turn the Channing Tatum blockbuster film about male strippers in Florida into a musical with Tom Kitt and Brian Yorkey set to write songs, and Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa signed to write the book for the Broadway version.
The film, released in 2012, was directed by Steven Soderbergh, who along with Tatum, Reid Carolin, Gregory Jacobs, and Nick Wechsler serve as producers on the musical.
