Broadway and Theatre News: Betty Buckley, Twelfth Night, Max Vernon, Lauren Marcus, Head Over Heels, Christy Altomare, Liz Callaway and Jason Robert Brown

Betty Buckley Photo Credit: Julieta Cervantes

The first image of Broadway legend Betty Buckley as Dolly Gallagher Levi in the first national tour of Hello, Dolly!, has just been released and is now available for download from the following link:https://tinyurl.com/y9lrnru2

The first national tour of Hello, Dolly! begins performances September 30, 2018, in theConnor Palace at Cleveland’s Playhouse Square, ahead of an official opening night onOctober 5, 2018. Additional tour stops include Chicago; Los Angeles; San Francisco; Washington, D.C.; Boston, and many more cities across America.

Ms. Buckley joins the astonishing list of show business luminaries who have inhabited the role, including Carol Channing, Pearl Bailey, Phyllis Diller, Betty Grable, Martha Raye, Ginger Rogers, Ethel Merman, in her last appearance on Broadway, Mary Martin, who led the West End company, 2017 Tony Award winner Bette Midler, and Bernadette Peters.

Ms. Buckley will be joined by Lewis J. Stadlen (Horace Vandergelder), Nic Rouleau(Cornelius Hackl), Analisa Leaming (Irene Molloy), Jess LeProtto (Barnaby Tucker),Kristen Hahn (Minnie Fay), Garett Hawe (Ambrose Kemper), Morgan Kirner(Ermengarde), and Jessica Sheridan (Ernestina).

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Concord Music’s Craft Recordings and The Public Theater(Oskar Eustis, Artistic Director; Patrick Willingham, Executive Director) are thrilled to announce the release of the original Public Works cast recording of the critically acclaimed 2018 Free Shakespeare in the Park production of Twelfth Night. The album will be available for pre-order on Friday, September 28, and the album will be released digitally and on CD on Friday, October 19, 2018. Those who pre-order the album digitally will instantly receive the first track, “Play On.” Shaina Taub and Dean Sharenow produced the album, with Sean Patrick Flahaven as executive producer. For more information visit smarturl.it/twelfthnight.

Other recent Concord Music cast recordings include Carousel, The Ballad of Little Jo, and the Grammy-nominated Come From Away. Live stage licensing rights and music publishing for Twelfth Night are also administered by Concord Music.

“This euphoric musicalization of Shakespeare’s brilliant comedy is a miracle on many levels. The music is infectious, joyful, and deep; the condensing of the multiple plot strands of the play into a 90-minute musical is astonishingly successful; the emotional power of the storytelling is fully unleashed with a lightness of touch that delights and amazes. All of these achievements will be audible as soon as you play this album,” wrote Eustis in the album’s liner note.

Conceived by Kwame Kwei-Armah and Shaina Taub, with music and lyrics by Shaina Taub, choreography by Lorin Latarro, and directed by Oskar Eustis and Kwame Kwei-Armah, Twelfth Night officially opened on Tuesday, July 31 and ran through Sunday, August 19 at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park.

Max Vernon

Max Vernon, will continue his first ever residency at Joe’s Pub, Existential Life Crisis Lullaby, with an all-new show on Tuesday, October 23 at 7:00 PM after a sold-out opening show earlier this week. The special musical guests will include Alice Ripley, Justin Vivian Bond, Ethan Slater, Robin de Jesus, Stephen Trask and Nathan Lee Graham. The October evening will be directed by Jaki Bradley. Vernon received the Lucille Lortel Award for Best Musical, three Drama Desk Award nominations, a Jonathan Larson Grant and the Richard Rodgers Award for his musicals The View UpStairs and KPOP, both of which had critically-acclaimed extended Off-Broadway runs last year. KPOP is planning a new major Off Broadway production in 2019. Following a sold-out debut at the Kennedy Center last year, Vernon is returning to the New York nightclub stage for three nights of high spectacle, high fashion, and high belted F sharps. The residencywill conclude on November 27 with completely different guests and songs.

In addition to his acclaimed musicals, the residency previews his newest work The Tattooed Lady (written with Obie Award-winning playwright Erin Courtney) alongside other previously-unheard material. The series features three directors — Ellie Heyman (September), Jaki Bradley (October) and Jenny Koons (November) — three completely different set lists, and about 300 costumes, many created by Vernon himself. Featuring a cast of Broadway stars, Downtown divas and the next generation of household names, Existential Life Crisis Lullaby is a celebration of tattooed ladies, Korean pop stars, 70’s queer culture, the apocalypse, sentient robots, aging club kids, homicidal hipster cults, and true love.

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Lauren Marcus

Friday, September 28, 2018 – Broadway Records recording artist Joel B. New will make his Green Room 42 debut on Saturday, October 6 at 9:30pm with his new show “Joel B. New Is Trying Too Hard.”

Be More Chill star Lauren Marcus joins the lineup of singers in American Theatre Wing’s Jonathan Larson and MAC’s John Wallowitch Award-winning songwriter Joel B. New’s eclectic evening alongside Madge Dietrich (Kinky Boots), CK Edwards (Shuffle Along), Nikka Graff Lanzarone (Women On The Verge…), Victoria Huston-Elem (Finding Neverland), Travis Kent (Disaster!), Richard Riaz Yoder(Hello, Dolly!), Ben Roseberry (Gentleman’s Guide…), Hansel Tan (The Four Immigrants), and Michael Winther (Fun Home). The evening features musical direction by Gillian Berkowitz (Avenue Q), with New co-directing alongside Robbie Rozelle (Songs From Inside My Locker).

Joel B. New’s musical theatre works include To Hell and Back, Mackenzie and the Missing Boy, Standalone: a song cycle, Agatha In The Attic, RSVP, and his latest musical comedy, Monkey Trouble Unleashed! His  work has  been seen and developed  at Ars Nova, New York Theatre  Barn, Prospect Theater Company, Musical  Theatre Factory, Broadway au Carré in Paris, Upstairs at the Duplex, and the New York Musical Festival. He is also the creator and host of “Something New,” which was named one of the Top 20 Podcasts for Theatre Fans by BroadwayWorld.com. Joel’s first solo album Cabot Cove — a collection of “theatre pop” songs inspired by the classic TV series Murder, She Wrote — is available on Broadway Records.

Tickets can be purchased here.

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The producers of Head Over Heels, the new musical comedy featuring the iconic songs of The Go-Go’s – the most successful female rock band of all time, and Sony Masterworks Broadway are thrilled to announce the release of The Original Broadway Cast Recording. Available for pre-order today, the album is set for digital release on October 12 and in physical formats on November 9.  Included in the 20-track cast album is a true bonus from The Go-Go’s themselves: an exclusive new recording of one of the band’s most popular songs, “This Town,” which marks their first studio recording in more than 17 years since their album God Bless The Go-Go’s (2000). The track, produced by Scott Sigman, was recorded exclusively for the Broadway collection by members Charlotte Caffey, Belinda Carlisle, Gina Schock, Kathy Valentine and Jane Wiedlin.  Premiering today and included with pre-order are original cast renditions of “We Got the Beat,” “Vacation” and “Head Over Heels.”  The album is produced by Scott M. Riesett and Tom Kitt with co-producers Louise Gund and Christine Russell, engineered by Isaiah Abolin and Lawrence Manchester, and was recorded at the DiMenna Center in New York City on August 26-28.

Head Over Heels is now playing on Broadway at Hudson Theatre (141 West 44th Street). Head Over Heels began preview performances on Saturday, June 23 and officially opened on Thursday, July 26, 2018. Head Over Heels has been lauded by Time Out New York as “a saucy & boisterous celebration” and heralded by New York Magazine as “a clever, delightful, bubbly, exuberant party!”

Head Over Heels features 18 of The Go-Go’s iconic hit songs including “We Got the Beat,” “Get Up and Go,” “Cool Jerk,” “Vacation,” “Our Lips Are Sealed,” “Lust to Love,” “Head Over Heels” and Belinda Carlisle’s solo hits “Mad About You”  and “Heaven is a Place on Earth.”

Head Over Heels follows the escapades of a royal family on an outrageous journey to save their beloved kingdom from extinction. You’ll meet a king about to lose his throne, a queen about to lose her inhibitions, and two princesses about to find love. It’s a modern musical fairy tale where once upon a time is right now.

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Liz Callaway

On Monday, October 8, 2018 at 7:30pm at Merkin Hall – as part of the Broadway Close Up series – Kaufman Music Center presents Bound for Broadway 2018, hosted by Liz Callaway with a cast of Broadway stars. Don’t miss your chance to see the next Hamilton before anyone else! An annual event eagerly anticipated by New York’s most serious and knowledgeable musical theater fans, Bound for Broadway previews four of the best new musicals headed to New York theaters. Past Bound for Broadway shows have given theater fans a sneak peek at In Transit, Next to Normal, Avenue Q, The Drowsy Chaperone, Amelie and It Shoulda Been You. This fall, Tony nominee and Emmy Award winner LIZ CALLAWAY will introduce the creative teams behind four new shows and will be joined by a cast of Broadway stars who will perform songs from the musicals.

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Ghostlight Records has announced the release of How We React and How We Recover, the new album from three-time Tony Award winner Jason Robert Brown, on physical CD online and in stores today, Friday, September 28. The album was previously available on  digital and streaming formats. His first solo recording in over a decade is a politically-charged, far-reaching rumination on love, family and music. To order the album, please visit www.ghostlightrecords.com/jason-robert-brown-how-we-react-and-how-we-recover.html 

How We React and How We Recover – partly a response to our fraught political climate, part portrait of an evolving contemporary artist – is Brown’s definitive interpretations of his own compositions, pregnant with emotion, capacious musical energy and symphonic sweep. “I grew up on Billy Joel and Joni Mitchell, but also Stephen Sondheim and Leonard Bernstein,” reflects Brown. “All those influences sit within the work. This album has a specific emotional palette and musical aesthetic that rests between rock ‘n’ roll, jazz, folk, gospel and Broadway.”  

The opening song, “Hope,” written the morning after the fateful 2016 U.S. Presidential election, was meant to set the tone for the record. “It’s about having hope when you have no reason to be hopeful, trying to capture the positive energy of life in bad times. I still have a tough time performing it, it’s a very direct expression of a very difficult emotional moment.” Ultimately the album is about, as the song “Hope” itself says, being a force of good “in spite of everything ridiculous and sad.”

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Christy Altomare, Liz Callaway

From the hit Broadway musical and 1997 animated film Anastasia, the new duet of the Oscar-nominated song “Journey to the Past” featuring Broadway star Christy Altomare with the original voice of Anastasia, Liz Callaway is now available for purchase on iTunes and Amazon and for streaming on Spotify and Apple Music.  A special music video has also been released and can be found here.

The duet features accompaniment by Anastasia composer Stephen Flaherty and a vocal arrangement by Benjamin Rauhala.

The original Broadway cast recording is available at BroadwayRecords.com, Amazon.com and iTunes. The 75-minute album includes the Academy Award nominated favorite “Journey to the Past” alongside new numbers from the show such as Christy Altomare’s haunting “In My Dreams,” Ramin Karimloo’s passionate “Still” and Derek Klena’s heart-racing “My Petersburg.”

Anastasia, opened on Broadway on April 24, 2017 at the Broadhurst Theatre (235 West 44th Street), produced by Stage Entertainment, Bill Taylor (Sister Act, Rocky), Tom Kirdahy (It’s Only A Play, The Visit), Hunter Arnold (Kinky Boots, Spring Awakening) and Dan Hinde. The company is led by Christy Altomare, Zach Adkins, John Bolton, Max von Essen, Judy Kaye and Vicki Lewis.