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Times Square Alliance & Playbill Kick Off Pride in Times Square

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Times Square Alliance and Playbill present Pride in Times Square, a weekend full of events featuring stage and screen stars, Broadway productions, LGBTQIA+ non-profits, special Times Square business promotions, and more. Head to Times Square between 45th – 47th Sts from June 24–26, coinciding with NYC Pride.

Events:

On June 24–25, Pride 365: LIVE! will bring Broadway shows together with community and non-profit organizations to celebrate dynamic voices in the community and support their continued fight for equity, diversity, and inclusion for all.

Friday June 24th: Community Pride Day
12:00PM – Pride in Times Square Kick-Off Event
1:00PM – The National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce (NGLCC) Pride Celebration
2:00PM – Austin Artists Project Pride Celebration
4:00PM – Ali Forney Center Pride Celebration
5:00PM – BEAU in Concert
6:00PM – The New York City Gay Men’s Chorus
7:00PM – GLAAD Pride Celebration

Saturday June 25th: Broadway Pride Day
10:00AM – Head Over Heels Sing-Along Concert
11:00AM – A Strange Loop Panel Discussion
12:00PM – TABOO Sing-Along Concert
1:00PM – FOWL PLAY in Concert
2:00PM – The Prom Sing-Along Concert
3:30PM – Hedwig and the Angry Inch Sing-Along Concert
4:30PM – Audible Pride Celebration

On June 25 at 6pm, join The Big Broadway Disco, a street party that will invite revelers to dance through Times Square to Broadway songs and performances with a disco flair, all set around the Playbill Pride float. Performers include DJ Ari Grooves, DJ Duggz, Orfeh, Anthony Wayne & the cast of MIGHTY REAL: A FABULOUS SYLVESTER MUSICAL, and a special performance from Off-Broadway’s TITANIQUE star, Courtney Bassett!

Throughout the weekend, audiences can celebrate pride with singalong performances and piano concerts at the Playbill Pride Piano Bar on Playbill’s Sing For Hope piano.

Friday June 24th:
12:30PM – Joey Contreras in Concert
1:30PM & 2:30PM – Playbill Pride Mix Sing Along
4:30PM – Austin Artists Project: SING OUT!
5:30PM – JJ Maley in Concert

Saturday June 25th:
10:30AM & 11:30AM – Playbill Pride Mix Sing Along
1:30PM – Fun Home Sing Along
2:30PM – La Cage Aux Folles Sing Along
4:00PM – Trans Entertainment Guild – Pride Cabaret Celebration
5:00PM – Girlfriend From Hell: The Musical in Concert

On June 24–25, audiences will also be able to connect with Pride in Times Square sponsors ViiV and Audible on interactive Double Decker Buses that will become part of the NYC Pride March on June 26.

The Times Square Alliance will celebrate the best of the neighborhood’s Pride discounts, deals, giveaways, and special menu items from local businesses all month long, allowing visitors to browse special offers from Times Square restaurants, shops, shows, and attractions that celebrate and support the most colorful month of the year. Times Square will also be home to #SignsOfPride, a display of Pride flags and rainbows on screens and billboards throughout the area.

Suzanna, co-owns and publishes the newspaper Times Square Chronicles or T2C. At one point a working actress, she has performed in numerous productions in film, TV, cabaret, opera and theatre. She has performed at The New Orleans Jazz festival, The United Nations and Carnegie Hall. She has a screenplay and a TV show in the works, which she developed with her mentor and friend the late Arthur Herzog. She is a proud member of the Drama Desk and the Outer Critics Circle and was a nominator. Email: suzanna@t2conline.com

Entertainment

A Happy Dance for a Happy Hour You Will Love on Icon of the Seas

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Get ready to do your happy dance!

Making every hour the happiest of hours on the highly anticipated Icon of the Seas, Royal Caribbean International has unveiled more than 15 of the bars and nightlife experiences that will light up the world’s best vacation when the sun sets. Icon will debut an unrivaled lineup when it sets sail in January 2024 and there are some phenomenal ways to get your song on with three cheers in the air.

Across the newly revealed venues, which are among 40-plus ways to dine, drink and be entertained, grownups are in for all-new experiences and favorites from end to end and even day to night. Serving up brand firsts are venues all about the tunes, like Lou’s Jazz ‘n Blues in Central Park and Dueling Pianos in Royal Promenade, and spots to grab a drink and mingle before a show like the Rye & Bean coffee bar in AquaDome and the Bubbles champagne bar in Central Park. When it comes to favorites, from Trellis Bar and its first menu of bites to more ways to play in Playmakers Sports Bar & Arcade, every place has a sense of new – whether it’s a new look and location or signature cocktails exclusive to Icon.

“We’ve set out to introduce a new kind of vacation in every sense and taken a blank slate to create an unparalleled blend of ways vacationers can celebrate and make memories whatever their mood, vibe and style,” said Linken D’Souza, vice president, food and beverage, Royal Caribbean International. “From all-new venues and bolder favorites to new iconic drinks on every menu, zero-proof cocktails and twists to classics, there’s something for everyone to make the most of their nights out on Icon of the Seas.”

Here are a few of the amazing highlights:

Dueling Pianos – In Royal Caribbean’s first dueling pianos bar, it’s the battle of the baby grands at the hands of two talented pianists who take song requests to bring high-energy performances of crowd-favorite hits to the Royal Promenade – the heart of Icon.

The Overlook and Overlook Pods – The elevated lounge and first-of-their-kind nooks at sea take nights out and hangouts to another level. The wraparound windows in the AquaDome bring the ocean center stage during the day, and at night, the cruise line’s marquee aqua shows are just a few steps away. The next-level pods are where friends can lounge with a drink, play classic boardgames and kick back to live music, too.

Returning favorites include The Attic, inspired by Manhattan’s dark and intimate comedy clubs with adults-only live shows, and Music Hall, to rock out to the house tribute band.

Point & Feather – The neighborhood English pub on Royal Promenade has a new open layout, games – and tournaments – of darts and sips joining the signature lineup of pints and the live guitarist at the center of it all.

Spotlight Karaoke – Aspiring singers take the stage in front of the crowd or in a private room with their friends and family at this fan-favorite karaoke spot on Royal Promenade.

 Icon will sail 7-night Eastern and Western Caribbean vacations from Miami year-round. Every cruise will visit Royal Caribbean’s award-winning private island destination, Perfect Day at CocoCay, The Bahamas, where adventurers can create their perfect vacation day at Thrill Waterpark’s 13 waterslides, the first overwater cabanas in The Bahamas at Coco Beach Club and more. Vacationers will also visit idyllic Caribbean destinations like Cozumel, Mexico; Philipsburg, St. Maarten; and Roatan, Honduras.

More details about the first Icon Class ship will be revealed in the coming months. Travelers can dive into the all-new vacation on www.RoyalCaribbean.com/Icon.

 

 

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Broadway

Ken Fallin’s Broadway: Sondheim

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Stephen Sondheim birthday was March 22nd and somehow I missed it. His masterpiece Sweeney Todd opened on Broadway originally March 1, 1979, at the Uris Theatre (now the Gershwin). His newest revival opened Sunday, March 26th at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre. So here’s to you Steve.

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Celebrity

The Glorious Corner

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G.H. Harding

HERE’S BEKKA — (from Rolling Stone)  Bekka Bramlett grew up around John Lennon and George Harrison, but nothing could prepare her for joining Fleetwood Mac in 1994, during one of the rockiest periods in the band’s history.

In the summer of 1994, Fleetwood Mac hit the road without Stevie Nicks, Lindsey Buckingham, or Christine McVie. In the three singers’ spots, drummer Mick Fleetwood and bassist John McVie placed Traffic’s Dave Mason, rockabilly singer Billy Brunette, and Bekka Bramlett — the 26-year-old daughter of late-Sixties/early-Seventies rock icons Bonnie and Delaney Bramlett.
“We ended up with a bunch of talented people playing good music, but they should not have been touring as Fleetwood Mac,” Mick Fleetwood wrote in his 2014 memoir Play On. “There were too many essential pieces missing from the machine this time. We were a totally different band, with only the original drummer andbass player, and our original name.”

The Bekka Bramlett incarnation of Fleetwood Mac released a single album, 1995’s Time, before dissolving the next year to make way for a lucrative Hells Freezes Over-style reunion album and tour by the classic Rumours lineup. This period of the band may seem like little more than a footnote to some rock fans, but it was a pivotal time for Bramlett, and she looks back on it without any regrets.

“I knew my job was to get Stevie back,” she tells Rolling Stone from her home in Nashville. “I wasn’t a moron. I also knew this was a dangerous job when I took it. I knew I was facing tomatoes. But I didn’t want to wear a top hat. I didn’t want to twirl around. I wanted to be me. I even dyed my hair brown just so people in the cheap seats would know that Stevie wasn’t going to be here. I didn’t want anyone to be discouraged or let down.”

Joining Fleetwood Mac at 26 would have been a shock to the system of most singers, but Bramlett had been living in close proximity to rock stars her entire life. When she was very young, her parents toured and recorded with George Harrison, Eric Clapton, and many other A-list rock stars, winning renown as Delaney & Bonnie and Friends. Those artists also spent a lot of time at her mansion in the Hollywood Hills.

Bramlett didn’t realize any of this was unusual until she boarded the school bus one morning gripping her Disney Princess lunchbox. “This other little girl had a Beatles lunchbox,” she says. “I said to her, ‘I know him. He’s on our couch right now.’ I pointed to George Harrison. ‘I know him too.’ I pointed to John. She started hitting me since she thought I was lying. I was petrified and confused. I thought they were just Daddy’s friends that had accents.”

When she was just four years old, her father recruited Bekka and her sister Suzanne to sing background vocals on his song “California Rain.” “My mom had to get some gaffer tape to keep the headphones on my head since I was so little,” she says. “I used to hate the way it sounds, and now I love it so much. It’s so endearing.”

Right around this time, her parents split up, and she went to live with her father and grandmother. “It was weird, since mostly the moms got the babies back then,” she says. “But my parents were alcoholics. My grandmother never even smoked cigarettes or said cuss words. She brought us to church every Sunday, Wednesday, and Monday. We were in safe hands with our grandmother. I think both of my parents trusted that.”

Delaney and Bonnie both struggled to find solo success in the Seventies, and they dealt with significant substance abuse issues, but Bekka inherited their talents, and she knew from a young age that she’d devote her life to music. “I briefly thought I’d be a lawyer, but I thought I’d be a singing lawyer,” she says. “Then I wanted to be a jockey since I love horses, but I thought I’d be a singing jockey. Music is just what I’m good at.”

As a teenager with a fake ID in the early Eighties, Bramlett spent many nights checking out bands on the Sunset Strip. “I remember standing on the side of the stage as Guns N’ Roses played,” she says. “Seeing it up close, I was like, ‘This is why you never try heroin.’ But then I’d go into the audience and be like, ‘This is why you join a rock & roll band!’”

Just a terrific story and interview from Stone’s Andy Greene. You can read the rest of the interview here:https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/bekka-bramlett-fleetwood-mac-stevie-nicks-1234688286/
Interestingly enough, I found that Fleetwood Mac Time album very, very enjoyable – not only for the new members of Mac, but for Dave Mason’s reflective “I Wonder Why,” Christine McVie’s perfect “Nights in Estoril” and the track “These Strange Days,” which features Mick Fleetwood’s first-ever vocal.
It certainly wasn’t the hit Rumors was, or even Tusk for that matter, but reflected a re-jiggering of the group; which was pretty good in my book.
Billy Burnette and Dave Mason replaced Buckingham, which led to the oft-spoken comment: it took 2 guitarists to replace Lindsey.
Great piece by Andy Greene.

SUCCESSION — (via Deadline) The Roys are back with a vengeance. The Season 4 premiere of Succession drew an audience of 2.3M on Sunday across HBO Max and linear telecasts, which is a series high for same-day viewers. Total viewing for Sunday night was up 62% compared to Season 3’s premiere viewership of 1.4M in October 2021. At the time, that marked the best premiere night performance of any HBO original series since HBO Max launched in May 2020. Sunday’s viewership is also up about 33% from the Season 3 finale’s 1.7M. Season 3 averaged about 7.2M viewers per episode, according to HBO.HBO also says that all previous seasons of succession saw a 4x increase in viewership in the week leading up to the Season 4 premiere, compared to the week prior.

The Roy family saga picks up as the sale of media conglomerate Waystar Royco to tech visionary Lukas Matsson (Alexander Skarsgård) looms. The prospect of the seismic sale provokes existential angst and familial division among the Roys: patriarch Logan Roy (Brian Cox) and his four grown children, Kendall (Jeremy Strong), Siobhan (Sarah Snook), Roman (Kieran Culkin) and Connor (Alan Ruck). A hopefully Roy-esque power struggle will ensue as the family weighs up a future where their cultural and political weight is threatened.

Succession has 13 Emmys including Best Drama Series wins for its Season 2 and Season 3, the latter of which premiered in 2021.

We had mentioned earlier that most of the  advance reviews said the writing was the star of the premiere episode and I definitely agree. Creator Jesse Armstrong wrote it and delivered just a stellar job. The episode began with a grumpy-Brian Cox at his birthday and took a few moments to develop into the powerhouse it has become, but it was very, very enjoyable.

Sure some of the dialogue  and plot harked back to earlier episodes, but it’s so good, you hardly noticed. And the ending with Shiv and Tom, alone at at home and contemplating their futures, was just splendid and reeked of the amazing emotion the show almost always conjures up. A class act all around.

SHORT TAKES — London’s Guardian gave the new Keifer Sutherland steaming-series Rabbit Hole a pretty stellar review. Love Keifer and love Charles Dance. And newcomer Meta Golding received a rave as well. Check it out here: https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2023/mar/27/tv-review-rabbit-hole Ant-Man and Creed III star Jonathan Majors has a major problem. Saturday night he was arrested for violence with his supposed girlfriend in a cab going from a bar in Brooklyn to NYC. A commercial he did for the Army has already been pulled. The papers in Manhattan have been all over his story and one poster said: Innocent or not; the damage is already done. Sad for sure. He portrays Kang in the next several Marvel-movies, so we’ll see what happens. I wonder what bar in Brooklyn he was at? There are some rough ones out there for sure …
Donnie Kehr’s terrific new album Beautiful Strange is out now on CD …

Jennifer Coolidge

Variety confirmed this week, that the locale of the next White Lotus, from Mike White, will be Thailand. Now, if we could only get Jennifer Coolidge back … Congrats to New York Independenteditor Keith F. Girard on his second novel –

Keith F. Girard’s The Curse of Northam Bay

just out: The Curse of Northam Bay …PR-pasha David Salidor was interviewed by Charles Rosenay for Monkee Mania Radio … Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer open July 21 and it is indeed 3 hours.

Cillian Murphy

It stars Cillian Murphy and the trailer looks rather stupendous. Check it out here:


Happy Bday Steven Tyler and Diana (Miss) Ross!
NAMES IN THE NEWS — Alex Salzman; Jeff Smith; Dino Danelli; Bill Amendola; Maria Milito; Steve Walter; Melissa Davis; Anthony Noto; Deb Caponetta; Christine Nagy; Jim Farber; Kent Denmark; Jane Ayer; Toby Mamis; Howard Bloom; Brad LeBeau; and BELLA!
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