The Anxiety Project is an original new musical written by Rachel Dean (composer) and David Brush (lyricist). The cast album dropped on August 13th, and is now available for streaming. Recorded in collaboration with Arizona State University Music Theatre and Opera, and featuring exceptionally talented ASU students, it is well worth a listen…
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Unique Revival of ‘Once on This Island’ Tours Through ASU Gammage
Once on This Island originally premiered on Broadway in 1990. Based on the 1985 novel “My Love My Love” by Rosa Guy, which is ultimately based on Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Little Mermaid,” the musical is the brainchild of Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty of Ragtime and Anastasia fame. The revival premiered at Circle in the Square in late 2017, winning a Tony Award for Best Revival of a Musical and receiving several other notable nominations…
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Limited Run of ‘Beautiful: The Carole King Musical’ Hits ASU Gammage
Beautiful: The Carole King Musical is a jukebox show about the singer and songwriter whose extremely successful career spanned decades. First through songs she wrote for others, ultimately culminating in a solo career. Originally premiering on Broadway in January 2014, it received several Tony nominations including Best Musical and Best Book of a Musical. Beautiful played over 2,400 performances at the Stephen Sondheim Theatre, launching its first national tour in 2015, and closing in October 2019…
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Broadway Classic ‘Fiddler on the Roof’ at ASU Gammage
Fiddler on the Roof is a musical about tradition. Family. Culture. Oppression. Love. It’s about finding personal strength and making tough choices. Holding on and letting go. It is one of the most known pieces of modern art that pays homage and reverence to Jewish culture, both as a religious faith and a way of life. And it does so through the eyes and narration of one of the most endearing and generally likeable characters in theatre lore…
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‘La Cage Aux Folles’ Graces Arizona Broadway Theatre
La Cage Aux Folles is an endearing staple in the Broadway lexicon. With a book by Harvey Fierstein and music and lyrics by Jerry Herman. It had its first run on the Great White Way in 1983-1987, winning 6 Tony Awards including Best Book, Best Score and Best Musical. Its subsequent Broadway revivals in 2004 and 2010 won several Tony Awards, including a Best Revival Tony for both…
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Summer: The Donna Summer Musical
Summer: The Donna Summer Musical first appeared at the La Jolla Playhouse in late 2017, then moved to Broadway in 2018. It closed in late 2018, after 27 previews and 288 performances. The show recounts Summer’s story, starting in her childhood. Three actresses of varying ages play her in life stages. Duckling Donna is her youth. Disco Donna her early career. And Diva Donna at the top of her game, the undeniable Queen of Disco…
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Celebrate the Holidays with ‘Elf: The Musical’ at Arizona Broadway Theatre
Elf: The Musical is a stage adaptation of the family classic about Buddy the elf, who ventures out from the North Pole to The Big Apple to find his real father. It is a recreation of the iconic Will Farrell comedy known and beloved by so many. Inspired by, but not a duplication thereof. The same story told through the eyes and voices of different storytellers, using different methods, including really catchy songs. Thankfully maintaining most of the film’s best jokes, and all of the heart that makes the original so compelling…
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24th Annual ‘A Winnie-The-Pooh Christmas Tail’ Lights Up Valley Youth Theatre
The holiday season is officially upon us. The fresh air is cool and crisp, with the distinctive and rare scent produced by burning fireplaces. Indoors it smells of balsam, cinnamon pine cones, and pumpkin spice candles. Wreaths adorn front doors and sparkling lights glitter both inside and outside of our homes. Thanksgiving, the most glorious and gluttonous of holidays, is in the rearview. We are in the year’s home stretch. Christmas is nearly here. And, aside from many other things, that means Valley Youth Theatre’s annual production of A Winnie-The-Pooh Christmas Tail has officially arrived…
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Celebrate the Season with ‘The Sound of Music’ at The Phoenix Theatre Company
The Sound of Music is one of the most iconic shows of Broadway’s Golden Age. Known to nearly all, in some form or fashion, and sacred to many. However, popularity can be a double-edged sword. While it equates to a most-assured larger potential audience, there are also expectations that everyone has going into the performance. We all know what the songs should sound like, in the best case scenario. And those preconceived notions are inherently baked in, so the cast always has an uphill battle to fight from the outset…
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Stray Cat Theatre’s ‘American Psycho: The Musical’ Strikes at Tempe Center for the Arts
A blood-stained shirt draped over a chair in the center of a room. Commercials from the nineteen eighties blaring overhead, into your bloodstream, from an intentionally forgotten period of cultural subversion. The mood is set. The show begins. And after a brief moment of overwhelming static and piercing radio waves, Toby Yatso – a megastaple of local Phoenix theatre – is standing on a nearly-bare stage, nearly-bare himself as Patrick Bateman…
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‘Anastasia’ at ASU Gammage
Anastasia is a Broadway musical based on the animated 1997 feature film of the same name. An exploration of the long-held rumor that the Grand Duchess Anastasia survived the Bolshevik’s murder of the Raminov family, a tale DNA evidence has debunked. Twenty years after the movie was released, its newly-envisioned stage production premiered on the Great White Way. Magical characters replaced by historically-relevant ones. Slightly less focused on the fairy tale, and more with addressing the plight of the time…
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‘Sweeney Todd’ Strikes True at Arizona Broadway Theatre
A fantastic production of the musical is an ideal way to start the Halloween season. And that is exactly what Arizona Broadway Theatre is delivering. A witty yet horrifying, gorgeous yet grotesque, incredibly impressive version of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street…
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