Issue #201: October 15, 2007

Read the Toronto Star article on Camp Broadway!!
Read the Toronto Sun article on Camp Broadway!!

• It’s hard to believe that Forbidden Broadway has been running for 25 years. Now considered a theatre institution, the show that started out in cabarets has found a home Off Broadway at the 47th Street Theatre. Productions give the feel that you are a theatre insider with a hilarious look at the current Broadway productions. If you’re heading to New York take in a show…and prepare to laugh…out loud!

• The Sopranos are taking over Broadway…..or should I say Chicago! On November 19 look for Aida Turturro (Janice Soprano) and Vincent Pastore (Big Pussy) to take over the roles of Matron (Mama) Morton and Amos Hart, Roxie Hart’s husband. You never know who might be in the audience…

• Lord Andrew Lloyd Weber is bringing his search for “Maria” to North America with a reality TV show to be aired on Canada’s CBC-TV….looking for the star of his revival The Sound of Music, which will play at the Princess of Wales Theatre in the fall of 2008.

• The North American tour of The Drowsy Chaperone opened in Toronto to rave reviews. One of the cast members may be familiar to lovers of television sitcoms…Georgia Engel best known for her role as Georgette on The Mary Tyler Moore Show and more recently on Everybody Loves Raymond…. plays the daffy Mrs. Tottendale, which she created on Broadway. Look for The Drowsy Chaperone coming to a stage near you.

• Patrick Stewart takes on Macbeth in the Royal Shakespeare Company’s current production at the newly refurbished Gielgud Theatre.
  

• Speaking of Chicago, producers Barry and Fran Weissler have parachuted Kelly Osbourne into the role of Mama Morton in their London production. I suspect if she does well you may see hear this side of the Atlantic either on tour or… on Broadway.