20 New Musicals to See Beyond Broadway This Fall

TDF: There are only three new musicals opening on Broadway this fall. Thankfully, there are more than six times (!!) as many bowing beyond Broadway! Highlights include a transfer of the London hit The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, John Legend and Lynn Nottage’s adaptation of Imitation of Life, the controversial satire Slam Frank, Todrick Hall’s ambitious MIDNIGHT and newly minted Tony winner Joshua Henry in a new two-person tuner he cowrote.

12 Must-See Musicals On Stage This Fall on Broadway and Off-Broadway

Playbill: As crisp autumn air looks to settle over New York City in just a few, short, weeks, a thrilling new wave of musical theatre is taking over the stage! While Broadway brings its share of heavy-hitting stars, Off-Broadway is ready to burst at the seams with wildly original scores and bold stagings.

Everything to Know About the New Musicals With Broadway…

www.broadwayworld.com: While plenty of Broadway icons showed up at The Festival over the weekend in Kingston, New York, there were also performances from people and works you may not know — at least not yet! During Saturday’s jam-packed lineup of programming, seven new musicals gave theater fans a taste of their show during an almost two-hour set on the Broadway Direct mainstage. Some of them are from writers who are early on in their careers, while others are by theatermakers who have already been on Broadway.

The Postered Walls

The Sondheim Hub: The original posters for Follies, Sweeney Todd, and Sunday in the Park with George share a visual language: rupture. Each establishes a relationship to damage, danger, and attention before the curtain rises. Let’s look closely at how each poster makes its promise.

Baz Luhrmann Confirms ELVIS Stage Musical Is In the Works

www.broadwayworld.com: Baz Luhrmann has confirmed that there is a stage adaptation of his 2022 Elvis film in the works. In a new interview promoting his EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert film, the director confirmed that the musical is happening and is currently being worked on.

“Let’s have a song:” Musicals inspired by Shakespeare

Folger Shakespeare Library: One of Shakespeare’s earliest plays, in fact, inspired the earliest example of a musical based on his works. The Boys from Syracuse (1938) infused the Greek setting of The Comedy of Errors with 20th-century American language and jokes by book writer George Abbott, including the moment when Dromio of Syracuse, after hearing an actual line from the original play, leaps out of the wings to announce, “Shakespeare!”

KV2 Audio delivers world-class sound to three major musicals across Madrid and Barcelona

LightSoundJournal.com: Cinderella, Cabaret, and Tootsie recently lit up the stages of Madrid and Barcelona in a spectacular display of musical theatre. The monumental task of designing the audio systems for each show across three separate venues was given to Poti Martin, of Poti Martin Sound Design (PMSD), who implemented KV2 Audio solutions to bring all three musicals to life.

How to Train Your Dragon and Trolls Musicals Are in the Works

Playbill: DreamWorks Theatricals and Music Theatre International's Emerging Writers Program are developing musical versions of DreamWorks animated films How to Train Your Dragon and Trolls. Both titles will come to MTI's Broadway Junior collection, which are all tailored to be performed by actors 18 or younger.

Disney can't get 'Hercules' right — musical doesn't go distance in London

nypost.com: Disney has been hammering away at “Hercules” for eons. And more often than not, the show has toppled over like the Colossus of Rhodes. The Public put on a nice enough production of the 1997 Alan Menken and David Zippel cartoon musical back in 2019 in Central Park, but it was a one-off amusement that included hundreds of members of local community groups. Still, I saw promise in it.

& Juliet, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, More Receive 2022 Dora Award Nominations

Playbill: Nominations for the 42nd Annual Dora Mavor Moore Awards, recognizing the best of Toronto theatre, were revealed August 29, with the Broadway-bound & Juliet among the most-nominated productions. The West End transfer earned eight nods, including Outstanding Production. The top spot went to Talk is Free Theatre's Sweeney Todd, which earned nominations in 13 categories.

1 Pandemic, 2 Productions Of 'A Chorus Line,' Plenty Of Teen Resilience

NPR: A year ago, Jada-Lynn Pledger was ecstatic — then a sophomore at The Akron School for the Arts in Ohio, she was cast as Judy Turner in A Chorus Line, the big spring musical. "She was my first sort of supporting role ... I was like, oh yeah, like I'm with the big dogs, you know? ... " Pledger recalls. "And then, March 13th, Friday the 13th, is when we got the news that school was closing."

Original Cast of "Assassins" to Reunite on March 8

The BroadwayBlog: Everybody’s got the right to tune in on March 8! Creators Stephen Sondheim and John Weidman, director Jerry Zaks, and actors from the original Off-Broadway cast of the dark comedy Assassins will reunite on March 8 at 8 p.m. ET for a live-streamed reunion to discuss the landmark show.

“Bet Your Bottom Dollar”: Why "Annie" is Underrated

OnStage Blog: Walk into any community or youth theatre, and you won’t be surprised to find 20+ kids belting out “Hard Knock Life” in unison. Annie, with music by Charles Strouse, lyrics by Martin Charnin, and book by Thomas Meehan, is a staple of the musical theatre canon, and it is often a child’s first introduction into the world of acting through song.

Bob Dylan’s First Musical Had a Devil of a Time

The New York Times: The year was 1969. The producer Stuart Ostrow and the director Peter Hunt already had a hit show on Broadway with “1776.” Now they were setting their sights on “The Devil and Daniel Webster,” Stephen Vincent Benét’s classic 1936 story about Jabez Stone, a New Hampshire farmer who sells his soul to the devil, has second thoughts, and enlists the orator and statesman Daniel Webster to argue his case before a jury composed of American villains. The tale had been adapted into a 1939 opera and a 1941 movie, but never a musical.

Oklahoma! gets a Curly twist

www.limelightmagazine.com.au: Oklahoma! was the first musical written by Rodgers and Hammerstein and was ground-breaking in its day, developing the idea of the “book musical” initiated by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II when they wrote Show Boat. Not only did Oklahoma! integrate the songs and dance into the narrative, but it used recurring musical motifs throughout to underpin the story.

Dear Evan Hansen, & Juliet, More Win Big at the 2020 Olivier Awards

Playbill: Dear Evan Hansen, & Juliet, and Emilia each scored three wins at the 2020 Olivier Awards October 25, making them the most winning productions of the evening. Pasek & Paul's Tony-winning show won Best New Musical, Best Score (shared with orchestrator Alex Lacamoire) and Best Actor in a Musical for Sam Tutty.

What Happens to "West Side Story" When You Remove Race?

Token Theatre Friends: Or at least, as white men, they tried. West Side Story has always had a fraught relationship with Latinx people. Said Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda in 2009, as he was working on that year’s West Side Story Broadway revival: “I think West Side Story for the Latino community has been our greatest blessing and our greatest curse…As a piece of art, I think it’s just about as good as it gets. It also represented our foot in the door as an artistic community on Broadway. At the same time, because it’s just about the only representation of Latinos on Broadway and it’s about gangs, that’s where it gets tricky.”

How THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA Brought Theatre Back to Seoul and Is Giving Hope to Shows Around the World

BWW Exclusive: The music of the night plays on in South Korea! As BroadwayWorld reported in April, the world tour of The Phantom of the Opera resumed performances in Seoul on April 23- just weeks after the show was suspended because of illness within the cast. Following a 15-day self-quarantine for the rest of the cast and crew, all but one of the 126 company members went on with the show- with a slew of health and safety measures in place

Old Globe announces key leadership changes, expands role of Freedome Bradley-Ballentine

The San Diego Union-Tribune: Freedome Bradley-Ballentine, who arrived at the Old Globe nearly five years ago to lead the newly formed department of arts engagement, has been been named today to the additional role of associate artistic director at the Balboa Park theater.

Bradley-Ballentine will replace outgoing associate artistic director Travis LeMont Ballenger, who is moving to New York to join the producing team on the new Broadway show about Michael Jackson, “MJ, The Musical,” and he will be part of the Broadway incarnation of the Globe-born musical “Almost Famous.”

Maybe 'Riverdale' Doing 'Hedwig' Wasn't a Good Idea

The Mary Sue: I was worried about Riverdale trying to do Hedwig and the Angry Inch from the moment it was announced in January. Mainly because they were taking the “it’s controversial” route as if Riverdale hadn’t already done Carrie and Heathers as their previous musicals, without commenting on controversies therein. Confirming my fears, the episode made questionable choices in depicting numbers and characters from Hedwig while not explicating the show’s rich and complicated background.