Janet Carl Smith, newly retired Deputy Commissioner of Chicago's Department of Cultural Affairs, advised leaders and members of the Arts and Cultural Alliance of Sarasota County to collaborate among themselves and others in an address on February 20, 2014. She shared experiences and ideas to the Alliance and is currently pushing for a renewal of a tax to benefit education in Sarasota, especially in the arts.

Tracy Letts has been known to get excited when honing and honing and honing his work “to make what I’m working on the very piece.” When things didn’t necessarily please him, there are rumors that he screamed, called people names, and wrote exhaustively long e-mails. In writing the screenplay for his Pulitzer Prize, Joseph Jefferson-, Tony-, and Drama Desk Award winning August: Osage County,which played Broadway in December 2007 for 18 months after premiering in his Chicago hometown’s Steppenwolf, he was probably just as vocal, but to himself.

It’s been said that Margo Martindale has gone from being an actress whose face moviegoers and TV viewers know to one who now has a brand name. “It’s nice when people come up to me and actually know my name! Usually it’s ‘Aren’t you -- ?’ or ‘Weren’t you in -- ?’ or ‘Hi, you’re the lady at my bank!’” Now, thanks to capturing the coveted role of Mattie Fae in the film adaptation of Tracy Letts’ Pulitzer Prize-winning August: Osage County[The Weinstein Company] and her boisterous and blistering performance, everyone’ll know her name.

PBS Great Performances and THIRTEEN have classic treats in store to ring in the holidays. First, on Friday, November 29, 2013: “Barbra Streisand: Back to Brooklyn,” a telecast of the diva's historic Brooklyn homecoming to christen the 19,000-seat, $1-billion Barclays Center, which marked her "home" concert since her childhood (and her first concert in six years). She performs 27 tunes from her five-decade career, joined by guests Il Volo, Chris Botti, a 60-piece orchestra led by William Ross, and, in quite a touching segment, her son Jason Gould.

The 17-week limited engagement of John Tiffany's critically acclaimed revival of Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie officially opens at the Booth Theater on September 26, 2013. The production marks the return to the stage of Tony, Drama Desk, and Emmy winner Cherry Jones, who costars as one of Williams' most memorable creations, Amanda Wingfield, the mother of crippled and shy Laura, played by Celia Keenan-Bolger (Peter and the Starcatcher) and Tom, portrayed by Zachary Quinto (Angels in America). Brian J.

The third season for Jenny Gersten, artistic director of the Williamstown Theater Festival, ends August 18, 2013 with the final performance of the Broadway-bound musical, The Bridges of Madison County on the Main Stage and the controversial Blood Playon the Nikos stage.

Some 23 years ago, Ed Herendeen, then with the Williamstown Theater Festival in an administrative position, was invited by the president of Shepherd University, in Shepherdstown, West Virginia, to organize an annual, summer Contemporary American Theatre Festival. Since then, CATF, with Herendeen as producing director, has presented 100 new plays either as premieres or second productions of works in development.

Remember the old M-G-M axiom: "More stars than there are in the heavens!" The 2013 Tony Awards, the 67th annual, telecast by CBS live from Radio City Music Hall on Sunday from 8-11 PM, has that beat. There'll be more stars than there are in the galaxy! Minus one, and more about that later.

The stars are aligning! Tony fav, six-time Emmy nominee and two-time winner and four-time Golden Globe nominee Neil Patrick Harris returns as the host with the mostest. Expect humorous barbs and songs.

Do you know the way to off-Broadway, where this has been one of the best seasons ever? Theaters are easy to find, and off-Broadway has everything Broadway has, including (as a rule, but not always) uncomfortable seats and stages that are (often but not always) smaller. However, OB also offers tickets that are definitely cheaper. Two of the best and most nominated shows are big hits, and two potential hits have just arrived.

Sue Mengers was a trailblazer as the first female super-agent. She was powerful, revengeful, and witheringly sarcastic, but to those she loved, and vice versa, she was a mensch. Ms. Mengers passed away in 2011 at age 79 after a series of chronic illnesses and tiny strokes. In John Logan's play currently running on Broadway, I'll Eat You Last: A Chat with Sue Mengers,she is channeled brilliantly by Bette Midler.

Charles Giuliano recently interviewed Massachusetts’ Barrington Stage Company artistic director Julianne Boyd about the homogenization of regional-theater programming.

Triple-threat Shonn Wiley has done lots of shows in all sorts of venues, but even if you were to chart his career only in terms of his participation in the City Center Encores! series of staged concert musicals, you'd see clearly that he's a rising star. His first Encores!

When Janie Minick walks onstage and announces: "I'm Elizabeth Taylor Wilding Todd Fisher Burton Burton Warner Fortensky," you would suspend all manner of disbelief if Taylor were still alive. She is, of course, referring to her marriages to hotel heir Nicky Hilton, British actor Michael Wilding, Hollywood film producer Mike Todd, singer Eddie Fisher, Welsh actor Richard Burton (to whom she was wed twice), Virginia senator John Warner, and construction worker Larry Fortensky. She then interweaves the story of her life, romances, and marriages to each of them.

Janis Paige was supposed to play Feinstein's last spring, and I had the pleasure of interviewing her via telephone in advance of that planned appearance. But then she was injured in a fall and couldn't make the trip to New York from her home in L.A., so our interview was never published.

The 1,600 seat Palladium in the $125 million Center for the Performing Arts, in Carmel, Indiana (a half hour drive from Indianapolis) opened in 2011 after years of planning. The magnificent, neo-classical structure, which features superb acoustics, gets its name from the Villa La Rotonda (1556) a Renaissance villa just outside Vicenza, northern Italy, designed by Andrea Palladio.

One critic summed up the film adaptation of the 1967 Tony-winning musical, Cabaret, as “a darkly sexy beast.” It’s certainly dark and sexy, while being immensely musically entertaining; and now, thanks to a restoration and remastering by Warner Bros., you might say a lot of light has been shed on Bob Fosse’s version which borders on a masterpiece and which netted him an Oscar.

“To be, or not to be: that is the question.” “Hell is empty and all the devils are here.” These lines from Hamlet and The Tempestare among Shakespeare’s most quoted.

Instead of Cats being labeled “Now and Forever,” that catchphrase should have been saved for The Phantom of the Opera.On Saturday, Jan. 26, 2013, it will celebrate the unprecedented milestone of playing on Broadway 25 years and counting – and in one theater, the Majestic.

January 26, 1988: It was one of New York’s coldest windiest nights, but outside the Majestic Theater, there was nothing but hot excitement as hundreds of media captured the arrival of celebrities in black tie, elegant evening wear and sparkling jewels emerging from limos onto the red carpet. Audience members and a crowd worthy of a Hollywood premiere shivered to observe and gawk. This was the opening night of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Charles Hart’s The Phantom of the Opera.