It was announced on Friday that Disney’s The Lion King on Broadway has been extended through November 2013. Was there ever any doubt?
The production isn’t the fifth longest-running Broadway show ever for nothing.
Here are a few reasons why The Lion King is so awesome.
It’s based on a fantastic movie. It’s a rule of Disney films that they are supposed to make you cry. But "The Lion King" is kind of the ultimate movie to ugly-cry at. That moment when Simba is pawing at Mufasa to wake up? Oh, God, I can’t deal. Go into The Lion King knowing you will at least be getting the sniffles because it is sad, okay?
Read more...
This week is made up of a lot of continuing onsales for concerts, more baseball onsales for sports, and new productions of big shows for theater.
Concerts
Average prices at TN.com for concert onsales*
- Bob Dylan has a number of onsales on Friday in Maine, Delaware, Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Ohio. He also has an onsale Saturday in Michigan and Monday in New York.
- Brad Paisley has onsales this Thursday and Friday in North Carolina, New Jersey, and Virginia.
- Brad Seger has onsales this Saturday in North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Virginia.
Read more...
Back in 1991, Patrick Stewart (yeah, Professor X from "X-Men" and Jean-Luc Picard from "Star Trek: The Next Generation") starred in A Christmas Carol on Broadway, for which he eventually won a Drama Desk Award and Laurence Olivier Award. Here’s the weird thing: he played all 40-plus characters in the show.
If that’s not mind-blowing enough, he also co-produced the show.
As much as I love theater, I am not a performer myself, and just the idea of getting up on stage makes me a little queasy. So I can’t imagine the thought process that goes into being the only person responsible for a play. And then there’s, you know, actually working really hard to pull it all together and having no one else to blame if something goes wrong. Call me crazy, but if I don’t have someone but myself to blame for a failure, then I’m just plain not interested.
Read more...
There is a lot happening this week, so let's get right to it.
Concerts
Average prices at TN.com for concert onsales*
- Rush has ten more shows for the Clockwork Angels Tour on sale today.
- As we reported last week, the much anticipated Justin Timberlake/Jay-Z headliner has been announced. Most of the onsales for this tour are on Thursday. Yes, Thursday (it's an unusual day for a major concert onsale).
- Initial onsales for Bruno Mars' new Moonshine Jungle Tour are this Friday.
- Most of Soundgarden's 2013 tour goes on sale this Saturday.
Read more...
It was announced this week that Shia LaBeouf ("Transformers," "Indiana Jones") was fired from his upcoming Broadway role in Orphans.
Ben Foster, who's been in "3:10 to Yuma" and "The Messenger" will replace LaBeouf to star in the show with Alec Baldwin, former "30 Rock" star. (Can I just point out that both LaBeouf and Foster were Disney channel stars growing up? Shia LaBeouf starred in "Even Stevens" while Ben Foster was in "Flash Forward.") It's unclear exactly why LaBeouf was let go, but he took that opportunity to make a graceful exit by tweeting all about it!
Although the tweets have since been deleted, things on the internet have a tendency of staying on the internet. Oops. According to The Los Angeles Times, "LeBeouf tweeted that 'the theater belongs not to the great but to the brash.' His emails to the play's team, including Baldwin, had the tone of gentlemanly apology and showed no rancor." You can read the exchange here, and even though the situation is kind of a bummer, it seemed to have ended on a good note, with LaBeouf wishing Baldwin luck.
Here's the good news: Orphans will still start its previews March 19, and officially open April 7. Yay! Any thoughts about who should replace LaBeouf?