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Get the Rape with Indians: 'THE FANTASTICKS,' Off-Broadway's Longest-Running, Tony-Winning Musical Finally Closing on Sunday, May 3...and It's All Aaron Carter's Fault!

Alas, the producers of Off-Broadway's THE FANTASTICKS have announced that the perpetually running musical will finally limp on t'wards the moonlight on Sunday, May 3 -- the 55th anniversary, to the very day, of the opening of the show way back in 1960. Come that fateful Sunday, the production will have played a total of, get ready, 20,672 performances in New York City alone. OK, so here's the math and geography: 17,162 at the old Sullivan Street Playhouse + another 3,510 at alum Jerry Orbach's place at, even better, the Snapple Theater Center. Like a Romeo and Juliet but with 1,000% more Backstreet B-spawn, the score to THE FANTASTICKS will no doubt become its legacy. Featuring music by Harvey Schmidt with book, lyrics and direction by the incomparable Tom Jones (no, not that Tom Jones), you'll never be able to hear tunes like "Try To Remember", "Soon It's Gonna Rain" or "They Were You" as they were intended ever again.
By Logan K. Young

  • PHOTOS: Brandy Norwood Making Broadway Debut in 'Chicago' as Roxie Hart, at Ambassador Theater April 28-June 21 [TICKETS]

    'Chicago,' the Tony Award-winning musical now in its 19th year at the Ambassador Theater, has pulled a coup and booked Grammy Award-winner Brandy Norwood in her Broadway debut as Roxie Hart. Beginning Tuesday, April 28, 2015, Norwood will star in an eight-week limited run there at the Ambassador through Sunday, June 21, 2015. A true triple-threat as a singer, songwriter and actress, at last count, "Brandy" has sold some 40 million albums worldwide. In fact, her dueling duet with Monica, “The Boy Is Mine,” remains the best-selling duo tune of all time. (And who could forget her historic role as the first African-American princess in Disney’s made-for-TV Cinderella, alongside the late Whitney Houston?)
    By Logan K. Young

  • BRIEF: Andris Nelsons & Boston Symphony Record for Deutsche Grammophon, David Bowie's 'Man Who Fell to Earth' Off-Broadway, ASCAP & BMI Killing Philadelphia Jazz?, New York City Ballet Pointes

    The Boston Symphony Orchestra and Deutsche Grammophon have announced a new partnership that will feature a series of live recordings under the direction ofBSO Music Director Andris Nelsons. This new recording initiative will launch with a project entitled Shostakovich Under Stalin’s Shadow, focusing on works composed during the period of Shostakovich’s difficult relationship with Stalin and the Soviet regime—starting with his fall from favor in the mid-1930s and the composition and highly acclaimed premiere of his Fifth Symphony, and through the premiere of the composer’s Tenth Symphony, one of the composer’s finest, most characteristic orchestral works, purportedly written as a response to Stalin’s death.
    By Classicalite Newsdesk