Rosie O’Donnell to Head Kids’ Night on Broadway
(© Joseph Marzullo/Retna)
13-time Emmy Award-winner Rosie O’Donnell will serve as the National Ambassador for this year’s Kids’ Night on Broadway. Sponsored by Madame Tussaud’s New York and The New York Times, Kids’ Night allows young people, ages 6 – 18, the opportunity to see both Broadway and Off Broadway shows for free when accompanied by a full-paying adult. It will be held February 5, 6, 12 and 13.
So far, this year’s participating shows include: Altar Boyz, Avenue Q, Chicago, A Chorus Line, The Color Purple, Come Back Little Sheba, Curtains, The Drowsy Chaperone, The Fantasticks, The Farnsworth Invention, Grease, Hairspray, Is He Dead?, Legally Blonde The Musical, The Lion King, The Little Mermaid, Mamma Mia! , Mary Poppins, Monty Python’s Spamalot, The Phantom of the Opera, Rent, Spring Awakening, Stomp, Wicked, Xanadu, and Young Frankenstein.
In addition to providing free tickets to hit shows, Kids’ Night on Broadway will also contain an educational component and some pre-theater events. Free souvenir Playbills will have a theatre education focus, there will be Theatre 101 workshops prior to Kids Night performances, and the entire event will kick off with a party at Madame Tussauds, beginning at 3:00pm on February 5.
O’Donnell, who made her first Broadway appearance in 1994 when she starred as Rizzo in Tommy Tune’s revival of Grease, also made appearances on the Great White Way in 2001 as The Cat in the Hat in Seussical, and in 2005 as Golde in Fiddler on the Roof. In 2003 she produced the Broadway musical Taboo.
In addition to her work on stage, O’Donnell has also been active with children’s charities. She established Rosie’s For All Kids Foundation in 1997 and in 2003 she set up Rosie’s Broadway Kids, which provides in school, after-school and summer instruction in musical theatre to the public school children of New York.
For more information regarding Kids’ Night on Broadway, visit www.KidsNightOnBroadway.com. For more information regarding Rosie’s Broadway Kids, visit www.RosiesBroadwayKids.org.
