Theater News

Photo File

It’s holiday time and the stars are out, as both performers and audience members.

New York City


The Great Joy! concert at the New Amsterdam Theatre on Monday, December 15, which featured the Broadway Inspirational Voices and a gaggle of guest stars, helped hundreds of people to get into the holiday spirit. A benefit for The Actors’ Fund of America, the concert was a hit, and TheaterMania’s Joseph Marzullo happily snapped away at the performers backstage and during the party that followed. Get a load of these three sexy ladies: Eartha Kitt, just recently seen on Broadway in Nine, with Lucy T. Slut and Stephanie d’Abruzzo of Avenue Q.

Other Great Joy! participants: Norm Lewis (who recently starred in the Children of Eden benefit concert at Riverside Church)…

…Marisa Tomei, seen on Broadway last season in Salome…

…Craig Bierko (The Music Man, Thou Shalt Not) with Richard Kind (The Tale of the Allergist’s Wife on Broadway, Bounce in Chicago and at the Kennedy Center)…

…Broadway diva Patti LuPone and composer/musical director Dick Gallagher…

…Marc Kudisch, currently starring Off-Broadway in The Thing About Men and soon to be starring on Broadway in Assassins…


…and Raúl Esparza (Taboo) with Daphne Rubin-Vega (Anna in the Tropics). Don’t they make a cute couple?

Michelle T. Williams of Destiny’s Child made her official Broadway debut in the title role of Disney’s Aida on Thursday, December 11. Here’s Williams at the after-party, held at LQ…

…and here’s Will Chase, her Radames.







Just before Thanksgiving, three foxy cast members of the Fox TV series The O.C. — Adam Brody, Peter Gallagher, and Tate Donovan — visited backstage at Avenue Q, and chatted with Nicky, one of the show’s stars…

…and on Wednesday, December 10, the one and only Joan Rivers visited with Josh Kornbluth, the author and star of Love and Taxes, backstage at the Bank Street Theatre.

Kathy Brier, well known to daytime TV viewers for her role on the ABC soap One Life to Live, has been playing Tracy Turnblad in Broadway’s Hairspray for several months now. Last night, she was feted at a party at Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse on West 51st Street. Here, Brier is the happy center of a soap opera hunk sandwich with OLTL‘s Nathaniel Marston (left) and Timothy Adams.

The King Kong Room at The Supper Club has really been hopping recently. On Sunday, December 13, Broadway and cabaret star Karen Mason performed her Christmas show there…

…and on Monday, December 15, the King Kong Room was the site of two separate events: the Miracle on 47th Street benefit concert for God’s Love We Deliver and Jim Caruso’s Cast Party, the room’s regular Monday night bash. Here’s The Boy From Oz‘s Stephanie Block, one of the performers in the Miracle concert, with actor Danny Gurwin (left) and lyricist David Zippel.



That evening’s Cast Party celebrated the release of the Original Cast Recording of Listen to My Heart: The Songs of David Friedman, now available for purchase via the website www.middermusic.com. The entire company was on hand to perform several songs from the show, which closed on December 7. Here they are, belting out a big number: (left to right) Michael Hunsaker, Anne Runolfsson, Alix Korey, Allison Briner, and Joe Cassidy.