What's on stage in Northwest Arkansas
The big picture: Here's what will be on stage in Northwest Arkansas in the next few months.
📚 "Primary Trust" — A bookstore employee is laid off and thrust into a fresh start in this comedy.
Now through Feb. 23 at TheatreSquared. $15-$53.
⛪️️ "The Book of Mormon" — Missionaries try to spread the word in Uganda in this musical comedy.
Feb. 20-23 at Walton Arts Center. $94-$104.
🎭 "Twelfth Night" — Now's as good a time as any to see this Shakespeare comedy for the first time.
March 5-30 at TheatreSquared. $15-$66.
🎵 "The Sound of Music" — See Art One Presents' production of the classic where Maria brings music back into the Von Trapp home.
March 6-8 at The Medium in Springdale. $25-$45.
💃 "Funny Girl" — Fanny Brice becomes a Broadway star to everyone's surprise in this musical comedy.
March 18-23 at Walton Arts Center. $56-$109.
🎹 "In the Grove of Forgetting" — This play written by TheatreSquared artistic director Robert Ford takes place in 1930s Hungary as a concert pianist sees her fellow Jewish artists and academics leave in fear of Nazis.
April 16-May 4 at TheatreSquared. $15-$53.
🕰 "Back to the Future: The Musical" — See the Broadway version of the classic 1985 film where Marty McFly travels back in time with his scientist friend.
April 8-13 at Walton Arts Center. $42-$109.
🎤 "MJ" — It's the story of Michael Jackson's 1994 Dangerous World tour with plenty of the pop star's music.
May 20-25 at Walton Arts Center. $69-$169.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
USA Today
2 hours ago
- USA Today
Cleo Laine, Grammy-winning jazz singer, dies at 97: Reports
British jazz singer Cleo Laine, who performed with musical greats such as Frank Sinatra and starred as an actor in London's West End and on Broadway, has died at 97, according to reporting from multiple outlets. The Guardian and The New York Times reported the news July 25, citing a statement from Laine's children, musicians Jacqui and Alec Dankworth. "It is with deepest sadness that we announce the passing of our dearly beloved mother, Cleo, who died peacefully yesterday afternoon," the statement to The Guardian read. "We will all miss her terribly. The family wish to be given space to grieve and ask for privacy at this very difficult time." The Stables Theatre, a U.K. music venue that Laine co-founded with her late husband, confirmed the news in a statement posted to its website. Born to an English mother and a Jamaican father in a suburb of London in 1927, Laine initially worked as a hair-dresser, a hat-trimmer and a librarian. She first married in 1946 and had her first son, Stuart. Driven by her dream of becoming a singer, she divorced and got her big break in 1951, when she joined the band of English saxophonist and clarinetist John Dankworth at 24. How Clementine Campbell became Cleo Laine At the time, she had thought she'd been born Clementine Campbell, though a passport application later revealed her mother had used her own surname Hitching on the birth certificate. The men of the Dankworth Seven band thought her name was too cumbersome for a poster, and that her nickname Clem was too cowboy-like. They settled on a new stage persona for her by drawing "Cleo" and "Laine" from hats. In 1958, she and Dankworth married. Their home became a magnet for London's jazz set: Friends included stars from across the Atlantic such as Oscar Peterson and Ella Fitzgerald, Lester Young and Dizzy Gillespie. After acting as well as singing in Britain through the 1960s, Laine toured Australia in 1972 and performed at New York's Lincoln Centre. The recording of a further show, at Carnegie Hall, won her a Grammy Award. Her recordings included "Porgy and Bess" with Ray Charles. In 1992, she appeared with Sinatra for a series of shows at the Royal Albert Hall in London, but she was best known for her work with Dankworth's bands. He later became her musical director. The couple built their own auditorium in the grounds of their home near London and were friends with Princess Margaret, the sister of the late Queen Elizabeth II. Their two children went on to become musicians. Dankworth – who Laine described as being "joined at the hip" with her – died in 2010. Hours after his death, Laine performed a scheduled show in their auditorium, announcing the news about her husband only at the end of the concert. Contributing: KiMi Robinson, USA TODAY
CBS News
8 hours ago
- CBS News
Gayle King and Adam Glassman brave "The Lion King" stage
"CBS Mornings" co-host Gayle King and Oprah Daily creative director Adam Glassman stepped into the spotlight, making their Broadway debuts as guest performers in Disney's "The Lion King." King appeared as the Bird Lady while Glassman played the back half of a rhino during the musical's opening number at the Minskoff Theatre, as part of a special Oprah Daily segment called "The Adventures of Adam and Gayle." "The Lion King" has been running on Broadway since 1997 and is one of the longest-running shows in Broadway history. The experience proved more challenging than expected for both television personalities. "I learned my lines, but now I didn't realize I had to move while I was saying my lines," King said. King admitted to struggling with the physical demands of the performance. "I have to remember to keep my head up, and stop looking at her feet. It's a lot to remember," she said. The preparation wasn't without mishaps. King fell during rehearsal while climbing steps, which she said got into her head before the actual performance. "Full face plant going up the steps," King recalled. Glassman faced his own challenges coordinating movements as half of a rhino costume. "I was going left when he was going right during rehearsal. It was intense," Glassman said. Despite initial nerves, both hosts said the actual performance exceeded their expectations. "I wasn't nervous at all, and now I am like, 'yikes,'" King said before taking the stage. But afterward, King's tune changed. "That was so fun. We did it, we did it, we didn't fall. That was so fun. I am so proud of us." King praised the Disney production team and cast members who helped them prepare, noting advice from 12-year-old Albert Rhodes Jr., who plays young Simba, who told her that falling during rehearsal was "good luck." Glassman said the room felt different from rehearsal without an audience or staging versus when the audience was there. "You feel emotion," Glassman said. "The moment they start singing and the giraffes are there ... I was mesmerized." An extended version of their Broadway experience will be available on Oprah Daily on Aug. 12.
New York Times
8 hours ago
- New York Times
Cleo Laine, Acclaimed British Jazz Singer, Is Dead at 97
Cleo Laine, one of England's most acclaimed jazz singers and an actress who had a memorable Broadway turn as the proprietor of a London opium den in 'The Mystery of Edwin Drood,' died on Thursday at her home in Wavendon, England. She was 97. Her death was confirmed by her daughter, Jacqui Dankworth. Ms. Laine, who was known for a smoky voice that she could deploy over a four-octave range and for her skillful scat singing, recorded numerous albums across six decades. She won a Grammy Award in 1986 for best female jazz vocal performance for 'Cleo at Carnegie: The 10th Anniversary Concert.' She and her husband, the saxophonist and bandleader John Dankworth, performed all over the world and in various settings ranging from intimate nightclubs to the London Palladium. Ms. Laine's interests were wide ranging. She had small roles in a handful of movies, in several of which she was credited simply as 'Singer.' She performed in operas. She worked pop songs into her act. And she was drawn to the theater, especially musical theater. Her performance as Princess Puffer in 'The Mystery of Edwin Drood,' based on an unfinished Charles Dickens novel and staged as a nightly murder mystery in which the audience votes on the culprit, earned her a Tony nomination in 1986, as well as a number of murder indictments. She didn't mind the criminal record, but she joked in a 1985 interview with The New York Times that one thing about the role gave her pause. 'It certainly can't do my career any harm,' she said, 'unless everybody says from now on, 'Get Cleo Laine for the old hag. She's very good as an old hag.'' Cleo Laine was born Clementine Dinah Campbell on Oct. 28, 1927, in Southall, West London. Her father, Alec Campbell, was a Jamaican who settled in England after fighting in World War I. Her mother, Minnie Hitchings, was an Englishwoman who made sure no one gave her daughter grief over her mixed heritage. 'If anyone insulted us, she would run at them with a broom,' Ms. Laine once told an interviewer. She had a brief early marriage to George Langridge, with whom she had a son, Stuart, but in her 20s she started to think that the singing lessons she had taken as a child might be the underpinning for a career. In 1952 she auditioned to be a vocalist in Mr. Dankworth's band and was hired. They married in 1958. By the mid-1960s she had become one of the most celebrated jazz singers in England. So when she made her formal New York debut at Alice Tully Hall in September 1972 — having previously performed only informally with her husband's band at Birdland in 1959 — the critic John S. Wilson wrote in The Times that the British had been 'hoarding what must be one of their national treasures.' Why did it take so long for the couple to try to conquer the United States? 'We had waited for the Beatle hysteria to die down,' Ms. Laine told The Times in 1975. Subsequent years found her playing New York outlets as varied as the Blue Note and Carnegie Hall. In these and other appearances, reviewers often praised her vocal range and interpretive ability, as well as her adventurous spirit in song selection. But not everyone warmed to her style. 'Her renditions of popular and not-so-popular tunes are models of taste,' Robert Palmer wrote in The Times in a review of 'Cleo on Broadway,' a six-night concert show she performed with Mr. Dankworth's orchestra at the Minskoff Theater in 1977. 'The problem is that one waits in vain for some visceral reaction to her singing, for an emotional punch, or at least a tap.' She toured extensively for many years and recorded album after album. Among the more noteworthy were 'Cleo Sings Sondheim' (1988), which contained a particularly striking version of 'Send In the Clowns,' and 'Woman to Woman' (1989), which consisted entirely of songs written by women, including her own 'Secret Feeling.' Ms. Laine was also an enthusiastic collaborator. She recorded albums with her fellow singers Mel Tormé and Ray Charles and the flutist James Galway, among others. In May 1985 she was among the guests at Symphony Hall in Boston singing with the Boston Pops in a celebration of that orchestra's 100th birthday. She sang 'The Way You Look Tonight' in a duet with Tony Bennett in 2011 at a concert at the London Palladium marking his 85th birthday, and she performed and recorded with her daughter, a jazz singer. She once even sang a ridiculous version of Irving Berlin's 'You're Just in Love' with the 'Muppet Show' character the Swedish Chef. She and Mr. Dankworth also benefited generations of performers through the Stables, a performance space they created on the grounds of their home. Mr. Dankworth died in 2010, hours before a concert to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the founding of the Stables. The show went on, and so did Ms. Laine. Just before the finale, she told the crowd about his death. In addition to her daughter, Ms. Laine is survived by her son Alec, a bassist; four grandchildren; and six great-grandchildren. Her son Stuart died in 2019. In 1997, Ms. Laine was named Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire, making her Dame Cleo. She continued performing well into her 80s and became known for her remarkable longevity. 'I am still singing and I've got work if I want it,' she said in The Guardian in 2011 at age 83, shortly after breaking her leg in a fall. As for her voice, she said, 'I used to be famous for my four-octave range — I think I've lost one of them.' Ash Wu contributed reporting.
