Latest news with #GuysandDolls
Chicago Tribune
a day ago
- Entertainment
- Chicago Tribune
Naperville News Digest: Riverview Farmstead needs volunteers for August workday; Broadway music to be performed at Naperville parks
The Forest Preserve District of Will County is seeking volunteers to help with seed collection at the Riverview Farmstead Preserve in Naperville. Volunteers will be on site from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 19, at the preserve, which is located on Book Road, south of Hassert Boulevard. The event is open to anyone 8 or older. The district also needs volunteers to help at preserves countywide throughout the summer months, a news release said. These jobs include assisting at public programs and events and at weekly habitat management mornings, the release said. Space is limited so early registration is encouraged. Participants should wear clothes appropriate for the weather and getting dirty, the release said. To volunteer, go to or email volunteerservices@ for a list of openings, a waiver and more information about partner organizations needing help. BrightSide Theatre will perform 'Fun in the Sun: A Broadway Musical Revue' at five Naperville parks this summer. The free performances will include popular songs from various Broadway musicals including 'Wicked,' 'Guys and Dolls,' 'Hamilton,' 'Hairspray,' Once Upon a Mattress,' 'Spamalot' and others, a news release from the Naperville Park District said. The shows are about an hour and guests should bring their own lawn chairs, blankets and snacks, the release said. Performances will take place at 7 p.m. Thursday, July 10, at 95th Street Community Plaza, 3109 Cedar Glade Drive; Wednesday, July 16 at Millennium Carillon Amphitheatre, 443 Aurora Ave.; Wednesday, July 23, at Westglen Park, 1516 Westglen Drive; and Thursday, Aug. 7, at Country Lakes, 1835 N. Aurora Ave. A matinee performance will be held at 2 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 17, at Arrowhead Park, 711 Iroquois Ave.
Otago Daily Times
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Otago Daily Times
Schools to stage classic musical
Students from Timaru Boys' and Timaru Girls' high schools are preparing to gamble with love and luck as they stage a classic musical comedy. Set in 1940s New York, Guys and Dolls opened on Broadway in 1950 and is based on two short stories by American journalist Damon Runyon. The story follows gambler Nathan Detroit, who is trying to find the dough to set up the biggest craps game in town after his previous venue was burned by the authorities. He turns to fellow gambler Sky Masterson and the pair make a bet that Sky can not romance the strait-laced missionary, Sarah Brown, and take her on a date to Havana, Cuba. In the meantime, Nathan is also trying to dodge the wrath of his long-term fiance, Adelaide, who believes it is about time the pair got married. Director Cameron Lines said it had been a musical he had wanted to stage for quite some time. "It's golden age, it's super fun, super vibrant and it's just a big dancey show. Selfishly, it's just one of my favourite musicals but it's also one we can put out in the community that people will know and have maybe seen before. "We have a really tight cast and they have been working really hard on their dances to make it pop and stand out. They wanted a challenge so we gave them one. "We've got a pretty big cast too which is good. We've got nine or 10 from boys' high and 18 or so from girls' high, they've just been really good to work with." He said audiences could expect a very energetic show with good songs and lots of dancing. "There will be a lot of songs they'll know but they're the kind of songs that you go 'I know that but I don't know what it's from'. "You've got Luck Be A Lady which everyone taps away to, Sit Down You're Rockin' the Boat which everyone seems to know and obviously Guys and Dolls. "It's full of big company numbers that are just magic." The show opened yesterday and will run tonight, Friday and Saturday at 7pm. Performances are held at the Nora Dickie Hall (TGHS) and information on how to purchase tickets can be found on the Timaru Girls' High School Facebook page.
Scotsman
17-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Scotsman
Iconic Scottish city pub to be recreated as musical writer vows to 'restore story of One Day to Edinburgh'
Sign up to our Arts and Culture newsletter, get the latest news and reviews from our specialist arts writers Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... Iconic Edinburgh pub The Pear Tree is to be recreated on stage in the musical of One Day to be premiered in the capital. Writer David Greig, who is adapting the book for the theatre, said the well-known venue would be the basis for the pub scene where characters Emma and Dexter first meet as students at the University of Edinburgh. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad David Greig, former artistic director of the Royal Lyceum Theatre in Edinburgh, is adapting novel One Day into a musical. The world premiere of the new musical version of the bestselling novel by David Nicholls, which was last year adapted as a series for Netflix, is to open next year at the Royal Lyceum Theatre. Speaking at the Lyceum's programme launch for next season, Mr Greig said he had also taken inspiration from tourist attraction the Camera Obscura in staging the play, which will see the 140-year-old auditorium transformed into a theatre in the round, with audience members on both sides of a newly constructed stage. Mr Greig, who recently left his role as artistic director of the Lyceum to be replaced by James Brining, said one challenge in adapting One Day was that it doesn't have a clear 'world', like many other stage shows. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Ambika Mod and Leo Woodall star as Emma Morley and Dexter Mayhew as Dexter Mayhew and Emma Morley in the new Netflix series One Day, which is based on author David Nicholls' best-selling novel. The novel is being turned into a stage musical. Picture: Netflix He said: 'If you go to see Guys and Dolls, it's 47th Street, New York in the 1940s. So you get a designer and you design that world. But what is the 'world' of two young people who meet in Edinburgh in 1988 - then one is going around the world and the other is in Salford and then they're in London? They're just in 'Britain' in the '90s and early 2000s, so that creates quite a problem. 'If you've got a scene change and it's just a year ahead and she's working in a restaurant, it's so pedantic. What we want to do is create something where the audience are in the pub where they're graduating. Secretly, it's the Pear Tree, that's what's in my head. 'There will be this feeling that you [the audience] are in the room. And what we want to do is have Emma and Dexter in a circle of light, just following them.' He added: 'I feel we are restoring it to being an Edinburgh story. I don't know many other popular novels that mention Rankeillor Street.' Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Mr Greig said the atmosphere of the staging had been inspired by the Camera Obscura on Edinburgh's Royal Mile, a Victorian invention that projects a real time image of the city onto a viewing table using light and lenses. He said: 'In the Camera Obscura, you peer down and you look at people in real life walking down the High Street and you can spy on them. 'I wanted us to feel like the only two people who didn't know they were in a play are Emma and Dexter. Everybody else is playing different parts and they're moving things around and it's very theatrical. But in the middle of it, there is this couple and their story.' The Lyceum has been turned into a theatre in the round before, during the Covid pandemic, for the staging of Life Is a Dream, when audience members were required to be socially distanced. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Mr Greig said: 'We were trying to do social distancing, we weren't able to get a lot of audience in, but I loved the look of it. I thought it was amazing, so that stayed in my mind.'
Sydney Morning Herald
11-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Sydney Morning Herald
60 years young: Channel Nine Perth kicked off with songs and jokes – and maintained its high spirits
It all began on a Saturday night 60 years ago — June 12 to be exact — with a pictorial celebration of the city, Montage of Perth, and ending with Marlon Brando, Frank Sinatra and Jean Simmons singing and dancing their way through Guys and Dolls. But the most intriguing part of the opening night popped up in the middle of the evening with the locally produced a half-hour sketch comedy show called All My Eye and Betty Martin Too featuring the bearded, accordion-playing Pinjarra-raised entertainer Peter Harries dressed as Mr Whippy. 'Perth City Council had moved to ban Mr Whippy playing Greensleeves because it was annoying people,' remembers Harries. 'So I dressed up in a white tunic and white hat and sang [to the tune of the traditional English folk song], 'Alas, dear sirs, you do me wrong, to cast a ban on my ice cream song'.' Unfortunately, All My Eye and Betty Martin Too, a Perth version of the British news satire That Was The Week That Was and Seven's Mavis Bramston Show, was pulled after 14 weeks as the incipient station cast around for a point of difference from its Dianella neighbour TVW-Seven, which launched six years earlier. 'We were 30 years ahead of our time,' chuckles Harries, who despite being on the cusp of 90 still has vivid memories of the night our second commercial television station came on line. 'We were easily beaten by a variety show on Seven hosted by Gary Garvolth. Indeed, the whole station struggled in the early days.' Harries held on to his job and became one of the station's most popular performers, appearing on the Channel Niners Club (along with Veronica Overton, ventriloquist Ron Blasket and Gerry Gee and musician Peter Piccini) and became part of tradition of breeziness and warmth that has distinguished Nine from its more traditionalist commercial rival. On Thursday night there will be a nostalgia-filled glimpse of the early days of Nine Perth when Harries joins many of the station's former stars such as Jenny Seaton, Jo Beth Taylor, Chris Woodland, Terry Willessee and Jenny Dunstan in Celebrating 60 Years: Channel Nine Perth, a 90-minute special hosted by newsreaders Michael Thompson and Tracey Vo. Nine Perth's history is also being celebrated with an exhibition at the WA Museum Boola Bardip that includes one of Channel 9 Perth's first studio cameras and a Steenbeck flatbed editing suite used for splicing tape for broadcast in the 1960s. Nineteen-year-old Seaton (nee Clemesha) was working at Boans as an announcer and fashion show host when she was asked by the legendary smoothie Lloyd Lawson, who had crossed over from Seven to Nine, to audition to be a stand-in for weather girl Veronica Overton. 'There weren't a lot of people experienced in public speaking back then, so there wasn't a lot of competition. I bluffed my way through, quite frankly,' laughs Seaton. Seaton did such a fine job filling in for Overton she was given her own gig, Women's World, and worked on a range of other programs, including children's and panel shows. 'All for a $150 a week,' she laughed. 'It was so exciting. There were so many talented, creative people working together to get a television station up and running. It was all brand new. We were making things up as we were going. 'And you have to remember that so much of it was live television. It was like a mini Hollywood. Big sets, huge studio cameras, outside broadcasts. 'And this was going on every day.' Seaton spent 15 years at Nine before moving to Seven, and her long experience with both stations has given her insight into the difference between the two broadcasters. 'Seven was always a more conservative station because of the people who started the station, such as Sir James Cruthers,' she says. 'Nine always felt like more fun. Hey Hey It's Saturday over in Sydney captured vibe at Nine.' Former Nine producer and presenter Jenny Dunstan agrees that the station always had an upbeat vibe. 'Channel Nine to me was always one of the friendliest and more progressive TV stations. I had a childhood dream to work with Channel Nine,' says Dunstan who eventually became the full-time presenter for young people's programming and family entertainment. Nine Perth was so committed to entertainment that they hired one of the stars of the racy 70s soap The Box – Melbourne actor Barrie Barkla – as an all-round presenter and to do the weather. Sometimes that commitment to keeping it light backfired. Barkla was fired for an April Fool's stunt, when he was asked by the news crew to dress up as Ugandan dictator Idi Amin, who was rumoured to be gate-crashing the Commonwealth Heads of Government Conference. 'They told me to get down to the airport where there's a uniform and a make-up person waiting for you. We put it to air, but the bosses were furious and fired everyone involved. For about two hours we weren't working for STW-9,' Barkla, 82, says over the phone from his home in Adelaide. It is hardly surprising that with Nine's light and bright brand they would be first station in the country to broadcast in colour in 1974, be the first to broadcast for 24 hours and be targeted by the country's most flamboyant businessman, Alan Bond, who ran the entire network from Perth for a few years in the 1980s. 'Straight away it was apparent that we were meant to be doing braver and bolder things in news,' former Nine news director Terry Spence recalls in tonight's show. Bond's involvement in sailing meant that Spence's team had a ringside seat for the famous 1983 victory in the America's Cup and its defence in Fremantle four years later, with cameras placed in the boats transforming a remote event into a white-knuckle ride. Sport has been so central to the Nine Perth brand that it was not surprising that in 2018 its highest-profile sports presenter, Michael Thompson, was tapped to be its weeknight news presenter, giving the station a genuinely appealing focal point in its continuing battle against cross-town rivals Seven. Thompson believes the character of Nine goes back before Bondy to another sporting moment intertwined with the station's history – the creation of the World Series Cricket in 1977. 'Kerry Packer took on the cricket establishment and injected some of that Sydney flare,' says Thompson, who began his career in journalism with The Daily News and joined Nine in 1987. 'While Nine Perth is a very news-driven organisation we understand the need for light and shade. 'A huge team is involved in putting together the news. As newsreaders, Tracy and I have the privilege of seeing how it all comes together, so we see the whole picture. 'Sometimes the day's news can be very challenging, so you just need something that is a bit of fun or a bit lighter. As a presenter you really feel that. 'You feel the need to mix up the stories so it's not all heavy news.' 'People still want news professionals to boil down the most important events of the day.' Michael Thompson Vo agrees that there is a real difference between the way Nine and their great rival Seven present the news. 'We have always had a more conversational approach to presenting the news,' says Vo, who joined the Nine Network in Sydney in 2007 and returned to Perth permanently in 2020. 'We have never wanted to come across as news anchors and presenters. We want to be the people who tell you the story. It is your story, not ours.' Thompson and Vo say that being involved in tonight's 60th birthday show reminded them of how much has changed in news presentation, even while they've been at the station. 'We are now finding that people on the streets are journalists,' says Vo. 'They film events on the streets and send them to us. Or post them on our social media accounts. So they have become our eyes on the ground. 'Compare this to the days when a journalist had to use a pay phone to file a story.' But with all these changes, Thompson remains convinced that traditional television news has a future. 'The overall reach of Seven and Nine last night would have been over 300,000,' he says. 'People still want news professionals to boil down the most important events of the day. 'They want the nuts and bolts, the news you can't afford to miss. 'And they want it to be presented in a way that reflects the gravity of those events but balanced with something that brings a smile.'
The Age
11-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Age
60 years young: Channel Nine Perth kicked off with songs and jokes – and maintained its high spirits
It all began on a Saturday night 60 years ago — June 12 to be exact — with a pictorial celebration of the city, Montage of Perth, and ending with Marlon Brando, Frank Sinatra and Jean Simmons singing and dancing their way through Guys and Dolls. But the most intriguing part of the opening night popped up in the middle of the evening with the locally produced a half-hour sketch comedy show called All My Eye and Betty Martin Too featuring the bearded, accordion-playing Pinjarra-raised entertainer Peter Harries dressed as Mr Whippy. 'Perth City Council had moved to ban Mr Whippy playing Greensleeves because it was annoying people,' remembers Harries. 'So I dressed up in a white tunic and white hat and sang [to the tune of the traditional English folk song], 'Alas, dear sirs, you do me wrong, to cast a ban on my ice cream song'.' Unfortunately, All My Eye and Betty Martin Too, a Perth version of the British news satire That Was The Week That Was and Seven's Mavis Bramston Show, was pulled after 14 weeks as the incipient station cast around for a point of difference from its Dianella neighbour TVW-Seven, which launched six years earlier. 'We were 30 years ahead of our time,' chuckles Harries, who despite being on the cusp of 90 still has vivid memories of the night our second commercial television station came on line. 'We were easily beaten by a variety show on Seven hosted by Gary Garvolth. Indeed, the whole station struggled in the early days.' Harries held on to his job and became one of the station's most popular performers, appearing on the Channel Niners Club (along with Veronica Overton, ventriloquist Ron Blasket and Gerry Gee and musician Peter Piccini) and became part of tradition of breeziness and warmth that has distinguished Nine from its more traditionalist commercial rival. On Thursday night there will be a nostalgia-filled glimpse of the early days of Nine Perth when Harries joins many of the station's former stars such as Jenny Seaton, Jo Beth Taylor, Chris Woodland, Terry Willessee and Jenny Dunstan in Celebrating 60 Years: Channel Nine Perth, a 90-minute special hosted by newsreaders Michael Thompson and Tracey Vo. Nine Perth's history is also being celebrated with an exhibition at the WA Museum Boola Bardip that includes one of Channel 9 Perth's first studio cameras and a Steenbeck flatbed editing suite used for splicing tape for broadcast in the 1960s. Nineteen-year-old Seaton (nee Clemesha) was working at Boans as an announcer and fashion show host when she was asked by the legendary smoothie Lloyd Lawson, who had crossed over from Seven to Nine, to audition to be a stand-in for weather girl Veronica Overton. 'There weren't a lot of people experienced in public speaking back then, so there wasn't a lot of competition. I bluffed my way through, quite frankly,' laughs Seaton. Seaton did such a fine job filling in for Overton she was given her own gig, Women's World, and worked on a range of other programs, including children's and panel shows. 'All for a $150 a week,' she laughed. 'It was so exciting. There were so many talented, creative people working together to get a television station up and running. It was all brand new. We were making things up as we were going. 'And you have to remember that so much of it was live television. It was like a mini Hollywood. Big sets, huge studio cameras, outside broadcasts. 'And this was going on every day.' Seaton spent 15 years at Nine before moving to Seven, and her long experience with both stations has given her insight into the difference between the two broadcasters. 'Seven was always a more conservative station because of the people who started the station, such as Sir James Cruthers,' she says. 'Nine always felt like more fun. Hey Hey It's Saturday over in Sydney captured vibe at Nine.' Former Nine producer and presenter Jenny Dunstan agrees that the station always had an upbeat vibe. 'Channel Nine to me was always one of the friendliest and more progressive TV stations. I had a childhood dream to work with Channel Nine,' says Dunstan who eventually became the full-time presenter for young people's programming and family entertainment. Nine Perth was so committed to entertainment that they hired one of the stars of the racy 70s soap The Box – Melbourne actor Barrie Barkla – as an all-round presenter and to do the weather. Sometimes that commitment to keeping it light backfired. Barkla was fired for an April Fool's stunt, when he was asked by the news crew to dress up as Ugandan dictator Idi Amin, who was rumoured to be gate-crashing the Commonwealth Heads of Government Conference. 'They told me to get down to the airport where there's a uniform and a make-up person waiting for you. We put it to air, but the bosses were furious and fired everyone involved. For about two hours we weren't working for STW-9,' Barkla, 82, says over the phone from his home in Adelaide. It is hardly surprising that with Nine's light and bright brand they would be first station in the country to broadcast in colour in 1974, be the first to broadcast for 24 hours and be targeted by the country's most flamboyant businessman, Alan Bond, who ran the entire network from Perth for a few years in the 1980s. 'Straight away it was apparent that we were meant to be doing braver and bolder things in news,' former Nine news director Terry Spence recalls in tonight's show. Bond's involvement in sailing meant that Spence's team had a ringside seat for the famous 1983 victory in the America's Cup and its defence in Fremantle four years later, with cameras placed in the boats transforming a remote event into a white-knuckle ride. Sport has been so central to the Nine Perth brand that it was not surprising that in 2018 its highest-profile sports presenter, Michael Thompson, was tapped to be its weeknight news presenter, giving the station a genuinely appealing focal point in its continuing battle against cross-town rivals Seven. Thompson believes the character of Nine goes back before Bondy to another sporting moment intertwined with the station's history – the creation of the World Series Cricket in 1977. 'Kerry Packer took on the cricket establishment and injected some of that Sydney flare,' says Thompson, who began his career in journalism with The Daily News and joined Nine in 1987. 'While Nine Perth is a very news-driven organisation we understand the need for light and shade. 'A huge team is involved in putting together the news. As newsreaders, Tracy and I have the privilege of seeing how it all comes together, so we see the whole picture. 'Sometimes the day's news can be very challenging, so you just need something that is a bit of fun or a bit lighter. As a presenter you really feel that. 'You feel the need to mix up the stories so it's not all heavy news.' 'People still want news professionals to boil down the most important events of the day.' Michael Thompson Vo agrees that there is a real difference between the way Nine and their great rival Seven present the news. 'We have always had a more conversational approach to presenting the news,' says Vo, who joined the Nine Network in Sydney in 2007 and returned to Perth permanently in 2020. 'We have never wanted to come across as news anchors and presenters. We want to be the people who tell you the story. It is your story, not ours.' Thompson and Vo say that being involved in tonight's 60th birthday show reminded them of how much has changed in news presentation, even while they've been at the station. 'We are now finding that people on the streets are journalists,' says Vo. 'They film events on the streets and send them to us. Or post them on our social media accounts. So they have become our eyes on the ground. 'Compare this to the days when a journalist had to use a pay phone to file a story.' But with all these changes, Thompson remains convinced that traditional television news has a future. 'The overall reach of Seven and Nine last night would have been over 300,000,' he says. 'People still want news professionals to boil down the most important events of the day. 'They want the nuts and bolts, the news you can't afford to miss. 'And they want it to be presented in a way that reflects the gravity of those events but balanced with something that brings a smile.'
