Tag Archives: The King and I

Miranda’s “Hamilton” to Play at LA’s Pantages Theater in 2017

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Lin-Manuel Miranda is taking his hit Broadway musical out west…

Hamilton, the 36-year-old Puerto Rican composer, lyricist, librettist, rapper, and actor’s rap-infused musical about the American Revolution and the nation’s first Treasury secretary, will have a run beginning in the late summer of 2017 at the Hollywood Pantages.

Hamilton

The theater is operated by the Nederlander Organization, which also owns the Richard Rodgers Theatre on Broadway, where the show has become this season’s most coveted ticket.

In anticipation of a hit, the four-month-plus Hollywood run is scheduled from August 11 through the end of the year, concluding a season that will feature two other Nederlander-based hits: An American In Paris (March 22 – April 9, 2017), currently at the Palace Theatre and Finding Neverland (February 21 – March 12, 2017), currently at the Lunt-Fontanne.

Completing the 13-month season that begins next November are the Tony-winning revivals of Hedwig And The Angry Inch (November 1-27, 2016) and The King And I (December 13 – January 21, 2017) plus the musical adaptation of The Bodyguard (May 2 – 21, 2017), which had its premiere in London and hasn’t been seen on Broadway, and a return engagement of The Book Of Mormon (May 30 – July 9, 2017).

Information is available at hollywoodpantages.com.

Villafane & Her “On Your Feet!” Cast Members Dazzle at Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade

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Ana Villafane knows how to get you on your feet!

The Cuban/Salvadoran-American actress and singer wowed audiences, both on the streets and at home, Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.

Ana Villafane at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade

Villafane, the star of Broadway’s On Your Feet! — the biotuner about the courtship and rise to superstardom of the Miami Sound Machine’s Gloria and Emilio Estefan — led off NBC’s coverage of the iconic holiday parade.

Villafane, starring as Gloria, and the cast sang a medley of songs that included “Conga” and “Turn The Beat Around.”

“We are going to be opening the Thanksgiving Day Parade which is like bucket list item No. 1,” Villafañe told Fox News Latino before the parade. “I’m still that girl who puts on Christmas pajamas that watches the whole parade start-to-finish and I’m 26.

The lively opening number was followed by performances by the cast of fellow Broadway musicals Finding Neverland, Fiddler on the Roof and The King and I.

Moreno Receives Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2014 SAG Awards

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Life’s a SAG for living legend Rita Moreno…

The 82-year-old Puerto Rican actress/singer/dancer, a Grammy, Oscar, Golden Globe and Tony Award winner, was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 20th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards on Saturday night.

Rita Moreno

Moreno accepted the special prize from Morgan Freeman, who called the West Side Story star his “dear old friend,” as well as a “world-class actress, singer, dancer and fighter who battled to break through the racial and sexual barriers that plagued Hollywood‘s Golden Age.”

Moreno did a victory lap onstage after receiving a standing ovation before saying that she was “f—ing thrilled,” but the audio had been was cut during the live broadcast when she dropped the F-bomb.

She later apologized for “that word” before saying, “Actually, I’m not.”

Alluding to her surprised acceptance speech for her Oscar, she said she still honestly can’t believe she’s received SAG’s honor.

Moreno, who briefly flirted with Jeremy Renner and Brad Pitt, also said she hoped she was receiving the Life Achievement Award “early in the third act of my life.” She finished by singing several lines from “This is All I Ask.”

A showbiz veteran and a SAG member for more than six decades, Moreno is one of only 11 people to have won an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar and a Tony — a feat known as the EGOT.

She first appeared on the big screen in the reform-school drama So Young, So Bad in 1950, and afterward was put under contract as an ingenue at MGM, where a casting director changed her first name to Rita.

Moreno’s first film for the studio was the Mario Lanza musical The Toast of New Orleans, and she had a small role as the flapper actress Zelda Zanders in Singin’ in the Rain two years later.

She would go on to star in such films as The King and I, West Side Story — for which she won her Oscar in 1962 — and Carnal Knowledge.

Moreno won her Grammy for The Electric Company Album in 1972, her Tony for The Ritz in 1975, and her two Emmys for appearances on The Muppet Show and The Rockford Files in 1977 and 1978.

She continues to stay busy, having just finished a run as Fran Drescher’s mother in the TV Land comedy Happily Divorced.

She will appear next in the upcoming indie drama Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks with Gena Rowlands.