News Roundup: Uzo Adaba in Workshop for Duncan Sheik’s New Musical, Darren Criss Covers ‘I Dreamed a Dream’, and More!
Duncan Sheik, best known in the theater community for composing the music of 2007 Tony Award winner for Best Musical, ‘Spring Awakening’ (starring Lea Michele and Jonathan Groff), is set to originate another new musical.
Based on the 2004 novel The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd, Sheik is collaborating with lyricist Susan Birkenhead, Pulitzer Prize-winning book writer Lynne Nottage, and Tony Award-winning director Sam Gold, who won the Best Direction in 2015 for the critically acclaimed musical Fun Home.
Posted by Uzo Aduba on Thursday, February 12, 2015
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Uzo Aduba, who won an Emmy Award for her role as Suzanne Warren in the popular Netflix Series ‘Orange is the New Black’, and who was most recently seen on Broadway in the 2011 revival of Godspell, is playing the role of Rosaleen in the musical’s workshop production. The workshop runs from July 27-30.
Darren Criss Announces The Elsie Fest with ‘I Dreamed a Dream’ Cover
The Elsie Fest is coming back this October! Co-created and produced by Darren Criss, the New York City outdoor theater festival is now on its third year running. It is every theater fan’s dream as it puts together the biggest names in Broadway on one stage. The 2015 line-up included Darren Criss himself, Lea Salonga, Laura Osnes, Aaron Tveit, Laura Osnes, and Leslie Odom Jr., and the 2016 line-up included Megan Hilty, Tituss Burgess, Lena Hall, Jason Robert Brown, Corey Cott, Cynthia Erivo, and Darren Criss, among many others. This year’s line-up has yet to be announced, but according to Billboard.com, the venue will be at the Summer Stage in Central Park. Previous venues were in Coney Island (2016) and Pier 97 (2015).
To commemorate the much-awaited event, Darren Criss released a cover of Les Miserables’ ‘I Dreamed a Dream’ on his official YouTube channel and said, “In honor of this year’s Elsie Fest announcement, I wanted to share with you a version of ‘I Dreamed A Dream’ (from Les Miserables) I recorded. Hope ya dig. FINALLY! I can tell you about Elsie Fest 2017 in NYC Oct 8!! Pre-sale begins Aug 1 at 10am ET.”
Behind-the-Scenes Footage of Hamilton Mixtape’s ‘Immigrants’ Released
Last month, Hamilton creator Lin Manuel-Miranda debuted the video of ‘Immigrants’ from the Hamilton Mixtape. Four days ago, a behind-the-scenes footage was released on Hamilton’s official YouTube channel, featuring some of the artists and the artistic team. In the video, Riz MC says, “The theme of the music video is obviously lots of different train cars across space and time… representing people traveling, the movement of people, as a very natural thing. That’s what immigration is about. It’s timeless.”
As of this writing, the official music video has reached almost 3 million views since it launched last month. You can listen to more thoughts from the artistic team in the video below.
