Misha Berson is an American theatre critic with the Seattle Times.
In the 1980s Berson worked in San Francisco, first as the executive director of Theatre Bay Area and as performing arts director of the Fort Mason Center before working as theatre critic for the San Francisco Bay Guardian for twelve years. [1] Since 1992 she covers the Seattle theatre scene for the Seattle Times. [2] David Cote, writing for the Theatre Communications Group, listed Berson among the most influential theatre critics in America in 2011. [1]
Berson authored a book on the musical West Side Story , Something’s Coming, Something Good: West Side Story and the American Imagination. The book received positive reviews with Brad Hathaway, writing for DC Theatre Scene, calling it the one West Side Story book one should own. [3] Jay Handelman, writing for the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, said the book "could serve as a textbook study of the creation of a musical". [4]
Berson chooses the winners of the Seattle Times' theatre awards, the Footlight Awards. [5] She served on the jury for the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. [6]
West Side Story is a musical conceived by Jerome Robbins with music by Leonard Bernstein, lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, and a book by Arthur Laurents.
Kevin Tighe is an American actor who has worked in television, film, and theatre since the late 1960s. He is best known for his character, firefighter-paramedic Roy DeSoto, on the 1972-77 NBC series Emergency!
The 5th Avenue Theatre is a landmark theatre located in the Skinner Building, in the downtown core of Seattle, Washington, United States. It has hosted a variety of theatre productions and motion pictures since it opened in 1926. The building and land are owned by the University of Washington and were once part of the original campus. The theatre operates as a venue for nationally touring Broadway and original shows by the non-profit 5th Avenue Theatre Association.
"Tonight" is a song from the 1957 musical West Side Story with music written by Leonard Bernstein and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. It was published in 1956.
Daniel John Sullivan is an American theatre and film director and playwright.
The "Tonight Quintet" is a number from the musical West Side Story (1957), with music by Leonard Bernstein and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. Carol J. Oja has written that, "with the 'Tonight' quintet, Bernstein once again created a masterpiece of ensemble, one that rivals the best of such moments in European opera." Her remark echoes the earlier view of Will Crutchfield. In his review of the 1984 studio performance of West Side Story, which was conducted by Bernstein himself, Crutchfield wrote that the release of the recording "is above all an occasion for celebrating one of the great operas of our century. ... This idea is hotly resisted, but the best argument for it is here on the records in the music itself. I can see no reason why the 'Tonight' ensemble should not be compared to the quartet from Rigoletto."
David Cote is an American writer.
Syesha Raquel Mercado is an American singer-songwriter, actress, and model. Mercado placed third during the seventh season of American Idol. Prior to American Idol, Mercado was on The One: Making a Music Star and she won Florida Super Singer. Her musical influences are Whitney Houston, Etta James, Alicia Keys, Zap Mama, Lauryn Hill, and Aretha Franklin.
West Side Story Suite is a ballet suite choreographed by Jerome Robbins. Robbins conceived, directed and choreographed the 1957 musical West Side Story, then co-directed its 1961 film adaptation, before including parts of the choreography in the anthology Jerome Robbins' Broadway. Robbins developed the latter to the ballet West Side Story Suite for the New York City Ballet, which premiered on May 18, 1995, at the New York State Theater.
Ntare Guma Mbaho Mwine is an American-Ugandan stage and film actor, playwright, photographer and documentarian. He was credited as Ntare Mwine until 2008, and by his full name thereafter.
Brian Yorkey is an American playwright and lyricist. His works often explore dark and controversial subject matter such as mental illness, grief, the underbelly of suburbia, and ethics in both psychiatry and public education.
ACT Contemporary Theatre is a regional, non-profit theatre organization in Seattle, in the US state of Washington. Gregory A. Falls (1922–1997) founded ACT in 1965 and served as its first Artistic director; at the time ACT was founded he was also head of the Drama Department at the University of Washington. Falls was identified with the theatrical avant garde of the time, and founded ACT because he saw the Seattle Repertory Theatre as too specifically devoted to classics.
Fellow Passengers is a three-actor narrative theatre adaptation of Charles Dickens' 1843 novella A Christmas Carol, written by Greg Carter. The title is derived from a first-scene speech by Fred, the nephew of Ebenezer Scrooge, who says: "I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round... as a good time: a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time: the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys."
American author Dan Savage has written six books, op-ed pieces in The New York Times, and an advice column on sexual issues in The Stranger. A graduate of the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, Savage began contributing a column, Savage Love, to The Stranger from its inception in 1991. By 1998 his column had a readership of four million. He was Associate Editor at the newspaper from 1991 to 2001, when he became its editor-in-chief, later becoming its editorial director in 2007.
David Armstrong is the host and producer of "David Armstron's Broadway Nation" podcast which is part of the Broadway Podcast Network. From 2000 to 2018 he served as the Executive Producer and artistic director of The 5th Avenue Theatre in Seattle. During his tenure there he has guided The 5th Avenue to a position as one of the nation's leading musical theater companies, acclaimed for both its development and production of new works and its innovative stagings of classic musicals. As a director, he staged 5th Avenue productions of Jacques Brel is Alive and Well & Living in Paris, A Room With a View; Oliver!, Candide, Sweeney Todd, HAIR, A Little Night Music, Company,Hello, Dolly!, Anything Goes, MAME, Pippin, The Secret Garden, Vanities, White Christmas, The Rocky Horror Show, Yankee Doodle Dandy, and Saving Aimee.
Bill Berry is the American Producing Director for The 5th Avenue Theatre in Seattle, Washington. Berry served as associate producing artistic director and casting director from 2002 through 2009. During that time, he directed productions of West Side Story, Wonderful Town, The Wizard of Oz, and Smokey Joe's Cafe. He will make his Broadway directing debut this summer as First Date the Musical moves into the Longacre Theatre. Berry's directing work has been seen at theaters across the country, most recently at New Jersey's Paper Mill Playhouse where he directed a critically acclaimed production of On the Town.
Louis Hobson is an American musical theater actor and was the artistic director of Balagan Theatre in Seattle, Washington. His Broadway credits include Next to Normal and Bonnie & Clyde.
Khanh Doan is a stage and screen actress from Seattle, Washington.
Jeffrey Steitzer is an American voice actor, stage actor, and director. He is best known for being the voice of the multiplayer announcer in the Halo series.
A Lesson from Aloes is a 1978 play by South African playwright Athol Fugard. It is the story of Piet Bezuidenhout, a red-faced, big-hearted Afrikaner, who is suspected of being an informer; Gladys, his fragile embittered wife, whose tenuous hold on sanity has been broken by a routine police raid during which her diaries were ransacked; and Steve Daniels, a Colored activist just out of jail and about to leave South Africa for England on an Exit visa.