Stephen Joshua Sondheim was an American composer and lyricist. Regarded as one of the most important figures in 20th-century musical theater, he is credited with reinventing the American musical. With his frequent collaborators Harold Prince and James Lapine, Sondheim's Broadway musicals tackled unexpected themes that ranged beyond the genre's traditional subjects, while addressing darker elements of the human experience. His music and lyrics are tinged with complexity, sophistication, and ambivalence about various aspects of life.
The Groundlings is an American improvisational and sketch comedy troupe and school based in Los Angeles, California. The troupe was formed by Gary Austin in 1974 and uses an improv format influenced by Viola Spolin, whose improv techniques were taught by Del Close and other members of the Second City, located in Chicago and later St. Louis. They used these techniques to produce sketches and improvised scenes. Its name is taken from Shakespeare's Hamlet, Act III, Scene II: "...to split the ears of the groundlings, who for the most part are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumbshows and noise." In 1975 the troupe purchased and moved into its location on Melrose Avenue.
Emerson College is a private college with its main campus in Boston, Massachusetts. It also maintains campuses in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, and in Well, Limburg, Netherlands. Founded in 1880 by Charles Wesley Emerson as a "school of oratory," the college offers more than three dozen degree and professional training programs specializing in the fields of arts and communication with a foundation in liberal arts studies. The college is one of the founding members of the ProArts Consortium, an association of six neighboring institutions in Boston dedicated to arts education at the collegiate level. Emerson is also notable for the college's namesake public opinion poll, Emerson College Polling.
The Takarazuka Revue is a Japanese all-female musical theatre troupe based in Takarazuka, Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan. Women play all roles in lavish, Broadway-style productions of Western-style musicals and stories adapted from films, novels, shōjo manga, and Japanese folktales. The Takarazuka Revue Company is a division of the Hankyu Railway company; all members of the troupe are employed by Hankyu.
A revue is a type of multi-act popular theatrical entertainment that combines music, dance, and sketches. The revue has its roots in 19th century popular entertainment and melodrama but grew into a substantial cultural presence of its own during its golden years from 1916 to 1932. Though most famous for their visual spectacle, revues frequently satirized contemporary figures, news or literature. Similar to the related subforms of operetta and musical theatre, the revue art form brings together music, dance and sketches to create a compelling show. In contrast to these, however, revue does not have an overarching storyline. Rather, a general theme serves as the motto for a loosely related series of acts that alternate between solo performances and dance ensembles.
The Second City is an improvisational comedy enterprise. It is the oldest improvisational theater troupe to be continuously based in Chicago, with training programs and live theaters in Toronto and New York. Since its debut in 1959, it has become one of the most influential and renowned in the English-speaking world. In February 2021, ZMC, a private equity investment firm based in Manhattan, purchased the Second City.
Susan P. Stroman is an American theatre director, choreographer, and performer. Her notable theater productions include Oklahoma!, The Music Man, Crazy for You, Contact, The Producers, The Frogs, The Scottsboro Boys, Bullets Over Broadway, POTUS: Or, Behind Every Great Dumbass Are Seven Women Trying to Keep Him Alive, and New York, New York.
The Capping Show is the name given to the University of Otago student's association revue. It has run since 1894, making it the world's longest continuously running student revue show in the world. The Cambridge University Footlights are often cited as the longest running student revue, but whilst Footlights stopped for several years during the world wars, the Otago Capping Show have held a show every year since 1894. Each year the Capping Show is roughly 2 hours long and made up of comedy sketches and musical numbers. It touches on many of the current and not so current events of the past few years, satirizing people and problems in an uncommonly brash manner. Since the University of Otago is located in Dunedin, a good section of the show makes fun of the Dunedin and the university. It is currently being performed at the College Auditorium at the University of Otago. Previous locations include the Princess Theatre, His Majesty's Theatre, the Mayfair Theatre, the Regent Theatre, the Town Hall and Castle lecture theatre.
Pioneer Valley Performing Arts Charter Public School (PVPA) is a public charter school in South Hadley, Massachusetts, United States. It was established in 1996 as part of the Massachusetts Educational Reform. It was originally located in Hadley, Massachusetts, but relocated to South Hadley for its tenth year in 2005.
Stephens College is a private women's college in Columbia, Missouri, United States. It is the second-oldest women's educational establishment that is still a women's college in the United States. It was founded on August 24, 1833, as the Columbia Female Academy.
Scotch'n'Soda is a student-run theatre organization that resides on the campus of Carnegie Mellon University. Its initial dedication was the creation and production of original musicals, but has now taken to performing both professionally published and student-written materials. Students are welcome to write, compose, design, direct, perform in, and otherwise become involved with every aspect of each production. The organization is open to all Carnegie Mellon students from all backgrounds who are interested, and all performances are public with varying ticket prices.
University of Pennsylvania student life includes numerous events and social gatherings around campus, with some sponsored by the college.
John Newport Caird is an English stage director and writer of plays, musicals and operas. He is an honorary associate director of the Royal Shakespeare Company, was for many years a regular director with the Royal National Theatre of Great Britain and is the principal guest director of the Royal Dramatic Theatre, Stockholm (Dramaten).
Janie Dee is a British actress. She won the Olivier Award for Best Actress, Evening Standard Award and Critics' Circle Theatre Award for Best Actress in a Play, and in New York the Obie and Theatre World Award for Best Newcomer, for her performance as Jacie Triplethree in Alan Ayckbourn's Comic Potential.
The Lois Cowles Harrison Center for the Visual and Performing Arts, also called the Harrison School for the Arts, is a high school in Lakeland, Florida, United States. The school was founded in 1989 and named after community member and art patron Lois Cowles Harrison. It is a magnet school that draws its student population from communities throughout Polk County. Students may specialize in dance, classical guitar, orchestra, piano, choir, jazz, theatre, technical theatre, musical theatre, film, visual arts, or creative writing. Students take general education classes at Lakeland High School, which is adjacent to Harrison. The school received an expansion in 2008, with renovations and the addition of 95,000 square feet to the building.
Theatre Strike Force is the University of Florida's premier improv and sketch comedy troupe. The group also goes by TSF. The style of improv performed by Theatre Strike Force is a combination long form and short form. They both teach and perform improvisational comedy. They have six house teams which include both forms of improv as well as a sketch team. There are four long form house teams which are cast every semester and usually have six to eight members. The TSF Short Form Team is cast every semester as well and usually has fifteen to nineteen members. TSF Sketch is the final house team and usually has twelve to sixteen members, cast each semester.
The Marblehead Little Theatre is a community theatre in Marblehead, Massachusetts. Founded in 1956, it is one of the oldest continually operating community theatres in New England.
The Virginia Theatre is a live performance and movie theatre in downtown Champaign, Illinois. It has been providing theatrical and cinematic entertainment to the Champaign-Urbana community since its doors opened in 1921. Each year, the Virginia Theatre is host to movies from film reels, plays from various acting troupes, concerts, and Ebertfest, presented by the UIUC College of Media. It is currently owned by the Champaign Park District.
The Practical Theatre Company is a Chicago-based theatre company founded by Northwestern University students and active throughout the 1980s before returning to the stage in 2010. Its productions have included new plays, satiric agitprop, rock and roll events, and a series of successful improvisational comedy revues. The PTC, whose motto is "Art is Good", is notable for the fact that the entire cast of its 1982 improvisational comedy revue, The Golden 50th Anniversary Jubilee was hired by Saturday Night Live.
Ballets with a Twist is a New York City-based company that performs the work of Artistic Director Marilyn Klaus throughout the United States. Klaus founded Ballets with a Twist in 1996, in association with Grammy-nominated composer Stephen Gaboury. The company performed the first incarnation of its signature work, Cocktail Hour: The Show, a collection of theatrical dance vignettes celebrating iconic American social culture, in Manhattan, in 2009.
