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Director Sam Mendes leads a three-year endeavor that brings together British and American stars of stage and screen for performances of classic works. First up: two plays from two very different traditions. ()
The recession has hit Broadway hard: Nine shows closed this week; four more have posted notices. ()
The influential British playwright died Christmas day at 78 after a long battle with cancer. ()
Music
December 26, 2008 · A movement is brewing in Bolivia. It has nothing to do with political turmoil that has plagued the South American country. Instead, classical music is in the air. A little-known but up-and-coming orchestra is spreading the sounds of Bach and Beethoven across the administrative capital La Paz, and even into some of Bolivia's most forgotten places. ()
December 20, 2008 · From Show Boat to The King and I, he and his partners wrote shows as substantive as they were entertaining. Hammerstein's lyrics — now collected in a single book — are a big part of why. ()
Simon Says By Scott Simon
December 20, 2008 · Scott Simon's 5-year-old daughter has fallen in love — with ballet. As she twirls around his life, he feels the humbling power of a parent's proud amazement. It's all a bit dizzying for Dad, too. ()
Business
December 21, 2008 · The saga of disgraced Wall Street kingpin Bernard Madoff reads like a David Mamet play. And several years back, Mamet did adapt an old play about a Ponzi scheme — The Voysey Inheritance, written in 1905. Financial blogger Felix Salmon talks to Andrea Seabrook about the parallels between Voysey and Madoff. ()
December 18, 2008 · The Rodgers and Hart musical Pal Joey thrilled and confused audiences in 1940 with its story of adultery and blackmail. Tastes have changed — and now a revival of Pal Joey is opening on Broadway. ()
December 15, 2008 · The Broadway-bound revival, staged by co-creator Arthur Laurents, rethinks the musical from top to bottom. Some characters sing in Spanish, for one thing. And those lovable gang thugs? They're angrier now. ()
Arts & Entertainment
December 14, 2008 · Since turning its animated film Beauty and the Beast into a Broadway hit 14 years ago, the Walt Disney Co. has had the stage to itself for large-scale family entertainment. Now DreamWorks is challenging it with Shrek: The Musical. The big green ogre debuts on the Great White Way on Sunday. ()
December 14, 2008 · The actor has played Scrooge on stage for the better part of two decades. He talks to Jacki Lyden about why he keeps coming back to the role. ()
December 7, 2008 · The E.B. White children's book The Trumpet of the Swan has been adapted for the stage, and it received its world premiere at The Kennedy Center in Washington this past week. Actor Richard Thomas, writer Marsha Norman and composer Jason Robert Brown talk to Andrea Seabrook. ()
Arts & Entertainment
December 4, 2008 · More than 50 student groups across the country are performing Jonathan Larson's edgy rock opera Rent this school year. Like the Broadway show, Rent School Edition is centered on a group of friends in the 1990s dealing with AIDS, gender identity, homosexuality, drug addiction and poverty. ()
Movies
November 26, 2008 · The star of Oklahoma and the X-Men franchise is the rare actor who can headline a musical and a marquee picture. His latest, with Nicole Kidman: Baz Luhrmann's swooning historical epic. ()
Books
November 30, 2008 · "Shoot Me While I'm Happy" is an account of falling in love with tap dancing written by Jane Goldberg, who studied and performed alongside some of the greatest tap dancers of the past 50 years. ()