At 10 a.m. today, the city's tourism arm, NYC & Company, is offering 2-for-1 tickets to various Broadway and Off-Broadway shows, as part of its Broadway Week, which runs September 18 to 30, and Off-Broadway week (September 26 to October 9). The Broadway shows include long-running stalwarts like Chicago, The Lion King, Wicked, Jersey Boys and Billy Elliot, plus newcomers like Memphis and the upcoming The Mountaintop, starring Samuel L. Jackson and Angela Bassett. On the Off-Broadway side, the participating shows include Avenue Q, Stomp, Love, Loss and What I Wore, and Naked Boys Singing! A list of shows is below: more ›

At Monday's press conference the mayor announced that the world had "not come to an end." After all there were "lots of tourists here enjoying themselves" and some folks even "went to the theater!" Though less folks went than this time last year, it could have been worse. Because of the blizzard all those theatergoers almost missed out on a crucial aspect of the Broadway experience: the Playbill. more ›

Jeff Daniels and Lea Michele woke up early this morning to announce the nominations for the 64th Annual Tony Awards, which will be distributed on June 13th. Unlike previous years, no single powerhouse show has dominated the nominations, with honors spread across the board. (Fela! and La Cage aux Folles tied for the most nominations—11) But there were some notable snubs, most notably the highly profitable yet critically panned The Addams Family. Stars Nathan Lane and Bebe Neuwirth received no nominations, and the show is not in the Best Musical category. Ironically, the worst aspect of this mediocre tourist trap—the instantly forgettable score—was nominated for an award. more ›

It's finally come to this. The lights of the Great White Way have gone dark in a dispute between the theater stagehands of Local One and producers and theater owners. The labor dispute which has been simmering for months and left the stagehands without a contract for an equal time, resulted in a shutdown of Broadway shows on the verge of the theater district's most profitable season. The stalemate came to to a head after... more ›

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a pedestrian was fatally struck on East 4th and Bowery in Manhattan, a child was shot on Blake Ave. in Brooklyn, and a shooting/homicide on Fish Ave and East Gunhill Rd. in the Bronx.
• The oldest living inmate in New York State is a Long Island surgeon convicted in 1978 of killing his wife. He'll turn 89 this week and concedes that divorce might have been a better choice.
• Thousands of participants retraced the steps of fireman Stephen Stiller in the Tunnel to Towers run today. Stiller died on 9/11 after running through the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel to fight the WTC fire.
• The Head of the Harlem Regatta was held Saturday, and crew teams raced from Yankee Stadium to Swindler's Cove on the Harlem River.
• The Broadway stagehands union and show producers have agreed to extend negotiations through this week, keeping the lights on along the Great White Way.
• We wonder if Beyonce Knowles feels that Nolita in Manhattan is getting more dangerous lately. She was sporting brass knuckles on her boots while dining at La Esquina last night.
• Seven people were injured when a car slammed into the front of a Staten Island city bus
• The French company that contracted with the MTA to produce 400 new subway cars is five months behind schedule on its deliveries without incurring any penalties, and even won a $700 million contract extension.

With all the news of identity theft, of course it would have to hit couples who are getting married. The Post has an alarming story about a number of couples who, when applying for a marriage license, have found themselves already "married." It's believed that thieves use other people's identities to get marriage licenses and green cards. Denise Daskalkis "filed two appeals, multiple petitions, and attended a hearing at the Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings," calling the two-year process hell while a Laura Berrios was "denied a domestic partnership with her lesbian lover because she had supposedly been married - to a man - for a decade." Berrios dryly said to the Post, "I've been out of the closet since I was 16. Trust me, I never have and never will get married [to a man]." more ›

Mr. Berloni, who has trained animals for 42 Broadway shows, began his career more than 30 years ago, when he reached instant fame just out of high school with an Airedale Terrier mixed breed who played “Sandy” in the Broadway hit “Annie.” The terrier performed for the show’s entire seven-year run — 2,377 performances, the longest for any animal in Broadway history. more ›

An actor who starred on the Great White Way as Mr. Rochester in Jane Eyre and as the Beast in Beauty & the Beast will be in Manhattan Criminal Court facing charges of sexual misconduct towards a minor. James Barbour has been charged with five felony counts of criminal sex acts from an incident five years ago. From the NY Post:

Prosecutors say that the victim was then an out-of-state, star-struck theater lover from a high school somewhere in the New York area. Her drama teacher knew Barbour, prosecutors say, and arranged for her and her parents to see him in the leading role. more ›

Meat Loaf and Broadway sort of seem like a match made in heaven, or perhaps hell would be more appropriate, as he is taking his Bat out of Hell albums and bringing them to life on the Great White Way. The one-night-only concert, aptly called "Bat Out of Hell on Broadway", will take place November 2 at New York’s Palace Theatre. more ›

The Times today reports on some funny numbers running around the theater district. Here's what we understood of it: In 1998 legit theater, which like the Apple Computers of yore is always somewhat "beleaguered", was having some trouble getting patrons in the door to watch anything that a theater snob might call "passable." Money was desperately needed to kick things into gear. So the city struck a deal with a group called The Broadway Initiative, led by Gothamist-idol Stephen Sondheim, to provide more money not only for theater owners but for the theater community as well. The deal was simple: 25 theaters in the theater district (that'd be between 40th and 57th Streets and 6th and 8th Avenues) were given permission to sell their unused air-rights to any property also located in the district (instead of only to the usual rules which only allow air rights to be sold to neighboring plots). In exchange for this lenience anyone who bought up one of these theater's air rights would have to pay an extra $10 per square foot on top of the regular price. That extra money was to be then given to a new Theater Subdistrict Council which would spend 20 percent of it on monitoring theater conditions and the rest on bringing poorer city residents to the Great White Way. Sounds like a good, simple, idea, no? more ›

The weather outside might be just starting to feel like spring, but in the theater world there’s already a summery vibe going on. Last night the Lortel Awards kicked off the trophy-giving season; this Friday the Drama League awards go out. Then there’s the festivals; not that there aren’t festivals at other times of the year, but as the weather heats up they start crowding in thick and fast. Currently you can get a square meal of offerings from around the world, all via some well-curated festivals. To begin with, there’s Pan Asian Repertory’s Spring Festival of New Works, which has four very different plays to choose from: Lan Tran’s Elevator Sex, Kendra Ware’s Recollections: Butoh-Inspired Movement, John Quincy Lee’s ABC (American Born Chinese), and Terry Park’s 38th Parallels. more ›

We don't kow whether to cheer or chastise after hearing that a musical of Nick Hornby's book, High Fidelity, will be coming to Broadway this December. We can see it now: A recurring song called "Top Five List," a ballad about Laura, an ensemble dance piece at the end when Rob opens the club. The musical will be set in New York City, which makes it the third stop for the concept (book was in England, movie was in Chicago), which makes us wonder if songs mentioned in the book, like Katrina and Waves' Walking on Sunshine (in both the book and movie) or anything Bruce Springsteen-related, will make it to the Great White Way. The record for rock/pop on Broadway is pretty mixed - for every Mamma Mia or Movin' Out, you've got a Lennon, Good Vibrations and All Shook Up. Hmm, the more we think about it, what with bringing The Wedding Singer to Broadway, it seems like producers are desperately trying to reach the 18-34 - heck, the 25-45, year old male demographic. But will it work? more ›

We noted in yesterday’s roundup of theatre in 2005 that at least in our optimistic eyes, last year had plenty of great shows. If anywhere like the same number of impressive plays and musicals appear in ‘06, it’d be hard to complain. But nonetheless, we do have a small wish list. more ›

Gothamist thought this piece Reuters/Yahoo ran over the weekend was really cute. more ›

Big casting news this week on Broadway as Denzel Washington is announced as Brutus in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. The big-screen box office king hasn't been sighted on the Great White Way since 1988, when he appeared in the show Checkers. Playbill reports that the show will be opening in March at the Belasco. The current tenant is Dracula, which is struggling to stay alive and should probably see a closing notice posted imminently. more ›

Tomorrow brings a few exciting but very different activities to partake in: First, there is Broadway on Broadway, a live free outdoor concert in Times Square, hosted by Wayne Brady (soon to be seen in Chicago) and Christy Carlson Romano (Beauty and the Beast), to celebrate the musicals and plays the Great White Way has to offer. Some of the participating shows: Avenue Q, Brooklyn, The Musical (who knew?), Chicago, Golda�s Balcony (which means the awesome Tovah Feldshuh, aka attorney Danielle Melnick from Law & Order, will be there), Hairspray, La Cage Aux Folles, Little Women, Mamma Mia!, The Producers, Rent, Wicked and Wonderful Town. more ›

Most theatres are busy prepping their new season�s premieres, and smart and cost conscious theatre fans are already booking shows they want to see for nothing � by ushering. more ›

A high school musical Gothamist would pay to see: Point Loma High School in San Diego has created a musical based on Winona Ryder's shoplisting trial. Called "Sticky Fingers," the musical is about "a missile-factory employee and tango dancer who travels to Rodeo Drive, where she has a fateful meeting with her idol, Ryder, at Saks. The department store donated shopping bags for the set." We'd like to see this musical make it's way to the Great White Way. more ›