Broadway Casting Director Benton Whitley Announces New Whitley Theatrical Agency

Prime Video’s The Wheel of Time has cast Danish model-actress Maja Simonsen, Icelandic actress and former Olympic swimmer Ragga Ragnars, Irish actor Jay Duffy and New Zealand singer, actress and comedian Rima Te Wiata in recurring roles for the hit fantasy drama’s upcoming second season. The announcement was made during today’s virtual panel at JordanCon.

good news for you.Eight times a week, the curtain goes up on “The Lion King” at the Minskoff Theatre on Broadway and each show is more magical than the last.Better yet, since the show has been running since 1997, tickets are fairly affordable by Broadway standards to the Great White Way staple.At the time of publication, we found some seats going for as low as $120 before fees on Vivid Seats.Not a bad price to see a six-time Tony Award winner (!) in person.Can’t wait to hear “I Just Can’t Wait To Be King?”Here’s everything you need to know and more about how to see “The Lion King” live as soon as today.All prices listed above are subject to fluctuation.Like any well-oiled Broadway machine, “The Lion King” can be seen eight times a week.As expected, matinees fall on Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays.There are no Monday shows either.Want to find the right show at the right time for you?Check out a complete calendar including all dates, start times and links to buy tickets here.“The Lion King” has a run time of two hours and 30 minutes with one intermission.Who plays Simba these days? What have I seen Scar in before?Great questions.To ease any confusion, here are the five main actors, what part they play and where you may have seen them in TV or film over the years.Brandon A. McCall (Simba): This is McCall’s Broadway debut; he is an Alabama State University alum.L. Steven Taylor (Mufasa): You may recognize Taylor from PBS’ “The Electric Company” or the HBO pilot “Last Of The Ninth.”Michael Hollick (Scar): Hollick has appeared in “Law & Order,” “Sex and the City,” “Guiding Light,” and “Hawaii Five-O” among many other credits.Ben Jeffrey (Pumbaa): Jeffrey has had roles in “The Good Wife” and “Louie.” This is his Broadway

Eight years is pretty close to eternity when it comes to sell-by dates for topical humor, which might be one reason that the jokes in Larissa FastHorse’s Broadway comedy The Thanksgiving Play fall flat as an underbaked pie. We can only surmise that when she first began writing this satire on Liberal guilt, woke sensitivities and Goopy indulgence back in 2015, words like “decoupling” and “soy milk” seemed like terrific punchlines.

Chicago, Wicked, Phantom of the Opera).It’s a bit premature to group Broadway’s newest musical comedy into any of these three categories, but it’s safe to say that it is harvesting a bonafide crowd-pleaser with Shucked (★★★★★).It’s not often that the Nashville and New York crowds intertwine with one another, particularly on creative projects. This exception, however, is a winning combination.Southern-bred and out country singer-songwriters Brandy Clark and Shane McAnally have joined forces with Northeast-based stage and screenwriter Robert Horn to create one of the funniest shows Broadway has seen in quite some time.Clark, an 11-time Grammy nominee and Country Music Award winner has written songs for Brandi Carlile, Alicia Keys, and Kacey Musgraves.

Killer Mike has announced plans to release a new album and has shared the first taster from the record ‘Don’t Let The Devil’.The LP ‘Michael’, which is his first since 2012’s ‘R.A.P. Music’, is set to be released on June 16.The first single from the record, which you can listen to below, features his fellow Run The Jewels cohort El-P.“[Run the Jewels] is the X-Men, this is my Logan,” Mike said in statement via Rolling Stone.

Todd Haimes, who built New York’s Roundabout Theater Company into one of the city’s – and country’s- leading nonprofit theaters, died today at New York’s Memorial Sloan Kettering Hospital of complications from osteosarcoma, a bone cancer. He was 66.

Rancid have announced plans to release new album ‘Tomorrow Never Comes’ this summer.The US punk-rock band’s 10th studio LP will come out on June 2 via Epitaph Records and is their first since 2017’s ‘Trouble Maker’.As a first taster, the band have shared the title track from their forthcoming album, the video for which you can view below.The record, which will feature 16 tracks, coincides with their forthcoming UK and European tour which kicks off in Italy at Slam Dunk on the same day the album is released.The tour was set to call at London’s O2 Academy Brixton on June 20, but it has now been upgraded to the OVO Arena Wembley on the same date.The band will also play a second gig at the O2 Victoria Warehouse in Manchester the following night (June 21).

Micaela Diamond, currently costarring in Broadway’s hit musical revival Parade, has signed with CAA.

The Dillinger Escape Plan, Every Time I Die and Fit For An Autopsy have joined forces to create a new supergroup, Better Lovers. Check out their debut single below.The newly-formed group is comprised of former Dillinger frontman Greg Puciato, Every Time I Die members Jordan Buckley and Steven Micciche, Fit For An Autopsy guitarist Will Putney, and Orbs’ drummer Clayton ‘Goose’ Holyoak.According to Putney – who also won a Grammy in 2021 for his work on Body Count’s album, ‘Carnivore’ – the band is a “group of loaded weapons all firing at full power”, and promises to deliver the “next chapter” of each member’s career.Now, the five-piece supergroup have shared their debut single, ‘30 Under 13’ – a blistering four-minute track that the members claim provides the perfect introduction to Better Lovers.

“Phantom of the Opera” – Broadway’s longest-running show. “I grew up on his plays and the performances from ‘Phantom of the Opera.’ One of the longest-running performances is closing, but it gave us many years of just joy throughout the years,” gushed Adams outside the Majestic Theater on West 44th Street.“Phantom” will close this Sunday, April 16 after a 35-year-long run on Broadway. The show first appeared in London’s West End in 1986 before coming to New York in 1988.“But you have brought us so much joy, so much happiness.

Lupita Nyong’o and Sandra Oh lend their star power to opening night of the Pulitzer Prize-winning play Fat Ham at American Airlines Theatre on Wednesday (April 12) in New York City.

SZA has announced a string of new tour dates, spanning across the UK, Europe and North America.Having recently finished a series of sold-out tour dates, SZA has revived her ‘SOS’ tour with ten new performances in Europe and twenty-one dates in North America.The second leg of the tour will see the Grammy-winning R&B artist perform at arenas in Amsterdam, Paris, Zurich, Berlin and Cologne, before moving through the UK for four shows. This includes two consecutive nights at London’s O2 Arena.All European dates will take place throughout June and will end with one performance in Dublin’s 3Arena.

New Order have announced details of a UK and European tour, with Confidence Man due to support – see full dates below.The new dates follow a run of shows in North America in March which included a performance and in conversation key-note speech with the band at the SXSW Festival.The band also performed earlier in the same week as part of Austin City Limits Live at the Moody Theater.New Order will begin their upcoming tour on September 21 at Copenhagen Royal Arena, before heading to Amsterdam, Paris, London, Dublin and Glasgow. They finish up in Leeds at the First Direct Arena on October 7.Tickets for the tour will be on sale this Friday, April 14 at 9.30am.

Kimberly Akimbo, the acclaimed David Lindsay-Abaire-Jeanine Tesori Broadway musical, will launch a 75-week, 60-city North American tour in September 2024, producers announced today.

That’s a wrap for Joker: Folie à Deux!

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic The verdicts on the new Broadway musical-comedy “Shucked” are in, and the critics have asked you to lend them your ears — so to speak — as they’ve cobbled together their reactions to the possible sleeper hit. (Sorry, but once you’ve seen the production, it may take you six months or longer to stop speaking in puns.) Variety’s critic wrote that “with its exuberance, heart and non-stop yucks, ‘Shucked’ is the surprise delight of the Broadway season.” The New York Post’s notice trumpeted it as “Broadways’s best and funniest new musical.” Time Out said the show leaves theatergoers “gorged to satisfaction on a big, tasty bag of Broadway puff.” Entertainment Weekly wrote that “its refreshing embrace of diversity and unapologetically corny sincerity can definitely put a smile on your face.” Even one of the minority that was harder on it, the New York Times’ Jesse Green, begrudgingly admitted of the parade of laughs: “forced into submission,,” he wrote, “you eventually give in.”

The Strokes’ Albert Hammond Jr has announced a new solo album ‘Melodies On Hiatus’ and shared lead single ‘100-99’. Check it out below.The LP marks the fifth solo album for the guitarist and songwriter, following on from his 2018 release ‘Francis Trouble’.

EXCLUSIVE: Broadway casting director Duncan Stewart, whose big-name clients include the Tony-winning Hadestown, the new Life of Pi and the acclaimed The Great Comet of 1812, is dissolving his Stewart/Whitley agency after 14 years to head up the new casting arm of global live event company RWS Entertainment Group.

Boygenius are releasing a new film directed by Kristen Stewart tonight (March 31) – get all the details on The Film below.The new movie from Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers and Lucy Dacus will be released alongside the trio’s highly anticipated debut album ‘The Record’, and comes after Stewart was touted to direct three of the band’s music videos.The Film will land at 5am BST on April 1 (that’s midnight on the East Coast of the USA), and fans can wait for the premiere and see its poster below.‘The Record’ is also out at midnight, with a five-star NME review saying: “This debut is a gorgeous testament to what can happen when you allow yourself to fully be seen. Though each of the album’s 12 tracks could have fit nicely on one of their personal records, their work together takes on a brighter bolder existence, enabling them to light up individually and together at the same time.“Bridgers, Dacus and Baker did the tedious work of getting to know each other artistically and collaboratively and then poured what they found out into the world.

Wes Anderson is taking movie fans to the desert.