BroadwayWorld TV is proud to present the three leading villains of Disney’s The Little Mermaid. Musical theatre star Heidi Blickenstaff, of [title of show] fame, is currently sassing things up as “Ursula,” a role she first understudied. And Tyler Maynard is now joined by Eric LaJuan Summers as the electric duo, “Flotsam” and “Jetsam.”

Blickenstaff also appeared on Broadway in The Full Monty, and toured with Jeckyll & Hyde, Steel Pier, The Who’s Tommy, Dreamgirls and The Full Monty. She recently received the Helen Hayes Award for her performance in Meet John Doe at Ford’s Theatre. And she last worked with Mermaid director Francesca Zambello in the world premiere of Prairie at New York Stage and Film.

BroadwayWorld’s James Sims caught up with Heidi Blickenstaff, Tyler Maynard and Eric LaJuan Summers upstairs at Disney’s New Amsterdam Theatre to get the backstory on their taking on such memorable villains in The Little Mermaid.

Produced for BroadwayWorld.com on March 3, 2009.

Producer/Editor James Sims and host Eddie Varley joined Lori Klinger at the Maravel Arts Center to take a tour of this brand new facility before the ribbon cutting ceremony. It is located at 445 West 45th Street in Manhattan. For more information on the center and Rosie’s Broadway Kids, visit www.rosiebroadwaykids.org

Produced for BroadwayWorld.com on January 26, 2009.

Thousands of mourners turned out today for a vigil in Mumbai, India following the terrorist attacks last weekend.

At least 170 people died in the attacks and more than 300 others were injured. Here in New York, religious leaders read a prayer for Indias victims before paying tribute with the chime of a bell. James Sims has the story.

Produced for Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism on December 3, 2008.

New York’s theatre scene is big business for the city as Broadway contributes more than $5 billion a year to the economy with nearly 70 percent of ticket sales being made by people from outside of the five boroughs.

A handful of big-budget Broadway productions are already shuttering, as Hairspray, Monty Python’s Spamalot and Spring Awakening, all Tony-Award winning musicals, have announced closing dates in January. A Tale of Two Cities, another splashy musical closed on November 9th.

Downtown, as the oldest, continuously running Off-Broadway theatre in New York, the Cherry Lane Theatre is one of the many businesses in the city that are beginning to feel the pressure of a collapsing economy.

The Off-Broadway and Off-Off-Broadway communities in Greenwich Village are under threat by increasing rents. In September theatre companies in the Federal Archive Building on Christopher Street were hit with rent increases topping out at 500%, according to the New York Innovative Theatre Awards website.
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On March 31st, government officials joined Chinatown Partnership Local Development Corporation (CPLDC) executives in kicking off a long-term program to improve sanitation in New York’s Chinatown. The first phase involves the placing of 50 state-of-the-art trash cans throughout the streets of Chinatown.

The initiative is the first undertaking in a four-year “Clean Streets” initiative, which aims to improve the physical environment of Chinatown by making it dramatically cleaner, safer and more attractive for residents and visitors. “Clean Streets” was conceived in response to surveys of both Chinatown residents and visitors identifying sanitation as one of the top concerns in the neighborhood. Other initiatives will be launched later this spring.

Produced for Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism on October 14, 2008.