The Roundtable with Robert Bannon

“Art, business, same thing.”

Diaspora Now!, an international African arts conference, is celebrating its Diamond Jubilee in Paris and the panel line-up this year is sure to cause a stir. Newcomer Sami Monroe, a go-getting directing prodigy from America, joins jaded veteran painter Céza Depina and formerly banned storyteller, Cheikh Malick Diallo. As they prepare for each panel discussion, generational and cultural differences lead to clashes and a fierce competition emerges between the three artists. In a world plagued with scarcity, minor•ity is a powerful three-hander that interrogates Black identity, the plurality of the African diaspora, and what it means to be a sought-after artist of color.

Cast:

Creatives:

WP Theater, a theatre company dedicated to producing works by non-male writers, produces its shows in the same-named venue on the Upper West Side.

For Tickets: https://wptheater.org/

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Andrew Mitch is an independent singer/songwriter based in Nashville, TN. Although country music tends to hold more traditional, conservative values, Andrew’s lyrics include storytelling imagery about his own experiences of being an openly queer singer and an active member of the LGBTQ+ community. All his music and merchandise is inspired by making country music more inclusive, and many of the designs were crafted by queer artists.

He has a new single coming out on March 28th called "unapologetic." He tells us his plan to release new music every month for 2025! He also tells us his journey to country, his identity, and why he lives out loud.

Follow Andrew on IG- @andrewmitchmusic

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Endless Calls for Fame takes place in the gritty streets of New York City in the 1990s during a time when punk and indie rock was moving from the underground into the mainstream after the cultural tsunami of Nirvana. Using her rediscovered personal archival footage, director Olivia Serafini-Sauli shares the first- hand story of this unique musical era through the lens of one promising band's experience, The New Rising Sons. The film brings to life a vibrant New York music scene of the past as it follows the band’s brush with stardom, their dissolution, and their journey to redemption 20 years after they were formed.

The director Olivia Serafini-Sauli is here. She tells her journey, her personal connection, and how no matter what age and style of music you love, you can relate to this new movie. Put it on your must see list! It is out now!

For More Info: www.endlesscallsforfamemovie.com

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Bruce Vilanch is an American comedy writer, songwriter and actor who has won two Emmy Awards for his work on the Annual Academy Awards. He is also known for his appearance as a celebrity participant and head writer on Hollywood Squares for four years. Here are some facts about his life and career:

He wrote for various shows and artists, such as The Donny & Marie Show, The Star Wars Holiday Special, The Brady Bunch Variety Hour, Bette Midler, Robin Williams, Lily Tomlin, Billy Crystal, Roseanne Barr, Rosie O’Donnell, Paul Reiser, Elizabeth Taylor, Steven Tyler and Aerosmith.

He wrote the lyrics for the farewell song that Bette Midler sang to Johnny Carson on his final broadcast of The Tonight Show, which won him an Emmy Award. He was the head writer for the Oscars from 2000 to 2014, after being a co-writer for the previous ten years. He collaborated with hosts such as Whoopi Goldberg, David Letterman, and Billy Crystal.

He played the role of Edna Turnblad in the Broadway musical Hairspray in 2005 and took that role to Broadway! It is an epic career where he worked with them all! With so much success comes some infamous moments as well! So many fun stories that he wrote a book all about them! That book is now out and he is telling us all about it!

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Check out "The Roundtable with Robert Bannon" here on BPN on the daily, on YouTube, Broadway World, and on social media! Like, comment, share, & subscribe!

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KIM DAVID SMITH, the provocative international singer and actor, will release the new album Mostly Marlene in digital and streaming platforms on Friday, March 21. The entrancing and wryly humorous entertainer – hailed as “slyly subversive” by The Wall Street Journal, “a male Marlene Dietrich” by The New York Times, and the “David Bowie of cabaret” by BroadwayWorld – was nominated for the Helpmann Award, Australia’s highest honor for the performing arts. Smith will celebrate the album’s release with a special New York concert at Joe’s Pubon Friday, March 21 at 9:30 PM. Tickets are available HERE. Customers who pre-order the digital album will immediately receive a download of the first single, a powerful German-language version of John Kander and Fred Ebb’s “Cabaret.” Pre-order the album on Apple Music HERE.

Mostly Marlene, recorded live at the New York hotspot Joe’s Pub, features guest vocalists: pop wunderkind Bright Light Bright Light and New York cabaret legend Sidney Myer. In addition to the concert, the 21-track album also features bonus studio duets with Tony-nominated playwright and performer Charles Busch, downtown luminary Joey Arias, Australian opera star Ali McGregor, and Smith’s own darling mother Linda Randall. The album and upcoming concert feature music director Tracy Stark on piano, in addition to Matt Podd on accordion, Skip Ward on bass, and David Silliman on drums.

The recording celebrates the music associated with Marlene Dietrich (1901-1992), the German/American actress, singer, fashion icon, and provocateur. With a focus on Marlene’s collaborations with Weimar-era composer Friedrich Hollaender, the program sees Smith’s queer mega-muses – Minnelli, Minogue, Madonna, and more – collide with Dietrich’s reimagined repertoire in luxurious musical rearrangements, traveling from Weimar Berlin, to Hollywood, through to the battlefields of Europe, and beyond.

The album features selections performed by Dietrich in her iconic film career such as “Falling in Love Again” (The Blue Angel, 1930), “The Boys in the Back Room” (Destry Rides Again, 1939), “Black Market” (A Foreign Affair, 1948), and “Just a Gigolo” (Just a Gigolo, 1978), in addition to songs she performed in concert and recorded in the studio. The album also includes Smith’s performance of Kylie Minogue’s “Padam Padam” – in an original French translation by cabarettist Gay Marshall – and his barn-storming all-German rendition of Kander & Ebb’s “Cabaret.”

Mostly Marlene debuted at Club Cumming in New York City’s East Village and toured to the 2021 Adelaide Cabaret Festival, and the Post Office Café in Provincetown, while frequently returning to New York at Club Cumming (2021-2023), Pangea, and Café Sabarsky at the Neue Galerie. 

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Check out "The Roundtable with Robert Bannon" here on BPN on the daily, on YouTube, Broadway World, and on social media! Like, comment, share, & subscribe!

For more info on Robert- www.RobertBannon.com

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Now at The Tank In NYC a new production , which was inspired by Tadeusz Kantor’s The Dead Class. Deadclass, Ohio also draws from original text, recycled memories, family secrets, old photos, live violin score, and verbatim fragments of rediscovered memoirs and voicemails to create a séance for the living and a love song for the dead.

The piece was created collectively by The Goat Exchange, who have developed over 20 original productions in traditional theaters and a range of site-specific venues, from a museum gallery to a swimming pool to a football stadium to a kitchen sponge. They’re very collaborative, and draw from old films, new plays, verbatim transcripts, and classic texts.

We have the Chloe Claudel & Mitchell Polonsky, who co-direct, co-write, Chloe even stars in this piece! Eliya Smith joins us as well! She wrote original pieces to the show! Hear all about it!

For more info: www.thetanknyc.org

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Check out "The Roundtable with Robert Bannon" here on BPN on the daily, on YouTube, Broadway World, and on social media! Like, comment, share, & subscribe!

For more info on Robert- www.RobertBannon.com

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Get your tissues! We have a special one today! We are talking the new film "Standout" The Story of Ben Kjar!

Standout tells the inspiring story of Ben Kjar, born with Crouzon Syndrome, a rare craniofacial disorder. From birth,doctors warned that his life would be dominated by limitations, bullying and harsh scrutiny. Despite that prognosis, Ben yearned for an ordinary life free from judgment and harassment.However, each experience of adversity, including relentless bullying and a series of painful surgeries, ignited afire within him. Wrestling became his proving ground, a place where he learned to transform his facial difference into a source of power. Determined to succeed, he pushed himself relentlessly,breaking through physical, social, and even romantic barriers that once seemed insurmountable.But as unexpected challenges arose and ridicule resurfaced,Ben found himself at a defining crossroads: fade into the background of a “normal” life, or fully embrace his difference and boldly stand out.

Ben is here! Filmmaker Tanner Christensen are here! The film is out and I promise you will not want to miss this. There will not be a dry eye in the house!

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Check out "The Roundtable with Robert Bannon" here on BPN on the daily, on YouTube, Broadway World, and on social media! Like, comment, share, & subscribe!

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Irish Repertory Theatre (Charlotte Moore, Artistic Director and Ciarán O’Reilly, Producing Director) is proud to present Beckett Briefs, three short plays by Samuel Beckett and directed by Ciarán O’Reilly (The Dead, 1904).

Previously set to close March 9, the show was recently extended and will now play through March 16, 2025. Well, the show extended and sold out, BUT do not fear. They recorded it and the live stream is coming! You do not want to miss this! Sarah Street, starring in two of the shorts, is here to tell us all about it!

Three short plays by Samuel Beckett that run the gamut of existence from birth to the afterlife, presented ona single bill.

Not I – “Practically speechless.... all her days.”

A non-verbal woman, who was abandoned by her parents at birth and lives an uneventful life until the age of 70, suddenly hears voices and realizes it’s herself speaking.

Not I features Sarah Street (Molly Sweeney).

Play – “We were not long together when she smelt a rat.”

Eternally together in the afterlife and locked in their urns, a man, his wife, and his mistress relay the sordid

details of their love triangle.

Play features Roger Dominic Casey (Aristocrats), Kate Forbes (A Touch of the Poet), and Sarah Street.

Krapp’s Last Tape – “Perhaps my best years are gone...But I wouldn’t want them back. Not with the fire in me now. No, I wouldn’t want them back”

Krapp, an aged man, reviews his life with the assistance of his younger self heard on autobiographical tape recordings.

Krapp’s Last Tape features Academy Award winner F. Murray Abraham (Amadeus).

This ia a great chat with a great actor at a great theatre company!

For tickets and info:

https://irishrep.org/

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Check out "The Roundtable with Robert Bannon" here on BPN on the daily, on YouTube, Broadway World, and on social media! Like, comment, share, & subscribe!

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We have a first! Our first professional wrestler comes to The Roundtable! Ryan Nemeth has wrestled around the world. He comes from a wrestling family. He had competed in front of thousands of people, but a play in NYC? Well there is first for everything!

Ryan is here to talk his journey to the ring, his love of comedy, and why we all need to come out to see him in this hilarious new show, "STREET FIGHTING KNOCKOUT" by Cristi's Case Crackers!

This show is for everyone! This interview is for wrestling fans or anyone looking to be inspired that you are not what you do. You can do that and so much more!

"STREET FIGHT KNOCKOUT" comes to NYC March 21st & 22nd!

For tickets: https://www.prekindle.com/events/cristis-case-crackers

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Check out "The Roundtable with Robert Bannon" here on BPN on the daily, on YouTube, Broadway World, and on social media! Like, comment, share, & subscribe!

For more info on Robert- www.RobertBannon.com

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We have Writers! We have Directors! We have a film starring Paula Abdul! I mean are you sold yet?

Nic Costa & Rob Taylor are here to talk about their new film, "Raging Midlife!" Yes Paula Abdul, Eddie Griffin, and Walter Koenig star in this hilarious take on the 80's, wresting, and a promise to make you laugh! Think "The Hangover!" Think "Hot Tub Time Machine!" Think funny!

About the film:

Two friends embark on a thrilling and comical heist spree to retrieve a tank top worn by their 80s wrestling hero “Raging Abraham Lincoln” after a grieving daughter outbids them to satisfy her father’s dying wish.

Cast: Paula Abdul, Eddie Griffin, Walter Koenig, Judy Levitt, Nic Costa, Matt Zak, Darrielle Mason, Bryna Smith, Emily Sweet, Rob Taylor

Watch "Raging Midlife" today!

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Check out "The Roundtable with Robert Bannon" here on BPN on the daily, on YouTube, Broadway World, and on social media! Like, comment, share, & subscribe!

For more info on Robert- www.RobertBannon.com

Follow Him on IG- @RobertMBannon

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