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Stagefright

Seinfeld and Family Feud TV star John O’Hurley (pictured) is back on Broadway playing Billy Flynn in the long-running revival of Kander and Ebb’s musical Chicago. The show celebrated its 15th year on Broadway two weeks ago. Back in August, it surpassed A Chorus Line to become the fourth longest-running show, and at the same time, the longest-running American show, in Broadway history. (The top three are the British musicals Phantom of the Opera, Cats, and Les Miserables.) The revival opened in November 1996 at the Richard Rodgers Theatre, then transferred to the Shubert Theater in February 1997, and to the Ambassador, its current home, in January 2003. The show was dark November 30 to accommodate the one-night only benefit staging of Kander and Ebb’s The Visit, starring Chita Rivera.

The very popular musical Avenue Q, which just celebrated its second year off-Broadway after having a six-year run on Broadway (it won the 2004 Tony, defeating everyone’s favorite Wicked), will have its local premiere by Musicalfare opening on January 25, directed and choreographed by Doug Weyand. The production, which runs through March 4, will star Jacob Albarella, Charmagne Chi, Jeffrey Coyle, Maria Droz, Amy Jakiel, Adrienne Lewis, and Marc Sacco.

And Musicalfare’s summer production of Hair will reunite Oliver’s director/choreographer Chris Kelly and Bobby Cooke. Auditions will be held on January 30. The company first produced Hair during the 1992-93 season.

Donna Hoke’s new play, The Seed, will have a reading at Road Less Traveled on Monday, December 5 at 7pm, directed by Jon Elston, starring Matt Witten, Kristen Tripp Kelley, Diane Curley, Sheila McCarthy, and Josie DiVincenzo. Hoke’s comedy about swingers, The Couple Next Door, premiered at Road Less Traveled in September 2010 and is scheduled for a reading at The Hive Theatre in New York. The Seed is about a single mother of three who offers to be an egg donor surrogate for her identical twin sister. Admission to the Monday reading is free.

The world premiere of Edward Albee’s new play Laying an Egg, which was scheduled for February at the Signature Theater in New York, has been postponed. The play is about a middle-aged woman determined to become pregnant in the face of complications. The theater will present Albee’s The Lady From Dubuque in its place.

The Irish Classical Theatre will be mounting Albee’s 1967 Pulitzer Prize winning A Delicate Balance in its April-May slot, starring Josephine Hogan, Vincent O’Neill, Maureen Porter, Morgan Chard, Peter Palmisano, and Colleen Gaughan. The company’s regular season continues in January with Brendan Behan’s The Hostage, directed by Greg Natale. Written in Irish, the play was first performed in Dublin in 1957, and then in London in 1958 with an English translation by Behan. It was nominated for a Tony award in 1961. (Becket by Jean Anouilh was the winner.) The Hostage will open on January 12th and will star, among others, Tom Zindle, Tom Loughlin, R. J. Voltz, Jim Maloy, and Lisa Ludwig.

Mike Randall’s Charles Dickens Presents: A Christmas Carol will be on sort of a mini-tour this year. The one-man show will play the Aurora Players in East Aurora on December 3 and 4; the Ellicott Creek Playhouse in Tonawanda December 10 and 11; and Buffalo East in Buffalo, December 16 and 17. (Check “On the Boards.”) Randall had been playing at Musicalfare for the last couple of years, but this year the company will be presenting the Frank Sinatra revue One More For My Baby, December 14-18.

Also, just in time for the holidays, the Kavinoky brings its annual radio play reading, It’s a Wonderful Life, directed by Doug Zchiegner, starring Ian Lithgow, Eileen Dugan, Phil Knoerzer, Gerry Maher, Debbie Pappas, Michael Hake, and Joe Demerly. The show runs one week only, December15-18.