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Stagefright

Broadway and TV star Steven Kazee (pictured) is leaving the Broadway cast of the musical Once at the end of this week. Inspired by the independent movie of the same name, Once won the 2012 Tony Award for Best Musical, and Kazee won the Tony Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role. All told, the show won eight Tony Awards including Best Book and Best Direction. Still playing at sold-out houses on Broadway, the touring production begins this fall and will arrive at Shea’s in March 2014. Shea’s Broadway season begins in October with Ghost, another musical based on a popular movie. This one, however, did not fare so well on Broadway, where it closed last year after four months.

Canisius College will hold a memorial service for the late Fred Keller on Saturday, April 13 at 4pm, in the Regis Room of the Richard E. Winter ’42 Student Center, located on Hughes Avenue. Keller died in California late October. His son, Frederick, will speak at the service and will show some film clips from his father’s career.

Buffalo Quickies, the Alleyway Theatre’s annual festival of one-act plays, will run April 5-27. There are seven plays in this year’s lineup, including the area premiere of Donna Hoke’s Face Time and the return of Donna Marie Vaughan’s Full Circle. Directed by Joyce Stilson, the cast includes Darryl Hart, Rebecca Pitcher, Bethany Sparacio, and Roger Van Dette.

Michael Fanelli’s new play, Centrillon Gets Crowned, a twist on the children’s classic, Cinderella, will have a staged reading on April 10 at 7:30pm at the ALT Theater located at 255 Great Arrow Avenue. Directed by Tilke Hill, the reading will star Kristen Bentley, Linda Stein, Darryl Hart, Tim Joyce, Tami Hopersberger, and Jon Elston. Admission is free.

On April 3 at 7:30pm, BUA is having a reading of 8, the play by Dustin Lance Black which presents the arguments for and against California’s Proposition 8. The proposition was passed by voters in 2008 and banned same-sex marriage in California. In 2010, the proposition was deemed unconstitutional and the case has been in appeals ever since. The reading will feature, among others, Kerrykate Abel, Steven Brachmann, Caitlin Coleman, Kevin Craig, Kurt Erb, Sabrina Kahwaty, Loraine O’Donnell, and Jonathan Young. Admission is free.

Up next for MusicalFare, the regional premiere of ’Swonderful: The New Gershwin Musical. Co-directed and choreographed by Michael Walline and Doug Weyand, the production will star Charmagne Chi, Nicole Marrale Cimato, John Fredo, Kelly Jakiel, and Marc Sacco. The show runs April 10-May 19. Musical direction is by Jason Bravo.

Sarah Ruhl’s comic tragedy The Clean House will open April 19 at Road Less Traveled Productions. Directed by Derek Campbell, the production will star Victoria Perez, Peter Palmisano, Mary McMahon, Christina Rausa, and Margaret Massman. Ruhl was nominated for a 2010 Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award for her play In The Next Room: Or, The Vibrator Play.

O’Connell & Company will present the musical You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown, starring Nicholas Lama as Charlie Brown, Anne Roaldi as Lucy, Steven E. Sitzman as Schroeder, Josh Snyder as Linus, Arin Lee Dandes as Sally Brown, and Joey Bucheker as Snoopy. Directed by Guy Tomassi, with musical direction by Chuck Basil, the show will run April 11-28.

Sharon Watkinson, chair of Niagara University Department of Theatre and Fine Arts, will play the Narrator in Niagara University Theatre’s production of the Stephen Sondheim/James Lapine musical Into the Woods. Directed by Doug Zschiegner, the show will run April 18-28.

The Theatre Alliance of Buffalo (TAB) will hold its second annual Sips & Tips fundraiser on March 25, 6-9pm, at Coco Restaurant, 888 Main Street. Local theater administrators and artistic directors will be serving as celebrity bartenders. All the tips collected from the celebrity mixologists and 10 percent of the food bills that evening will benefit TAB.

On March 24, the Irish Classical Theatre Company will honor Peter Sheridan with a Lifetime Achievement Award; Peter and Joan Andrews with the Andrews Theatre Award; and Jim and Michal Wadsworth with the Oscar Wilde Award. Sheridan is in town to direct brother Jim Sheridan’s play Being Behan, which opens this week at the Andrews Theatre. Congratulations all!