Stagefright	by Javier

Tony Award winner John Glover (pictured above) joins the Broadway company of The Drowsy Chaperone on April 17. Glover replaces original cast member (and co-librettist) Bob Martin, who will re-create his performance in the upcoming West End production. Martin was nominated for a 2006 Tony for his performance and won the Tony for Best Book of a Musical. Now known to TV audiences for playing Lionel Luthor in Smallville, Glover won his Tony award for playing the dual role of John and James Jeckyll in Love! Valour! Compassion! A North American tour of The Drowsy Chaperone begins in the fall, making a stop at Shea’s in March.

Continuing with its Eugene O’Neill retrospective, the Irish Classical Theatre Company will present Moon for the Misbegotten as part of its 2007-08 season. The season will open with Sheridan’s The School for Scandal and will also include Carlo Goldoni’s A Servant of Two Masters, Brian Friel’s Faith Healer and the hilarious Charley’s Aunt by Brandon Thomas.

Kara McKenney, Kelly Ferguson, Kelly Jakiel and Peter Jaskowiak will join the previously announced Bobby Petrarca, Mike Votta and Andy Moss in Tornspace’s production of David Rabe’s Hurlyburly. Directed by Chris Standart, the play will run open on May 9.

The third annual Buffalo Infringement Festival will take place July 26-August 5. Proposals for shows are being accepted now through May 27. Check the festival’s Web site at www.infringebuffalo.org.

Theatre of Youth concludes the 2006-07 season (its 35th!) with the timeless classic Charlotte’s Web, starring Kurt Guba, Tim Newell, Anne Roaldi, Christopher Michael LaBanca, Kevin Keleher and Sarielys Matos as Charlotte. The production runs May 4-June 3.

The Kenny Awards, recognizing local high school talent for excellence in producing and performing musicals, will be held on May 12 at 4pm at Shea’s Performing Arts Center. The school selected to receive “The Kenny” for Outstanding Musical Production is granted $5,000 from the Lipke Foundation to be used for their theater department.

Antecesores will present the Puerto Rican comedy Bienvenido Don Goyito, May 14-16 at the Alleyway Theatre. The production will feature, among others, Rolando Gomez, portraying a 70-year-old “jibaro.”

The Kavinoky Theatre is throwing its first (hoping to be annual) Kavinoky Kavalkade on April 14, 7-11pm at the Church on Delaware and Tupper. The event, a benefit for the theater, will feature wine, beer, food, a live and silent auction and entertainment by many of Buffalo’s theater professionals. Tickets are $50. Call 829-8141.

Greg Natale directs the UB Department of Theatre & Dance production of The Importance of Being Earnest, which plays April 18-22 at the Center for the Arts with a cast that includes Kevin Kennedy and Eliza Maher. Later in the month (April 27) the Kavinoky opens its own production directed by David Lamb. And the Alden Christian Theatre Society opens its production on May 4 with Jessica Rasp as Lady Bracknell.

Studio Arena Theatre’s biggest fundraising event of the year will take place on Friday, May 4 at 5:30pm at the Town Ballroom, to be followed by a performance of Richard Maltby and David Shire’s A Time for Love. The show, which begins previews at the theater on April 20, had its world premiere last fall in Ventura, California. By the way, Maltby and Shire’s new musical, Take Flight, is scheduled to have its world premiere this summer in London.

May 14 & 15 are the dates for the special benefit performances of The Guys, starring Wendie Malick and Dan Lauria at Studio Arena. Written by Ann Nelson for the Flea Theater in New York, the play is one of the first to address the 9/11 attacks. The play opened 12 weeks after the event with Sigourney Weaver and Bill Murray, playing a journalist helping a firefighter write eulogies for his lost mates.

Long before it became a popular cult movie, Sordid Lives was a very successful play, written by Del Shores. BUA will present the area premiere of the play on May 11. Directed by Chris Kelly, the production will star Marc Sacco, Jimmy Janowski, Caitlin Coleman, Anne Hartley Pfohl, Kerrykate Abel, Mary Moebius, Tim Finnegan, Eric Rawski, Mary Jakiel and Brian Riggs. Shores also wrote the popular Southern Baptist Sissies, which is currently being made into a movie.

Jeffry Denman, who danced and sang his way through the recent New York Encores production of Irvin Berlin’s Face the Music, superbly, is on his way to star in the Gershwin musical Crazy for You, which opens April 24 at the prestigious North Shore in Massachusetts. DRG Records will be releasing a cast recording of Face the Music.