Back in February the Tony award committee ruled that the three boys who play the title role in the musical Billy Elliot in rotation—David Alvarez, Trent Kowalik, and Kiril Kulish—should be considered jointly for a single nomination in the Leading Actor in a Musical category. Last week, the three young actors (known as the three Billys) were nominated for a Tony award, and are now running against four other actors in the category. Billy Elliot received a total of 15 nominations and is now tied with The Producers for the most Tony nominations ever received by one show. By the way, a fourth Billy joined the company a few months ago.

David Alvarez (right), Trent Kowalik (left)

Vincent O’Neill and Josephine Hogan will star in A Gardener in Love and Affairs in a Tent, two one-act plays by Alan Ayckbourn. Directed by Greg Natale, the production will run June 5-28 at the Andrews Theatre. Ayckbourn’s trilogy The Norman Conquests is currently playing on Broadway and has been nominated for a Tony for Best Play Revival.

The Kavinoky will open next season with Aaron Sorkin’s first play, A Few Good Men. Sorkin’s second play, The Farnsworth Invention, is currently playing at the theater through May 31. A Few Good Men opened on Broadway in 1989 and features another big cast, this time 19 men and one woman. The Kavinoky will also revive Lettice and Lovage, reuniting the original stars Anne Gayley and Roz Kramer. The season will also include Judgment at Nuremberg (a cast of 22), the psychological drama The Secret Order, and Hysteria, a fictionalized meeting between Salvador Dali and Sigmund Freud.

Colm Wilkinson, the original Jean Valjean in Les Miserables, will be appearing at UB’s Center for the Arts on Friday May 15 at 8pm in his show Broadway and Beyond. Tony award winner Lea Salonga (Miss Saigon) will be performing on October 10. Salonga was an Eponine replacement in the original production of Les Miz, and a Fantine replacement in the 2007 revival.

Theatre Plus will present PlayRites of Spring 2009 on May 17 at the Alleyway Theatre. The event will start with an open workshop for actors conducted by Joyce Stilson from 3:30pm to 4:30pm. It will be followed by a staged reading of Donna Hoke Kahwaty’s Cockeyed Today, directed by Victoria Perez, starring Jeffrey Coyle, Sheila Connors, Stephanie Bax, and Stilson. The reading will begin at 5pm. The play was originally developed at the Road Less Traveled New Play Workshop.

The Subversive Theatre Collective will present Too Absurd!, a double bill of absurdist one act plays, May 21-June 7 at the Manny Fried Playhouse. The bill will include Ionesco’s The Lesson directed by Drew McCabe, and Mrozek’s On the Sea directed by Mark Tattenbaum.

Candice Kogut and Kelly Ferguson will play respectively Electra and her brother Orestes in an all-female version of the classic Greek tragedy, which the New ALT Performance Group will present in September as part of its 2009-2010 season. The season will also include The Rocky Horror Show in October with musical direction by Bret Runyon, and new works by David Butler and Drew McCabe.

In our last column we mistakingly stated that real-life husband and wife Tom and Maggie Zindle will be playing husband and wife in next season’s The Goat, or Who is Sylvia?, when in fact John Fredo will play Maggie Zindle’s husband. They will be joined by Doug Crane, who will play their friend Ross. The Road Less Traveled production of the Edward Albee play will run April 16-May 16, directed by Derek Campbell. Earlier in the season, Campbell will direct the restoration comedy The Relapse for the ICTC.

The official opening of the BUA Theater will be on Thursday, May 28, with a staged reading of Terrence McNally’s The Ritz starring Nicole Marrale Cimato, Eric Rawski, Kevin Kennedy, and Ray Ganoe. Among the company’s plays for next season will be the latest by Brad Fraser, True Love Lies starring Richard Lambert, reprising the role he played in Poor Super Man.