PREVIEWS
Aug. 28: Everybody's favorite mischievous Frenchy is back, this time, on the stage. Amélie, a new musical based on the Academy Award-nominated film of the same title, opens at Berkeley Repertory Theatre in California. Samantha Barks, who played Eponine in the film adaptation of "Les Miserables," stars as the whimsical mademoiselle.
OPENING
Aug. 27: A real-life trip to prison for Sherie Rene Scott and Dick Scanlan was the unexpected inspiration for their new collaboration, the powerful and moving Whorl Inside A Loop at Off-Broadway's Second Stage Theatre. The creative team behind the Tony-nominated Everyday Rapture reunites for this world-premiere production, and Scott, who co-wrote and starred in Rapture, does the same again. In a case of life imitating art, she plays a celebrity actress who ventures behind the bars of a men's maximum security prison in order to help them tell their stories.
LAST CHANCE
Aug. 30: Ramin Karimloo, who earned a Tony nomination for his performance as Jean Valjean in the Broadway production of Les Miserables, will finish up his run in the acclaimed production, to be succeeded by Alfie Boe.
Aug. 30: It's raucous, it's loud, it's over-the-top: it's My Big Gay Italian Funeral. The Off-Broadway staging, full of belly-laughs, will play its last show at St. Luke's.
Aug. 30: Midlife crisis musical comedy Happy 50ish!, about the joys and tribulations of middle age, concludes its limited engagement Off-Broadway.
Sept. 6: John Rando's dazzling revival of On the Town will close with Misty Copeland in the role of Ivy Smith. Copeland made history a few months ago when she was the first African-American to be appointed as a principal ballerina at the American Ballet Theatre.
SPECIAL EVENTS
Aug. 28: While the evenings are still warm, stay out and make the most of New York City's free outdoor events, like Lincoln Center's screening of "West Side Story." TGIF.
Through Aug. 30: The New York International Fringe Festival, the largest multi-arts festival in North America, kicked off its 19th year Aug. 14 and continues performances through Aug. 30 at 16 different venues in downtown Manhattan. Read Playbill.com's interviews with some of the artists behind this year's hottest shows.
Sept. 3-6: Tyler Perry's Madea on the Run kicks off a 10-week national run at the Beacon Theatre. Perry, in drag, stars as the notorious Mabel, who is on the run from the authorities and hiding out with her friend, Bam.
Through Oct. 4: Don’t miss The Metropolitan Museum of Art's "Sargent: Portraits of Artists and Friends," an exhibition of works by celebrated American painter John Singer Sargent, who created portraits of artists, writers, actors and musicians, many of whom were his friends.
