We were very sorry to read that Avenue Q will be closing in April 2019. Of course, we love the show outright, but it’s also extra meaningful to us because once a year we get to take up residence on the Avenue Q stage at New World Stages for the annual TEDxBroadway conference. When we first moved into the space back in 2011, it wasn’t lost on us that the backdrop for the event was literally a neighborhood. After all, TEDxBroadway …

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Yesterday was an inspiring day at TEDxBroadway. Just one of the highlights was Bobby Lopez singing “Let It Go,” which he wrote for the hit Disney film Frozen. The Tony, Emmy, Grammy and possible Oscar-winning (we’ll know March 2) songwriter also treated everyone to some oldies but goodies. As Ken Davenport, one of the creators of TEDxBroadway, tweeted, “Bobby Lopez is singing songs he wrote as a teenager. And they are better than half of the stuff I’ve heard on …

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If you can make it, I strongly encourage you to get yourself down to New World Stages in New York City next Monday for TEDxBroadway 2014! If you do, you’ll be participating in a day that’s all about sharing interesting, provocative, possibly crazy, possibly brilliant ideas for the future of the Broadway ecosystem. True to the TED mission, TEDxBroadway is about “Ideas Worth Spreading.” We’ll have about 20 brilliant presenters on the stage and another 500 or so brilliant people …

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Songwriter Robert Lopez has a gift for amusing both kids and adults. Since the day he wrote his first song at age 7, he’s picked up three Tony Awards (Avenue Q, The Book of Mormon), two Daytime Emmys (Nickelodeon’s Wonder Pets) and a Grammy. What may have started as an impressive talent for creating songs for puppets and cartoons launched Lopez into the spotlight as one of the collaborators of the mega-successful Broadway phenomenon, The Book of Mormon. Lopez found …

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Recently, as this article from the Los Angeles Times explains in-depth, leaders in the world of Los Angeles theater got together and talked about a whole range of things. The conversation eventually turned in the direction of diversity. Of course, this is a very worthwhile topic, particularly as the audiences in most theaters of significant size tends not to be a representative cross-section of the cities in which they are situated. On the other hand, these conversations seem to drift …

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