Latest news with #PeaceCenter
Yahoo
16-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Peace Center announces shows for 2025-26 Broadway Season
GREENVILLE, S.C. (WSPA) – The Peace Center on Tuesday announced the 10 Broadway shows headed to Greenville next season. The 2025-2026 Peace Broadway Season features returning shows along with seven new tours, including The Outsiders and Hell's Kitchen. 'The social, cultural, and economic enrichment it has brought our community has been astounding, and the titles we have lined up for next season are sure to carry on this mission-driven growth,' said Megan Riegel, president and CEO of The Peace Center. 'From one of the most recognized and beloved Broadway productions in history –– 'Les Mis' –– to seven first-ever tours, every show this season is a must-see hit.' The season begins in September 2025 with MJ the Musical and concludes in August 2026 with Spamalot. Full Broadway season lineup: MJ The MusicalSeptember 2 – 7, 2025 Following a sold-out Greenville premiere, the multiple Tony Award-winning musical MJ makes a victorious return to the Peace Center. MJ goes beyond Michael Jackson's singular moves and signature sound, offering a rare glimpse at the making of the 1992 Dangerous World Tour. More than 25 of Jackson's biggest hits leave audiences dancing to the beat from start to finish. Water for ElephantsOctober 21 – 26, 2025 The New York Times bestselling novel comes to dazzling life in a unique, spectacle-filled new musical with a soaring original score. The Sound of MusicNovember 11 – 16, 2025 2025 marks the 60th anniversary of the Oscar-winning film, which continues to be one of the most successful movie musicals of all time. With its timeless story and irresistibly charming score, this Rodgers & Hammerstein classic isn't just meant to be enjoyed—it's meant to be shared. Now, a critically acclaimed North American tour brings the cherished musical to stages across the country to teach a new generation to sing. Les MisérablesJanuary 13 – 18, 2026 Back by popular demand, Les Misérables is the world's longest-running musical, with over 180 major theatre awards to its credit, including 8 Tony Awards and 5 Drama Desk Awards. Hailed as 'a reborn dream of a production' (Daily Telegraph) and 'Les Mis for the 21st Century (Huffington Post), Les Mis is an epic and uplifting story about redemption and the survival of the human spirit. Features a beautiful scenic design by Matt Kinley that incorporates Victor Hugo's artwork with advanced projection technology producing a cinematic look layered into the set. The OutsidersJanuary 27 – February 1, 2026 Winner of four 2024 Tony Awards, including Best Musical. With 'high-octane choreography' (New York Magazine), The Outsiders has been described as 'more pulse-pounding than anything else on Broadway!' (Time Out New York) Adapted from S.E. Hinton's seminal novel and Francis Ford Coppola's iconic film. Hell's KitchenFebruary 10 – 15, 2026 Tony Award-winning hit musical from 17-time Grammy Award winner Alicia Keys –– inspired by her life, music and community. Relatable, raw and refreshingly fun, featuring a mix of Key's classics and new songs she wrote exclusively for the show. Exhilarating choreography by Camille A. Brown brings to life a story that speaks to audiences no matter where they're from. SuffsFebruary 24 – March 1, 2026 Acclaimed 2024 Tony Award-winning musical about the brilliant, passionate and funny American women who fought tirelessly for the right to vote. Winner of the 2024 Outer Critics Circle Award for Best New Musical. Created by Shaina Taub, the first woman to ever independently win Tony Awards for Best Book and Best Score in the same season. The Great GatsbyMarch 31 – April 5, 2026 Dive into the dazzling spectacle of the Broadway smash hit musical, THE GREAT GATSBY, where F. Scott Fitzgerald's classic American novel and the glamour of the Roaring Twenties come to vibrant life on stage! The NotebookJune 9 – 14, 2026 Based on the best-selling novel that inspired the iconic film, USA Today calls it 'Romantic, life-affirming, and ingeniously adapted.' Music and lyrics by multi-platinum singer-songwriter Ingrid Michaelson and a book by TV's Bekah Brunstetter ('This Is Us'). SpamalotJuly 28 – August 2, 2026 First ever revival of the Tony Award-winning Best Musical Comedy. A musical comedy lovingly ripped off from the film classic 'Monty Python and the Holy Grail.' Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
13-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Wynonna Judd to perform at Greenville's Peace Center
GREENVILLE, S.C. (WSPA) – Country music star, Wynonna Judd, has announced a stop in Greenville. Judd will perform at the Peace Center in downtown Greenville on Wednesday, June 18. The performance will be apart of the 'Wynonna Judd: The Greatest Hits Tour.' Judd and her late mother, Naomi Judd, were a successful country music duo in the 1980's. The Judds have released 14, Top 10 songs over three decades. Tickets will be available for purchase Friday. You can visit the Peace Center's website for more information. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
12-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
In for a corn-y time: 'Shucked' now playing at the Peace Center
GREENVILLE, S.C. (WSPA) – The Peace Center is hosting the Tony award-winning, Broadway show 'Shucked' this week. This comedy musical follows small-town farmer Maizy as she leaves her home in Cob County to find a fix for the town's failing corn crops. The Wall Street Journal calls the show 'flat out hilarious' with its quirkiness and corny puns. 'So, there's all kinds of things that happen,' said Miki Abraham, who plays Cob County's local whiskey distiller Lulu. 'There's weddings that don't happen. There's mistaken identity. There's all kinds of the standard musical theater things that we all know and love.' The show is recommended for ages ten and up. 'Shucked' will be at the Peace Center this week, with its final show on Sunday, March 16. 'Along the way you just kind of discover that we have more capacity for love than we think we do, and change isn't as scary as we think it is,' Abraham said. Tickets can be purchased at the Peace Center's website or in person. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
07-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
What I saw at the Revolution: A South Carolinian who deserves greater recognition
Elijah Malcomb (second from right) played John Laurens in the 2021 national tour of 'Hamilton.' (Photo courtesy of Joan Marcus) It was great to see John Laurens on the Peace Center stage in Greenville the other day. For a man who's been dead for 243 years, he looked terrific. Laurens, a South Carolina hero of the Revolutionary War, occupies an important place as a character in Lin-Manuel Miranda's blockbuster musical 'Hamilton.' I'm not sure, however, that the real-life Laurens occupies a prominent place in the hearts of South Carolinians. He's often been relegated to a 'footnote' in the revolution, his biographer says. And that's a shame. The man was extraordinary. Laurens, born in Charleston in 1754, was a lieutenant colonel in the Continental Army and aide-de-camp (a special assistant) to Gen. George Washington. Washington said of Laurens, 'No man possessed more of the amor patria (love of country). In a word, he had not a fault.' Washington trusted him to the extent that he appointed Laurens as the American commissioner for drafting formal terms of the British surrender following the decisive battle of Yorktown. Laurens was recklessly brave in battle. After the Battle of Brandywine, the Marquis de Lafayette quipped about Laurens, 'It was not his fault that he was not killed or wounded. He did everything that was necessary to procure one or t'other.' Perhaps most impressively, Laurens was also a fierce abolitionist in fiercely slaveholding South Carolina. In 'Hamilton,' Laurens (played by Nathan Haydel, 22), raps on stage: 'But we'll never be truly free/Until those in bondage have the same rights as you and me.' That closely follows the real-life Laurens' own words: 'We Americans at least in the Southern colonies, cannot contend with a good grace, for liberty, until we shall have enfranchised our slaves.' Laurens spoke out against slavery 80 years before the Civil War when 60% of the population in South Carolina were enslaved people of color. That jumped to 90% in some parts of the Lowcountry, according to historian Robert Allison. Lauren's own father, Henry Laurens, was a slaveholder and a partner in the largest slave-trading establishment in North America. In 1779, John Laurens gained approval from the Continental Congress for his plan to recruit a brigade of 3,000 South Carolina slaves by promising them freedom in return for fighting. However, South Carolina's conservative leaders rejected the plan. Elected to the S.C. House of Representatives, Laurens tried three more times to put his plan into action, but it was overwhelmingly opposed by state leaders. It took uncommon guts, in other words, for John Laurens to openly advocate for freedom for Blacks rather than merely acquiescing to colonial popular opinion in South Carolina. 'John Laurens was the most militant opponent of slavery in this band of brothers (the other revolutionaries),' Miranda said in his book 'Hamilton: The Revolution.' Some argue that Laurens was the most forward-thinking and modern of the revolutionaries and founding fathers — a group, of course, that includes Washington, Jefferson, Adams, Hamilton, Madison and the rest. 'Laurens speaks more clearly to us today than other men of the American Revolution whose names are far more familiar,' his biographer Gregory D. Massey wrote in 2003. 'Laurens believed Blacks shared a similar nature with whites, which included a natural right to liberty. To that extent, at least, his beliefs make him our contemporary, a man worthy of more attention than the footnote he has been in most accounts of the American Revolution.' A 'footnote' indeed: There's not one statue of Laurens in the entire state of South Carolina. Laurens merits only a passing reference in Walter Edgar's authoritative 'South Carolina: A History.' If Laurens is only an asterisk in accounts of the revolution, it's probably because he had the misfortune to be killed at the age of just 27, before he had the opportunity to obtain the higher office for which he seemed destined, much like his good friend Hamilton. On Aug. 27, 1782, Laurens was shot from his saddle during the Battle of the Combahee River in South Carolina. He was one of the last casualties of the Revolutionary War. 'To me, his death is the greatest 'What-If' in American history,' Miranda wrote. 'A voice for emancipation from a surviving Revolutionary War veteran and a favorite of Washington: We'll never know what could have been.' I think Miranda decided to include Laurens in his Pulitzer Prize-winning musical for the same reason that he wrote about Hamilton: He believed that Laurens, like Hamilton, had been neglected by history. Hamilton and Laurens were also the best of friends. Some speculate they were lovers. They wrote affectionate letters to each other at a time when it was not uncommon for men to express such sentiments. It's true, of course, that Laurens County and the city of Laurens in the Upstate bear his family's name. There are streets named after Laurens and his father in Charleston, Greenville, Aiken, and Beaufort. But I hope that John Laurens will earn a prominent spot in South Carolina's 2026 celebration of the 250th anniversary of the Revolutionary War. We need to do far more to honor this South Carolina hero. The musical 'Hamilton,' by the way, continues at the Peace Center through Feb. 16. At a time of chaos and deep division in contemporary Washington, 'Hamilton' reaffirms fundamental American values to a throbbing beat of rap and hip-hop. Spending time with revolutionaries like Hamilton and Laurens offers a gale-force breath of patriotism and inspiration.
