Benchmarks are on tap for the London/Broadway musical smash “Les Miserables” and the off-Broadway musical phenom “I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change.”

Over 20 years since its debut, rights for “Les Miz” were recently released to a handful of American professional regional theaters, including The Actors’ Playhouse at the Miracle Theatre in Coral Gables, which will produce the show next spring.

But the lease comes with a caveat – not to reproduce all the signature turntable scenic effects, but to use new staging ideas. What that means began to materialize this week in Philadelphia, whose Walnut Theatre is among the first regionals to mount its own production last week. And as for "Perfect," the show has been hit by the economic downturn and will close July 27 -- after 12 years and $200 million.

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The Barbara B. Mann Performing Arts Hall at Edison College in Fort Myers has been popping up lately as what appears to be becoming a favored launching pad for shows on national tour, and/or to break in new casts for shows in transition.

The latest word, this week, is that Mann will be the startup point for the second national tour of the musical “Wicked” when it cranks up for three weeks there, March 7-29, 2009.

The first national tour, now winding down in Rochester, NY, has played Florida’s east coast several times and won’t be back next season. The new company will move north from Fort Myers to Birmingham and Jacksonville en route to the northeast and Midwest next spring.

The three-week Fort Myers engagement indicates the still-growing southwest coast is becoming an important locale on the touring circuit – yet out of the spotlight enough to serve as the break-in points that Miami, Fort Lauderdale and Tampa once served.

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Is he back, or did he ever leave? Ted Neeley is still doing the honors in the title role of "Jesus Christ, Superstar" for the Andrew Lloyd-Webber/Tim Rice musical's appearance June 13-18 at the Broward Center. Neeley has been doing this particular gig since the fall of 2006 (when it played the Kravis Center) in what has been billed as the Farewell Tour.

Neeley understudied the role in the original Broadway production (opened Sept. 29, 1971), then moved into the lead for the 1973 motion picture (pictured at left), which cemented the association. Though he's never been "billed" in the title role on Broadway (which hosted two revivals with others in the lead), he's been the "Superstar" of the road with just a few exceptions. And though Troika Entertainment, the current tour's production company, bills this as the Farewell Tour, Neeley (64) has repeated throughout the trip that he plans to keep playing the role as long as anyone will let him.

Corey Glover, of the band Living Colour, is making his theatrical stage debut in the role of Judas. Tickets and info are available at the Broward Center and Ticketmaster.

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NEW YORK - Among the big questions going in to the Tony Award nominations Tuesday morning was whether Harvey Fierstein's "A Catered Affair," based on a Paddy Chayefsky teleplay and 1953 movie would crack the list for Best Musical.

It didn't, and what's unspoken so far is that the result appears to be the first-ever sweep of pop-rock and its ethnic genres over Broadway's musical awards.

The four Best Musical nominees span just about the whole spectrum of the kind of music once alien to musical theater. The top contender is "In The Heights," a somewhat bittersweet Latino musical about life in the barrio that mixes pop with hip-hop, salsa, merengue.

It's the one musical that nods slightly toward the traditional show tune but as The New York Times review noted at its transfer from off-Broadway to the Richard Rodgers Theatre, it's full of "sounds that are an ear-tickling novelty on Broadway."

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Neil Goldberg's Pompano Beach-based Cirque Productions began mounting Cirque-like shows for sponsored events such as conventions at indoor venues back in 1993, when Cirque du Soleil was exploding into a tour giant with its tent shows. A few years later, Goldberg's nouveau circus shows moved into theaters as ticketed events, and not long ago broke onto Broadway America's national touring circuit, where the latest show "Cirque Dreams Jungle Fantasy" is now. it played the Kravis Center last winter and is now in the Hawaiian Islands.

On June 16, the show moves to Broadway, at the Broadway Theatre, no less, through at least Aug. 24. There's a possibility for an extension (the tour doesn't resume until December). "Jungle Dreams" claims a cast of 25 and 150 costumes. Goldberg also produces revues of Broadway and Hollywood musicals, which have toured frequently, including stops at the Kravis and Broward Centers last month.

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The company of of "Riverdance" that arrives at the Kravis Center Tuesday for a week is on the show's U.S. farewell tour, wrapping up in Halifax, Nova Scotia, in June. The Asian and European companies are also shutting down in August and September, with no word on when the show might resume.

One of those winding down in the U.S. company is Fort Lauderdale native Anne Reilly, now 20, taking time off from studying art history at Columbia University. It's not her first professional step-dancing experience; she performed with The Chieftains when the group played the Kravis in 2001.

Whitehead as Sportin' Life

A tip from theater maven Tony Finstrom revealed that actor-dancer-choreographer Reggie Whitehead (left), a three time Carbonell Award-winner, is about to head off on an East European tour of "Porgy and Bess." Intrigued, we caught up with Reggie at his sublease in Manhattan just as he was preparing to return to South Florida for a visit. He'll be here for a week, then dive into rehearsals back into New York. The company leaves May 20 for St. Petersburg, Russia, then on to Warsaw, etc.

Wrote Reggie, "I left New York almost 20 years ago and thought I was finished up here." But a friend urged him back and offered to let the "Porgy and Bess" producers know about him. Whitehead will play the role of Sportin' Life. Other offers are starting to break for him, he says, but he's had to pass - all the offers conflict with the "Porgy and Bess" tour dates.

"Isn't that the way it always is? There was no contest as to which show I would be doing," he says.

Lauren Feldman play

Miami actress-playwright Lauren Feldman, currently at the Yale Drama School, will see her latest play premiere Sunday through May 17 as one of three new works in the the school's annual Carlotta Festival of new plays. Feldman says it will be her final and thesis production at Yale.

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"What good's permitting some prophet of doom
To wipe every smile away
Life is a cabaret, old chum
So come to the cabaret."

--Lyrics by Fred Ebb, music by John Kander, "Cabaret," Broadway, 1966

Welcome to the blogosphere that encourages discourse from everyone who recognize the obvious: There are few if any boundaries among interests in the arts or their connection to show "business" and pop culture.

Plays, musicals, opera, symphony, chorus, recitals, jazz, pop concerts, artspolitik, philanthropy, and much more are part of the Cultural Cabaret.

Here, you'll find breaking news and opinion of events - performing arts and show business - in the digital world, often as observation within minutes or hours of an event - previews to the fully vetted online and print news or reviews to follow.

Whether the discussion is conducted digitally or on paper, we all need to be a part of the community exchange. Ours is South Florida. These posts are the starting point for you to discuss our cultural community among one another.

Now that the cabaret is in full swing with a few scoops and catch-up items on the entertainment news front, it's time to pause for introductions and welcomes.

You lounge lizards know the drill - the set begins with a torch song opener, then a ballad, then the entertainer "chats" with you personal-like before diving into the show proper.

Here's my chat: I've spent nearly 40 years covering entertainment and the arts for every major newspaper in South Florida, from Miami through the Palm Beaches - over half of it here at the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.

For much of that time, I've also covered the statewide entertainment industry reporting for "the bible of show business," Variety based in New York City and Daily Variety in Los Angeles.

In the overview, that means nights in saloons and salons and sheds (a.k.a. amphitheaters), plus supperclubs, casinos and concert halls, from symphony orchestras to rock festivals, playhouses to theaters to opera houses, movies from the set to the neighborhood multiplex to art cinemas to film festivals, and artspolitik from city hall to the state legislature.

That's a jack-of-all-trades experience in a whole bunch of class-conscious worlds with many self-appointed high priests. So, expect to hear some some high-velocity rebuttals from contributors offering counterpoint as we rebuild the roads of information and opinion as two-way, community-wide thoroughfares.

This blog and its threads will attempt a univeral approach to the arts and show business without demeaning one to the other.

High priests have their place, and their standards deserve defense. I myself am a devotee of Ayn Rand's cultural philosophy and live in a condominium named The Fountainhead, for which I have been board president. This is not entirely coincidence or serendipity.

Yet, the differences that propel community expectations populate the arena of the cultural cabaret. On the web, the stage is yours, mine and ours.

There is one caveat, however. Anonymous comments won't get a followup or response from here. To be taken seriously, you need to be taken at face value. Without a face, your comments have no value.

- Jack Zink

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Now in London, a musical Rhett and Scarlett
Darius Danesh and Jill Paice
(Bloomberg News)

The last time was a generation ago in a pre-Broadway tour that played Miami Beach's Jackie Gleason Theater (now the Fillmore). That show fizzled, appropriately enough, in Atlanta not long after. Among the ignominies, a flaming tree at the burning of Atlanta scene fell over -- and then bounced back up like new.

The latest attempt is helmed by British wunder-director Trevor Nunn and is just opening in London (considered more forgiving than Broadway of late). The early reviews range from negative to tepid. It appears the Selznick film remains inviolate. The New York Times surveys the carnage of the London critics.

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