The Paramount Theatre's next touring musical is called Spring Awakening (October 14-19, tickets $22-$70). It was nominated for eleven 2007 Tony Awards, won eight--notably best musical, direction, book, score, and featured actor. The musical answers the question: "How do you make an 1891 German play about the lack of sex education relevant to today's audiences and maybe one-up another mega-hit musical about high school?" Turns out all you need to do is get Duncan Sheik......

If, even after a stroke, you'd still be able to sing the entire score of Assassins, or if you think God looks something like Elaine Stritch, Shrek the Musical (through September 21 at the 5th Avenue Theatre, tickets $28-$90) is probably not your cup of tea. We expected to be solidly in that camp at the opening night world premiere of the DreamWorks-based musical. Imagine our surprise when we loved it--and loved the bad guy......

WHAT THE...?: Apparently you shouldn't go to Seattle School's Strikethough #7 Jennifer Zwick's performance of Teddy Roosevelt: The Musical. It's at the Rendezvous Jewelbox Theatre. 8 p.m. // 2322 Second Ave. // no cover; no admittance MUSIC?: It's like everyone's hungover from the Capitol Hill Block Party; there's just nothing going on. Down at the Paramount, you can catch one-hit-wonder Matisyahu reprising his hip-hop/reggae religious rock. You can wander around the audience taking in the......

Tuesday night we went to High School Musical on Tour (the Paramount, through May 25). We have up until now stayed completely ignorant of all things HSM, other than knowing it was a surprisingly successful movie musical produced by Disney that had a Shiite-like following among the Hannah Montana set. Its success surprised even The Mouse, who quickly created a franchise that includes HSM 2 (soon to be HSM 3), HSM on Ice, and this......

Straight outta London's West End (video trailer) where it ran for two years at Drury Lane, this revival of Lerner & Loewe's My Fair Lady is only at the Paramount through Sunday, May 4. Tickets are $25-$72. Anglophiles, if you have the slightest inclination, we advise you to hoof it on over; this one's as English as a tea, fried tomato and egg breakfast--as befits a Cameron Mackintosh and the National Theatre of Great Britain......

Shrek: For your information, there's a lot more to musicals than people think. Donkey: Example? Shrek: Example? Okay, er... musicals... are... like onions. Donkey: [sniffs onion] They stink? Shrek: Yes...NO! Donkey: Or they make you cry. Shrek: No! Well, sometimes. Donkey: Oh, you leave them out in the sun and they turn brown and start sproutin' little white hairs. Shrek: NO! LAYERS! Onions have layers. Musicals have layers. Onions have layers... you get it.......

MUSICAL: Just you wait, 'Enry 'Iggins! Lerner & Loewe's proto-Pretty Woman fantasia, My Fair Lady, opens at the Paramount, starring British theatre actors Christopher Cazenove and Lisa O'Hare as Professor Henry Higgins and Eliza Doolittle. The production unites the original U.K. artistic team with Trevor Nunn (director), Matthew Bourne (choreography and musical staging), and Anthony Ward (production design). 7:30 p.m. // Paramount Theatre, 911 Pine Street // Tickets: $25-$72 MUSIC: Peter Morén, the lead......

Ever since we heard that Nick "Hedwig" Garrison was going to be the Emcee, we were looking forward to seeing Cabaret at the 5th Ave (through April 13, tickets: $20-$77). We imagined that Garrison knows exactly what life in little cabarets is like. And, it turns out, he does--of all the performers onstage, he's the one who gives that extra wattage for the big numbers, dials it down for friendly, catty asides, and acts like......

MUSICAL: Cabaret opens tonight at the 5th Ave. They have a mess of video clips up if you want a preview. It stars "Broadway’s Tari Kelly, Seattle favorites Louis Hobson, Suzy Hunt and Allen Fitzpatrick, and fringe star Nick Garrison as the Emcee." We're big Nick Garrison fans, despite not even having seen his turn in Hedwig and the Angry Inch--we're pretty sure he's reason to see the show all by himself. However, the......

FRIDAY ART: Roq la Rue and its sister gallery BLVD are having joint openings tonight. At Roq la Rue, San Francisco artist Robert Burden explores the joys and soulless commercialism of the toybox. At BLVD, Wastelands and Wilderness features new work by Parskid and Chip 7. Parskid's work evokes the mystical dark forests of the Pacific NW, while Chip 7's work is a paranoid exploration of sci-fi fantasy and globalism. Plus, at BLVD you......

On the heels of an elegant overture, the lights come up and we're met with young Patrick Dennis, hand-in-hand with his nanny, the naive and ample Miss Agnes Gooch. Her nerves are rattled down to her very toes. Patrick, he'd be alright if it weren't for Agnes carrying on about thieves and murderers. It's New York City you know, 1928, and as far as Agnes knows, the place is full of 'em. At last, Patrick......

For our money, the timing of the arrival of the Jesus Christ Superstar tour at the Paramount couldn't be better -- a day or two before Christmas, the Nativity, the whole frankincensed hoopla, you can skip to the end and see how Jesus turned out. What's the competition: the film about the musical about cannibal serial killers? Ho ho ho. For the tour, Ted Neeley is Jesus, as he was in the 1973 film. That......