® Lance Bass will host this year’s free Broadway on Broadway concert in Times Square. This annual event will begin at 11:30am on September 16. Over 50,000 fans are expected to enjoy the concert that includes performances and/or appearances from stars of Broadway’s musicals and plays.

® the nytheatre i treats us to a very well-researched Fall preview of what will be opening on Broadway from now through the end of the year.

® Theatre Geek TV: I raved about my experience seeing Billy Elliot: The Musical in previews. Now this video of Billy Elliot highlights, and interviews with the two actors who originally played Billy brings it all back.

® SkyCity Theatre in Auckland, New Zealand is presenting Sammy: The Incredible Journey of Mahatma Gandhi through September 1. According to director, Lillette Dubey, the play examines many sides to the once spiritual leader of India, “One is the ordinary man, Mohan, and the other is the Mahatma who provokes him, who makes him question his actions. It is a way to access Gandhi’s inner voice because the aim was always to pull him out of history books and make him alive.”

® From David Bell’s Hot Guy Alerts, meet Cory Grant of the former Fringe hit, The Lightning Field.

® The Worst Pies in San Franciso: Judy Kaye kicks off the tour of John Doyle’s Sweeney Todd at the American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco. Kaye won a Tony for her work in The Phantom of the Opera. and filled in one week on Broadway in the Doyle staging of Todd while original star Patti LuPone was on vacation.

® Sir Ian Mckellan will speak at the Guthrie Theater on Oct. 8 as part of the theater’s Global Voices program. The Guthrie’s Global Voices forum annually brings world-renowned artists to its stages for “dialogue, insight and inspiration” the theater’s website said. Sir Ian will later be seen at the Guthrie in the Royal Shakespeare Company’s productions of King Lear and The Seagull.

® Dolly Parton told listeners on radio station Go Country 105.1 in LA that the musical version of 9 to 5, for which she has written the score, will open on Broadway in 2009. According to Playbill.com, the cast of an earlier workshop, with Joe Mantello at the helm, included Allison Janney (in the Lily Tomlin role), Stephanie J. Block (in the Jane Fonda role) and Megan Hilty (in the Dolly Parton role); with Bebe Neuwirth (Chicago) as office snitch Roz; Marc Kudisch (Thoroughly Modern Millie) as the boss, Mr. Hart; and Andy Karl (Legally Blonde), among others, including an ensemble.

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