Tony winner Clint Ramos joins as Encores! producing creative director, while Camille A. Brown, Eisa Davis, and Robert O’Hara join as advisors.

Heading toward the Oliviers, Harry Potter casting news, and verdicts for Don Juan and The Life.

11th Hour Theatre Company will open its Next Step concert series with three staged readings of The Life – the musical depicting the pulsating and tough life of the Times Square streets in the 1980s – Oct. 4-5 at the Mainstage at the Adrienne (2030 Sansom St, Philadelphia, PA).

Harry Potter announces the release of more tickets, Bat Out of Hell will take the stage, and the new Royal Court season has been revealed.

Casting has been announced for the Los Angeles premiere of Cy Coleman and Ira Gasman's gritty musical The Life.

Michael Blakemore, who helmed the original production, will direct.

The performer celebrates her birthday July 21.

Stephen Sondheim and George Furth's musical Company opens on Broadway in 1970.

LIFE STORIES: The Life the new musical from David Newman, Cy Coleman and Ira Gasman led the Broadway pack in Tony nominations this season, garnering 12, including nods for Best Score and Best Orchestrations. The cast album (Sony Classical) features some of the best voices in the business singing Coleman's tunes, which run the gamut from jazz and blues to standard Broadway fare. Lillias White, who won this year's Tony for Best Featured Actress in a Musical, gets to show off her incredible vocal range in the show-stopping "The Oldest Profession," and she tugs at your heartstrings in the touching duet, "My Friend," with co-star Pamela Isaacs. Other standouts include the female chorus in their rousing anthem "My Body" as well as the strong-lunged Sam Harris and company in "Use What You Got."

PLAYING ON Although Play On! recently departed The Great White Way, Varese Sarabande has just issued the original cast recording, which boasts the music of Duke Ellington with orchestrations by the legendary Luther Henderson. Play On! was loosely based on Shakespeare's Twelfth Night relocated to Harlem in the 1940's and starred Tonya Pinkins and Andre DeShields, who were both nominated for 1997 Tonys. These two performers are joined on the recording by the equally talented Cheryl Freeman and the rest of the Broadway cast, and they deliver great takes on some of Ellington's most popular songs ("Take the 'A' Train," "It Don't Mean a Thing," "Mood Indigo"). Creator Sheldon Epps recently said, "It was our intention to pay homage to the performance styles of the great black performers of the 1930's and 40's." And pay homage they have.

SOUND BYTES The recent Off-Broadway hit No Way To Treat a Lady, with a book and score by Douglas J. Cohen, has been preserved by Varese Sarabande. Adam Grupper, Alix Korey, Marguerite MacIntyre and Paul Schoeffler comprise the multi-talented cast that gets to interpret Cohen's captivating and often humorous score. Highlights include the comical "So Much in Common" and MacIntyre on the ballad "One of the Beautiful People." . . . From Sony Classical comes the most complete version of Kurt Weill's Lady in the Dark ever released. Digitally remastered from its original source, the recording features the original 1963 studio cast recording (Rise Stevens, Adolph Green, John Reardon and Lehman Engel) as well as tracks from Danny Kaye, who starred in the 1941 Broadway production.

The Life, the 1997 musical about the lives of prostitutes working in Times Square during the 1980's, will be revived for two performances only at the New York cabaret venue 54 Below. The concert, to be performed twice on May 17, will feature members of the original Broadway cast.

Steel Pier and An American Daughter may have been all but overlooked by the 1997 Tony Awards, but the shows were tops with the Friends of New York Theatre, who had their own ceremony Sunday, June 8, at Gallagher's Restaurant in Manhattan. As in the Tonys, Chicago won a FANY Award for best revival, (the FANYs combine plays and musicals in that category) and took home the most honors of the night, six. Ironically, The Last Night Of Ballyhoo, which took a Tony for Best Play, was blanked by the FANYs.

The Life, Cy Coleman and Ira Gasman's gritty musical about 1980 Times Square street life, got 12 nominations for the 1997 Antoinette Perry Awards May 5, the most for any single show.

David Newman, a screenwriter and playwright best known for co-writing the screenplay to "Bonnie and Clyde," died June 27 in Manhattan, according to The New York Times.

The producers of The Life are targeting March 1999 for a London opening of the Cy Coleman musical. Coleman told Playbill On-Line (Oct. 22) that the time frame would be ideal, considering that director Michael Blakemore -- who staged the original Broadway production -- would be free to take the job in the spring. "We wouldn't want to miss that chance," he said.

The producers of The Life are targeting March 1999 for a London opening of the Cy Coleman musical. Coleman told Playbill On-Line (Oct. 22) the time frame would be ideal, considering that director Michael Blakemore -- who staged the original Broadway production -- would be free to take the job in the spring. "We wouldn't want to miss that chance," he said.

The producers of The Life are targeting March 1999 for a London opening of the Cy Coleman musical. Coleman told Playbill On-Line (Oct. 22) the time frame would be ideal, considering that director Michael Blakemore -- who staged the original Broadway production -- would be free to take the job in the spring. "We wouldn't want to miss that chance," he said.

The Life, Cy Coleman's Broadway musical about Times Square street life, will close Sunday, June 7, at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre after 22 previews and 465 regular performances.