Idina and Taye Sing Karaoke, Shakespeare Goes into Labour & Bette Davis Returns in This Week’s Datebook

Another week is about to begin on the Great White Way, and Broadway.com has done the digging to fill up your calendar with don't-miss events! Up ahead, we’ve got two outrageous off-Broadway openings, a final Encores! presentation and a fond farewell to Lilla Crawford. Check out our listing of events for July 22 through July 28.


MONDAY, JULY 22
RENT VETS FIND ONE SONG KARAOKE
Original Rent stars Idina Menzel, Taye Diggs, Anthony Rapp, Adam Pascal and Daphne Rubin-Vega are among the performers headlining a night of celebrity karaoke benefitting Menzel and Diggs’ children's charity A Broader Way. Whoopi Goldberg hosts the starry evening at the Cutting Room, where additional stage faves (including Megan Hilty and Matthew Morrison) will sing the audience’s picks!

ALSO: Patti LuPone continues her run at 54 Below; dark comedy Handbook for an American Revolutionary opens at the Gym at Judson; the acrobatic cast of Pippin tumbles on Live with Kelly and Michael.


TUESDAY, JULY 23
SHAKESPEARE GOES INTO LABOUR
The word of the Bard lives again in the Public Theater’s Central Park staging of Shakespeare’s Love’s Labour’s Lost—only this time, it’s musical! Visionary director Alex Timbers is behind the new song-and-dance adaptation of the comic classic, with a talented cast (including Colin Donnell and Patti Murin) leading the summer’s second Shakespeare in the Park offering, through August 18. Hark, get tickets!

ALSO: The Awesome '80s Prom celebrates a whopping ninth anniversary off-Broadway; Zachary Levi returns to First Date after his weeklong leave; Motown The Musical spreads the soul on Live with Kelly and Michael.


WEDNESDAY, JULY 24
KNOCK KNOCK, WHO'S THERE, OMG IT'S BETTE DAVIS
It's opening night for Elizabeth Fuller’s Me and Jezebel's 20th anniversary revival at the Snapple Theater Center. The show is based on a true story, which found legendary actress Bette Davis spending a month in the home of the starstruck Fuller. The little New England cottage may have been cramped, but don’t worry—there’s plenty of room for the audience, too.

ALSO: Beatles tribute Let It Be opens at Broadway’s St. James Theatre; Dancing on Nails opens downtown at Theatre 80; Cirque du Soleil presents the Brooklyn premiere of Quidam; Cinderella has a magical morning on Live with Kelly and Michael; Imaginary Friends hits the Clurman Theatre as part of the 38th annual Samuel French Off-Off-Broadway Short Play Festival.


THURSDAY, JULY 25
MURDER! MAYHEM! MUSIC! MORE MURDER!
Musical comedy gets a dose of Agatha Christie intrigue in the lethal new musical Murder for Two. Everyone is a suspect in Second Stage Uptown’s wacky whodunit, starring Brett Ryback as a detective and Jeff Blumenkrantz as thirteen kooky suspects. The show has already extended through August 17, so catch this Murder before it catches you.

ALSO: Kinky Boots raises you up on Live with Kelly and Michael.


FRIDAY, JULY 26
AND ALL THAT JASMINE 
Stage actors abound in Woody Allen’s Blue Jasmine, which is appropriate since the film was inspired by A Streetcar Named Desire. Cate Blanchett (a fabulous former stage Blanche DuBois) co-stars with Bobby Cannavale, Sally Hawkins, Alec Baldwin and Michael Stuhlbarg in this story of a fashionable New York housewife’s midlife crisis. Count us in, Woody!

ALSO: Hugh Jackman returns to his mutant roots in The Wolverine; Matilda’s extraordinary ensemble performs on Live with Kelly and Michael; Matt Doyle stars in a concert reading of a new musical inspired by Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman's The Brooklyn Hero Supply Company at Vassar College.


SATURDAY, JULY 27
ENCORES! GETS ITS ACT TOGETHER
Rent and One Life to Live alum Renee Elise Goldsberry is hitting the highway (well, not really) in Gretchen Cryer and Nancy Ford's beloved feminist tuner I’m Getting My Act Together and Taking It on the Road. Goldsberry stars in the Encores! Off-Center production, which ends its brief run on July 27. You’ve got one last shot to get your own act together and take it to New York City Center.


SUNDAY, JULY 28
ANNIE ALERT: LILLA GOES OFF THE GRID
Golly, we’re sure going to miss our adorable video blogger Lilla Crawford when she plays her final performance as the title star in the hit revival of Annie. We fell in love with Crawford this year, and we know she’s going to go on to more big successes. But gee, can’t you stay just a Lilla longer?

ALSO: The Assembled Parties ends its acclaimed Broadway run; Motown The Musical performs for the Actors Fund; Here Lies Love closes at the Public Theater after four extensions; 54 Below enjoys Sondheim Unplugged; Gilberto Santa Rosa sings his last solo in Forever Tango; Tony winner John Lloyd Young departs Jersey Boys.