Playbill - Some of the school faculty of the Tony Award-winning hit play, The History Boys, is currently off for summer vacation.

Playbill - Harold Scott, an award-winning actor, producer and director who had roles in several significant Off-Broadway and Broadway plays in the late '50s and '60s, and thereafter went on to a successful directorial career, died on July 16. He was 60.

Reuters - In addition to high-octane energy and a dazzling level of professionalism, the new national tour of "Rent" (making its first appearance at the Pantages) is guided by a relentless aesthetic that might be described as:

Playbill - Emerging songwriters get a showcase with Broadway singers in a fresh concert series starting July 17 in Manhattan. The kickoff concert, a benefit for kids at risk, features the music of Stephen Barnett.

Playbill - Alternative voices, new works, intimate shows and more will punctuate the first Capital Fringe Festival, a new initiative of theatrical work on the fringes of the Washington, D.C.'s vital professional stage community.

Playbill - A nervous groom, a statue of Jesus Christ, and a 500-year-old Jewish caveman will converge one night in Rio during a tropical storm when Party Come Here, a new musical comedy about sex and spirituality, premieres at New York Musical Theatre Festival, Sept 25-28 at the TBG Theatre.

Playbill - The 21-day Seventh Annual Midtown International Theatre Festival launches July 17, offering full - yet intimate - Off-Off Broadway productions of musicals, plays, sketch comedy shows, solo works, plus staged readings.

Playbill - It was a ball, it was a blast, it was a shame it couldn't last. So goes David Yazbek's lyric in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. The sentiment applies to July 16, when two of the musical's stars exit the Broadway production.

Playbill - Shining City, Conor McPherson's Tony Award nominated play, ends its limited engagement at Broadway's Biltmore Theatre July 16 after 21 previews and 80 regular performances.

Playbill - Could the next great American musical surface in Kansas City? Theatre League, Inc., is investing in that idea with the first annual Kansas City Crossroads Musical Theater Festival, starting July 15.

Playbill - Orville L. Hubbard, one of the most controversial and colorful characters in the history of Michigan politics, is the subject of a new musical getting a reading on the home turf of the late Dearborn mayor.

Playbill - After two successful seasons at Dayton, Ohio's Human Race Theatre, The Artist's Crossing - the series of summer classes for young theatre people - is moving to Manhattan for its third summer intensive.

Playbill - New Dramatists, a major center for the support and development of playwrights, announce several new appointments to its staff.

Playbill - Pippin, the Stephen Schwartz-Roger O. Hirson coming-of-age musical about Charlemagne's confused son, is being revived by Goodspeed Musicals in Connecticut starting July 14.

Playbill - Donna Lynne Champlin, who is currently playing the accordion, keyboard and flute on Broadway as the devious barber Pirelli in Sweeney Todd, will appear in the New York City premiere of Flight of the Lawnchair Man at New York Musical Theatre Festival, Sept. 13 to 18.

Playbill - Kevin Kline will play the role of the Cook opposite Meryl Streep in the Aug. 8-Sept. 3 Central Park staging of Brecht's classic Mother Courage, Playbill.com has learned. He replaces the previously announced Christopher Walken.

Playbill - Jews Don't Join the Circus, writer-performer Beth Kaplan Bongar's new solo play with juggling, begins July 26 as part of the Midtown International Theatre Festival.

Playbill - A window to the wisdom of Broadway's major talents can be held in your hand with American Theatre Wing's free downloadable mp4 video files of the "Working in the Theatre" seminars.