Opening-night jitters didn't bring down the excellent debut of a new Off-Broadway theater company dedicated to bringing theater classics to new audiences.

The one-night-only show will include performances by Gabriel Byrne, Olympia Dukakis, Melissa Errico, Colum McCann, Peter Gallagher, John Slattery ('Mad Men'), and more.

Recently Flux began publishing its budget with its Open Book program. Then the company again broke ground by debuting a pay-what-you-can policy it calls Living Ticket.

'I'm not a politician, not a university lecturer. I am a songwriter, an entertainer, I dance around and play the fool for you on stage and you can kind of tap your feet and smile along with me.'

Mitchell's old-school rock and roll reveals a cool sensitivity.

Sondheim's brilliant songs make this troubled, sad, unusual musical worth seeing anywhere and anywhen, and the new production at the Astoria Performing Arts Center is a solid one.

Stylized fight sequences, monsters and vampires, and a post-apocalyptic dystopia, all painted with a broad comic palette. And a sweet, tragic love story too.

Plus Adam Lambert, The Who, Smash Mouth, Toad the Wet Sprocket, Esperanza Spalding, The Kentucky Headhunters, Nashville Pu$$y and more.

The opportunity to see this well-acted, smoothly written, excitingly staged, and chilling work of cultural blending is the kind of thing for which we can be grateful.

The Dead played their first documented concert at Magoo's Pizza Parlor on May 5, 1965.