DreamWorks has just released the first track from “Shrek the Musical.”

It’s the song “I Know It’s Today,” sung by Leah Greenhaus, Westchester’s Marissa O’Donnell and Tony-winner Sutton Foster.

Read about Marissa, and the song here.

Hear the song and download it here.

“Shrek,” based on the DreamWorks films which were, in turn, based on William Steig’s books about a swamp-dwelling ogre, has music by Jeanine Tesori and book and lyrics by David Lindsay-Abaire. It is directed by Jason Moore and stars Brian d’Arcy James, Sutton Foster, Chris Sieber and John Tartaglia.

Previews begin Nov. 8 for a Dec. 14 opening at the Broadway Theatre. Tickets at 212-239-6200.

In Act 1 of “Shrek the Musical,” the song “I Know It’s Today” defines who Princess Fiona is — and who she’s not.
Says director Jason Moore: “It addresses what the princess has been doing in that tower for 20 years and what’s going on in her head.”
“It sets up her desire to wait for her handsome prince,” Moore says, “but it really reveals that she’s feisty and impatient and willful and all the things that waiting princesses aren’t supposed to be. That juxtaposition of ideas is what gives her character its interest.”

Riverspace Arts in Nyack is really bringing out the fire power to breathe life into the performing-arts center. They just announced an Oct. 18 benefit at which Oscar-winner Jonathan Demme will interview Oscar-winner Meryl Streep on stage at the converted movie theater, a benefit for Riverspace Arts.

There  will be a “festive pre-show reception” at the Nyack Express Building, 38 High Ave., from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m., followed by a conversation between the filmmaker and the actress.

An on-stage champagne reception with Streep and Demme follows the chat.

Tickets to the benefit are $250.

Call 845-348-1880 or go to www.riverspace.org.

This week’s “In the Wings” video catches up with “Kent Stories” at Arts on the Lake, which runs Friday and Saturday.

“The Jerusalem Syndrome” sounds like it could be a ’70s disaster movie—perhaps starring George Kennedy or Charlton Heston.

In fact, it’s a new musical comedy at the New York Musical Theatre Festival, from Sept. 23 to Oct. 5.

But keep Charlton Heston in mind.

The show—with music by Kyle Rosen and a book and lyrics by Felicia Needleman of Larchmont and Laurence Holzman, now of Dobbs Ferry—is based on a real psychological anomaly that causes some visitors to Jerusalem to believe that they are characters from the Bible.

If, as Robert Frost wrote, “good fences make good neighbors,” a group in Kent hopes that neighbors make good theater.

Friday and Saturday night, the stories of Kent residents will be played out in the basement of the old firehouse on Route 52.

A project of Arts on the Lake, “Kent Stories: Neighbors Portray Neighbors” is directed and edited by James Shearwood, a Kent resident who taught theater at Sarah Lawrence College for 18 years.

When Fox Lane High School graduate Karla Cheatham Mosley says “things are a-brewing,” she’s putting it mildly.

This week, movie audiences will see her, albeit in a tiny role, in “Burn After Reading” the new Joel and Ethan Coen movie.

She appears in a party scene where her character’s upwardly mobile husband (“Spring Awakening” producer Pan Bandhu) is invited to rub elbows with Washington’s elite. At one point, the camera finds Mosley standing next to the film’s star, George Clooney, who mentions a children’s book his wife has written,

“It’s something totally wacky and Coen Brothers and Clooney is choking on cheese,” Mosley says. “It’s a wild party scene.”

What was that like working alongside a bona fide movie star like George Clooney?
“Honestly, it was just one of the best days of my life,” she says. “The scene is with Clooney and (John) Malkovich and Tilda Swinton and I was there all day working on one scene.

“They were the most bright, witty group of people that you could ever want to work with,” she says.

Mosley is fresh off a summer run in a Culture Project stage production of “Expatriate” which had a sold-out run in SoHo this summer and is aiming for a return in the new year.

And on Monday she begins filming episodes of the soap “Guiding Light,” in a recurring role. How much of a recurring role “all depends on how much the audience loves this character.”

“The only thing I know now is that she’s a med student putting herself through medical school. She’s pretty normal at this point, but I’m sure she’ll be killing her half-brother’s cousin in just a couple of weeks,” she says with a giggle, adding that her episodes may air as soon as Sept. 22.

Yes, things are a-brewing.

PHOTOS: Clooney photo by Joel Ryan of the Associated Press; Mosley file photo by Mark Vergari of The Journal News

An interesting RAND report was issued yesterday, linking arts education to the survival of art. Here’s the release.

IMPROVING ARTS EDUCATION IS KEY TO STEMMING AUDIENCE DECLINE, RAND STUDY FINDS
Policymakers have underestimated the critical role of arts learning in supporting a vibrant nonprofit cultural sector, according to a RAND Corporation study issued today. The study was commissioned by The Wallace Foundation and conducted by RAND, a non-profit research organization.

They are three letters that strike fear in the hearts of people nearly everywhere: DMV.

The Department of Motor Vehicles may be the one place where Americans encounter unapologetic, full-tilt bureaucracy on a regular basis: They have what you need, but to get it you’re going to have to do what they say.
Typically, it’s no laughing matter, but Richard Strand’s new comedy – “Ten Percent of Molly Snyder,” on stage at Stony Point’s Penguin Repertory Company through Sept. 7 – takes the DMV drudgery and spins it into a dark comedy.

Here’s a video review of “The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged).”

I learned this afternoon that Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival will extend their season beyond Labor Day with four extra performances of “Abridged.” There will be 7 p.m. curtains on Sept. 3, 4, 5 and a 6 p.m show on Sept. 7.

Good move. I hope to get up there again….

West Nyack’s venerable Clarkstown Summer Theatre Festival — veterans simply call it “summer theater” — is gearing up for its 36th season with Rodgers & Hammerstein’s dark classic “Carousel.”What’s new this year is Clarkstown’s production team.

Joe Egan, who has made magic at Nyack High School for years — including “The Phantom of the Opera” this year — is directing “Carousel” and has brought along nearly all of his creative crew: Musical director Kurt Kelley, costumers Tom Beck and Neil Schleifer, and tech gurus Andrew Gmoser and Bryan McPartlan. Choreography is by Luke Rawlings. Greg Baccarini, Egan’s longtime choreographer, directed Yorktown Stage’s “Godspell” and couldn’t commit to stage the dances for “Carousel,” but he still handled wig and hair design.“Carousel,” a dark tale of love and loss in a small New England town, is not traditional summer fare, but Egan says the teens are taking to the material.“It’s dark,” Egan says. “It’s not happy. There’s one happy song in Act 1 — ‘June is Bustin’ Out All Over’ — and then we’re done. Tragedy strikes.”“The kids are understanding the weight of the material,” he says. “They’re fine.”Brittany Meshberg, 17, plays Julie Jordan, the girl at the center of the action. The Clarkstown South senior is used to the stage, but not to playing such a meaty role.“It’s tragic and Joe is telling me I really have to cry on stage to portray it and make it real,” Meshberg says.“Joe likes everything full out in rehearsal, the way I’m going to perform it. And that’s the way I like to work.”Meshberg, a CSTF veteran, says working with Egan has been eye-opening.“It’s been an amazing experience,” she says. “Joe is an incredible director. I’m learning a lot.”She doesn’t even mind the fact that Egan has brought along a Nyack tradition: When the cast fails to take things seriously, they run laps around the auditorium.“Whatever it takes,” Meshberg says.Jake Allyne plays Billy Bigelow, a rough-and-tumble carnival worker who is Julie’s love interest.The role comes with a marathon song, the 8-minute “Soliloquy” — in which Billy softens when he learns he’s going to be a father.“He’s a very intricate character, full of changes,” he says. “He’s abusive, short-tempered and not very sympathetic to other people. Later, he wakes up dead and he’s full of regret.”The recent Clarkstown South graduate — who spent his senior year at Rockland Community College — is looking to a theater career and appreciates Egan’s professional approach.“He’s a great director, but he’s also a scenic designer, so he really has the whole picture. He knows where everything is,” Allyne says, adding that having an entire production team come in means everyone is on the same page from day one.“Carousel” runs Friday, Saturday, Aug. 6, 7, 8 and 9 at 8 p.m., and Sunday at 2 p.m. Tickets are $12, $9 for students, $8 for seniors and children 12 and under and $6 for groups of 20 or more, purchased in advance. Call 845-638-3077. At Clarkstown High School South, 31 Demarest Mill Road, West Nyack.

Note: The August 6 show (at 8 p.m.) is a fund-raiser with all proceeds going to the American Cancer Society’s Making Strides Against Breast Cancer. All tickets will be $10 at the door, with no advance sale and no reserved seats.PHOTO by Angela Gaul: Joe Egan and choreographer Luke Rawlings like what they see at rehearsals for Clarkstown Summer Theater Festival’s “Carousel.”Below, the cast after a performance at the Palisades Center mall on July 19 on, of course, a carousel. (Photo courtesy Lou Allyne)

I remember interviewing Anthony what seems like ages ago and telling his dad about LoHud’s Listening Room. Now, months later, here’s Anthony on The Listening Room.

He won a High School Theater Award, playing Tevye in Pleasantville High School’s “Fiddler on the Roof.”

Wish he’d played “Carnival,” my favorite song from “Typical American Tragedy,” a great disc.

They are different, those singing Callaway sisters.
Yes, both live in Croton-on-Hudson and have Broadway credits, exceptional voices and cabaret followings.
But Ann Hampton Callaway, the family’s scat-singing piano player, has dark hair and is a bit nervy. Her kid sister, Liz Callaway, is fair-haired and more soft-spoken.
If Liz is a vodka martini, Ann is a Maker’s Mark Manhattan, and make it a double.
Yet both will be performing July 19 at “Divas 2008,” a benefit for the excellent Hudson Stage Company, which was co-founded by Liz’s husband, Dan Foster.
The event, at an estate in Yorktown Heights, will feature other “divas,” to be named later, but the Callaway sisters are legacies of sorts, the go-to divas for Hudson Stage.
Ann, the brassier Callaway, says the title might be misleading.
“I can’t believe my sister agreed to do this event,” she says, “because she’s always said: ‘You can call yourself a diva, but I will always be the anti-diva.’ If they really wanted to be honest, they’d call it ‘Divas — and the Anti-Diva.’
“It’s not a word you use lightly,” Ann says. “You need to live up to the word. You need to be difficult, demanding, high-maintenance. I remember first hearing Jenifer Lewis use it repeatedly in one of her club acts. I thought it was so funny because, to me, it made fun of those self-important performers.
“I started using it because I thought it was so cheeky. Using the word makes me feel braver to say outrageous things to my audience. But I like to think I’m the friendly diva, because it does scare a lot of people.
“My favorite diva story is Kathleen Battle, who called her agent in New York to tell her driver in the limousine to please turn down the air-conditioning,” she says.
Liz, fresh from a critically acclaimed run at Feinstein’s at the Regency, has been helping out Hudson Stage in more ways than lending her voice once a year for the past seven “Divas” events.
“I love to cook, so I handle the catering for the opening-night parties,” she says. “That’s one of the ways I contribute.”
How positively anti-diva of her.
“There’s something really magical about this benefit,” Liz says. “A beautiful setting, incredibly talented people, and it’s not overly fancy. There’s something relaxed about it. You don’t have to get all dressed up. You can have a picnic and wine and then, immediately after the concert, hang out with the people you’ve just seen perform.
“The performers have had a great time, the audience has had a great time, and then they get together,” she adds. “It’s a very unusual kind of event, unlike any benefit I’ve ever done. There’s a community feel to it — which I think everyone enjoys.”
Liz says she’s excited by Hudson Stage’s success and “how the community has embraced it.”
The theater company, which performs at Woodward Hall on the Briarcliff campus of Pace University, is coming off another successful season, with staged readings and main-stage productions of Jeffrey Hatcher’s “Murderers” and John Cariani’s “Almost, Maine.”
The hosts for the “Divas” evening will be Broadway veterans, too: Mount Kisco residents Lauren Kennedy, who played The Lady of the Lake in “Spamalot,” and her husband, Alan Campbell, a Tony nominee for “Sunset Boulevard.”
This year’s event gets under way at 7 p.m. with cocktails and hors d’ouevres, and the concert begins at sundown. Ticketbuyers — who pay $100 a head — will be given the exact address, on Baptist Church Road in Yorktown Heights. If it should rain, ticketholders will be notified of the alternate location.
The evening will also include a silent auction for Broadway tickets, access to a Paris apartment and tickets to sporting events.
Ann will arrive at the venue having just flown in from a gig in Finland.
“I will have driven four hours, taken an eight-hour plane ride, gone through customs and then immediately go from the airport to the ‘Divas’ concert,” she says.
All of this with a broken arm that has forced her to wear a cast. But no ordinary cast would do.
“It’s cool and black and it looks kind of diva, dominatrix,” she says. “I’ll put a little bling on it and be ready to go.”
Not willing to disappoint “Divas” regulars — who expect her to repeat her feat of creating a Hudson-Stage-related song on the spot based on audience suggestions — Ann’s willing to do whatever it takes to please.
“I can’t play the piano with the cast, and someone will have to play for me,” she says. “If the pianist they hire doesn’t like to do that, then I will sing Acapulco,” she jokes, describing a style of singing involves “a pineapple and coconut flavoring.”
Of course, after the odyssey from Finland to Yorktown, “whatever song I do make up is going to be from another state of consciousness.”
“But I told Dan yes, because it really is one of the most fun, diva-bonding, audience-bonding experiences. It’s a great cause, but it’s also a magical night. Growing up in Chicago, we used to love nights at Ravinia outside. I really like the vibe.”

“Divas 2008”
Where: a Yorktown Heights private home, with details provided to ticketbuyers
When: July 19, cocktails and hors d’ouevres at 7 p.m.; concert at sundown
Tickets: $100
Call: 914-271-2811
Web: www.hudsonstage.com
Note: In the event of inclement weather, the event will be held at an alternate location and ticketholders will be notified of the change.
With: Alan Campbell (“Sunset Boulevard”), Lauren Kennedy (“Spamalot”); Liz Callaway (“Miss Saigon”), Ann Hampton Callaway (“Swing!”) and others to be named.

Photos, from top, courtesy of Hudson Stage: Ann Hampton Callaway, Liz Callaway, Alan Campbell and Lauren Kennedy

For some theater groups, choosing a new season is a closely guarded secret.
But Pleasantville’s Axial Theater — a group that celebrates collaboration between its artists and its audience — is planning its 10th season by opening up the process to the public, under the stars.
Saturday’s “Axial Under the Stars” event, held at Mohegan Colony Schoolhouse in Crompond, is billed as “a casual evening of theater” — and it’s shaping up to be just that.

Here’s this week’s video, tied to Friday’s Fourth of July performance by John Pizzarelli at Caramoor.