Arena Stage News

As the summer heat rises, Horizon Theatre Company launches the Atlanta Premiere of every tongue confess by one of today's hottest playwrights Marcus Gardley. Imaginative director Thomas W. Jones II brings Gardley's passion-filled mystery to life with the help of original blues and gospel music by Composer and Music Director S. Renee Clark. Jones calls the work 'a highly theatrical rollercoaster ride that is both provocative and redemptive,' and continues, 'People will be healed by this play.'

A NIGHT WITH JANIS JOPLIN will begin preview performances at Broadway's Lyceum Theatre (149 W. 45th Street) on Friday, September 20th, with opening night set for Thursday, October 10th.

No Rules Theatre Company will close at its first season in residence at Signature Theatre with 'The No Rules Show,' conceived by Co-Artistic Directors Joshua Morgan and Brian Sutow and hosted by Morgan, July 10 - 21.

Following a critically acclaimed run at Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater this past fall, One Night with Janis Joplin returns for a summer run. Leading the production is Mary Bridget Davies. Davies is joined by Sabrina Elayne Carten as the Blues Singer. Created, written and directed by Randy Johnson, the production is produced in partnership with The Pasadena Playhouse and Milwaukee Repertory Theater, in association with Todd Gershwin and Daniel Chilewich of One Night Productions, The Estate ofJanis Joplin and Jeff Jampol of JAM, Inc. One Night with Janis Joplin runs June 21-August 11, 2013 in the Kreeger Theater.

A duo of experienced pros with extensive Broadway, regional and TV experience, Bernie Passeltiner, and Christian Kohn, will perform the powerful show TUESDAYS WITH MORRIE at the Saint Michael's Playhouse July 3-13. Written by Jeffrey Hatcher and sportswriter Mitch Albom, the show will be staged, evenings at 8 p.m. on July 3, 5, 6, 9-13; matinees at 2 p.m. July 6 and 13.

Theatre Communications Group (TCG) announces the publication of 4000 Miles & After the Revolution: Two Plays by Amy Herzog, 'one of the brightest new talents in the theatre' (New York Times).

This June, Lyric Theatre of Oklahoma will return to the Civic Center Music Hall with a high-flying, powerful production of TARZAN, starring New York-based actor Nicholas Rodriguez as the title character. Running tonight, June 25-29, the show will mark the beginning of Lyric's four-show, 50th Anniversary Summer Season and will feature an original set by Helen Hayes Award-winning scenic designer Adam Koch and Oklahoma City artist Erin Latham.

Five Washington-based playwrights have formed a new playwrights' collective dedicated exclusively to developing and producing new work. The Welders' inaugural members-playwrights Bob Bartlett, Renee Calarco, Allyson Currin, Caleen Sinnette Jennings, and Gwydion Suilebhan and Executive and Creative Director Jojo Ruf-will write, develop, and produce new plays over the course of the next three years. After their three-year term is complete, the five playwrights will give The Welders' entire operations-everything from the logo to the checking account-to a new generation of five playwrights, who will carry The Welders forward for another three years, and so on into the foreseeable future.

Janis Joplin is alive and well and living in DC for the summer at Arena Stage until August 11, 2013.

Rattlestick Playwrights Theater Artistic Director David Van Asselt and Managing Director Brian Long have announced the company's 2013-14 season-its 19th-will include world premieres by Halley Feiffer, Charles Fuller, Samuel D. Hunter, Craig Lucas, Lucy Thurber, and Ken Urban.

Theatre Planners will present a World Premiere play, THE ASSASSINATION OF LEON TROTSKY: A COMEDY, written by Peter Lefcourt, and directed by Terri Hanauer. THE ASSASSINATION OF LEON TROTSKY: A COMEDY will open tonight, June 22 at 8pm and will run through Saturday, July 28 as a guest production at the Odyssey Theatre, 2055 S. Sepulveda Blvd., in Los Angeles.

Connecticut Repertory Theatre (CRT) will present A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum, starring Steven Hayes as the crafty slave Pseudolus, as the second of its three-show Summer Nutmeg Summer Series, June 20 - 30 in the Harriet S. Jorgensen Theatre, Storrs.

The poignant and provocative new musical, A Minister's Wife, makes its West Coast premiere at San Jose Rep today, June 20 - July 14, 2013. Based on George Bernard Shaw's well-known play Candida, this musical soars with its emotive and dazzling score by the award-winning composer of Adding Machine, Joshua Schmidt, and its beautiful lyrics by Jan Levy Tranen. The smart script by Austin Pendleton, a Tony-nominated director, actor and playwright, and graceful directing by the originator and award-winning director, Michael Halberstam, shape this musical into an adventurous evening of theatre. The Wall Street Journal says, 'This is the most important new musical since The Light in the Piazza ... to say that you mustn't miss it is to grossly understate the case.'

The New Group launches its 2013-2014 Off-Broadway season with the New York premiere of Pulitzer Prize winner Beth Henley's The Jacksonian, arriving in Fall 2013. Directed by Tony Award winner Robert Falls, this production features Ed Harris, Glenne Headly, Amy Madigan and Bill Pullman. The Jacksonian was first produced at the Geffen Playhouse in 2012. In Winter 2014, as the second production in the company's season, The New Group delivers the world premiere of Thomas Bradshaw's Intimacy, directed by Scott Elliott. The third production of The New Group's upcoming season is to be announced.

Malcolm-Jamal Warner will make his D.C.-area theater debut as Dr. John Prentice in Todd Kreidler's stage adaptation of GUESS WHO'S COMING TO DINNER directed by Kenny Leon (Arena's every tongue confess and Stick Fly). Warner first rose to national prominence appearing as Theo in the television series THE COSBY SHOW. His work on the show garnered him an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series. He is not only a seasoned actor, but an accomplished musician, director and producer. GUESS WHO'S COMING TO DINNER runs November 29, 2013 - January 5, 2014 in the Fichandler Stage.

The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey's summer of comedy continues with Noel Coward's frothy delightFallen Angels. Fallen Angels begins performances on July 3 and continues through July 28th at The Shakespeare Theatre's Main Stage - The F.M. Kirby Shakespeare Theatre.