Arena Stage News

Continuing its 25th Anniversary Season, the Shakespeare Theatre Company presents Eugene O'Neill's Pulitzer Prize-winning play, Strange Interlude. Directed by STC Artistic Director Michael Kahn, Strange Interlude runs at the Company's Sidney Harman Hall (610 F Street NW) through tonight, April 29, 2012.

The New Group presents the world premiere of An Early History of Fire, a new play by Tony Award-winning playwright David Rabe. Directed by Jo Bonney, this production features Gordon Clapp, Erin Darke, Jonny Orsini, Devin Ratray, Dennis Staroselsky, Theo Stockman and Claire van der Boom. Limited Off-Broadway engagement is slated April 5 - May 26 at The New Group @ Theatre Row (410 West 42nd Street). Official Opening Night is set for Monday, April 30 at 7:00 PM. See the photos below for a first look at the production!

Central Square Theater and its resident companies, The Nora Theatre Company and Underground Railway Theater, have announced their 2012-2013, and 5th anniversary, season.

Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater's production of MerEdith Wilson's The Music Man, helmed by Artistic Director Molly Smith, stars Kate Baldwin (Tony Award nominee for Broadway's Finian's Rainbow) as Marian the librarian, joined by Burke Moses (original Gaston in Broadway's Beauty and the Beast) as Harold Hill. The Music Man runs May 11-July 22, 2012 in the Fichandler Stage. Go inside the show's photo shoot below!

Barrington Stage Company has just announced that Tony nominee Brad Oscar will take on the role of the beloved dairyman Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof, running June 13 through July 14, kicking off the theater's 18th season in the Berkshires.

Marcus Gardley is a poet-playwright whose most recent play every tongue confess premiered at Arena Stage starring Phylicia Rashad and directed by Kenny Leon. It was nominated for the Steinberg New Play Award and the Charles MacArthur Award for outstanding new play. His musical, ON THE LEVEE premiered last summer at Lincoln Center and was nominated for 11 Audelco Awards including outstanding playwright. Last Spring, his play AND JESUS MOONWALKS THE MISSISSIPPI was produced at the Cutting Ball Theater and received the SF Bay Area Theater Critics circle Award nomination for outstanding new play. He has had six plays produced including: DANCE OF THE HOLY GHOST at Yale Repertory Theatre (now under a Broadway option,) (L)IMITATIONS OF LIFE, at the Empty Space and LIKE SUN FALLIN' IN THE MOUTH at the National Black Theatre Festival. He is the recipient of the Hellen Merrill Award, a Kellsering Honoree, the Gerbode Emerging Playwright Award, the National Alliance for Musical Theatre Award, the Eugene O'Neill Memorial Scholarship, and the ASCAP Cole Porter Prize. He holds an MFA in Playwriting from the Yale Drama School and is a member of New Dramatists, The Dramatists Guild and the Lark Play Development Center.

Arena Stage today announced initial casting for its limited engagement of THE NORMAL HEART, which will run June 8 to July 29, 2012 and will coincide with AIDS 2012, the biennial international AIDS conference that returns to the United States for the first time in 22 years.

theatreWashington announced today results of its annual survey of Washington theatre productions and attendances. According to the study, the numbers illustrate notable increases in productions produced, performances presented, and audiences attending.

Musically Human Theatre Productions (MHTP) will close its inaugural season with the world premiere of Matt Conner and Stephen Gregory Smith's NightoftheLivingDead: The Musical (NOTLD), which will run May 31 to June 17 at the Richmond Shepard Theater. Previews will be May 31 and June 1, prior to a gala opening on June 2. Performances will be Thursdays through Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 3 p.m. The Richmond Shepard Theater is located at 309 East 26th Street. To purchase tickets, available for $18, you can call 212-352-3101, visit https://web.ovationtix.com/trs/pr/911658, or go to the box office one hour prior to show time. Tickets for the two preview performances are available on TDF.

Walkabout Theater has announced the world premiere of CROW, created and performed by theater artist Jeremy Sher and directed by Scott Bradley. Performances take place at Victory Gardens Theater, 2433 N. Lincoln Ave., from May 30 - June 17. The opening is Friday, June 1st at 8:00 p.m.

The winners of the 28th Helen Hayes Awards, a program of theatreWashington, have been announced. The most-awarded production was Synetic Theatre with six awards. Signature Theatre follows closely behind with five awards won.

It was a starry Monday night at DC's Warner Theatre. Members of the local theater community came out from DC, Maryland and Virginia to celebrate the best and the brightest from last season. The evening was sprinkled with area favorites, a politician or two and even a respected film star.

Matthew Grills, tenor, of Rochester, N.Y, won the $15,000 First Prize in the finals of the 2012 Lotte Lenya Competition, held on April 21, 2012, at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester. In a close contest, Justin Hopkins, bass-baritone of Philadelphia, and Jacob Keith Watson, tenor of Wynne, Ark., tied for Second Prizes of $10,000, and Megan Marino, mezzo-soprano of Malvern, Penn., was awarded the Third Prize of $7,500.

We're pleased to bring you Seth's latest candid chat with Broadway favorite David Garrison. In this edition, Garrison tells stories about his time in A DAY IN HOLLYWOOD/A NIGHT IN UKRAINE, playing Hannibal Lecter in SILENCE! THE MUSICAL, his many WICKED co-stars, and more!

The Denver Center Theatre Company presents the World Premiere of GREAT WALL STORY by Lloyd Suh, which plays The Ricketson Theatre through tonight, April 22 (opening night Thursday, March 22). The play was read at the 2011 Colorado New Play Summit and selected for production. Tickets can be purchased now, by calling 303.893.4100 or www.denvercenter.org.

Philadelphia Theatre Company presents the second production and East Coast premiere of Barrymore Award-winning playwright Bruce Graham's newest play The Outgoing Tide, running March 23 through tonight, April 22, at PTC's home at the Suzanne Roberts Theatre (Broad and Lombard Streets).

WaterTower Theatre's August: Osage County, running March 30 - tonight, April 22, 2012 at the Addison Theatre Centre, features Pam Dougherty as Violet Weston; Cliff Stephens as Beverly Weston; Sherry Jo Ward as Barbara Fordham; James Crawford as Bill Fordham; Ruby Westfall as Jean Fordham; Kristin McCollum as Ivy Weston; Jessica Cavanagh as Karen Weston; Nancy A. Sherrard as Mattie Fae Aiken; Tom Lenaghen as Charlie Aiken; Clay Yocum as Little Charles Aiken; Sasha Truman-McGonnell as Johnna Monevata; Chris Hury as Steve Heidebrecht and Stan Graner as Sheriff Deon Gilbeau.

The Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park brings back Keith's Glover's musical THUNDER KNOCKING ON THE DOOR in the Robert. S Marx Theatre April 21 through May 20.

Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater's production of MerEdith Wilson's The Music Man, helmed by Artistic Director Molly Smith, stars Kate Baldwin (Tony Award nominee for Broadway's Finian's Rainbow) as Marian the librarian, joined by Burke Moses (original Gaston in Broadway's Beauty and the Beast) as Harold Hill. The Music Man runs May 11-July 22, 2012 in the Fichandler Stage. Get a first look below!