Austin Pendleton News

Wendy Beckett's seductive new play, LOVE THERAPY opens at the DR2 Theatre (101 East 15th Street) on Monday, April 29th. Directed by Evan Bergman, LOVE THERAPY is the fourth in a series of ten of Ms. Beckett's plays that will be brought across the Pacific from Australia by Peter Walters for Pascal Productions. For tickets, please visit Telecharge.com or call (212) 239-6200.

Classic Stage Company, under the leadership of Artistic Director Brian Kulick and Executive Director Greg Reiner, will present its annual Monday Night Open Rehearsal Series, this year featuring Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet. On three Monday evenings - May 13, May 20 and June 3 - different actors and directors will explore the text of Romeo & Juliet, giving theater-goers the opportunity to become part of the discovery process, and experience different acting approaches and directorial interpretations of one of Shakespeare's most cherished plays. CSC will open its 2013/2014 season with a new production of Romeo & Juliet starring Elizabeth Olsen. Here is the line-up for this year's Open Rehearsal series.

Clearwater's West Coast Players' current production of 'THE RUNNER STUMBLES' is as much a love story, as it is a thriller, a mystery, a court room drama, and a who-dunnit? In fact, it is all of these things and more. It is a fascinating, compelling, theatrical piece, based on a true story beginning in rural Michigan, in 1906.

Frog & Peach Theatre Company will present a Weimar vision of Shakespeare's 'Measure for Measure' April 25 to May 19 at the West End Theater, 263 West 86th Street. Artistic Director Lynnea Benson directs. The classic will be set in the 1930s Germany in order to comment on the corruption and hypocrisy that underlies the smug patina of modern life.

Performances begin in just five weeks for the third annual Next Up, continuing Steppenwolf Theatre Company's commitment to Chicago's next generation of theater artists. Next Up features three productions presented in rotating repertory, in collaboration with Northwestern University's MFA programs in Direction and Design. Next Up 2013 showcases the work of graduates of those programs with casts of professional Chicago actors-including nine alumni of the School at Steppenwolf: Fat Pig by Neil LaBute, directed by David Prete; The Drunken City by Adam Bock, directed by Johnny Michael DiResta; and The Internationalist by Anne Washburn, directed by Erin Murray.

Mississippi Mud Productions will present The Blonde Bombshell Project, a new solo play written and starring Jen Danby and directed by Tony Nominee and Obie-Winning Director Austin Pendleton. Fresh from their collaboration as Catharine Holly and Dr. Sugar in Suddenly, Last Summer with Mississippi Mud, this new solo work is about about legendary Hollywood 'Blonde Bombshell' Marilyn Monroe in her final summer of 1962. ??

Artists Rep is thrilled to present the West Coast premiere of Jeffrey Hatcher's play Ten Chimneys from tonight, April 23 through May 26, 2013. This revealing comedy peers into the backstage lives of Broadway power-duo Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne and summers spent at their legendary Wisconsin estate, Ten Chimneys.

The Active Theater announced today that it will award The Active Arts Award to Terry Schreiber, who founded T. Schreiber Studio in 1969, at its 2013 Spring Benefit on April 22, 2013 at 2nd Floor on Clinton (67 Clinton Street, between Rivington and Stanton).

Tickets are on sale today for Manhattan Theatre Club's American premiere of Tarell Alvin McCraney's CHOIR BOY, the new play featuring gospel music directed by Trip Cullman at MTC's The Studio at Stage II - Harold and Mimi Steinberg New Play Series at New York City Center - Stage II (131 West 55th Street). In order to ensure that tickets to CHOIR BOY are affordable to the widest possible, most diverse audiences, MTC is pricing all tickets at $30. Tickets are on sale via CityTix (212-581-1212), www.nycitycenter.org and at the New York City Center Box Office.

Brooklyn Center for the Performing Arts at Brooklyn College (BCBC) presents Fiddler on the Roof today, April 14, 2013 at 3pm. All tickets are $45/$36 (orchestra/mezzanine) and can be purchased by phone at 718-951-4500 (Tues-Sat, 1pm-6pm), or online at www.BrooklynCenterOnline.org.

Category 7 in association with La Salle Academy and Nativity Mission announces the cast and creative team for Stand-Up Tragedy, Bill Cain's searing 1991 play about a Lower East Side middle school, where an idealistic young teacher sets out to save one of his students from an abusive family and the streets. Directed by Nicholas Minas, performances begin at Nativity Church (44 2nd Avenue - between 2nd & 3rd Streets) tonight, April 12, 2013 and will continue through May 4.

Classic Stage Company, under the leadership of Artistic Director Brian Kulick and Executive Director Greg Reiner, announced today that acclaimed Tony Award-winning director John Doyle will join the company for its 2013/2014 season as an Associate Director. Doyle, who directed and designed the company's current highly-acclaimed production of Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine's musical PASSION, will develop his own projects for CSC, contribute leadership for CSC's new Musical Theatre Initiative (for which PASSION was the launch production) and consult with Artistic Director Brian Kulick over season planning and other creative aspects of CSC's artistic programming.

For audiences age four and up, Frog and Peach Theatre Company, 'a brave company that is a jewel of Off-Broadway' (Ronald Gross, NY Theatre Buying Guide), will present a fairy tale series, 'Tinkerbell Theatre,' adapting 'Cinderella' (from the Brothers Grimm) and 'The Tinderbox' (from Hans Christian Anderson) into Rocky-and-Bullwinkle style plays featuring sing-along songs and big, soft puppets. The plays, written and directed by Lynnea Benson, will be followed by puppet-making workshops to which all kids attending will be invited. The two plays will be presented in repertory April 27 to May 19 at West End Theater, 263 West 86th Street.

In commemoration of Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day, Luna Stage will present Etty, writer and performer Susan Stein's critically-acclaimed one woman show adapted from the diaries and letters of Etty Hillesum. Etty is directed by theater veteran Austin Pendleton. Etty will be presented for two performances only, today April 7th, at 3pm and 7pm.

Robert Brustein's THE LAST WILL, directed by Austin Pendleton, will be presented by Abingdon Theatre Company in its Off-Broadway premiere, running April 5 - May 5, 2013.

Robert Brustein's THE LAST WILL, directed by and featuring Austin Pendleton as William Shakespeare, begins its Off-Broadway run at Abingdon Theatre Company's June Havoc Theatre (312 West 36th St.) on Friday, April 5. BroadwayWorld has a first look at him in action below!

Classic Stage Company, under the leadership of Artistic Director Brian Kulick and Executive Director Greg Reiner, will present a new production of Bertolt Brecht's THE CAUCASIAN CHALK CIRCLE featuring Christopher Lloyd (Azdak), directed by Brian Kulick (who directed Brecht's Galileo last season), and featuring new music by Tony Award-winning singer/songwriter Duncan Sheik (Spring Awakening). THE CAUCASIAN CHALK CIRCLE will begin performances Friday, May 3 at CSC (136 East 13th Street) for a limited engagement through Sunday, June 9. The official opening is Thursday, May 30. Tickets are now on sale.

Artists Rep is thrilled to present the West Coast premiere of Jeffrey Hatcher's play Ten Chimneys from April 23 through May 26, 2013. This revealing comedy peers into the backstage lives of Broadway power-duo Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne and summers spent at their legendary Wisconsin estate, Ten Chimneys.

Austin Pendleton is set to play William Shakespeare in Abingdon Theatre Company's Off-Broadway premiere of Robert Brustein's THE LAST WILL, which he will also direct, beginning Friday, April 5 in the June Havoc Theatre (312 West 36th Street). Brustein's final installment of his trilogy examining the life of William Shakespeare, THE LAST WILL is set to open on April 17, with performances through May 5. OBIE Award-winner Austin Pendleton replaces actor Peter Cameron who has left the production.