Billie Holiday Theatre News

People's Light presents Mud Row, a world premiere play by recent Tony Award nominee Dominique Morisseau (Ain't Too Proud - The Life and Times of the Temptations). Two generations of sisters navigate class, race, love, and family on "Mud Row," an area in the East End of West Chester, Pennsylvania.

Max Crumm (You're The One That I Want) and Natasha Yvette Williams (Waitress) will star in a private industry reading of Douglas Lyons's new family comedy Chicken & Biscuits. Directed by Zhailon Levingston (Neptune), the full cast includes Danny Johnson (Daredevil, Luke Cage, Gotham), Pat Bowie (The Trip to Bountiful), Gayle Turner (The Wiz), Akira Golz (Matilda), Alana Raquel Bowers (What to Send Up, When it Goes Down), and Justin Sams (When We Rise).

Full casting has been announced for the staged reading of David Stallings' new drama Leonora, which will be performed at The Williams CME Institutional Church in Harlem on Monday June 3 at 7pm.

The award-winning Billie Holiday Theatre has today announced the world premiere of the ground-breaking A Walk Into Slavery.  As 2019 marks the 400th year of the first enslaved Africans brought to the Jamestown settlement in America, The Billie will present this multi-media meditation experience as it takes audiences on an evocative and emotional historical expedition to the genesis of the Transatlantic slave trade as seen through the lens of one man's journey.

On March 9 in Brooklyn and March 16 in Los Angeles, The Billie Holiday Theatre, in collaboration with Frank Silvera Writers' Workshop, presented its third annual monologue showcase, 50IN50: LETTERS TO OUR DAUGHTERS, to honor Women's History Month.

The monologue showcase 50 in 50: Letters to Our Daughters features an all-star cast of familiar names and faces from stage and screen, including Tony award-winning Broadway star LaChanze, actress Pauletta Pearson Washington, original Hamilton cast member Jasmine Cephas Jones, and actress and comedienne Phyllis Yvonne Stickney who bring to life letters written by 50 women of color about their hopes, dreams, regrets and fears for their daughters.

David Heron's Against His Will, the provocative legal drama in which a young Jamaican man accuses his female boss of sexually assaulting him, will return to The New Vibe Lounge in Rockville Centre Long Island following a sold out, standing room only performance at the venue last month.

Orchestra of St. Luke's (OSL) focuses its 2019 Music in Color Free Community Concerts series (March 23, 24, 28, April 4, April 7) and Free School Concerts programs on the music of Gabriela Lena Frank, an American composer of Peruvian, Chinese, and Lithuanian Jewish descent. Now entering its third year, Music in Color is OSL's annual initiative highlighting the works and lives of classical composers of color. The program was created to engage new audiences with classical music through dynamic, multidisciplinary concerts designed to be as entertaining as they are educational.

The Public Theater announced the sixth season of PUBLIC STUDIO today, which will present two new works this spring. Continuing The Public's commitment to nurturing new playwrights, the two productions will run in succession in The Public's Shiva Theater and be presented as pared-down productions with the low ticket price of $15. This vital program continues The Public's mission of making new work by emerging artists accessible to all audiences.

Audelco Award winning actors Maurice Carlton and Fulton C. Hodges have joined the cast of the staged reading of playwright Bless ji Jaja's drama Barberdashers- Haircuts and Male Grooming, an installment in the Frank Silvera Writer's Workshop monthly reading series in partnership with The Billie Holiday Theatre.

Audelco Award nominee Hector Lincoln will mark his return to the New York stage in David Heron's Against His Will- The Staged Reading, which will have its Long Island Premier at The New Vibe Lounge in Rockville Center, Long Island on Sunday February 17 at 7pm.

Today, influencer and talent manager ChiChi Anyanwu of the NYC Black Theater Network, Marcia Pendelton, President of Walk Tall Girl Productions/Black Theater Online, and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture (Kevin Young, Director, Schomburg Center) announced BLACK PLAYWRIGHTS: THEY SPEAK. WHO LISTENS? A Black Theater Winter Preview: Broadway and Off-Broadway Edition. The event is scheduled at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture (515 Malcolm X Blvd) on Monday, January 28, 2019 at 6:30 p.m. Four-time Tony Award-winning producer Ron Simons of SimonSays Entertainment (A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder, Porgy & Bess, Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, Jitney) will host the program whose purpose is to bring attention to the unprecedented number of plays by black playwrights being produced on Broadway and Off-Broadway this season.

Actor Nixon Cesar has joined the cast of the world premiere production of Paul Calderon's play, Master of The Crossroads which will open at The Bridge Theater next month for a limited run.

Award winning actress Johnnie Mae, who played the role of housekeeper Louann Pratt in season one of the Martin Scorsese produced Boardwalk Empire on HBO, has joined the cast of the staged reading of Janice Liddell's drama The Talk, an installment in the Frank Silvera Writers Workshop monthly reading series in partnership with The Billie Holiday Theatre.

The Billie Holiday Theatre (BHT) today announced its global call for stories for the third annual presentation of its popular 50in50: Letters to Our Daughters in collaboration with founding partner Frank Silvera Writers' Workshop (FSWW). MacArthur "Genius" Dominique Morisseau returns as curator for the piece and her curatorial statement calls women from all walks of life to tell their stories. A diverse group of 50 stories will be selected to be read by a renowned collective of women actors in Brooklyn, New York followed by the West Coast premiere at the dynamic and newly-created WACO Theater Center in Los Angeles, California. Readings will take place in March, 2019.

With the Young Vic's recent run of critical-success including The Convert currently running at Young Vic, The Inheritance at the Noel Coward Theatre and The Jungle now playing at St Ann's Warehouse in New York, Artistic Director of the Young Vic, Kwame Kwei-Armah, today announces the full cast for Stephen Adly Guirgis' Jesus Hopped the 'A' Train, directed by Kate Hewitt in the Main House, and April de Angelis' Wild East, directed by recipient of Genesis Future Directors Award, Lekan Lawal, in The Clare.

Geva Theatre Center's 2018-2019 Fielding Studio Series continues with the world premiere of The Magician's Daughter, written by Lila Rose Kaplan and directed by Shelley Butler. This production marks the second world premiere of the season, following hot on the heels of the world premiere of Brent Askari's Hard Cell - also premiering in January. The Magician's Daughter begins performances on January 24 and runs in the Fielding Stage through February 10.

Actor Nixon Cesar has joined the cast of the world premiere production of Paul Calderon's play, Master of The Crossroads which will open at The Bridge Theater next month for a limited run.

Broadway, film and television actress Lizan Mitchell, a Drama Desk Award nominee for The Trojan Women, has joined the cast of the staged reading of Tylie Shider's Parable of the Backyard Roots. The reading is an installment in the Frank Silvera Writers' Workshop monthly play reading series in partnership with The Billie Holiday Theatre, and will be held at The Billie on Monday, December 10 at 7 pm.

Actor Nixon Cesar has joined the cast of the world premiere production of Paul Calderon's play, Master of The Crossroads which will open at The Bridge Theater next month for a limited run.