Charles Ludlam News

The word 'ridiculous' carries a certain reverence in theatre circles and when Duncan Pflaster calls his new play, Prince Trevor Amongst The Elephants, 'a big epic naked ridiculous Shakespearean fairy tale play for adults,' those in the know catch it as a bow to the late, great Charles Ludlum. For twenty years, until his AIDS-related death in 1987, playwright/actor Ludlum was the major force in a theatre movement that had Brendan Gill of The New Yorker pronounce, 'This isn't farce. This isn't absurd. This is absolutely ridiculous!'

The Tony Award®-winning Old Globe is pleased to announce the cast of its 2009 Summer Shakespeare Festival, featuring two works by Shakespeare, Twelfth Night and Coriolanus, along with Edmond Rostand's celebrated classic, Cyrano de Bergerac. The three productions will be performed in nightly rotation in the Globe's outdoor Lowell Davies Festival Theatre June 13 - September 27, 2009.

This season the Dayton Playhouse has made quite a few improvements to their schedule and pricing. Their popular FlipSide series has been such a success that they?ve incorporated it directly into their MainStage series. This allows them to bring you ftheir general audience shows and two avant-garde shows within the format of their regular season. All shows will be full productions. Musicals will be on stage for three consecutive weekends, while plays will be on stage for two consecutive weekends.

THE OLD GLOBE announces calendar for May - August, 2009 Cornelia, By Mark Olsen Directed by Ethan McSweeny May 16 - June 21

Annex Theatre Company continues its 22nd season of production with the northwest premiere of Love's Tangled Web, a hellzapoppin sex farce written by Charles Ludlam and directed by Ed Hawkins. Love's Tangled Web opens on Friday, April 17, 2009, 8:00 p.m. curtain, and runs on Fridays and Saturdays at 8:00 p.m. through May 16, 2009 at Annex Theatre, located at 1100 East Pike Street, on Seattle's Capitol Hill. Pay-what-you-can performances will be held on April 24th and 25th, and an Industry Performance (open to the public) will be held on Monday, May 11th.

The Colonists is a lyrical visual fantasy, in which audiences are invited to enter the alien world of the bee. Developed in Bangkok by Nick Jones and Raja Azar, co-creators of the hit show Jollyship the Whiz-Bang, and developed through a Children's Show Grant by the Jim Henson Foundation, The Colonists tells the story of a forest community, overrun by a strange insect force they can't understand. Using electricified puppets, small-scale pyrotechnics and the music of Shooby Taylor the Human Horn, among others, The Colonists is a rite of spring to delight children and adults alike.

A young girl asks her father, where do plastic surgeons come from? What follows is a fantastical romp through pre-civilized Europe, via the medieval art and science of nosemaking. Our hero is Gavin, a young orphan rescued from a dismal existence in the Ivanhoe Workhouse for Criminally Impoverished Boys when he is apprenticed with the local Nosemaker, eventually to become one of the finest surgeons in Vienna, cradle of quack medicine.

With Neil A. Casey and John Kuntz on the scene, it's no mystery that the Lyric Stage Company has a very funny holiday hit on its hands

The production, produced by Horse Trade Theater Group and Grayce Productions, will play at UNDER St. Marks (94 St. Marks Place) November 5-8 & November 13-15 at 8pm, November 9 & 16 at 7pm.

Horse Trade Theater Group will present a Grayce Productions Revival of VICE GIRL CONFIDENTIAL by Todd Michael, Directed by Walter J. Hoffman. Previews begin November 5th with an official opening of November 7th. The play will conclude on November 16th.

13P (Thirteen Playwrights, Inc.), the OBIE Award-winning theater company made up of 13 playwrights, in association with Minetta Street Productions, will present the New York premiere of Sheila Callaghan's (P#7) 'CRAWL, FADE TO WHITE,' directed by Paul Willis. 'CRAWL. FADE TO WHITE' will be performed at the Ideal Glass Gallery (www.idealglass.org), 22 East 2nd Street (between Bowery and 2nd Avenue), with performances running from October 11 through November 1, 2008. The official opening night will be Monday, October 13 at 8:00 PM.

13P (Thirteen Playwrights, Inc.), the OBIE Award-winning theater company made up of 13 playwrights, in association with Minetta Street Productions, will present the New York premiere of Sheila Callaghan's (P#7) 'CRAWL, FADE TO WHITE,' directed by Paul Willis. 'CRAWL. FADE TO WHITE' will be performed at the Ideal Glass Gallery (www.idealglass.org), 22 East 2nd Street (between Bowery and 2nd Avenue), with performances running from October 11 through November 1, 2008. The official opening night will be Monday, October 13 at 8:00 PM.

Lou Spisto, Executive Producer of the Tony Award-winning Old Globe, is pleased to announce the Theatre's complete 2009 Summer Season.

WAKE UP MARCONI! is pleased to announce the production of THE SPITFIRE GRILL, directed by Robert Francis Perillo.

WAKE UP MARCONI! is pleased to announce the production of THE SPITFIRE GRILL, directed by Robert Francis Perillo.

CROSS-EYED BEAR PRODUCTIONS is pleased to announce the world premiere production of PRINCE TREVOR AMONGST THE ELEPHANTS, directed by Duncan Pflaster. PRINCE TREVOR AMONGST THE ELEPHANTS will play a limited engagement as part of the Midtown International Theater Festival at the June Havoc Theater (312 West 36th Street). Performances begin Wednesday, July 16th.

'Prince Trevor Amongst the Elephants' begins July 16th. Prince Trevor is a satire of Contemporary Politics, reflected in the Magic Mirror of Fairy Tales injected with 42 ccs of Shakespearean Verse, and dissected through the Ridiculous Theatrical style of Charles Ludlam.

CROSS-EYED BEAR PRODUCTIONS is pleased to announce the world premiere production of PRINCE TREVOR AMONGST THE ELEPHANTS, directed by Duncan Pflaster.

Arena Stage presents Charles Ludlam's comic masterpiece The Mystery of Irma Vep. This clever, quick-change marathon ransacks literary, cinematic and pop culture as it satirizes everything from Hitchcock's Rebecca and classic horror film The Mummy's Curse to Wuthering Heights and Shakespeare. Arena Stage is excited to welcome back Brad Oscar (Broadway's Spamalot and The Producers, Arena's Cabaret and Damn Yankees) and J. Fred Shiffman (The Arthur Miller Festival, She Loves Me, Cabaret) as they portray all of the characters--men, women and monsters--in this gender-bending 'tour de force.' The Mystery of Irma Vep runs June 6 - July 13 at Arena Stage in Crystal City. The press opening performance is Thursday, June 12 at 8:00 p.m.

In 1990 Penny Arcade created the now legendary Bitch! Dyke! Faghag! Whore!, her sex and censorship show, in response to the Senator Helms/National Endowment For The Arts censorship crisis. Now it returns in an exclusive Spiegeltent season for the first time in over a decade on Tuesday, September 11 at 10 p.m.