Chris Smith News

TheatreWorks, the nationally-acclaimed theatre of Silicon Valley, celebrates its 40th Anniversary season and commitment to the creation and development of new works with its New Works Festival ?09, sponsored by Microsoft. The eighth annual Festival commences July 15 with the world premiere production of Tinyard Hill, a rousing new musical by Tommy Newman and 2009 Jonathan Larsen Award-winning composer Mark Allen. This season?s festival, held in Palo Alto at the Lucie Stern Theatre, will feature workshops of new works by artists including Chris Smith, Raquel Bitton, Darrah Cloud , Kim D. Sherman, Joe DiPietro, Brendan Milburn, Valerie Vigoda, Laura Schellhardt, Rajiv Joseph, Kait Kerrigan, and Brian Lowdermilk, in addition to stunning concerts by Grammy-winning vocalist Maureen McGovern, and the nationally acclaimed singer and composer, Vienna Teng. Tickets go on sale May 29 at 650-463-1960 or theatreworks.org.

PlayGround, San Francisco's incubator for the next generation of playwrights, caps off its 2008-09 season with The Best of PlayGround 13: A Festival of New Writers & New Plays. The festival presents seven 10-minute plays selected from the 36 works developed as part of the season's Monday Night PlayGround staged reading series at Berkeley Repertory Theatre.

Following the buzz of last year's Bug, Who Wants Cake? offers another powerhouse Tracy Letts play: the pitch black, trailer-trash comedy, Killer Joe. Opening Friday, April 3 rd and playing for an exclusive four-week engagement ending on Monday, April 27 th , Killer Joe will play Fridays-Mondays at Ferndale's popular Ringwald Theatre.

PlayGround, San Francisco's incubator for the next generation of playwrights, caps off its 2008-09 season with The Best of PlayGround 13: A Festival of New Writers & New Plays. The festival presents seven 10-minute plays selected from the 36 works developed as part of the season's Monday Night PlayGround staged reading series at Berkeley Repertory Theatre.

Following the buzz of last year's Bug, Who Wants Cake? offers another powerhouse Tracy Letts play: the pitch black, trailer-trash comedy, Killer Joe. Opening Friday, April 3 rd and playing for an exclusive four-week engagement ending on Monday, April 27 th , Killer Joe will play Fridays-Mondays at Ferndale's popular Ringwald Theatre.

In the Baltimore premiere of Killer Joe by Tracy Letts, the Smith family, mired by economic turmoil, is forced to squeeze into a small trailer on the outskirts of Dallas, TX. Chris Smith, the family's outcast son, needs a quick solution to his mounting debt and ruthless collectors. Chris stumbles upon Killer Joe Cooper, a detective who moonlights as a can't-miss hit-man, and he cooks up a sinister scheme targeting his mother's large life insurance policy. Tracy Letts, who was recently awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, Drama Desk Award and Tony Award for Best Play for his play, August: Osage County, is the son to Best-Selling author Billie Letts and actor Dennis Letts.

In the Baltimore premiere of Killer Joe by Tracy Letts, the Smith family, mired by economic turmoil, is forced to squeeze into a small trailer on the outskirts of Dallas, TX. Chris Smith, the family's outcast son, needs a quick solution to his mounting debt and ruthless collectors. Chris stumbles upon Killer Joe Cooper, a detective who moonlights as a can't-miss hit-man, and he cooks up a sinister scheme targeting his mother's large life insurance policy. Tracy Letts, who was recently awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, Drama Desk Award and Tony Award for Best Play for his play, August: Osage County, is the son to Best-Selling author Billie Letts and actor Dennis Letts.

Just in time for Abraham Lincoln's 200th Birthday, The SF Playhouse brings you the World Premiere of Abraham Lincoln's Big Gay Dance Party by Aaron Loeb (First Person Shooter) commissioned and originally developed by PlayGround, (James A. Kleinmann, Artistic Director).

Just in time for Abraham Lincoln's 200th Birthday, The SF Playhouse brings you the World Premiere of Abraham Lincoln's Big Gay Dance Party by Aaron Loeb (First Person Shooter) commissioned and originally developed by PlayGround, (James A. Kleinmann, Artistic Director).

Just in time for Abraham Lincoln's 200th Birthday, The SF Playhouse is thrilled to bring you the World Premiere of Abraham Lincoln's Big Gay Dance Party by Aaron Loeb (First Person Shooter) commissioned and originally developed by PlayGround, (James A. Kleinmann, Artistic Director).

The Central Heating Lab at ACT hosts the final RAWSTOCK film and music festival of 2008, RAWSTOCK ATTACKS! on October 17 at 8:45 p.m. RAWSTOCK ATTACKS! closes the 2008 season with a fantastic lineup of darkly themed entertainment chock full of grindhouse, horror and black comedy. Featured are: Chris Smith's Delivery, Nash Edgerton's Lucky and Calvin Lee Reeder's Little Farm. Alex Ferrari and Jason Biggs provide cutting edge animation with Red Princess and Broken respectively.

Magic Theatre announced that Steve Yockey's Octopus, a co-production with San Francisco's Encore Theatre Company, will replace the previously announced Wendy MacLeod's Birnham Woods as the sixth play of its 2007-08 Season of New Plays.

Magic Theatre continues its 2007-08 Season of New Plays with the world premiere of Edna O'Brien's Tir na nOg ('Land of Youth') performs February 23 - March 23, 2008 at Magic's Sam Shepard Theatre.

Actress and comedian Carol Burnett will return to the stage in the world premiere of What's Been Bothering You Lately?, a new play by Charles Grodin that will open on October 26th at the Falcon Theatre in Burbank, CA and run through November 18th as part of the theatre's sixth subscription series. Producer/Director Garry Marshall has formally announced the sixth subscription series, 'Comedy Tonight! (and matinees, too)' to be presented at his FALCON THEATRE in Burbank, California. The series will feature five plays, all comedies, including two World Premieres.

Coyote REP at the Players Club will present a free reading of Mat Smart's newest play Telescopes on Monday, July 16th 2007 at 7pm at the Players Club

Magic Theatre, the premiere home for new plays, announces its 2007-08 Season of six world premiere productions. Opening September 2007 and running through June 2008, the season brings together Magic Theatre veterans and Bay Area newcomers with a compelling mix of theatrical storytelling.

Armed and Naked in America, a project by non-profit theater organization Naked Angels, is a series of new one-act plays inspired by the current state of American culture and politics

Magic Theatre continues its 40th Anniversary Season with HOT HOUSE 2007 featuring the best of 'three world premiere plays by playwrights from a new generation shaping the future of American Theatre.' In its fourth year, HOT HOUSE presents full productions of new plays in rotating repertory by Chantal Bilodeau, Kirsten Greenidge and C. Michele Kaplan.

Christopher Durang, Frank Wildhorn, Lauren Kennedy and Jarrod Emick were among those who scored Barrymore Award nominations

The Magic Theatre production of the critically acclaimed Killer Joe will play its final performance on Sunday, August 13th at 7:30PM, having played over 70 performances and 9 previews.