Contemporary Stage News

Over the past 14 years the Seattle International Dance Festival (SIDF) has grown to three weeks of events and performances. This year's festival has attracted dance artists from Seattle, the United States and as far away as Benin/West Africa, Italy, Germany, Ireland and India. The festival kicks off on June 7th with an opening party and SHUFFLE; by Saturday June 8th the performances and activities hit full speed.

New Theatre from Spain presents the works of Spanish contemporary artists who defy the boundaries between disciplines, featuring a performance of the piece Kaspar Hausser by company LaPh rmaco and a creative workshop 'Listen, Breathe, Nourish: Dramaturgias In Situ' by playwright and director Marc Caellas, as well as a new piece by choreographer and dancer Luz Arcas. The event will feature an installation of screenings curated by doctoral students of the Theatre and Performance Department and the Department of Latin American, Iberian, and Latino Cultures (LAILAC) at The Graduate Center, CUNY including works by Ang lica Liddell, Sara Molina, Marc Caellas, and companies La Tristura, La Ph rmaco, El conde de Torrefiel and V rtebro. Positioned at the avant-garde of contemporary stage practices, these artists combine elements from theatre, dance, performance art, and visual arts, blurring the limits of playwriting and performing, and challenging the status of the text as the center of the theatrical experience.

First Stage concludes its 2018/19 mainstage season with a sparkling new adaptation of TINKER BELL, written by playwright Patrick Flynn and based on the works of Sir J.M. Barrie. This family-friendly adventure brings to the stage characters audiences know and love - Peter Pan, Wendy, the Lost Boys and Captain Hook - but told all from the unique perspective of the feisty fairy, Tinker Bell. With over a dozen different puppets, original music and even some potent fairy dust, Milwaukee families will get to experience theater magic at its best. The world of Neverland will come to life in the Todd Wehr Theater like it has never been seen before! Audience members young and old won't want to miss taking this fantastic voyage in TINKER BELL.

 Organized by the McNay Art Museum and drawn from the renowned Tobin Collection of Theatre Arts, America on Stage celebrates the vision of the nation's 20th- and 21st-century master designers on stages across the U.S. and around the world.

There's something for everyone in the Phoenix region's growing and robust world of theatre - from upstart to established companies, from black box to dinner theatre and theatre-in-the-round, from edgy and provocative to classics and family-friendly shows, from Broadway-inspired musicals to comedy and drama. Nonprofit theatre companies are leading the way in ensuring that Valley of the Sun audiences have as vital and diverse a selection of quality offerings as possible.

Announcing the world premiere of the Mount Auburn Plays, two series of site-specific plays created by Mount Auburn Cemetery's first Playwright Artist-in-Residence, Patrick Gabridge. Over the past two years Gabridge, an award-winning Boston playwright, has researched the stunning landscape and history of America's first garden Cemetery and 175-acre arboretum in the heart of Cambridge, MA, culminating in 10 brand new short plays to premiere as two sets of 5 unique plays each: The Nature Plays premiere June 1-9, 2019, highlighting the rich natural environment of Mount Auburn, and The America Plays premiere September 14-22, 2019, bringing to life just a few of the historic personalities resting eternally on the grounds and whose vision still resonate strongly in our American culture today. Each series will have 8 performances over the course of two weekends. Presented in partnership with Plays in Place.

The Drama League (Executive Artistic Director Gabriel Stelian-Shanks) presents DirectorFest 2019: The 35th Annual Directors Festival, the only festival in the United States exploring the art of contemporary stage directing, concludes with First Love andDeathwatch at the New Ohio Theatre (154 Christopher Street). Festival programming, tickets and additional details are available atwww.directorfest.org, or by calling (212) 244-9494.

 The Drama League (Executive Artistic Director Gabriel Stelian-Shanks) presents DirectorFest 2019: The 35th Annual Directors Festival, the only festival in the United States exploring the art of contemporary stage directing, adds to the festival a Bulgarian production of This is NOT Hamlet,  conceived and directed by Boyan Kracholov at LaGuardia Performing Arts Center (31-10 Thompson Street, Long Island City).  Festival programming, tickets and additional details are available at www.directorfest.org, or by calling (212) 244-9494.

The Drama League presents DirectorFest 2019: The 35th Annual Directors Festival, the only festival in the United States exploring the art of contemporary stage directing, continued into the second weekend with The Clitorish and Drunk Enough to Say I Love You? at the New Ohio Theatre (154 Christopher Street).

The Drama League (Executive Artistic Director Gabriel Stelian-Shanks) opened DirectorFest 2019: The 35th Annual Directors Festival, the only festival in the United States exploring the art of contemporary stage directing, last evening with the musical Marry Me A Little, Music and Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. Directed by 2018 Leo Shull Musical Theatre Directing Fellow Kemar Jewel, with music direction by Josh Kight at New Ohio Theatre (154 Christopher Street). Festival programming, tickets and additional details are available at www.directorfest.org, or by calling (212) 244-9494.

The Drama League presents DirectorFest 2019: The 35th Annual Directors Festival, the only festival in the United States exploring the art of contemporary stage directing, now in its 35th year. The festival will include six fully-staged productions, a showcase evening of a new musical, discussion forums, and conversations with notable American directors. DirectorFest will take place at various locations around NYC: New Ohio Theatre (154 Christopher Street), The Drama League Theater Center (32 Avenue of the Americas), LaGuardia Performing Arts Center (31-10 Thompson Avenue, Long Island City), and Joe's Pub (425 Lafayette Street). Festival programming, tickets and additional details are available at www.directorfest.org, or by calling (212) 244-9494.

The Drama League (Executive Artistic Director Gabriel Stelian-Shanks) has announced casting for DirectorFest 2019: The 35th Annual Directors Festival, the only festival in the United States exploring the art of contemporary stage directing. DirectorFest takes place at various locations around NYC: New Ohio Theatre (154 Christopher Street), The Drama League Theater Center (32 Avenue of the Americas), LaGuardia Performing Arts Center (31-10 Thompson Avenue, Long Island City), and Joe's Pub (425 Lafayette Street). Festival programming, tickets and additional details are available at www.directorfest.org, or by calling (212) 244-9494.

The Drama League announced today the 2019 line-up of DirectorFest, the only festival in the United States exploring the art of contemporary stage directing. For its 35th year, the festival will include six fully-staged productions, a showcase evening of a new musical, discussion forums, and conversations with America's notable directors. 

The Public Theater (Artistic Director, Oskar Eustis; Executive Director, Patrick Willingham) and the Onassis Foundation USA announced today six free performances of THE GOSPEL AT COLONUS, the groundbreaking re-telling of Sophocles' classic, for a limited engagement, September 4-9 at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park. With book, original lyrics, and direction by Lee Breuer and original music, adapted lyrics, and music direction by Bob Telson, the iconic musical returns to New York City for the first time since 2004 to celebrate the 35th Anniversary of the original production at the Brooklyn Academy of Music and to honor visionary director Lee Breuer for his lifetime of excellence and historic collaboration with The Public Theater.

THE GOSPEL AT COLONUS will return to New York this fall, lighting up the Delacorte Theater in September.

The Playwrights Realm (Katherine Kovner, Founding Artistic Director; Roberta Pereira, Producing Director) today announced that Alexis Williams, a former agent at Bret Adams Artists' Agency who has surefootedly assumed multiple roles within the theatre industry, will be joining the company's dynamic team as their first-ever Associate Artistic Director.

Quintessence Theatre Group celebrates its 8th birthday with the second production of its new Family Classics Series: a world premiere of Mark Twain's The Prince and the Pauper. Adapted and directed by Quintessence ensemble member Josh Carpenter, The Prince and the Pauper is one of Mark Twain's best works of young adult fiction - a humorous and poignant tale of class consciousness, mistaken identity and self-discovery set in Tudor England. All performances are at the Sedgwick Theater, 7137 Germantown Ave., Mt. Airy, Philadelphia, 19119. To purchase tickets, visit www.Quintessencetheatre.org or call 215.987.4450.

Quintessence Theatre Group celebrates its 8th birthday with the second production of its new Family Classics Series: a world premiere of Mark Twain's The Prince and the Pauper. Adapted and directed by Quintessence ensemble member Josh Carpenter, The Prince and the Pauper is one of Mark Twain's best works of young adult fiction - a humorous and poignant tale of class consciousness, mistaken identity and self-discovery set in Tudor England. All performances are at the Sedgwick Theater, 7137 Germantown Ave., Mt. Airy, Philadelphia, 19119. To purchase tickets, visit www.Quintessencetheatre.org or call 215.987.4450.

Berkshire Theatre Group (BTG) welcomes Argentine based dance company, Che Malambo to The Colonial Theatre on Sunday, April 22 at 2pm. Tickets are $40.

Quintessence Theatre Group continues its blockbuster Season VIII with The Power and Idealism Repertory: Shakespeare's JULIUS CAESAR presented in rotating repertory with Henrik Ibsen's THE WILD DUCK. Striving for gender parity, Quintessence welcomes an A-list eleven-actor ensemble composed of Quintessence favorites and Philadelphia's best to explore new adaptations of two timely classics. As America's democracy is being tested, and the #metoo movement is challenging us all to reconsider America's complex history with patriarchy and the assault of women, directors Alexander Burns and Rebecca Wright revive these harrowingly relevant dramatic masterpieces to join in the conversation.