Elijah Alexander News

Playwright Amy Freed has always been a Shakespeare fan. Her breakout hit, The Beard of Avon (SCR-commissioned and premiered, 2001), was a smart, funny look at the controversy surrounding the authorship of Shakespeare's plays. Now comes SHREW! (March 24-April 21, Segerstrom Stage), in which Freed has re-imagined The Bard's play, The Taming of the Shrew, as a wickedly funny love story of two people who find their way to true, deep and mutual love. Art Manke directs SHREW!, which is an anchor production of the 2018 Pacific Playwrights Festival. Tickets are available at www.scr.org.

The Guthrie Theater's WATCH ON THE RHINE is a timely historical reminder and an excellent production of Lillian Hellman's 1941 drama.

Berkeley Repertory Theatre presents Watch on the Rhine, Lillian Hellman's 1940s political thriller about loyalty, family, and sacrifice. The play, directed by Berkeley Rep's associate director Lisa Peterson, begins previews on Thursday, November 30, 2017 and runs through Sunday, January 14, 2018. Individual tickets begin at $30 and can be purchased online at berkeleyrep.org or by phone at 510 647-2949. Press night will be on Monday, December 4.

Critics and audiences agree: THE REAL THING is the real thing. Aurora Theatre Companyannounces that it will add an additional 2 matinee performances of THE REAL THING, Tom Stoppard's (The Coast of Utopia,Arcadia, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead) timeless comedy about an all-too-witty playwright who succumbs to the emotional ravages he puts his characters through, to the previously announced 7 performance extension. 

Aurora Theatre Company continues its 25th season with Tom Stoppard's (The Coast of Utopia, Arcadia, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead) timeless comedy about an all-too-witty playwright who succumbs to the emotional ravages he puts his characters through, THE REAL THING. Playwright Henry is not so happily married to Charlotte, the lead actress in his play about a marriage on the verge of collapse. When his affair with their friend, Annie, threatens to destroy his own marriage, he realizes that life has started imitating art. After Annie leaves her husband for Henry, he can't help but wonder whether their relationship is fiction or the real thing. Delectable and deeply affecting, THE REAL THING takes a look at the absolute chaos of love and trust, or lack thereof, and the passions that often blur our perceptions.

Due to popular pre-sale demand, Aurora Theatre Company announces that it will add an additional week of performances for THE REAL THING, Tom Stoppard's (The Coast of Utopia, Arcadia, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead) timeless comedy about an all-too-witty playwright who succumbs to the emotional ravages he puts his characters through. Timothy Near ("Master Harold"…and the boys) returns to Aurora to helm this Tony Award-winner for Best Play (1984) and Best Revival of a Play (2000), featuring Elijah Alexander, Liz Sklar, Carrie Paff (This Is How It Goes, A Delicate Balance, Collapse),Tommy Gorrebeeck (The Monster-Builder, The Eccentricities of a Nightingale), Seann Gallagher, and Emily Radosevich. THE REAL THING now plays through March 5th (added performances: Tuesday, February 28, 7pm; Wednesday, March 1, 8pm; Thursday, March 2, 8pm; Friday, March 3, 8pm; Saturday, March 4, 8pm; Sunday, March 5, 2pm, 7pm) at the Aurora Theatre in Berkeley. For tickets and information the public can call (510) 843-4822 or visit auroratheatre.org.

Aurora Theatre Company continues its 25th season with Tom Stoppard's (The Coast of Utopia, Arcadia, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead) timeless comedy about an all-too-witty playwright who succumbs to the emotional ravages he puts his characters through, THE REAL THING. Playwright Henry is not so happily married to Charlotte, the lead actress in his play about a marriage on the verge of collapse. When his affair with their friend, Annie, threatens to destroy his own marriage, he realizes that life has started imitating art. After Annie leaves her husband for Henry, he can't help but wonder whether their relationship is fiction or the real thing. Delectable and deeply affecting, THE REAL THING takes a look at the absolute chaos of love and trust, or lack thereof, and the passions that often blur our perceptions.

Philip Michael, from famous work as Pepper in Mamma Mia alongside Meryl Streep and Christine Baranski, has won a prestigious Award of Merit from The Best Shorts Film Competition.

Oh, the places you'll go! The Oregon Shakespeare Festival transports audiences to a ghostly Danish castle, dynastic China, and Oz's Emerald City when its outdoor theatre opens the weekend of June 17-19. The Allen Elizabethan Theatre will feature Hamlet, directed by Lisa Peterson; the classic 1970s musical The Wiz, directed by Robert O'Hara; and The Winter's Tale, directed by Desdemona Chiang. The shows will close the weekend of October 14-16.

The Tony Award-winning Oregon Shakespeare Festival will launch its 81st year with preview performances beginning on February 19, and the season officially kicking off Friday night, February 26 in the Angus Bowmer Theatre with Shakespeare's Twelfth Night (director, Christopher Liam Moore).

DISGRACED treads into a quicksand from which there is neither recovery, redemption, or revelation. There is only the sound and the fury of a soul adrift in the arid land of self-loathing and his irresistible pull toward tragedy. AZ Theatre Company does standup production but can't relieve play of its shortcomings. As explosive as its onstage fireworks and confessions are ~ and there is definitely no shortage of intensity in this play ~ DISGRACED ultimately falls flat, unsatisfying, and almost objectionable like an expired bromide ~ pop pop fizz fizz but no relief.

It clearly is more than evident at this dinner: politics and religion are two topics one would consider to be off topic at any social gathering. What playwright Ayad Akhtar's Disgraced shows is that both topics, central and crucial in one play, makes for an evening of theatre spent on the edge of your seat.

Seattle media have honored ACT's ambitious 2014-15 season with a number of awards. Details below!

Seattle Theater Writers critics' circle just announced the nomination slate of the fourth annual Gypsy Rose Lee Awards,theater awards devoted to recognizing excellence across the economic spectrum of professional Seattle theaters in the prior calendar year.

Oh my! It's been a hell of a year for the Seattle Theatre scene and I can say we've been quite fortunate to see the incredible shows we have. So many amazing shows in fact that picking just a few stand outs (let alone a "best") is a near impossibility. But I have searched the deep dark recesses of my memory to find the shows and performances that really stood out and stuck with me beyond the evening and throughout the year. And so, without further ado, I'm thrilled to present the BWW 2014 Seattle Critic's Choice Awards (or Jay's Picks). Let the awesomeness flow!

There are moments, Dear Reader, when you can encounter a work that can completely revitalize your love of good theater. Such was a moment for me the other night when I was lucky enough to catch ACT's production of "The Invisible Hand". I really wasn't sure what I was in for except that it was a play about politics and economics in Pakistan from Ayad Akhtar, the Pulitzer Prize winning author of "Disgraced". What I got was an absolutely gripping evening of theater thanks to a killer production and a riveting play that I cannot urge you enough to go see.

A Contemporary Theatre announces the west coast premiere of writer/actor Ayad Akhtar's The Invisible Hand, about an American investor kidnapped by a militant group in Pakistan. Akhtar won the Pulitzer Prize in 2013 for his play Disgraced, which opens on Broadway this fall. The Invisible Hand premiered at the Repertory Theatre of St. Louis studio series in 2012. Since then, Akhtar has continued development on the script, added a character, and he will participate in the creative process as the show develops in Seattle, spending time in the rehearsal room and audience preview process.

Los Angeles, CA

A Contemporary Theatre announces the west coast premiere of writer/actor Ayad Akhtar's The Invisible Hand, about an American investor kidnapped by a militant group in Pakistan. Akhtar won the Pulitzer Prize in 2013 for his play Disgraced, which opens on Broadway this fall. The Invisible Hand premiered at the Repertory Theatre of St. Louis studio series in 2012. Since then, Akhtar has continued development on the script, added a character, and he will participate in the creative process as the show develops in Seattle, spending time in the rehearsal room and audience preview process.

It is a chilling conclusion when Kimberly Scott repeats the text of the prologue again at the end of ROMEO AND JULIET while standing over the dead bodies of the lovers. You can hear the bitter warning in her voice as she slowly looks from one end of the stage to the other at two fathers who have paid the price of their feud in blood. As her weighty words hang in the air, the lights dim and Shakespeare Center of Los Angeles's magnificent production fades out.