Heather Raffo News

People's Light invites you back to the theatre for its 2021/2022 Season, featuring outrageous comedies, tour de force performances, Tony Award nominees, and three music-filled world premieres. 

The New York Youth Symphony Musical Theater Songwriting Program (NYYS) and Director Anna K. Jacobs have announced the 2021/2022 Season. Heading into its fourth season the NYYS Musical Theater Songwriting program is specially designed to lead students through a range of musical theater songwriting processes. 

Aurora Theatre Company kicks off its 30th season with Dael Orlandersmith's STOOP STORIES. Elizabeth Carter (Eureka Day, The Heir Apparent, Wittenberg, Trouble In Mind) directs Jeunée Simon (The Bluest Eye) in this poetic one-hander comprised of stories drawn from Orlandersmith's personal life and limitless imagination.

About a week after the ball dropped in Times Square and ended 2020, I swore off acting on Zoom. It had been a good run. I hadn’t reached the decision out of frustration or disappointment. I was just burned out. From the beginning of lockdown in New York to the start of 2021, I was acting into my computer anywhere between two and nine times a week: improv shows, improv classes, sketch shows, character classes, a Shakespeare play, a film noir radio play—if I had the time I would do it. While these shows and classes were fun and stimulating, acting day after day in my bedroom, to my laptop, was getting exhausting. I planned to step away for a little while to choose my next move. Enter: Atlantic Acting School.

This fall, Marin Theatre Company will present the West Coast Premiere of Obie Award winner and Pulitzer Prize finalist Adam Rapp’s riveting new American play, The Sound Inside. A brilliant Ivy League writing professor. A talented yet mysterious student. An unthinkable favor. Everyone has a story—the question is how it ends.

Each play will be streamed twice. Full festival passes including both weekends, and separate passes for each weekend are available. Limited individual play tickets will be available at a later date.  Learn more about how to purchase tickets here!

Williamstown Theatre Festival has announced the recipient of the 2021 L. Arnold Weissberger New Play Award and the 2022 Jay Harris Commission, as well as recipients of 2021 WTF Commissions through WTF’s Andrew Martin-Weber New Play and Musical Commissioning Program.

New American Voices, Queens Theatre's new play development program, is continuing to present its 2021 Spring Reading Series consisting of three new virtual productions showcasing writers who represent the rich cultural diversity of the evolving populations of Queens.

New American Voices (NAV), Queens Theatre's new play development program, will present its 2021 Spring Reading Series consisting of three new virtual productions showcasing writers who represent the rich cultural diversity of the evolving populations of Queens.

The Old Globe today announced the cast and creative team of The Old Globe and University of San Diego Shiley Graduate Theatre Program's presentation of William Shakespeare's enchanting comedy classic A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Playwrights Horizons today announced a new rotating public art series to be displayed on the front of the company’s 42nd Street building, beginning on January 19, 2021, with new work by street and subway artist Jilly Ballistic.

Playwrights Horizons has launched a new literary magazine, Almanac. Established at a time of pandemic and protest, Almanac is a new kind of publication-one in which a theater and the artists who comprise it come together to take stock of contemporary American politics, culture, and playwriting.

Chautauqua Theater Company (CTC), under the leadership of Artistic Director Andrew Borba and Managing Director Sarah Clare Corporandy, will preserve its commitment to new work development by presenting virtual workshops of Charly Evon Simpson's it's not a trip it's a journey, directed by Nicole A. Watson, on July 15, and Heather Raffo's Tomorrow Will Be Sunday (working title), directed by Jenny Koons, on July 22. Both New Play Workshop performances will be offered at no cost; viewers will be encouraged to provide a donation to benefit Chautauqua Institution's Arts Education initiatives in local schools. 

a??a??a??a??a??a??a??Portland Center Stage has joined the national theater project Play at Home and has commissioned four Portland playwrights to create short plays. The new script offerings are Sara Jean Accuardi's Joy Frickin' Hates Her Dumb Stupid Room, E. M. Lewis' The Third Prisoner, Anya Pearson's Three Love Songs, and Josie Seid's Wing and a Prayer.

PLAY AT HOME, the new micro-commissioning initiative begun by Baltimore Center Stage, Long Wharf Theatre, The Public Theater, The Repertory Theatre of St. Louis and Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, has announced their 100th playwright commission, ensuring that $50,000 has gone directly to playwrights in need in this time of crisis.

The McKnight Foundation and Playwrights' Center are continuing to invest in the future of theater by supporting some of today's most promising playwrights through the McKnight National Residency and Commission and McKnight Fellowships in Playwriting. The awards are all the more pertinent as many theater-makers face unprecedented challenges during this moment of crisis.

Writers Sahar Jahani (Ramy, 13 Reasons Why, Just One Night), Sylvia Khoury (Selling Kabul, Power Strip, Against the Hillside), and Heather Raffo (Noura, 9 Parts of Desire) will comprise Noor Theatre's second Artists Advancing Cultural Change Cohort in partnership with Pop Culture Collaborative to develop a new piece in a medium of their choice.

The Old Globe continues to add free online programs and new dates for existing ones, all part of The Old Globe's ongoing commitment to serve the public good by providing programs that make theatre matter to more people.

The Old Globe believes that theatre matters, now more than ever, and is determined to continue to serve the public through theatre art. We consider it paramount that we continue to be a leader in programming for our community, and continue to support and maintain valued connections with those hungering for artistic content and continued personal growth. We are happy to announce additional free online programs, rescheduled dates for our valued summer Shakespeare classes, and a fundraising campaign, all part of The Old Globe's ongoing commitment to serve the public good by providing programs that make theatre matter to more people.

Late last month, a small group of regional and not-for-profit theatres, all committed to finding ways to keep people connected to live theatre, came together by phone and email and Zoom to create the Play At Home project, a series of short plays commissioned specifically for this moment of unprecedented isolation to inspire joy and connection for all.