Kent Nicholson News

Theatre Aspen announced today that three-time Emmy, two-time Golden Globe and Grammy Award winner, as well as a two-time Screen Actors Guild Award nominee, Beau Bridges, has been added to the organization's inaugural one-person show festival, Solo Flights, in Coach: An Evening with John Wooden, a new one-character play about legendary basketball coach, John Wooden, written by John Wilder. Coach: An Evening with John Wooden will open the festival on Wednesday, September 18 at 7:00pm and play an encore performance on Saturday, September 21 at 4:00pm.

Lovers of new theatre will gather this August for an advance look at tomorrow's hits at TheatreWorks Silicon Valley's 2019 New Works Festival at Palo Alto's Lucie Stern Theatre. This unique festival offers audiences an extraordinary opportunity to experience new plays and musicals in their early stages of development, and hear about the creative process in a "Meet the Artists" panel discussion. With multiple performances of each work, playwrights and composers are able to revise and refine their shows during the festival, allowing audiences to view the exciting evolution of brand new pieces of theatre. The popular festival runs August 9 - 18, 2019 at the Lucie Stern Theatre, 1305 Middlefield Rd., Palo Alto. Festival passes ($65 general$49 season subscribers) and single event tickets ($20) can be purchased online at theatreworks.org or by calling (650) 463-1960.

Founding Executive Director Kathy Evans announced the 27 writers of nine new musicals for Rhinebeck Writers Retreat's summer weeklong residencies. This year's artists include Obie-winner Heather Christian, Kleban-winner Brian Crawley, TV and film writers Bekah Brunstetter (THIS IS US) and Cinco Paul (DESPICABLE ME), inaugural Stephen Schwartz Award winner Oliver Houser, and ASCAP Foundation scholarship winner Khiyon Hursey. The musicals cover a wide range of subjects. Four have LGBTQ themes: a historical look at Florida in the 1950s (IN A SUNSHINE STATE), a Palestinian/Israeli love story (BORDERS), a modern coming of age of a young black man (SEAN'S STORY PART I | THE AWAKENING), and a fantasy queer rock musical celebrating lady love (TL;DR: THELMA LOUISE; DYKE REMIX). Two are darkly comedic historical musicals: one featuring Mary Magdelene (A.D. 16) and the second a WWII plot to foil Hitler (OPERATION MINCEMEAT). Other subjects include the opioid crisis (ALMOST HEAVEN), the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 (THE GOLDEN SPIKE), and a mystery involving a woman with a sleep disorder (NARCOLEPSY).

The San Diego State University MFA Musical Theatre Program has launched an innovative two-year development program dedicated to fostering the creation of new musicals. The SDSU MFA New Musical Initiative was conceived with the idea of helping musical theatre writers develop a new work through a two-year process including a reading (fall 2018), a workshop (spring 2019) and a full production (spring 2020). After a competitive submission process, which saw over 120 new scripts and scores, the selection committee chose 'Til Death Do Us Part by Bobby Cronin and Caroline Prugh.

The American Music Theatre Project (AMTP) at Northwestern University's School of Communication will present workshop performances of three new music theater works as the 2018-2019 season continues.

La Vie Productions in association with Playwrights Horizons will present a private industry reading of Into the Wild, a new musical featuring a book and lyrics by Janet Allard and music and lyrics by Niko Tsakalakos, today, Friday, February 8, 2019 in NYC. Inspired by the book "Into the Wild" by Jon Krakauer and the photographic history of Chris McCandless' journey as shown in The McCandless Foundation's published work "Back to the Wild," the industry presentation will be directed by Lila Neugebauer with musical supervision/ arrangements by Brian Usifer.

Admittedly, after experiencing South Coast Repertory's potent and captivating new production of SWEENEY TODD: THE DEMON BARBER OF FLEET STREET, I'm hard pressed to remember the last time I was both this deeply moved and this excitedly riveted by Stephen Sondheim's macabre tale of a murderous barber hell-bent on exacting revenge. A curiously odd but strangely engrossing show peppered generously with dark humor, tragically-romanticized notions, and contrasting serious overtones, SWEENEY TODD's latest iteration in Orange County---now on stage in Costa Mesa through February 16, 2019---is a thrilling, quite distinctive new reinvention, that feels like a fresh pop-up play put on by a traveling Vaudevillian troupe that time-travelled from the past to give us modern audiences a live cautionary reenactment of a Penny Dreadful story that may just be too strange not to be true.

Nearly 40 years ago, Stephen Sondheim's bent-on-revenge barber, Sweeney Todd, sliced his way into the canon of musical theatre. The multi-award-winning Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street is next up on the Segerstrom Stage at South Coast Repertory, Jan. 19-Feb. 16. Kent Nicholson directs the production. Tickets are available at www.scr.org.

Chance Theater, Anaheim's official resident theater company, is delighted to produce the Regional Premiere of Lizzie, The Musical. With music by Steven Cheslik-deMeyer and Alan Stevens Hewitt, lyrics by Steven Cheslik-deMeyer and Tim Maner, a book by Tim Maner, with additional music by Tim Maner, additional lyrics by Alan Stevens Hewitt, based on an original concept by Steven Cheslik-deMeyer and Tim Maner, this musical's orchestrations are done by Alan Stevens Hewitt.

The Old Globe is expanding San Diego's celebration of the holidays with a world premiere American musical about family, faith, and the magic of Christmas. The Globe is delighted to announce the complete cast and creative team for Looking for Christmas, the new Clint Black Christmas musical, inspired by the country music legend's 1995 chart-topping holiday album. With music and lyrics by Clint Black, book by James D. Sasser with Black, based on an idea by Sasser and Black, music supervision and music direction by Matt Hinkley, and directed by Kent Nicholson, Looking for Christmas is currently running through December 16, 2018 in the Sheryl and Harvey White Theatre, part of the Conrad Prebys Theatre Center. Tickets start at $39.00 and are on sale to the general public now.

The Old Globe is expanding San Diego's celebration of the holidays with a world premiere American musical about family, faith, and the magic of Christmas. The Globe is delighted to announce the complete cast and creative team for Looking for Christmas, the new Clint Black Christmas musical, inspired by the country music legend's 1995 chart-topping holiday album. With music and lyrics by Clint Black, book by James D. Sasser with Black, based on an idea by Sasser and Black, music supervision and music direction by Matt Hinkley, and directed by Kent Nicholson, Looking for Christmas is currently running through December 16, 2018 in the Sheryl and Harvey White Theatre, part of the Conrad Prebys Theatre Center. Tickets start at $39.00 and are on sale to the general public now.

Clint Black and The 959 Group are thrilled to announce the new Clint Black musical, Looking for Christmas, will embark on a holiday tour in the 2019-20 season. The country music icon's new American musical will make its world premiere November 20, 2018 at The Old Globe in San Diego. Tour cities and dates will be announced at a later date.

The San Diego State University MFA Musical Theatre Program has launched an innovative two-year development program dedicated to fostering the creation of new musicals. The SDSU MFA New Musical Initiative was conceived with the idea of helping musical theatre writers develop a new work through a two-year process including a reading (fall 2018), a workshop (spring 2019) and a full production (spring 2020). 

The San Diego State University MFA Musical Theatre Program has launched an innovative two-year development program dedicated to fostering the creation of new musicals. The SDSU MFA New Musical Initiative was conceived with the idea of helping musical theatre writers develop a new work through a two-year process including a reading (fall 2018), a workshop (spring 2019) and a full production (spring 2020). 

Amas Musical Theatre (Donna Trinkoff, Artistic Producer) in celebration of its 50th season, will present Distant Thunder with book by Lynne Taylor-Corbett and Shaun Taylor-Corbett, music and lyrics by Chris Wiseman and Shaun Taylor-Corbett, with additional music and lyrics by Robert Lindsey-Nassif and Michael Moricz, the fourth and final new musical in development included in this year's 'Dare to Be Different' series. Performances are Thursday, December 6 at 3pm & 7pm and Friday, December 7 at 3pm at A.R.T./New York Theatres (502 West 53rd Street - 10th Avenue & 53rd Street).

The Old Globe will expand San Diego's celebration of the holidays with a world premiere American musical about family, faith, and the magic of Christmas. Clint Black's Looking for Christmas, inspired by the country music legend's 1995 chart-topping holiday album, features music and lyrics by Clint Black, book by James D. Sasser with Black, and music supervision and music direction by Matt Hinkley, and is directed by Kent Nicholson. Clint Black's Looking for Christmas begins performances on November 11 and has just been extended by popular demand through the holidays, running until Monday, December 31 in the Sheryl and Harvey White Theatre, part of the Conrad Prebys Theatre Center. Tickets start at $39.00 and are on sale to the general public now. Previews run November 11-19. Opening night is Tuesday, November 20 at 8:00 p.m.

The Old Globe will expand San Diego's celebration of the holidays with a world premiere American musical about family, faith, and the magic of Christmas. The Globe is delighted to announce the complete cast and creative team for Looking for Christmas, the new Clint Black Christmas musical, inspired by the country music legend's 1995 chart-topping holiday album. With music and lyrics by Clint Black, book by James D. Sasser with Black, based on an idea by Sasser and Black, music supervision and music direction by Matt Hinkley, and directed by Kent Nicholson, Looking for Christmas will run November 11 - December 16, 2018 in the Sheryl and Harvey White Theatre, part of the Conrad Prebys Theatre Center. Tickets start at $39.00 and are on sale to the general public now. Previews run November 11-19. Opening night is Tuesday, November 20 at 8:00 p.m.

Fall in Love Again with Paul Gordon's EMMA Now Streaming On-Demand. EMMA, a timeless love story from one of the most widely read writers of all time, is a musical that will entice modern audiences to fall in love again with one of Jane Austen's most adored heroines.

Theatre fans from all over the world will soon be able to experience the thrill and excitement of a new musical when Streaming Musicals (streamingmusicals.com) launches its debut production on Thursday, October 3.