Lillian Hellman News

"The Manor" is by now a Los Angeles/Beverly Hills institution, now in its 14th year and having surpassed its 200th performance in 2014. The show is a roman a clef, a fictionalization based on real events with the actual historical characters given new names. "The names have been changed to protect the guilty," is shared during the show's introduction to the audience. To lend authenticity to the tale, the show is presented in the grand and glorious architectural landmark in which the events of 87 years ago actually took place. Audience members are led from room to room in the lovingly restored marvelous Greystone Mansion as different scenes of the narrative are portrayed, leading up to a shocking and apparent murder and suicide.

On March 4, EgoPo presents the opening of Clare Boothe Luce's comic masterpiece, The Women with an all-female cast of 19. Directed by Artistic Director Lane Savadove, EgoPo Classic Theater continues their season of influential female playwrights with Luce, a woman who led an extraordinary life as a Broadway playwright, war journalist, congresswoman, ambassador, and Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient. The Women previews March 3 and opens Friday, March 4. The show runs three weeks, closing on Sunday March 20. Tickets start at $25. All performances are at the Latvian Society of Philadelphia on 7th and Spring Garden.

Winner of an Oscar, a Grammy, four Emmys, nine Tonys, three BAFTAs and many other awards, director, actor, writer, producer and comedian Mike Nichols (November 6, 1931 - November 19, 2014) was an artistic trailblazer. As the legendary comedy duo Nichols and May, Nichols and his partner Elaine May revolutionized comedy in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Now, May has directed the first documentary about her former partner, Mike Nichols: American Masters, premiering Friday, January 29, 2016, at 9 p.m. on PBS (check local listings) to launch the 30th anniversary season of THIRTEEN's AMERICAN MASTERS series. BroadwayWorld was there for the NYC premiere and you can check out photos below!

This American Blonde Actress and Mississippi Mud Productions announce the first dates of the 2016 tour of SHARON TATE IN HEAVEN, beginning in Los Angeles for a return engagement, and with additional tour dates to follow in Florida, New York City and Long Island, NY, coinciding with the worldwide release of a film for new media version. It will play on the West Coast on February 5th and 6th for two shows only at the Lee Strasberg Theatre & Film Institute on the the James Dean Soundstage, an 'environmental' TV studio setting.

Casting is complete for Henry Wishcamper's contemporary take on Thornton Wilder's The Matchmaker-the inspiration for the musical Hello, Dolly!, revealing social truths through mistaken identity, outrageous misbehavior and spontaneous romance.

Serenbe Playhouse and AIR Serenbe (the artist in residence program at Serenbe) are proud to announce a new play development program unlike any other: the 1st Annual New Territories Playwriting Residency, a Writers-in-Residence Program for Outdoor, Site-Specific Plays. New Territories will bring three playwrights to Chattahoochee Hills, GA to develop new outdoor, site-specific theatre from January 17-30, 2016.

The 'ReGroup Reads' series is gearing up for its second year. The free reading series, based on the best of American Theatre playwriting has already presented works by Paul Green, Tennessee Williams, Lillian Hellman, Maxwell Anderson, George S. Kaufman and more in its first year.

On January 23 and 30, 2016, Long Beach Opera (LBO) presents composer Leonard Bernstein's satiric romp Candide at the Center Theater in Long Beach, CA.  The eclectic score mixes everything from Viennese waltzes to soaring arias to Latin tangos.  Filled with unforgettable songs such as “Glitter and be Gay, “Oh, Happy We,” “I Am Easily Assimilated” and “Make Your Garden Grow,” Candide was called by Bernstein his “personal love letter to European music.” Adapted from Voltaire's novel, the operetta takes aim at political excess, social traditions and superstitions with an underlying warning against unfettered optimism. While beset by one calamity after another, including an earthquake, exile, war, slavery, robbery and even the Spanish Inquisition, the show's hero Candide and his true love Cunegonde cling to the belief that they live in “the best of all possible worlds.”  Candide's tuneful score and recognizable characters have made it an irresistible draw for audiences around the world. David Schweizer and his creative team will put a unique LBO spin on this all-time favorite.

With disarming candor, wry wit and sharp self-deprecation, Nichols delivered a master class on his craft in what would be his last in-depth interviews, for BECOMING MIKE NICHOLS, debuting MONDAY, FEB. 22, exclusively on HBO, following its world premiere at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, actress Kathleen Turner plans to take the title role in her own stage play, an adaptation of William Shakespeare's KING LEAR.

The bustle and chaos of the Friday evening pre-show crowds on West 47th Street on Broadway are a fitting contrast to the calm that emanates from venerable DC-based actor, Nancy Robinette, who kindly agreed to chat with me about making the move to Broadway as Mrs. Alexander, in the Tony Awards® Best Play of 2015, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. We met up in front of the Barrymore Theatre, Nancy's current professional home, but DC is very fortunate to call Nancy one of our own; she was raised in Arlington, graduated from Yorktown High School, and has graced the stages of Washington's most well-respected theaters over the years, including The Shakespeare Theatre Company, Arena Stage, Woolly Mammoth, Ford's Theatre and Studio Theatre. She's a Helen Hayes Award-winner for her work in Washington, and now the work has taken her a few hours north to make her Broadway debut; although to hear her tell, no matter the city or the theater, good work is good work, and Nancy is definitely familiar with lots of good work, having performed in every major DC theatre, Off Broadway at the New York Theatre Workshop and Roundabout Theatre Company, among others, Papermill Playhouse (New Jersey), at The Williamstown Festival (Massachusetts), and in cities around the country, including San Diego at The Old Globe.

Sometimes a flop Broadway show is better appreciated after closing, and may even return as a hit!

The Dramatists Guild defends playwrights against changes made to their work without expressed permission.

Award-winning director and University of Washington School of Drama professor Valerie Curtis-Newton will serve as co-curator of the 2016 Intiman Theatre Festival, which will be devoted to great American playwrights who are also inter-generational black female writers.

Might I offer some perhaps unsolicited advice? If you are dreading the upcoming holidays - Thanksgiving is just under three weeks away and Christmas is fast on its heels - and the typical upheaval precipitated by a trip 'over the river and through the woods' into the bosom of your family's particular brand of dysfunction, perhaps taking in a performance of ACT 1's production of Tracy Letts' August: Osage County would help you to gain some much-needed perspective. Because, trust me, your family (no matter how off-the-rails they may be at any given moment) can only compare favorably to the extended Weston clan of Pawhuska, Oklahoma.

May has directed the first documentary about her former partner, American Masters: Mike Nichols (w.t.), premiering Friday, January 29, 2016, on PBS (check local listings) to launch the 30 th anniversary season of THIRTEEN's American Masters series.

A Noise Within (ANW), the acclaimed classical repertory theatre, presents two free, staged readings this fall: Are You Now or Have You Ever Been by Eric Bentley, directed by Apollo Dukakis, on Wednesday, November 11 at 7 pm; and, on Monday, November 16 at 7PM, in partnership with East West Players, The Recognition of Shakuntala by Kalidasa, translated by W. J. Johnson, directed by Jonathan Munoz-Proulx. Both readings are performed as part of Words Within, A Noise Within's ongoing series of free play readings by resident artists. Both readings take place at A Noise Within, 3352 East Foothill Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91107.

The Public Theater announced today that Stacey Sargeant will join the cast of ECLIPSED as "Helena" beginning Tuesday, November 3.

Chicago's Eclipse Theatre Company, the Midwest's only theatre company to focus on a single playwright each season, will feature the works of Pulitzer Prize-winning American playwright Stephen Adly Guirgis for their 2016 Season.

'[Thank you] to an incredible cast of British and American actors who make the Atlantic look like a little creek you can just kind of pop across,' said Dame Helen Mirren upon receiving her 2015 Tony Award. The stage and screen star reprised her critically-acclaimed performance in THE AUDIENCE after a West End run in 2013, and she was just one of many to 'pop across' an ocean for a stab at Broadway.  An unprecedented amount of British talent took over Broadway last year, bringing us such productions as THE CURIOUS INCIDENT OF THE DOG IN THE NIGHT-TIME, WOLF HALL: PARTS 1 & 2, and SKYLIGHT.   It doesn't seem like the trend is ending anytime soon. This fall, Broadway will welcome a slew of British actors- some of whom will be making their US stage debuts in incoming productions. And it's not just performers. We're getting some complete British imports in shows like A VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE and KING CHARLES III. Below, we're taking a moment to shine a spotlight on this season's British imports.