Long Wharf Theatre News

After recent star turns on Failed Intervention and Semi-Celebrity Rehab, Varla Jean Merman has bottomed out. With nowhere to go but up, everyone's favorite deluded diva sets her sights on the ultimate challenge: topping herself! Submitting to her star power, can Varla's legion of fans take bigger wigs, bottomless talent, throatier singing, and lower standards? Snatch up your tickets now to see if Varla can give as well as she takes. Varla Jean Merman in Topping Myself featuring Gerald Goode at the piano runs June 29th - Sept 1st at The Art House in Provincetown. For tickets, visit www.ptownarthouse.com.

Producers Carole Black and Pat Mitchell announced today that EMOTIONAL CREATURE, the new play written by Tony Award®-winning playwright, performer, activist, and The Vagina Monologues author Eve Ensler, will get a New York premiere this fall.

The Connecticut Critics Circle has named Quiara Alegaria Hudes' WATER BY THE SPOONFUL as the best play of the 2011-2012 season. The CCC awards ceremony is scheduled to be held today, June 24 at 2PM at the Mark Twain House & Museum, and is open to the public.

A celebration of the life of Tony Award-winning producer and noted director Burry Fredrik (1925-2012) will be hosted by Westport Country Playhouse on Sunday, July 1, 3 p.m. The tribute will be in the campus' Lucille Lortel White Barn Center's Sheffer Rehearsal Studio, 25 Powers Court, Westport, CT. A reception will follow. Fredrik died in her Weston, Connecticut home on May 22 caused by complications from a stroke she suffered over two years ago.

After recent star turns on Failed Intervention and Semi-Celebrity Rehab, Varla Jean Merman has bottomed out. With nowhere to go but up, everyone's favorite deluded diva sets her sights on the ultimate challenge: topping herself! Submitting to her star power, can Varla's legion of fans take bigger wigs, bottomless talent, throatier singing, and lower standards? Snatch up your tickets now to see if Varla can give as well as she takes. Varla Jean Merman in Topping Myself featuring Gerald Goode at the piano runs June 29th - Sept 1st at The Art House in Provincetown. For tickets, visit www.ptownarthouse.com.

Theater Breaking Through Barriers (TBTB), the renowned Off-Broadway company known for its productions that integrate able-bodied actors with artists with disabilities, presents MORE OF OUR PARTS - its second annual festival of short plays about disabilities and the people affected by them, featuring world premieres by Neil LaBute, A.R. Gurney, Bekah Brunstetter, Bruce Graham, Samuel D. Hunter, and Jeffrey Sweet - with performances to run tonight, June 21 through July 1 at Theatre Row's Clurman Theatre (410 West 42nd Street). TBTB artistic director and founder Ike Schambelan, Tony-nominee Pamela Birch, Christopher Burris, TBTB company member Christina Roussos, and Russell Treyz, and direct.

REBECCA, the new musical based on the classic novel by Daphne du Maurier novel, has found its male and female leads: Jill Paice will play the role of "I" and Ryan Silverman the role of "Maxim de Winter." REBECCA will open on Broadway Sunday, November 18 at The Broadhurst Theatre. Previews will begin Tuesday, October 30.

Westport Country Playhouse stages the National Book Award-winning memoir, "The Year of Magical Thinking" by Joan Didion, now through June 30, featuring noted actress Maureen Anderman as Didion. Directed by Nicholas Martin, the play is based on the author's actual experience rebuilding her life during the year after her spouse's death and her capacity to emerge strengthened from even the most shattering of life's trials. Watch the video below for behind-the-scenes interviews with Artistic Director Mark Lamos, Director Nicholas Martin and actor Maureen Anderman!

The Colony Theatre presents the first production of its "Season of Premieres" with the Los Angeles Premiere of THE SAVANNAH DISPUTATION, written by Evan Smith and directed by award-winning Cameron Watson, the show stars three-time Los Angeles Drama Critics Award-winning actress Anne Gee Byrd. THE SAVANNAH DISPUTATION opens tonight, June 16 at 8:00pm and continues through Sunday, July 8 at The Colony Theatre, 555 North Third Street (at Cypress) adjacent to the Burbank Town Center.

Lookingglass Theatre Company presents the world premiere of EASTLAND: A NEW MUSICAL, written by Artistic Director Andrew White with music by Ben Sussman and Artistic Associate Andre Pluess and directed by Amanda Dehnert. The production runs June 6 - July 29, 2012 at Lookingglass Theatre Company, located inside Chicago's historic Water Tower Water Works, 821 N. Michigan Ave. at Pearson. The Press Opening is tonight, June 16, 2012 at 7:30 p.m.

The Old Globe today announced the cast and creative team for the West Coast Premiere of Divine Rivalry by Michael Kramer with D. S. Moynihan.

According to the Daily Mail, RAGTIME's Rosalie Craig will join the new stage musical Finding Neverland, about J.M. Barrie's encounter with the Lewelyn Davies family, which inspired him to write Peter Pan.

Westport Country Playhouse stages the National Book Award-winning memoir, "The Year of Magical Thinking" by Joan Didion, now through June 30, featuring noted actress Maureen Anderman as Didion. Directed by Nicholas Martin, the play is based on the author's actual experience rebuilding her life during the year after her spouse's death and her capacity to emerge strengthened from even the most shattering of life's trials. See below for Anderman playing Didion on stage!

Second Stage Theatre will present the world premiere musical, DOGFIGHT. Previews begin June 27 in anticipation of a July 16 opening. Nick Blaemire (Godspell) joins the previously announced Annaleigh Ashford (Rent, Wicked, Legally Blonde), Becca Ayers (The Addams Family, Avenue Q), Steven Booth (Glory Days), Dierdre Friel (Leap of Faith), Adam Halpin (Glory Days), F. Michael Haynie (Carrie), Derek Klena (Carrie), Lindsay Mendez (Godspell, Second Stage's Everyday Rapture), James Moye (Million Dollar Quartet), and Josh Segarra (Lysistrata Jones).

Westport Country Playhouse stages the National Book Award-winning memoir, "The Year of Magical Thinking" by Joan Didion, now through June 30, featuring noted actress Maureen Anderman as Didion. Directed by Nicholas Martin, the play is based on the author's actual experience rebuilding her life during the year after her spouse's death and her capacity to emerge strengthened from even the most shattering of life's trials.

The Long Wharf Theatre staff is ready to hand over the Mainstage to Petra Construction for demolition and renovation.

Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater produces the 2011 Tony Award-winning production of Larry Kramer's The Normal Heart, directed by George C. Wolfe. Wolfe, who directed the show's sold-out Broadway engagement last season, mounts the professional D.C.-area premiere of this production, which features returning Broadway cast members Patrick Breen and Luke MacFarlane, among others. Presented by special arrangement with Daryl Roth, The Normal Heart runs tonight, June 8-July 29, 2012 in the Kreeger Theater.

Three-time Tony Award-nominated actor Marc Kudisch will play the title role in Westport Country Playhouse's July staging of Moliere's "Tartuffe," directed by David Kennedy, Playhouse associate artistic director.