Lynn Nottage News

Court Theatre and playwright Nambi E. Kelley have received the Prince Prize for Commissioning Original Work for 2018. Prince Charitable Trusts makes an award of $75,000 each year to a major Chicago dance, music, visual arts or theater company. When the Trust approached Court Theatre about projects that might fit their vision for the Prize, it was only natural to ask playwright Nambi E. Kelley to create an original play based on the story of Stokely Carmichael's activism and legacy for the stage. In 2014, Kelley had adapted Richard Wright's Native Son for Court Theatre in a co-production with American Blues Theatre that garnered great critical and popular acclaim. Another collaboration would build upon these successes.

Following a sold-out performance at The Boxcar at Steep in January, THIN MINTS returns with a free public reading on Sunday, May 5 at 11 am. The play has been programmed into Prop Theatre's Church of the New Play series. The reading will mark the next step in the play's development process which included a workshop production at Columbia University in 2016 and subsequent developmental readings and workshops in Chicago in 2018 and 2019. Audience members are encouraged to participate in a post-show discussion with the playwright, director, and cast.

Today, April 15 (3pm EST), Pulitzer Prize Administrator Dana Canedy will announce the winners of the the 2019 Pulitzer Prizes, including the finalists and winners for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. This announcement marks the 103rd year of the Prizes. For more information on this year's and all past years' winners and finalists, please visit http://www.Pulitzer.org.

Closing out the Town Hall Theatre 2018/19 Lost & Found Season with a bang is WOMEN ON THE VERGE OF A NERVOUS BREAKDOWN, a sizzling musical farce of female resilience, with book by Jeffrey Lane, music and lyrics by David Yazbek, based on the Academy Award nominated film by Pedro Almod var. WOMEN ON THE VERGE OF A NERVOUS BREAKDOWN will have 12 performances, including two previews, May 30 through June 22, 2019, at Town Hall Theatre Company, 3535 School Street, in Lafayette, CA. Tickets are $18 - $35, and are available through the Box Office at (925) 283-1557 or online at www.TownHallTheatre.com.

The New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) inducted three arts luminaries into its Hall of Fame during its annual benefit on April 11 at Capitale.

Columbia University School of the Arts presents seven new plays written by the Columbia MFA Playwriting Students of 2019. The esteemed faculty who have nurtured these students, including Tony©, Pulitzer, and Obie Award winners such as Charles Mee, Lynn Nottage, and David Henry Hwang invite you to experience these innovative new playwrights.

The Brown/Trinity Rep MFA Programs end their 2018-19 season with two plays in rep, How We Got On by Idris Goodwin, and She Kills Monsters by Qui Nguyen. She Kills Monsters, directed by Tatyana-Marie Carlo ('20) tackles grief through one of the most popular role-playing games, Dungeons & Dragons. How We Got On, directed by Josiah Davis('20), is a coming-of-age story for three young hip hop artists in the suburbs growing up alongside a new genre of music. All performances will take place in rep from May 3 - 19 at thePell Chafee Performance Center, 87 Empire Street, Providence. Tickets are on sale now at Trinity Rep's box office, by phone (401) 351-4242, or online atwww.TrinityRep.com/MFAShows.

Love hurts, and for some couples, that's the point. Over the course of 30 years, the lives of Kayleen and Doug intersect at the most bizarre intervals, leading the two childhood friends to compare scars and the physical calamities that keep drawing them together.

Lynne Meadow (Artistic Director) and Barry Grove (Executive Producer) are pleased to announce the complete casting for the world premiere of Continuity, the new play by Lortel and Drama Desk Award nominee Bess Wohl (Small Mouth Sounds, American Hero) and directed by Tony Award nominee Rachel Chavkin (Hadestown; Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812). The production will feature Max Baker (1984, The Explorers Club), Jasmine Batchelor (The River), Rosal Colon ('Orange is the New Black,' Between Riverside and Crazy), Curran Connor (Pidgeon, A Picture of Autumn), Garcia ('Tales of the City'), Darren Goldstein (Lillian Hellman's The Little Foxes, The Madrid), Alex Hurt (Cardinal, The Whirligig) and Megan Ketch (The Big Wedding, 'American Gothic').

Pioneer Theater Company stages a riveting SWEAT. The production is more than worthy of the drama's credentials as a 2017 Best Play Tony nominee and winner of the year's Pulitzer Prize.

For its final concerts of the 2018-2019 season, New Amsterdam Singers, led by Music Director Clara Longstreth, will present music with roots in Argentina and Spain, featuring Misa a Buenos Aires/Misatango for chorus, strings, bandoneon, and piano by Argentine-born Martín Palmeri; two works by Astor Piazzolla from his cycle, Four Seasons of Buenos Aires; and Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco's Romancero Gitano for chorus and guitar, on poetry by Federico Garcia Lorca. The concerts will take place Thursday, May 16, at 8:00 p.m., and Sunday, May 19, 2019, at 3:00 p.m., at The Church of the Holy Trinity, 316 East 88th Street (between First and Second Avenues).

The Off-Broadway League today announced nominations in 19 categories - and bestowed one special award - for the 34th Annual Lucille Lortel Awards for Outstanding Achievement Off-Broadway. The Awards will be handed out on Sunday, May 5, 2019 at NYU Skirball Center for Performing Arts, beginning at 7:00pm EST. The Lucille Lortel Awards are produced by the Off-Broadway League by special arrangement with the Lucille Lortel Theatre Foundation. Additional support is provided by TDF. Beloved and celebrated entertainer, Wayne Brady, will emcee the ceremony.

Trinity Repertory Company's improved financial health and commitment to accountability and transparency have earned it a 4-star rating from Charity Navigator, America's largest independent charity evaluator. This is the first time that Trinity Rep has earned this accolade, and is one of only five charities in Rhode Island to hold this distinction.

By popular demand, Goodman Theatre adds five performances of Sweat by Lynn Nottage, directed by Ron OJ Parson-on stage through April 21.

From Founding Artistic Director, Ari Roth: 'The eight amazing plays in Mosaic's 5th Anniversary Season offer up Stages of Awakening-urgent, exhilarating and humble-that hurtle our characters, and by extension, us, forward to new levels of awareness, puncturing bubbles of pretension along the way. To be 'woke' is to be no longer in the dark about what's happening around us; about the systems of oppression and persistence of racism that permeate daily life. But it can be tricky terrain, these states of 'wokeness,' leading to pats-on-the-back of self- congratulations and new forms of denial. Our extraordinary playwrights are hip to our follies and foibles, just as they're poised to wake us up to the realities of our moment and the relevance of history still knocking on our door.

7-play, 4-play, and 3-play subscriptions are now on sale for the Lyrics Stage 2019-20 season which runs from September, 2019 through June, 2020. Prices start at $132 and offer savings of up to 25% off regular ticket prices. For those who have never tried a 7-play subscription, the Lyric Stage is offering a First-Timer First Weekend special price. Call or email the Box Office for details.

The Donmar Warehouse's production of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Sweat by Lynn Nottage announces casting for the West End transfer to London's Gielgud Theatre for a limited 6 week run from Friday 7 June 2019 for 50 performances only.

TimeLine Theatre Company announces the cast and creative team for the Chicago premiere of Too Heavy for Your Pocket, which doubles as the Chicago debut of rising young playwright and TV writer Jireh Breon Holder, recently named one of "Tomorrow's Marquee Names, Now in the Making" by The New York Times.

Cleveland Play House (CPH), offers the thought-provoking comedy Native Gardens from playwright Karen Zacarias, to be performed April 27th - May 19th  in the Allen Theatre at Playhouse Square.  The production is directed by CPH Associate Artistic Director Robert Barry Fleming, with a press opening Friday, May 3rd. 

The Goodman Theatre announces the new 2019/2020 Season of 'Theater That Moves'-three world premiere productions (including a new musical), four Chicago premieres and a major revival of a beloved contemporary classic-on the theater's two stages (the 856-seat Albert Theatre and 350-seat flexible Owen Theatre).