Mark Twain News

THE LOWER EAST SIDE FESTIVAL OF THE ARTS (LES) celebrates its 18th year of bringing together -- in one location, over three days -- more than 100 performing arts organizations, local and international celebrities, independent artists, poets, playwrights, musicians, puppeteers, film makers and many others, all of whom reside, work or have their roots in the culturally diverse Lower East Side. Once again this year, New York City's most diverse FREE 3-day, indoor and outdoor cultural celebration will take place on Memorial Day Weekend, from Friday, May 24 through Sunday, May 26, at Theater for the New City (155 1st Avenue, between E. 9th and 10th Sts.) in Manhattan.

Ka-Tet Theatre Company presents the Chicago premiere of SMUDGE by two-time Emmy Award-winning writer Rachel Axler, directed by Allison Shoemaker, playing May 25 - June 23, 2013 at the Athenaeum Theatre, 2936 N. Southport Ave. in Chicago. SMUDGE features Ka-Tet company members Stevie Chaddock Lambert and Scott Allen Luke with Andrew Marchetti.

Cape May Stage will present the world premiere of New Jersey playwright Shawn Fisher's How to Make a Rope Swing: the inaugural production of the Equity theatre's 25th anniversary season. Directed by Emmy nominee Roy Steinberg, How to Make a Rope Swing, is a dramatic story about long-buried secrets in a Jersey Shore town, and will feature guest performers Lynn Cohen and Barry Phillips along with Ben Rosenblatt. Winner of the Edgerton Foundation New American Plays Award, How to Make a Rope Swing opens Friday, May 17 at 8 p.m. at the Robert Shackleton Playhouse on Bank and Lafayette Streets.

ANN, the new critically acclaimed play written and performed by Emmy Award-winning actress and 2013 Outer Critics Circle Award Nominee Holland Taylor, is launching the Great American Women Talkback Series, which will feature post-show discussions hosted by Tony and Emmy Award winner Lily Tomlin, Tony award winning playwright and activist Eve Ensler, feminist activist and writer Gloria Steinem, and award winning political humorist Kate Clinton. All talkbacks are complimentary with ticket purchase to ANN at the Vivian Beaumont Theatre (150 West 65th Street). ANN is directed by Benjamin Endsley Klein, and has been extended through Sunday, September 1, 2013.

The Fulton Theatre continues its 160th Anniversary Season with the flashy, bold show business musical Dreamgirls, representing the first time the show will be produced or presented in the Lancaster region. Dreamgirls is a co-production with Maine State Music Theatre and is directed and choreographed by the Fulton's Artistic Director, Marc Robin.

Ed Gerhard returns to Concord's Capitol Center for the Arts tonight, April 21st at 7:30pm in support of his highly anticipated new CD 'There and Gone,' a collection of original compositions and covers including a stunning arrangement of 'Imagine/Across the Universe,' 'I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry' and a concert favorite on Weissenborn, 'Killing the Blues.'

Long Beach Opera's new double bill explores creative minds on the border between genius and madness. Former rocker Stewart Copeland delves into the twisted psyche of Edgar Allan Poe's manic murderer in the US premiere of Tell-Tale Heart and Bang on a Can composer, Michael Gordon, observes the anguished spirit of a brilliant artist in the West Coast stage premiere of Van Gogh. Featuring music at the edge of rock, jazz and classical modernism, this double bill of delusion and illusion, paranoia and inspiration begins May 11 and continues on May 18 and 19, 2013 at theEXPO Art Center, 4321 Atlantic Avenue, Long Beach, CA.

Following the overwhelming success of last year's Record Store Day Australia, for the fifth year running, Australia is set to pull the crowds into stores across the nation for this day dedicated to the local Record Store.

To commemorate its sesquicentennial, BAM (Brooklyn Academy Of Music) commissioned BAM150, a feature length documentary conceived by award-winning director Michael Sladek that weaves together the institution's vibrant past, present, and future presenting a rich history that mirrors the evolution of performing arts in 20th century America. This landmark film premiered last year at the Tribeca Film Festival and will air tonight, April 19 at 10pm on THIRTEEN.

Emerson Theatre Collaborative (ETC) announces the production of The Protest of Pharaoh's Daughter running from May 3 - May 11 at First United Methodist Church, 23 Willow St, Mystic, CT. General Admission: $25, Seniors and Students $20. For more information and to purchase tickets please go to www.emersontheatercollaborative.org, Ticket Leap or call (860) 705-9711.

'I can't marry Ernest Hamilton. I love him! We wish to be free to keep together! In the old days when they had interests in common, marriage used to make man and woman one, but now, it puts them apart. Can't you see it all about you? No wonder one in eleven ends in divorce. The only way to avoid spiritual separation is to shun legal union like a disease. Modern marriage is divorce.' Helen is talking to her much befuddled family in Jesse Lynch Williams' comedy 'Why Marry?,' the first play to receive a Pulitzer Prize. A Broadway hit in 1917, it toured the country for a year, but had not been produced again until East Lynne Theater Company included it in its 2006 Cape May production season. The show was so successful, that ELTC revived it the following summer. On Friday, May 10 at 7:30p.m., 'Why Marry?' returns to a NYC stage for the first time since 1917 when ELTC presents a staged reading with most of the actors who were in the acclaimed 2007 production, at The Players Club, located at 16 Gramercy Park South (20th Street, East of Park Avenue).

Atlantic Theater Company has announced that Olivier and two time Tony Award winning playwright John Guare will make his Off Broadway acting debut in the world premiere production of his new play 3 KINDS OF EXILE, directed by Atlantic artistic director Neil Pepe, featuring Atlantic ensemble members Peter Maloney and David Pittu and guest artists Alison Cimmet, Jeffrey Kuhn, Jacquelyn Landgraf, Martin Moran, Kate Rigg, Omar Sangare and Timothy Splain.

As Kilmer gains momentum with Citizen Twain, he has plans to turn it into a film that focuses both on Twain and on Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of Christian Science.

The SCERA Shell Outdoor Theatre turns 29 years old this year and will celebrate with a 2013 summer season under the stars packed with concerts, musicals, outdoor movies and the 8th Annual Celebrity vocal competition. All performances will begin at 8 p.m.

The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts previously announced national awardees for outstanding work from the regional festivals that were held January 8 through March 3, 2013. Individual awardees and a representative from each of the outstanding productions will travel to the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. for an expenses-paid trip to participate in the 45th annual Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival (KCACTF), today, April 15-20, 2013.

Long Wharf Theatre concludes its 2012-13 season with Tony and Pulitzer Prize-winning play Clybourne Park, by Bruce Norris, and directed by Associate Artistic Director Eric Ting. The play will take place on The Claire Tow Stage in the C. Newton Schenck III Mainstage from May 8, 2013 through June 2, 2013.

The Fulton Theatre continues its 160th Anniversary Season with the flashy, bold show business musical Dreamgirls, representing the first time the show will be produced or presented in the Lancaster region. Dreamgirls is a co-production with Maine State Music Theatre and is directed and choreographed by the Fulton's Artistic Director, Marc Robin.

Twain's hometown of Hannibal, MO, is the featured stop on American Cruise Lines' Mark Twain Tribute Cruise from St. Louis to St. Paul. Travel along the Mississippi River - much like Huck Finn - and a stop in Hannibal allows guests to take part in an exclusive behind-the-scenes tour of the town, including a look at Huck Finn's house and the Becky Thatcher home.

Paul Robeson, Romeo, Juliet, and Ebenezer are just a few of the names - real and fictional - of the dynamic characters audiences will see at Kansas City Repertory Theatre during its 2013-14 season.