Michael Levine News

The Metropolitan Opera today announced its 2022–23 season, which features seven new productions, the most in ten seasons. Opening Night is September 27 with the company premiere of Cherubini’s Medea, starring soprano Sondra Radvanovsky in the title role alongside tenor Matthew Polenzani in David McVicar’s new staging, conducted by Carlo Rizzi.

As only the third American opera company in history to reach this centennial milestone, the Company’s 2022–23 Season will honor San Francisco Opera’s glorious past while inviting the public into an exciting new era of musical excellence under Kim’s music directorship and a renewed commitment to innovation.

The York Theatre Company honored musical theater legends Richard Maltby, Jr. & David Shire (Baby, Big, Starting Here, Starting Now, Closer Than Ever) with the 2021 Oscar Hammerstein Award for Lifetime Achievement in Musical Theater and Elisa Loti Stein with The York Theatre Company Founders’ Award at the 29th Oscar Hammerstein Award Gala, held on Monday evening, November 1, 2021 at The Edison Ballroom.

Vancouver International Film Festival 2020 (VIFF) is delighted to announce the complete programming lineup for the Contemporary World Cinema and True North film series for its 39th edition.

Rooftop Films, in partnership with Museum of the Moving Image (MoMI), the New York Hall of Science (NYSCI), and the New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC), today announced the opening of two drive-in festival locations in New York City.

Today, the Metropolitan Opera announced its 2020-21 season, the first in which Yannick Nézet-Séguin assumes his full breadth of musical duties as the company's Jeanette Lerman-Neubauer Music Director, conducting six productions. His schedule includes the Met premiere of Jake Heggie's Dead Man Walking, the first contemporary opera conducted by the maestro on the Met stage, as part of his ongoing commitment to opera of our time at the Met, which will expand in the seasons to come.

Anthony Minghella's production of Madam Butterfly returns to the Coliseum. Premiered 15 years ago at English National Opera (ENO) and now onto its seventh revival, this popular production is back to entrance audiences with its mix of stunning cinematic imagery, traditional Japanese theatre and Puccini's powerful music.

The nonprofit Sundance Institute announced today the showcase of new independent feature films selected across all categories for the 2020 Sundance Film Festival. The Festival hosts screenings in Park City, Salt Lake City and at Sundance Mountain Resort, from January 23a?"February 2, 2020. The Sundance Film Festival is Sundance Institute's flagship public program, widely regarded as the largest American independent film festival and attended by more than 120,000 people and 1,300 accredited press, and powered by more than 2,000 volunteers last year.

Park Avenue Armory has just announced its 2020 season, which is set to include works by Bill T. Jones, Robert Icke's Hamlet, and much more. Click here for tickets and additional information.

Acorn Productions, a non-profit theater education company located in South Portland, announces the company's first full schedule of acting classes in their new home at 528 Main Street in the Thornton Heights Neighborhood.The conservatory-style acting school, now under the guidance of veteran director and teacher Jared Culverhouse, is offering classes for all levels of actors from beginning to advanced, along with a playwriting class. Acorn's popular free Intro to Acting workshop also returns on Monday, November 4th. A collaboration with Portland's Snowlion Repertory Company rounds out the schedule with two classes taught by Snowlion's co-founder Al D'Andrea. Additionally, Acorn is piloting a new after school program at the neighborhood's Skillin Elementary School where LearningWorks AfterSchool will bring elementary school students to Acorn's studio once a week after school. Information about all of these programs, along with registration links for the classes, is available on Acorn's website at www.acorn-productions.org

Productivity Media Inc and Oakhurst Entertainment announced today that Aubrey Plaza, Christopher Abbott and Sarah Gadon are set to join the cast of the upcoming thriller BLACK BEAR, directed by Lawrence Michael Levine.  Penned by Levine, the film will be produced by Tandem Pictures' Julie Christeas and Jonathan Blitstein, Richard J Bosner (Blue Creek Pictures), Sophia Takal and Oakhurst's Marina Grasic and Jai Khanna. Productivity will finance the film.  Shooting is underway in the Adirondack Mountains in Long Lake, NY.

TIFF Co-Heads Cameron Bailey and Joana Vicente announced today that the World Premiere of Once Were Brothers: Robbie Robertson and The Band, Daniel Roher's touching tale of Robertson's young life and the creation of one of the most enduring groups in the history of popular music, The Band, will be the Opening Night Gala Presentation for the 44th Toronto International Film Festival® on Thursday, September 5, at Roy Thomson Hall. The premiere marks the first time a Canadian-made documentary opens the Toronto International Film Festival.

The 40th Anniversary Dora Mavor Moore Awards for the 2018-2019 season were handed out in a star-studded celebratory ceremony in Toronto on the evening of Tuesday, June 25 at the Sony Centre for the Performing Arts, hosted by the multi-talented, multi-award-winning Rick Miller, well-known for his widely acclaimed one-man shows that include MacHomer, BOOM and Bigger Than Jesus (Dora Award for Outstanding Performance, 2006).

Halstead, one of the top residential real estate brokerage firms in the New York metropolitan area, today announced that one of its leading agents, Jeff Goodman, will be commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots and the beginning of the modern LGBTQ rights movement on his Rediscovering New York radio show and podcast.

The Royal Opera House today launches its 2019/20 Season, unveiling an exciting range of new commissions, world premieres and much-loved revivals, supported by a diverse range of ticketed and free daytime events, activities and festivals for people of all ages.

For the third year, The Philadelphia Youth Orchestra (PYO) conducted a nationwide search to name the three winners in the PYO Young Composers Competition. All participants submitted original orchestral scores. The winners were selected by PYO's music director, Maestro Louis Scaglione, and the director of the Young Composers Competition, Sheridan Seyfried, who is a Philadelphia-based composer, a PYO alumnus and a graduate of The Curtis Institute of Music where he studied with Richard Danielpour, Jennifer Higdon and Ned Rorem.

The Royal Opera presents a new production of Britten's Billy Budd, nearly 70 years after its Covent Garden premiere in 1951, and almost two decades since the Company's last performances of the work. Acclaimed British director Deborah Warner returns to The Royal Opera for the first time since directing Britten's The Turn of the Screw in 2002. She brings this production to The Royal Opera following its successful stagings by co-producers Teatro Real, Madrid, and Rome Opera.

Washington National Opera's (WNO) Eugene Onegin is exquisite! The entire evening soars like a dream with pitch-perfect performances led by the immaculate Anna Nechaeva as Tatiana.

With dances, duels, and orchestration delights, Washington National Opera brings the emotional and melodic Eugene Onegin back to the Kennedy Center Opera House after a more than 30-year absence from its repertoire. Eugene Onegin is a multi-faceted masterpiece combining the artistic prowess of two Russian luminaries: Pyotr Ilych Tchaikovsky's music and libretto based on Alexander Pushkin's celebrated poem. A tale of rejection and regret, Eugene Onegin explores a society divided between rural austerity and aristocratic extravagance as maturity shifts desires-once devastated by his refusal of her youthful affections, Tatiana rebuffs Onegin's newfound proposal upon his return years later. Complete with lush period costumes and majestic ballroom scenes,Eugene Onegin is performed in Russian with projected English titles. Performances run March 9-29 with tickets starting at $45.