Playwrights Horizons News

American Blues Theater (ABT), Chicago's second oldest Equity Ensemble, will participate in a global benefit for the people of Japan, SHINSAI: Theatre for Japan, Sunday, March 11 at 3 p.m. at the Richard Christiansen Theater in Victory Gardens Biograph Theater, 2433 North Lincoln Ave. Tickets are a suggested donation of $10 with 100% of the proceeds going to SHINSAI. For tickets and more information go to www.americanbluestheater.com or call 312.725.4228.

Manhattan Theatre Club has announced additional casting for the upcoming world premiere of THE COLUMNIST, by Tony and Pulitzer Prize winner David Auburn, directed by Tony Award winner Daniel Sullivan.

Colt Coeur's Play Hotel reading series will present a staged reading of Adam Bock's Marcy Comes Home on Tuesday, March 13th at 7pm at the CoCo Studio in NYC. Directed by Adrienne Campbell-Holt (Fish Eye, Seven Minutes in Heaven), the cast features Katya Campbell (Fish Eye), Erin Felgar (Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson), Heidi Niedermeyer (Seven Minutes in Heaven), Gio Perez (The Language of Trees), Kate Cullen Roberts (Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson), Debargo Sanyal (After), Matt Stadelmann (American Sligo, Seven Minutes in Heaven), and Joe Tippett (Fish Eye).

Tony Award-winning actor Roger Rees has joined the lineup for the Orlando Shakespeare Company's upcoming season, replacing the previously announced Brian Bedford. He'll be performing his one-man show, WHAT YOU WILL, on February 29.

The New Group will present the world premiere of An Early History of Fire, a new play by Tony Award-winning playwright David Rabe. Directed by Jo Bonney, this production features Deema Aitken, Gordon Clapp, Erin Darke, Jonny Orsini, Devin Ratray, Dennis Staroselsky, Theo Stockman and Claire van der Boom. Limited Off-Broadway engagement is slated April 5 - May 26 at The New Group @ Theatre Row (410 West 42nd Street). Official Opening Night is set for Monday, April 23 at 7:00 PM. Lily Rabe, who was previously slated to star in the play will no longer be taking part in the production.

TOPHER GRACE and OLIVIA THIRLBY will co-star in Second Stage Theatre's production of Paul Weitz's world premiere comedy, LONELY, I'M NOT, directed by Trip Cullman. Preview performances are scheduled to begin on Tuesday, April 10 at Second Stage's Tony Kiser Theatre (305 West 43rd street). The production will officially open on Monday, May 7. For tickets or more information, please visit www.2ST.com. Additional casting will be announced shortly.

La MaMa and World In One Pan Arts Collaborative is set to present Loom Ensemble's World Premiere of Erosion: A Fable, directed by Tomi Tsunoda, written by the ensemble and choreographed by Neva Cockrell, with original music composed by Sasha Bogdanowitsch.

Almost-normal in association with The Landor Theatre present LUCKY STIFF from Wednesday 1st to Saturday 25th February 2012. It has a book and lyrics by LYNN AHRENS and music by STEPHEN FLAHERTY. LUCKY STIFF is based on "The Man Who Broke The Bank at Monte Carlo" by Michael Butterworth. It was first produced by Playwrights Horizons Inc. off-Broadway in 1988. It was the winner of the 1988 Richard Rodgers Production Award.

YALE REPERTORY THEATRE (James Bundy, Artistic Director; Victoria Nolan, Managing Director) announces the third world premiere production of its 2011-2012 season: GOOD GOODS by Christina Anderson, selected by American Theatre magazine as an up-and-coming artist 'whose work will be transforming America's stages for decades to come.'

As first reported on Deadline.com, actor Michael Esper has joined the cast of the upcoming NBCUniversal medical drama DO NO HARM.

According to the New York Times, Playwrights Horizons will present FAR FROM HEAVEN, a new musical with book by Tony Award winner and two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist Richard Greenberg (Take Me Out, Three Days of Rain), music by Tony Award nominee Scott Frankel (Grey Gardens) and lyrics by Tony Award nominee Michael Korie (Grey Gardens, The Grapes of Wrath), in Spring 2013. The show will also play Williamstown Theatre Festival this summer. The musical was adapted from the acclaimed, award-winning 2002 Focus Features/Vulcan Productions motion picture Far From Heaven, written and directed by Todd Haynes.

Manhattan Theatre Club (Lynne Meadow, Artistic Director; Barry Grove, Executive Producer; Mandy Greenfield, Artistic Producer) today announced the lineup for this spring's Ernst C. Stiefel "7@7" Reading Series. The Ernst C. Stiefel Foundation has supported Manhattan Theatre Club's reading series since 2006.

LEO written by Rosa Laborde and directed by Susan Einhorn is described as 'a lyrical but ultimately tragic story about three childhood friends - Leo a romantic poet whose memories unravel the action of the play in flashbacks, Rodrigo, an idealistic socialist, and Isolda a maladjusted young woman adrift in life.'

Profiles Theatre announces the extension of their hit Midwest premiere of Bachelorette by Leslye Headland, directed by Profiles Co-Artistic Director Darrell W. Cox. All cast members are continuing in their roles including ensemble member Eric Burgher and guest artists Hillary Marren, Linda Augusta Orr, Rakisha Pollard, Amanda Powell and Adam Soule. The production has been selling out since its opening on February 1, 2012 and has now been extended an additional seven weeks, through April 29, 2012, at Profiles Theatre, 4147 N. Broadway in Chicago.

Playwrights Horizons (Tim Sanford, Artistic Director; Leslie Marcus, Managing Director) begins accepting entries today, Wednesday, February 22, for its popular LIVEforFIVE online lottery for $5 tickets to the New York premiere of THE BIG MEAL, a new play by Dan LeFranc (Sixty Miles to Silver Lake at P73/Soho Rep, In the Labyrinth at Soho Rep), directed by Obie Award winner Sam Gold (Circle Mirror Transformation and Kin at PH, Seminar on Broadway, Tigers Be Still, The Aliens, The Coward).

The Denver Center Theatre Company (DCTC) concluded its Seventh Annual Colorado New Play Summit on a high note, with the announcement that one of its premieres has been signed for a production in New York. The three-day festival, which has rapidly become one of the nation's top tier new play festivals, included multiple standing-room-only showings of three play readings, a staged reading of a musical, a multimedia workshop, and two fully-produced main stage plays, one of which - The Whale, by 2011 Obie winner Samuel D. Hunter - will now be presented in October 2012 at New York's Playwrights Horizons.

Playwrights Horizons (Tim Sanford, Artistic Director; Leslie Marcus, Managing Director) presents the New York premiere of ASSISTANCE, a new play by Leslye Headland (Bachelorette). Directed by Trip Cullman (A Small Fire, The Drunken City and Manic Flight Reaction at Playwrights Horizons, Bachelorette), the production began previews Friday, February 3 at 8PM with an Opening Night set for Tuesday, February 28 at 7PM. The limited engagement will play through Sunday, March 11 at Playwrights Horizons' Mainstage Theater (416 West 42nd Street).

92YTribeca is set to host BEHIND THE MUSIC-AL: TEENAGE DREAMS, moderated by Steve Fickinger, Vice President of Creative Development for Disney Theatrical Group on Wed, Feb 22, 8pm, tickets from $10 adv / $12 door.

The Broadway production of Bruce Norris's CLYBOURNE PARK will open on Thursday, April 19 at the Walter Kerr Theatre. The production is now being produced by Jujamcyn.