Royal Shakespeare Company News

Sian Thomas will be taking on the role of Mrs Fox in the Donmar's production of Welcome Home, Captain Fox! replacing Francesca Annis who regrettably has had to withdraw from the production for personal reasons.

GASLIGHT premiered in London in 1938 and immediately became an international success. In 1944, it was adapted into an iconic film starring Ingrid Bergman. Since then, the play has become a staple of theatre companies in Britain but rarely seen in North America. This brand new production will be mounted in the U.K. before travelling across the Atlantic to the Ed Mirvish Theatre.

Independent Shakespeare Co. (ISC), presenters of the Griffith Park Free Shakespeare Festival and recipients of the 2015 Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Margaret Harford Award for sustained excellence in theater, announce the debut of a new works reading series, iambic lab, presented Friday, February 12 and Saturday, February 13 at 7:30pm and Sunday, February 14 at 2pm at Independent Studio in the Atwater Crossing Arts + Innovation Complex, 3191 Casitas Ave., #168 in Atwater Village.

Can there be a better way to capture Matilda's spirit so evocatively than in a sparkling new work for the musical theater? A musical journey through which we can chart her soulful, heartfelt ascent into a literary hierarchy in which readers can live vicariously? Matilda's forays into a fictional world of devil-may-care adventure, oftentimes aided by her gift for telekinesis or her penchant for clever tricks (like switching her father's hair oil with her mother's peroxide) - which is at once darker than other offerings of like ilk, yet somehow rather more confectionary than even the fluffiest of musical comedies - lend themselves exquisitely to Matilda the Musical, the critically lauded stage extravaganza that is somehow effervescently uplifting while remaining grounded.

This Easter, Wales Millennium Centre will premiere its first full-scale, original musical, ONLY THE BRAVE, produced with Soho Theatre, Daniel Sparrow Productions and Birdsong Productions. Based on the real lives of men and women caught up in the D-Day landings, this new production will star David Thaxton, Caroline Sheen and Neil McDermott, directed by Steve Marmion, Artistic Director of London's Soho Theatre.

Today in 1982, Macbeth opened at the Circle in the Square Theatre, where it ran for 21 performances. Written by William Shakespeare, Macbeth is about a regicide and its aftermath. It is Shakespeare's shortest tragedy and is believed to have been written sometime between 1603 and 1607. The earliest account of a performance of what was probably Shakespeare's play is April 1611, when Simon Forman recorded seeing such a play at the Globe Theatre.

The Greek tragedy Medea by the irreverent Euripides slashes across the stage with the revenge of a woman scorned, starring nationally-acclaimed classical actress, Franchelle Stewart Dorn in the title role. The production runs at the Long Center for the Performing Arts (701 W. Riverside Drive), February 17-March 6, 2016 and is presented by Austin Shakespeare.

Actors from The London Stage, an international touring theater troupe based in London and the University of Notre Dame in the U.S., will be in residency at Rice University March 10-12 performing William Shakespeare's A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM.

The Olivier Award nominated Rose Theatre Kingston production of Jacqueline Wilson's critically acclaimed Hetty Feather today announces an international transfer to the Asolo Repertory Theatre in Florida for a limited run from 2 to 26 June 2016. Currently enjoying a major UK tour, the production continues on to Chichester Festival Theatre on 27 January followed by Nottingham Theatre Royal, Oxford Playhouse, Leicester Curve, Rose Theatre Kingston, Southampton Mayflower Theatre, Birmingham Repertory Theatre, Clywd Theatr Cymru, Orchard Theatre Dartford, Cardiff New Theatre completing the run at Cheltenham Everyman Theatre before travelling to Sarasota, Florida for its US premiere.

Final casting has now been announced for the 2016 national tour of Terence Rattigan's FLARE PATH, directed by Justin Audibert, opening on 27 January at the Connaught Theatre in Worthing. Daniel Fraser will play Teddy Graham and Audrey Palmer will play Mrs Oakes.  Daniel played Gregory Cromwell in the acclaimed RSC productions of Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies in Stratford, London and on Broadway.  He also appeared in Chariots of Fire at Hampstead Theatre and in the West End and starred in the Sci-Fi films Frequencies and Lab Rats and the thriller Scar Tissue.

Vincent, Leonard Nimoy's play about artist Vincent van Gogh, will have its Off-Broadway premiere from April 1 through June 5 at the Theatre at St. Clement's, 423 W 46th Street. Opening night is Thursday, April 7 at 7pm.

Now in its fifth year in London's West End, the Royal Shakespeare Company's award-winning production of Matilda The Musical has announced that Zaris-Angel Hator, Clara Read and Emily-May Stephenson are to join Evie Hone in the title role from 15 March 2016.

The Royal Court has worked with a group of 12 writers from Syria and Lebanon over the last two years with workshops supported by the British Council in Broumana and Beirut. These workshops have been led by playwrights David Greig, Sam Holcroft and Royal Court International Director Elyse Dodgson. Excerpts from all of the plays were presented at Al Madina Theatre in Beirut in May 2015 directed by Richard Twyman.

The special program broadcast from the Royal Shakespeare Company is part of a variety of BBC shows commemorating the 400th anniversary of The Bard's passing.

CLICKBAIT is a darkly comic new play about society's attitude to porn and the women who make it for themselves. From the exciting all female writer/director team behind A First World Problem (Milly Thomas and Holly Race Roughan) comes this blistering study of how pornography is changing women's relationship to sex in the 21st Century.

Lyric Opera of Chicago continues its 61st season with Romeo and Juliet in a new-to-Chicago production created by Tony Award-winning director Bartlett Sher, Monday, February 22 through Saturday, March 19(nine performances). This is the eighth and final mainstage opera production of the widely acclaimed 2015/16 season.

Lauren Brown and Chloe Courtney today announce the full cast for Russell Bolam's production of Cyrano de Bergerac. Kathryn Hunter plays the title role of Cyrano and is joined by Sabrina Bartlett as Roxane, Ellie Kendrick as Christian and by Holly Burn, Tina Chiang, Penelope Dimond, Tamzin Griffin and Kiran Sonia Sawar. The production opens on 22 February at Southwark Playhouse, with previews from 18 February, and runs until 19 March.

The Bard is back! Shakespeare 400 Chicago today announced the festival line-up for 2016, featuring 850 events on stages and in museums, restaurants, parks, schools and neighborhoods across Chicago.

MATILDA National Tour at Durham Performing Arts Center

David Mirvish presents Patrick Hamilton's classic mystery thriller GASLIGHT, running now through through Sunday, February 28, 2016 at the newly reconfigured 1,384 seat Ed Mirvish Theatre. Media night is tonight, January 20, at 8pm.