Second Stage News

The 'Alley Theatre @ UH' season begins with Betty Buckley, Hallie Foote, Annalee Jefferies and Veanne Cox in award-winning Texas playwright Horton Foote's The Old Friends, a Southwestern premiere.

The Theatre @ Boston Court presents Happy Days by Samuel Beckett, directed by Andrei Belgrader and featuring Brooke Adams and Tony Shalhoub. Opening night is Saturday, September 13, 2014 on the Main Stage at Boston Court Performing Arts Center, 70 North Mentor Avenue.

Tickets are $10, available at the door. The event will be held in the Players Club's Second Stage space which is not handicapped-accessible. For directions to the theater call 610-328-4271 or visit www.pcstheater.org.

The Hispanic Organization of Latin Actors (HOLA), the nation's longest running active arts advocacy organization for Latino actors, have announced that it will honor Obie and Emmy winner Hector Elizondo ('Last Man Standing', 'Chicago Hope', Pretty Woman, Runaway Bride, The Princess Diaries films), five-time Tony nominee Danny Burstein (currently in Cabaret on Broadway), actress Ana Ortiz ('Devious Maids', 'Ugly Betty'), triple threat Bianca Marroquin (currently in Chicago on Broadway), Pedro Pascal ('Game of Thrones'), Cierra Ramirez ('The Fosters') and WNBC-TV anchor Sibila Vargas at the Fifteenth Annual HOLA Awards Gala and Benefit. The HOLA Awards will take place on Monday, October 13, 2014 at 6:30pm at The Battery Gardens, overlooking and located on the waterfront overlooking New York Harbor in Battery Park (opposite 17 State Street in lower Manhattan).

The world's most famous fictional sleuth adds a novel chapter to his repertoire with playwright Jeffrey Hatcher's electrifying new whodunit SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE ADVENTURE OF THE SUICIDE CLUB, which opens the Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park's 55th season. The play is an inventive mash-up of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's iconic characters and the Robert Louis Stevenson short story "The Suicide Club," providing a clever, intricately woven new mystery for Holmes to deduce. SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE ADVENTURE OF THE SUICIDE CLUB runs Sept. 6 through Oct. 4 in the Robert S. Marx Theatre.

Second Stage Theatre's critically acclaimed production of Laura Eason's play, SEX WITH STRANGERS, which opened last week, will now play through Sunday, August 31st. The production stars Emmy Award Winner Anna Gunnand Tony Award Nominee Billy Magnussen and is directed by David Schwimmer. BroadwayWorld's Randy Rainbow was on the scene for opening night, where he got to chat with the whole company after the curtain went down. Check out what they had to say about the new play below!

PlayMakers Repertory Company will present the regional premieres of three thought-provoking productions in its 2014-2015 PRC2 second stage series, kicking off Sept. 2 with Roger Guenveur Smith's powerful new one-man show "Rodney King."

The Geffen Playhouse announces the complete cast for the West Coast premiere of Choir Boy. This new production -- featuring gospel music -- will highlight several performers from the Manhattan Theatre Club run. Nicholas L. Ashe and Grantham Coleman will join the previously announced Jeremy Pope.

The Guthrie Theater today announced casting for the first production on the Wurtele Thrust Stage in the 2014-2015 season, Wendy Wasserstein's Pulitzer Prize-winning play The Heidi Chronicles. Under the direction of 2014 Tony Award nominee Leigh Silverman (Broadway's Violet, Chinglish, Well), The Heidi Chronicles will feature the talents of Kate Wetherhead, Ben Graney, Tracey Maloney and Zach Shaffer, as well as Sam Bardwell, Eleonore Dendy, Mo Perry and Stacia Rice.

Join O'Neill Center artistic directors Wendy Goldberg, of the National Playwrights Conference, and Paulette Haupt, of the National Music Theater Conference, distinguished alumni Adam Gwon, Sarah Hammond and Deborah Zoe Laufer, and moderator Anne G. Morgan, for a look at the O'Neill's influential role as a theatrical laboratory over the last 50 years.

Sheldon Best, Sun Mee Chomet, Lizan Mitchell, Chris Myers and Taliyah Whitaker will comprise the cast of the upcoming LCT3/Lincoln Center Theater New York premiere production of brownsville song (b-side for tray), a new play by Kimber Lee. The production, to be directed by Patricia McGregor, will begin performances Saturday, October 4, running for six weeks only through Sunday, November 16 at the Claire Tow Theater (150 West 65 Street). Opening night is Monday, October 20.

In 1994 Sarajevo, in a bedroom brimming with bullet holes, Dahlia and Peter have a whirlwind romance. A famous writer reporting on the Bosnian War, he leaves her to return to his wife. In 2001 Kabul, in a bedroom with blacked out windows, an Afghan prostitute is having affair with a member of the Taliban religious police. Dahlia's book about Leila, Ash and the aftermath of their affair in Kabul makes her a famous writer in her own right. On her book tour, struggling with how we all profit from telling stories of war from a safe distance, Dahlia and Peter meet again.

Good morning, BroadwayWorld! Because we know all our readers eat, sleep and breathe Broadway, what could be better than waking up to it? Today's big news: THE MUSIC MAN sells his wares in concert tonight, HELLO, DOLLY! begins in St. Louis and Patti Murin performs at 54 Below!

Chautauqua Theatre Company, under the leadership of Vivienne Benesch, Artistic Director, and Sarah Clare Corporandy, Managing Director, presents William Shakespeare's magical masterwork, The Tempest, directed by Jade King Carroll, playing August 8-15 on the Bratton Theatre Mainstage. The press opening is tonight (August 9) at 6:00pm.

Casting has been completed for the world premiere of Jordan Harrison's 'Marjorie Prime,' opening September 21, 2014, at the Center Theatre Group/Mark Taper Forum. Directed by Obie Award-winner Les Waters, the profound and engaging new play begins previews September 10 at the Center Theatre Group/Mark Taper Forum. Performances continue through October 19, 2014.

The Guthrie Theater, in partnership with the Stage Directors and Choreographers Foundation, today announced it will host a one-on-one conversation with Tony Award-nominee Leigh Silverman (Violet on Broadway), director of The Heidi Chronicles which kicks off the Guthrie's 2014-2015 thrust season, and Joel Sass, director of the Guthrie's current hit comedy Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike on August 25 at 7:30pm at the Dowling Studio.

DBD PRODUCTIONS will present the world premiere of HALFWAY, NEBRASKA as part of the 18th Annual New York International Fringe Festival - FringeNYC, written by Briandaniel Oglesby (She Gets Naked in the End - Latinidad Award) and directed by Daniel R. Melnick.

The Marvelous Wonderettes: Caps and Gowns, Roger Bean's family-friendly jukebox musical, opens August 14th at Weston's second stage and will have audiences laughing, tapping their toes, and singing along (softly, please) with popular songs from the 50s and 60s. If you saw the prequel, which had a very successful run in Weston in 2010, you know you're in for a good time.

A great, big Broadway season is on its way, with fourteen productions already slated to open in the next few months. With several weeks until the craziness begins, there is still plenty of time to catch up on what's been going on at Broadway's already occupied theaters . BroadwayWorld will be profiling the hits of the Great White Way that continue to draw crowds after months, years, and (in some cases) decades. Meet the current cast of Broadway's ONCE below!