Shakespeare & Company News

MATILDA THE MUSICAL, produced by The Royal Shakespeare Company and The Dodgers, will open on April 11, 2013 at Broadway's Shubert Theatre (225 West 44th Street). The four girls sharing the title role are Sophia Gennusa, Oona Laurence, Bailey Ryon and Milly Shapiro, each of whom will be making her Broadway debut. BroadwayWorld brings you just-released production shots below!

Olivier nominated for Love Never Dies, Canadian born actor/singer Ramin Karimloo will perform his cabaret act at Sterling's Upstairs at the Federal April 21-22. This will mark his cabaret debut in Los Angeles, and all three performances are already sold out. Renowned on the UK stage for every role in Les Mis including that of Jean Valjean and also for the Phantom in Phantom of the Opera and Love Never Dies, Karimloo performed on the Oscar telecast in February singing 'One More Day' alongside Hugh Jackman, Ann Hathaway, Eddie Redmayne, Samantha Barks and others from the cast of the film Les Mis. In our chat, Karimloo talks about career past and present as well as his love of music that includes bluegrass as well as Broadway.

Cincinnati Shakespeare Company, Cincinnati's stage for the classics, will present Shakespeare's "Measure for Measure", playing from May 3-26, 2013. This production is directed by CSC Producing Artistic Director, Brian Isaac Phillips and features Kelly Mengelkoch, Brent Vimtrup and Nicholas Rose. The design of this production is generously sponsored by Cincinnati Book Publishing.

In an Almeida Theatre and Headlong co-production, Lyndsey Turner will direct the World Premiere of Lucy Kirkwood's Chimerica. The new dates for this production are 20 May - 6 July 2013, with press night on 28 May. Set designs are by Es Devlin with costumes by Christina Cunningham, lighting by Tim Lutkin, sound by Carolyn Downing and video design by Finn Ross.

There's no place like home and there's no place like the Fine Arts Center for the 2013-2014 theatre season, featuring the iconic musical, The Wizard of Oz.

North Coast Repertory Theatre announces its 32nd Season. From its modest beginning in 1982, North Coast Repertory Theatre, a non-profit organization, has evolved into one of the area's leading performing arts organizations, recognized for the quality of its work and its commitment to excellence. North Coast Repertory's 32nd Season promises to be a season filled with laughter, romance, mystery and passion. With two World Premieres, two San Diego Premieres and two Musicals, this season promises to be one of the most exciting ever.

A rowdy, rural romance takes the stage when Seattle Shakespeare Company presents a revival of its popular trailer park version of Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shew. Originally produced in 2009 as part of the company's outdoor Wooden O shows, The Taming of the Shrew will be brought indoors to the Playhouse at Seattle Center April 25 through May 12. Director Aimee Bruneau along with many of the original cast members return for the revival.

To conclude its 45th season, Berkeley Repertory Theatre welcomes back a pair of acclaimed collaborators: Sarah Ruhl and Les Waters, the creators of Eurydice, Three Sisters, and In the Next Room (or the vibrator play), return to Berkeley Rep with another tale of love and longing in Dear Elizabeth.

Tennessee Shakespeare Company (TSC), the Mid-South's professional classical theatre, presents a special, limited engagement of William Shakespeare's Hamlet inside Dixon Gallery and Garden's Winegardner Auditorium from April 3-14 in Memphis.

The fables, foibles and falls of the British Monarchy are delightfully exposed in WordStage's performances of John Barton's 'The Hollow Crown', running at 8:00pm tonight and Saturday, April 5 & 6, 2013.

What is the great evil we are failing to face up to today? Award-winning Bay Area auteur Mark Jackson (Salomania, Metamorphosis, Salome, Miss Julie) returns to Aurora Theatre Company to direct British playwright Alistair Beaton's elegant new translation of THE ARSONISTS, Max Frisch's classic comic parable about appeasement (sometimes known as Beidermann and the Firebugs or Fire Raisers). Featuring Dan Hiatt, Tim Kniffin, and Michael Ray Wisely, along with Kevin Clarke, Tristan Cunningham, Gwen Loeb, Dina Percia, and Michael Uy Kelly, THE ARSONISTS plays tonight, April 5 through May 12 at the Aurora Theatre in Berkeley.

Two things we love here at BroadwayWorld Jr.: Broadway shows for families and the development of terrific new public schools in New York City. Here's your opportunity to be a part of both. The Hebrew Charter School Center (HCSC) is inviting fans of great family theater to a special benefit performance of Matilda on Sunday April 21st at 3:00 pm. All proceeds of the benefit will go to HCSC, which is working to develop high quality Hebrew language charter schools in the New York area and across the country.

The Astoria Performing Arts Center (APAC) has announced Willy Russell's (Educating Rita and Shirley Valentine) BLOOD BROTHERS, musical staging by Christine O'Grady, musical direction by Julianne B. Merrill, and directed by Tom Wojtunik. BLOOD BROTHERS will play a limited engagement at the Good Shepherd United Methodist Church (30-44 Crescent St, Astoria, NY 11102. Entrance on 30th Road.) Performances begin Thursday, May 2 and continue through Saturday, May 18.

Riverside Theatre presents the third and final production for this season's Waxlax Stage. The Award-winning Faith Healer will perform on the Waxlax Stage from tonight, April 4-14, 2013 and is presented by Riverside Theatre's Patron Producers.

With a new leadership team of Gregory Doran, Artistic Director, and Catherine Mallyon, Executive Director, at the helm, the Royal Shakespeare Company returns to New York this spring with two productions, Julius Caesar and Matilda The Musical. Both began their lives at the RSC's Stratford-upon-Avon home and reflect the Company's continuing commitment to Shakespeare and the work of contemporary playwrights and theatre artists, as it celebrates one hundred years of touring work from Shakespeare's birthplace to the US.

Marin Theatre Company's artistic director Jasson Minadakis and managing director Michael Barker announced the company's 2013-14 season today. Featuring six productions in MTC's intimate 231-seat Boyer Theatre, the season includes the regional premiere of David Lindsay-Abaire's national sensation Good People; a revival of August Wilson's Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning play Fences;world premieres of I and You by Bay Area-based playwright Lauren Gunderson and Lasso of Truth, which MTC commissioned from Carson Kreitzer with the support of the National New Play Network; the west coast premiere of Philip Dawkins' "whimsical beyond all imagining" Failure: A Love Story; and a unique holiday production of Jacob Marley's Christmas Carol by Tom Mula. Based in Mill Valley, MTC is a 47-year old professional nonprofit theater, a destination for exhilarating performances, inspired new American plays and powerful theatrical experiences.

Gulfshore Playhouse ends their seventh season with the musical play Master Class, in partnership with the Philharmonic Center for the Arts, playing April 5 through 21, with a preview performance April 4.

Today we are talking to the originator of Jean Valjean in LES MISERABLES onstage and a preeminent Phantom (and the first to actually play the role) in THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA who has clearly made a major mark with his performances in the theatre - not to mention his work on the original concept albums of EVITA and JEKYLL & HYDE - who now makes the leap to the big screen in his featured role in the super-successful feature film iteration of the Claude-Michel Schonberg/Alain Boublil musical based on the Victor Hugo novel - the titanically talented Colm Wilkinson. Opening up about his work in the original Royal Shakespeare Company production of LES MISERABLES and his collaboration with the creative team and cast of actors as well as his association with producer Cameron Mackintosh, director Trevor Nunn and more, Wilkinson details the finer points of creating one of the modern musical theatre's most memorable characters, from his first audition through to the West End, Broadway and beyond. Additionally, Wilkinson reveals all about shooting the feature film version, with Broadway/Hollywood superstar Hugh Jackman taking over the leading role and whether he would consider taking on another character in the show after having essaying Jean Valjean onstage and the Monsignor onscreen - maybe Javert? Plus, Wilkinson shares backstage stories involving fellow theatrical luminaries like Trevor Nunn, Tim Rice, Andrew Lloyd Webber and more in this career-spanning conversation with one of the mega-musical era's most major of stars - - all of that and much, much more awaits!