Shakespeare & Company News

The Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle (LADCC) has announced its nominations and special awards for excellence in Los Angeles and Orange County theatre for the year 2015 (Dec. 1, 2014 - Nov. 30, 2015).

It is announced today that Claudie Blakley, Marcus Fraser, Mark Hadfield and Alex Macqueen will join previously confirmed cast members Kenneth Branagh and Rob Brydon in the Kenneth Branagh Theatre Company's new comedy The Painkiller. The fifth production in the Plays at the Garrick season will play from 5 March until 30 April with press night on 17 March.

?With her production of Red Velvet currently running in the West End, Artistic Director of the Tricycle Theatre Indhu Rubasingham today announces the extension of the highly critically acclaimed UK premiere of Florian Zeller's The Mother, in a new translation by Christopher Hampton, now completing its run on 12 March. Laurence Boswell directs Gina McKee, Richard Clothier, Frances McNamee and William Postlethwaite in the production which opened to rave reviews at the venue earlier this week.

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.

Yale Repertory Theatre presents the world premiere of THE MOORS by Jen Silverman, directed by Jackson Gay, beginning tonight, January 29, where it will run through February 20 at Yale Repertory Theatre (1120 Chapel Street). Opening Night is Thursday, February 4.

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.

To share an outstanding production of the 2013 Hamlet Marathon in Milan, Italy with a wider audience, First Maria LLC will present Shakespeare's 'Hamlet,' directed by Celeste Moratti and performed by a mixed American-Italian company, March 4 to 20, 2016 at Teatro Circulo, 64 East 4th Street, Manhattan. The production trims politics out of the plot in order to emphasize each character's role as either a child or a parent, highlighting mistakes of mothers and fathers and the conflicts in children between filial duty and the emergence of conscience. The performance is entirely in English.

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.

Bug's just your average 13-year-old girl whose family is hiding out in a storage facility. So naturally, she's transformed herself into a high priestess who's trying to raise the dead. On this particular summer day, her incantations seem to work, setting off an acceleration of events ending in a rough Armageddon that launches her into the world.

The Atlanta Shakespeare Company is honored to welcome Mr. Kurt Kuehn to ASC's Board of Directors, where he will serve as co-chair of the upcoming capital campaign. A graduate of Yale University, the University of Miami, and the Advanced Management Program of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, Mr. Kuehn will bring considerable knowledge and expertise to his new position at ASC.

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.

Shakespeare Theatre Association Member Theatre, Shakespeare at Notre Dame is in the midst of hosting two international conferences on campus as part of their "Shakespeare: 1616-2016" celebration. First up is the second iteration of 2013's Shakespeare in Prisons Conference, titled, "Shakespeare in Prisons: In Practice." SIP:IP brings community and prison arts practitioners from around the world to Notre Dame January 25-27 for three days of plenaries, panel discussions, and active workshop training by some of the most noted figures in the field of Shakespeare and social justice (including Curt Tofteland, Shakespeare Behind Bars; Tom Magill, Educational Shakespeare Company; Sabra Williams, The Actors' Gang Prison Project; Michelle Hensley, Ten Thousand Things; Bill Watson and Nancy Smith-Watson, Feast of Crispian; and Meade Palidofsky, Storycatchers Theatre). Participants will be given an opportunity to explore techniques for approaching incarcerated and nontraditional populations.

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.