Shakespeare & Company News

The Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts announces its theater, music, dance, lectures and Theater for Young Audiences programming for the 2014-2015 Season, which begins October 7-19 with the Edinburgh-based Puppet State Theatre Company production of The Man Who Planted Trees in the Lovelace Studio Theater; and in the Bram Goldsmith Theater a new lecture series in partnership with Writers Bloc, presenting a conversation with Leon Panetta on October 15 and Marsalis Well Tempered: An Evening with Branford Marsalis featuring the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia on October 16.

In Autumn 2014 Blackeyed Theatre Company tours Stephen MacDonald's Not About Heroes to over forty theatres across the UK . Marking the centenary of the beginning of The First World War, this major revival of MacDonald's play, about the poets Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen, performs from 10 September until 6 December 2014.

The Atlanta Shakespeare Company at The New American Shakespeare Tavern presents Pericles: Prince of Tyre, September 13-October 5, 2014.

Two tramps waiting by a tree in the middle of nowhere does not sound like the most engaging evening of theater. But when it comes from the absurdist mind of Samuel Beckett, you have one of the most thought provoking plays of the 20th century with his brilliant, "Waiting for Godot". But it's still not always engaging unless you have the right team putting it up. Fortunately Director George Mount has assembled a superb cast with an excellent take on the show that keeps it completely riveting.

Seattle Shakespeare Company's WAITING FOR GODOT by Samuel Beckett will be directed by George Mount at the Falls Theatre at ACT Theatre, 700 Union Street, Seattle, WA. The show opens tonight, September 5, 2014, and plays through Sunday, September 21, 2014. BroadwayWorld has a first look at the cast in action below!

Producers of the Tony Award-winning MATILDA THE MUSICAL announced today that Alison Luff will join the company as Miss Honey beginning tomorrow, Saturday, September 6.

Cincinnati Shakespeare Company officially opens their 2014-2015 season with the highly anticipated production of the Regional Premiere of F. Scott Fitzgerald's 'The Great Gatsby' adapted for the stage by Simon Levy. This production is directed by Cincinnati Shakespeare's Producing Artistic Director, Brian Isaac Phillips and features Cincinnati Shakespeare's Resident Ensemble of actors including Jared Joplin, Justin McCombs, Sara Clark and Kelly Mengelkoch. BroadwayWorld has a first look at the cast in action below!

According to the history books, the infamous Gunpowder Plot was a conspiracy by England's marginalized Catholics to blow up Protestant King James I and his entire Parliament. Or was it? What if the official story concealed a darker truth? And what if King James had commanded William Shakespeare to write a play -- a "true historie" -- on order to further cement the government's account? These are some of the questions asked in Equivocation, Bill Cain's witty exploration of political power and artistic integrity. Winner of the prestigious 2010 Steinberg/ATCA New Play Award, Equivocation opens on Sept. 5 at Will Geer's Theatricum Botanicum in Topanga. BroadwayWorld has a first look at the cast in action below!

Cincinnati Shakespeare Company officially opens their 2014-2015 season with the highly anticipated production of the Regional Premiere of F. Scott Fitzgerald's 'The Great Gatsby' adapted for the stage by Simon Levy. This production is directed by Cincinnati Shakespeare's Producing Artistic Director, Brian Isaac Phillips and features Cincinnati Shakespeare's Resident Ensemble of actors including Jared Joplin, Justin McCombs, Sara Clark and Kelly Mengelkoch. The Ensemble is generously sponsored by BKD and Taft and the Design is sponsored by Legg Mason.

The Lyric Stage Company of Boston's 2014-15 Season begins September 5 with Stephen Sondheim's masterpiece SWEENEY TODD, The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. The musical thriller runs tonight, September 5 through October 11, 2014. The opening is set for September 7 at 3 p.m.

San Francisco Playhouse launches its twelfth season with the world premiere of Ideation, winner of the 2014 prestigious Glickman playwriting award. Ideation, written by Aaron Loeb (First Person Shooter, Abraham Lincoln's Big, Gay Dance Party) and directed by Josh Costello, broke box office records and received critical acclaim during its development process as part of the 2014 San Francisco Playhouse 2014 Sandbox Series.

The 14/15 Season at Syracuse Stage starts September 24 with Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, winner of the 2013 Tony Award for Best Play. In this "ripped and roaring" comedy by Christopher Durang, Sonia and Vanya have frittered their lives away in the family farmhouse. Enter their sister, self-absorbed movie star Masha with her 20-something boy toy Spike, and a dysfunctional family's reunion turns into a weekend of hilarity.

Resident co-founder/co-artistic director Sean Harris will be directing the American masterpiece Angels in America: Part 1: Millennium Approaches to kick off Playhouse on Park's sixth season. Winner of the 1993 Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award, the first part of Tony Kushner's epic depicts life in America during the 1980s. Touching upon the provocative topics of politics, religion, and the AIDS epidemic, Angels in America has been hailed as 'a searching and radical rethinking of American political drama' (New York Times) and 'the most ambitious American Play of our time' (Newsweek). This production is recommended for audiences sixteen and up.

Following its Edinburgh Fringe sell out success, Kingmaker comes to St James' Theatre this September for a strictly limited run.

PICT Classic Theatre's Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme, by Frank McGuinness, opens just about 100 years after the historical WWI events that are authentically portrayed in the performance. Running today, September 4, through September 20 at the Stephen Foster Memorial, the play, appropriate for ages 12+, leaves audiences with a better emotional understanding of events that changed the course of millions of lives and a sense of the surprising ways that WWI continues to shape the world today.

The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey, one of the nation's leading classic theatres, will present a staged reading of The Physicists by Friedrich Durrenmatt, translated by James Kirkup, and directed by Brian B. Crowe as part of the Lend Us Your Ears Reading Series on September 22 at 7 p.m. The play explores the notion that the quest for new discoveries and knowledge often comes at a dear cost, with high stake responsibilities and consequences. The Reading Series offers audiences the opportunity to join Shakespeare Theatre directors, actors, and artistic staff as they explore diverse and compelling plays. Single tickets to each reading are $18 for adults and $10 for students. For more information about Lend Us Your Ears, visit ShakespeareNJ.org or call the Box Office at 973-408-5600.

Aurora Theatre Company continues its 23rd season with the West Coast Premiere of Fraser Grace's provocative BREAKFAST WITH MUGABE. First produced by the Royal Shakespeare Company in 2005, this recent off Broadway hit was inspired by newspaper reports that Robert Mugabe, the president of Zimbabwe, severely depressed and convinced he was haunted by the ghost of a dead comrade, sought treatment from a white psychiatrist. Shedding light on Mugabe's demons, the sessions soon become a precarious power struggle between doctor and patient. Set against the aftermath of colonialism and revolution, BREAKFAST WITH MUGABE delves into the mind of one of the world's most vilified leaders.

The Royal Shakespeare Company announces the summer 2015 season.

Shakespeare & Company unleashes its Fall Season with the hilarious thriller Private Eyes written by Steven Dietz and directed by Jonathan Croy. Private Eyes runs weekends only in the Elayne P. Bernstein Theatre September 20 - November 9.

Hands on a Hardbody is a new rock musical about 10 Texans whose new lease on life is so close they can touch it. Under a scorching sun for days on end and armed with nothing but hope and ambition, they'll fight to keep at least one hand on a brand-new truck in order to win it. In this hard-fought contest, only one winner can drive away with the American dream.