Shakespeare & Company News

I have never been in the habit of speaking Shakespeare's text on purpose in my everyday life. Of course, we all use his creations daily, but often only in the natural course of conversation.a

Berkeley Repertory Theatre continues the second half of its season with Tribes, a sophisticated and moving family drama by celebrated British playwright Nina Raine. Her profound and powerful new play became an award-winning hit in London and New York. Now renowned director Jonathan Moscone brings it to Berkeley Rep this April for its Bay Area premiere. Tribes follows Billy, a young man who was born deaf into a loquacious and highly opinionated academic family who raised him to lip-read and integrate into the hearing world. When he meets Sylvia - raised by Deaf parents and going deaf herself - Billy decides it's time to speak on his own terms and to be heard. Playing out in words, sign language, and sometimes mesmerizing silence, this penetrating drama examines familial love, notions of belonging, and the intersections of communication. Tribes start previews Friday, April 11, opens on April 16, and closes on Sunday, May 11, 2014.

Lesli Margherita, who stars in Broadway's MATILDA THE MUSICAL as Mrs. Wormwood, was interviewed recently on WAMC Radio's program 'The Roundtable.' Listen to her conversation with host Sarah LaDuke about her social media following, Mrs. Wormwood's similarities to Miss Piggy, and the beauty of performing with four different Matildas each week.

The Shakespeare Theatre Company, recipient of the 2012 Regional Theatre Tony Award, presents Shakespeare's Henry IV, Parts 1 and 2 as part of the Clarice Smith Repertory. STC Artistic Director Michael Kahn will direct both parts of this sweeping epic - one of Shakespeare's culminating achievements in the history play genre - over multiple nights. As Kahn says, describing Parts 1 and 2 as his favorite Shakespearean drama: 'It brings to the stage every issue we as human beings experience.' The two productions will run in the Company's Sidney Harman Hall (610 F Street NW) from March 25 - June 8, 2014.

Shrunken Shakespeare Company's 2014 Fundraiser Gala will be hosting the New York City premiere of "Lear" adapted by and starring Paul Sorvino. This cut of William Shakespeare's "King Lear" will be presented as a staged reading, produced by SSC in collaboration with director and producer Joe Paradise. In addition to Sorvino and Paradise, actor/comedian Wayne Powers, Michael Sorvino, and Tyler Hollinger of The Public Theatre and The Mint, will also be taking part in "Lear." Complete casting is to be announced. The Gala will take place on Monday, April 21 at 7:30pm, at The Barrow Group located at 312 W. 36th Street, 3rd Floor.

What do you get when a born freak, a former beauty queen, and an award-winning maverick director take on a classic romance? From March 13­31, Abrons Art Center will present Beauty and the Beast, starring Mat Fraser and Julie Atlas Muz, directed by Improbable's Phelim McDermott. Fraser, the consistently inventive, provocative and entertaining British disabled actor/writer and Muz, the Downtown NYC performance legend and former Miss Coney Island, breath complexity and life into the eponymous characters, weaving an adult fairytale like no other.

Stepping into the role of Macbeth is not for the faint of heart. It's a dark spiral of a ride that requires an actor to completely immerse himself in the evolution of evil within a character. Classically-trained actor, Elijah Alexander, talks about his journey preparing to play the role for A Noise Within and what he's learned from touring the country in this fascinating in-depth interview.

Upcoming Equity Auditions from Sunday, March 9, 2014.

Spice up your Sunday evenings as we look hopefully towards spring with some fantastic theater from Adirondack Shakespeare Company. The troupe teams up with Lake Placid Center for the Arts to present a new 'Sunday Shakespeare Series' this month with three original mash-ups of the Bard's greatest hits.

Passion. Love. Vengeance. African-American Shakespeare Company continues its 19th season with MEDEA, Euripides' infamous tragedy about a jilted wife exacting the ultimate revenge on a cheating husband. Dawn Monique Williams, a veteran of staging the classics, directs, with Leontyne Mbele-Mbong in the title role. MEDEA plays Saturdays and Sundays, today, March 8-30 at the Buriel Clay Theater at the African American Art and Culture Complex, 762 Fulton Street (at Webster) in San Francisco.

Previews begin tomorrow night, Saturday, March 8, for the return to Broadway of Tony Award-winner and two-time Academy Award-winner Denzel Washington, starring as Walter Lee Younger in Lorraine Hansberry's A RAISIN IN THE SUN. This new production begins previews nearly 55 years to the day that A RAISIN IN THE SUN had its Broadway premiere (March 11, 1959) at the same theatre, the Ethel Barrymore Theatre (243 West 47th Street). Scroll down to learn more about the cast!

Rehearsals started today for the Alliance Theatre's world premiere of THE TALL GIRLS, a play set in the depression-era Midwest where the success of a girls' basketball team may be the only way to a better life for the team's members. Playwright Meg Miroshnik, winner of the 2012 Alliance/Kendeda National Graduate Playwriting Competition for her play The Fairytale Lives of Russian Girls, has been described by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution as 'a ferocious talent with a promising career in store.'

Directed and edited by Tarell Alvin McCraney, The Public's ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA is an international collaboration with the Royal Shakespeare Company and Miami's Gable Stage. The play opened last night, March 5, and runs through Sunday, March 23 in The Public's Anspacher Theater. BroadwayWorld brings you a look back at the opening night festivities below!

Tarell Alvin McCraney's vibrant and sexy production sets the story in French-colonial Saint-Domingue.

The celebrated off-Broadway comedy, Around the World in 80 Days, which features five actors in a theatrical tour-de-force playing 39 characters from Jules Verne's classic adventure novel, will come alive through the Arizona Theatre Company production at the Herberger Theater Center, 222 E. Monroe, from March 27-April 13.

Court Theatre continues its 2013-2014 season with the Chicago premiere of Water by the Spoonful written by Quiara Alegria Hudes, and directed by Henry Godinez. Water by the Spoonful will run tonight, March 6 - April 6, 2014 at Court Theatre, 5535 S. Ellis Avenue. Press Opening is Saturday, March 15, 2014 at 8:00PM.

Following two previous much-acclaimed seasons of American drama, the Ustinov presents The American Season 2014: three UK premieres, Dan LeFranc's The Big Meal, directed by Michael Boyd; Keith Huff's gritty two-hander, A Steady Rain, directed by David Grindley; and Lynn Nottage's multi award-winning Intimate Apparel, directed by Laurence Boswell. Casting will be announced in early 2014.

Playful Productions and the Royal Shakespeare Company have announced that the sell-out productions of Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies will transfer to the Aldwych Theatre from 1 May for a strictly limited season until 6 September. RSC Members Priority Booking opens at 10am on Thursday 6 March. Public Booking opens at 10am on Monday 10 March.

Broadway stars might boast the biggest fan-bases, but without their directors, the vehicle driving their talents could easily swerve off the tracks. Keeping the runaway train at bay are season's bold Broadway 'conductors'. Scroll down to learn more about this season's intrepid and imaginative leaders!