Simon Levy News

Altoona Community Theatre presents F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, adapted for the stage by Simon Levy, beginning this week. Performances are February 10, 11, 12 at 7:30 PM, and February 13 at 2:00 PM.

How do families stay together, even when they are kept apart? The Fountain Theatre presents a gripping new docudrama, a compilation of true stories that explores the rippling impact of mass deportations on families. The world premiere of Detained, written by 2021 Lorraine Hansberry Award-winning playwright France-Luce Benson and directed by Mark Valdez, winner of the 2021 Zelda Fichandler Award, opens February 19 at the Fountain Theatre.

On April 7th, 2022 The Ivoryton Playhouse will open its doors for a new season – a very different season with fewer productions but more performances and a year full of exciting, affordable professional theatre. Plays for romantics and plays for cynics; shows for families and shows for sweethearts; classic hit music from the 50s and 60s as well as country music favorites.

Here's my interview with director Simon Levy on Lucy Kirkwood's funny and astonishing Tony-nominated play is a taut and disquieting thriller about responsibility, reparation and what one generation owes the next. With the outside world in chaos following a devastating environmental disaster, two retired nuclear engineers live a quiet life in a remote cottage on the lonely British coast - until a surprise visit from a former colleague upends the couple's equilibrium and trust. LA. premiere at the Fountain Theatre from Saturday, November 6 through January 23. Featured in the cast are Ron Bottitta, Elizabeth Elias Huffman, and Lily Knight, all three well known around the L.A. theatre scene.

What is our responsibility to the future? What legacy do we want to leave? The Los Angeles premiere of The Children, written by Lucy Kirkwood and directed by Simon Levy, asks those questions and more in its Los Angeles premiere at the Fountain Theatre.

Casting is complete and rehearsals begin this week for the Los Angeles premiere of a radical, incendiary and subversively funny Obie award-winning play by MacArthur Foundation “Genius Grant” recipient Branden Jacobs-Jenkins.

A new musical stage adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s legendary novel The Great Gatsby is headed for the stage, with a new score from Grammy Award-nominated international rock star of Florence + the Machine Florence Welch and Grammy Award nominee Thomas Bartlett.

Artists throughout the state of California are uniting for the passage of Senate Bill 805 (SB 805), titled, “The Performing Arts Relief Act,” which the Senate Labor Committee will vote on Wednesday, April 19, 2021 at 3:00 p.m. in Sacramento, CA.   A Coalition of 36 small 99-seat non-profit theaters and freelance performers are banding together to make theater accessible to all.  

The Fountain Theatre is readying Raise Your Voice a?" Vote!, a guerrilla style, immersive theater event set to take place over the course of two days at six locations throughout the City of Los Angeles. Watch the live-stream every hour on the hour beginning at 10 a.m. PT / 1 p.m. ET on Saturday, Oct. 24 and Sunday, Oct. 25 at www.FountainTheatre.com.

This Spotlight focuses on Daniel Durant, a multi-talented American Sign Language (ASL) actor whose impressive performance in Spring Awakening with Deaf West Theatre took him all the way to Broadway! As a Deaf actor who performs using ASL, how is he keeping creative while waiting to get back onstage?

With the current theatre world on hiatus, I have created a Spotlight Series on Broadway World which features interviews with some of the many talented artists who make our Los Angeles theatre community so exciting and vibrant thanks to their ongoing contribution to keeping the Arts alive in the City of the Angels. And just like all of us, I wondered how they are dealing with the abrupt end of productions in which they were involved. This Spotlight focuses on Robert Yacko, one of the busiest triple-threat performers in Los Angeles!

Due to the continuing effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, the upcoming 2020 performance season from Actors' Theatre of Columbus (ATC) has been cancelled.

This Spotlight focuses on Simon Levy who began his directing career in San Francisco, then moved to Los Angeles in 1990 where he has been the Producing Director for the Fountain Theatre since 1993. His directing and producing credits are numerous, with over 100 productions in Los Angeles and San Francisco that have won more than 200 awards. His journey has been blessed with having wonderful mentors along the way, which has enabled the talented director to earn his living doing theatre and earned him great respect from the entire L.A. Theatre community.

With the current theatre world on hiatus, I have created a Spotlight Series on Broadway World Los Angeles which features interviews with some of the many talented artists who make our Los Angeles theatre community so exciting and vibrant thanks to their ongoing contribution to keeping the arts alive in the City of the Angels. And like all of us, how are they dealing with the abrupt end of productions in which they were involved? This Spotlight focuses on Tanya Alexander, a spoken word artist and writer of poetry and music, who I recently reviewed in her leading role in HUMAN INTEREST STORY at the Fountain Theatre in Hollywood, in which she plays Jane Doe, an anonymous homeless woman plucked from a park bench and made a media celebrity.

Scott P. Calhoon's dreamlike staging of the S. E. Hinton classic finds moments of beauty and adrenaline in the sometimes clumsy prose of a young adult classic.

Welcome back to the '20s! Hyde Park's New Deal Creative Arts Center is presenting a stage adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby adapted for the stage by Simon Levy for a one weekend exclusive event February 28-March 1, 2020 at Poughkeepsie's Cunneen-Hackett Arts Center.

This thought-provoking testament to the universal struggle of living day-to-day in a society whose apathy seems to know no bounds for the down-and-out will grab your attention and keep you at the edge of your seat as Jane Doe's story unfolds. Tanya Alexander's magnificent ability to morph herself from a homeless woman in dirty clothing, sitting on a park bench holding a sign stating a?oeI am NOT Invisiblea?? allows us to see where she has been and how much she really desires to pick herself up by her bootstraps and do whatever is necessary to survive. As she achieves celebrity status, Alexander opens to heart and soul and lets us see into Jane Doe's guilt of having survived when others have not. And as Jane Doe's fortunes rise, Alexander is costumed to perfection in lovely, form-fitting dresses designed by Shon LeBlanc that would allow Jane Doe to shine anywhere.

Deborah Culver and Stephen Sachs founded the Fountain Theatre in an intimate, Spanish-style, East Hollywood building that belies the sizable local impact and international reach of the company's acclaimed and award-winning productions. Now entering its 30th year as one of the most highly regarded theaters in Los Angeles, the Fountain is announcing a celebratory 2020 season of dynamic premieres and events.

a?oeThe line between where you are now and sleeping in your car is much thinner than you think.a?? The Fountain Theatre presents the world premiere of a timely new play, written and directed by Stephen Sachs (Arrival & Departure, Citizen: An American Lyric, Bakersfield Mist), about homelessness, celebrity worship and the assault on American journalism. Human Interest Story opens at the Fountain on Feb. 15, where performances continue through April 5.

Actors' Theatre of Columbus (ATC) is excited to announce its upcoming 2020 performance series, a?oeRoyalsa?? a?" a look at the sovereignty and subversion of the ruling class and social elite.