Stephen Tyrone Williams News

The Piano Lesson by August Wilson will run October 22 through November 9, 2014, directed by Timothy Bond, at Syracuse Stage. BroadwayWorld has a first look at the cast in action below!

In August Wilson's Pulitzer Prize-winning masterpiece The Piano Lesson, the past threatens to pull apart brother and sister. Bernice treasures a one-of-a-kind piano, an heirloom with carved figures of their enslaved ancestors. Boy Willie suddenly arrives from the South determined to sell the piano and buy the land his family worked on. When the ghost of the piano's original owner appears, family conflicts escalate to a dramatic confrontation. With lyrical language rolling from the rowdy to the tender, this is one of Wilson's finest.

The Playwrights Realm will present the annual INK'D Reading Festival from May 12 through May 15 at The Studio Theatre at Cherry Lane Theatre (38 Commerce Street). The 2014 festival features the plays of Elizabeth Irwin (My Mañana Comes), Lila Rose Kaplan (123), Jason Gray Platt (The There There) and Amelia Roper (Lottie in the Late Afternoon). As previously announced, My Mañana Comes will receive a full production at The Peter Jay Sharp Theater (416 West 42nd Street) from August 26 to September 20, 2014.

The New Group continues its 2013-2014 season with the world premiere of Intimacy, a new play by Thomas Bradshaw. Directed by Scott Elliott, Intimacy features David Anzuelo, Austin Cauldwell, Ella Dershowitz, Laura Esterman, Daniel Gerroll, Dea Julien and Keith Randolph Smith. A limited Off-Broadway engagement plays now through March 8 at TheNew Group @ Theatre Row (The Acorn Theatre / 410 West 42nd Street). BroadwayWorld was there for opening night and you can check out photos below!

General tickets go on sale today, September 21, for Tony Award-winner and two-time Academy Award-winner Denzel Washington as Walter Lee Younger in Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun, opposite film, television and Tony Award-winning stage star Diahann Carroll as Lena Younger, in her first Broadway appearance in over 30 years. The production will be directed by Tony Award-nominee Kenny Leon. Previews begin March 8, 2014, with opening night on April 3, 2014 at the Barrymore Theatre (243 West 47th Street), where the original production of A Raisin in the Sun opened 55 years ago. A Raisin in the Sun is a limited engagement, running 14 weeks only through June 15, 2014. Tickets will be available at www.telecharge.com or by calling Telecharge.com at 212-239-6200.

Tickets will be on sale exclusively to American Express cardholders from Wednesday, September 4 through Friday, September 20 only for Tony Award-winner and two-time Academy Award-winner Denzel Washington as Walter Lee Younger in Lorraine Hansberry's A RAISIN IN THE SUN, opposite film, television and Tony Award-winning stage star Diahann Carroll as Lena Younger, in her first Broadway appearance in over 30 years. General on-sale will begin on Saturday, September 21. The production will be directed by Tony Award-nominee Kenny Leon. Previews begin March 8, 2014, with opening night on April 3, 2014 at the Barrymore Theatre (243 West 47th Street), where the original production of A RAISIN IN THE SUN opened 55 years ago. A RAISIN IN THE SUN is a limited engagement, running 14 weeks only through June 15, 2014. Tickets will be available at www.telecharge.com or by calling Telecharge.com at 212-239-6200.

While 'Lee Daniels' The Butler' is generating Oscar buzz for its chronicle of several decades of African- American political life, two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright August Wilson masterfully documented a full century of the African-American experience in the 10 plays the make up the American Century Cycle. These works, nine of which have been staged on Broadway with stars including Denzel Washington, Viola Davis, Charles Dutton, among many others, showed the suffering, joys, and triumphs of African-Americans through searing, poetic and personal stories of everyday people in Pittsburgh, PA.

While 'Lee Daniels' The Butler' is generating Oscar buzz for its chronicle of several decades of African- American political life, two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright August Wilson masterfully documented a full century of the African-American experience in the 10 plays the make up the American Century Cycle. These works, nine of which have been staged on Broadway with stars including Denzel Washington, Viola Davis, Charles Dutton, among many others, showed the suffering, joys, and triumphs of African-Americans through searing, poetic and personal stories of everyday people in Pittsburgh, PA.

The Jerome L. Greene Performance Space at WNYC and WQXR, the state-of-the-art venue of the nation's most listened-to news/talk and classical public radio stations, will make history this fall when it creates, for the first time, exclusive recordings of all 10 of August Wilson's American Century Cycle Plays.

Tony Award-winner and two-time Academy Award-winner Denzel Washington will star as Walter Lee Younger in Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun, opposite film, television and Tony Award-winning stage star Diahann Carroll as Lena Younger, on Broadway next spring. Washington's character, Walter Lee Younger, is described in Hansberry's script as 'a lean, intense young man in his middle thirties'. But Washington is 60. Producer Scott Rudin addressed this age difference in an interview published today on Newsday.

LUCKY GUY, starring two-time Academy Award-winner and Tony Award nominee Tom Hanks in the world premiere production of Nora Ephron's final work, has broken the record three times as the highest grossing play in Broadway history. The show was nominated for six 2013 Tony Awards, including Best Play, with Courtney B. Vance winning for Best Featured Actor in a Play, and Jules Fisher & Peggy Eisenhauer winning for Best Lighting Design of a Play. Directed by two-time Tony Award-winner George C. Wolfe, LUCKY GUY opened April 1, 2013 at the Broadhurst Theatre, and closes today, July 3, 2013. BroadwayWorld takes you back to LUCKY GUY's beginnings on Broadway below!

LUCKY GUY, starring two-time Academy Award-winner Tom Hanks, is now in its final performances on Broadway. The production, the final work by three-time Academy Award-nominee Nora Ephron and directed by two-time Tony Award-winner George C. Wolfe, was extended by popular demand through Wednesday, July 3 when it ends its record-breaking limited engagement at the Broadhurst Theatre (235 West 44th Street).

LUCKY GUY Tony nominees, Courtney B. Vance and George C. Wolfe will appear on WNYC's "The Leonard Lopate Show" on Friday, June 6 at 1:00PM. Locally, the program airs on WNYC 93.9FM, AM820 and on www.wnyc.org. Elsewhere, check local listings.

LUCKY GUY Tony nominee Tom Hanks joined Tom Brokaw, Joe Scarborough, Mika Brzezinski and Mike Barnicle on "Morning Joe" this morning to discuss the play. Check out Hanks' full 25-minute interview below!

LUCKY GUY Tony nominees Tom Hanks, Courtney B. Vance, director George C. Wolfe were joined by Nora Ephron's son, Jacob Bernstein for a panel on 'Charlie Rose' recently. Click HERE to watch the segment.

Dramatists Play Service will publish and license the acting edition of Nora Ephron's LUCKY GUY, which has been nominated for six Tony Awards including Best Play. Founded in 1936 by the Dramatists Guild of America and the Society for Authors' Representatives, Dramatists Play Service publishes and licenses productions of plays in the United States, Canada and throughout the world. The company has published 18 of the last 25 Tony Award-winners for Best Play, including M. Butterfly, The Heidi Chronicles, The Grapes of Wrath, Dancing at Lughnasa, Love! Valour! Compassion!, Master Class, The Last Night of Ballyhoo, Art, Side Man, Proof, The Goat, or Who is Sylvia, Take Me Out, I Am My Own Wife, Doubt, August: Osage County, God of Carnage, Red and Clybourne Park.