Studio Theatre News

The Stage Directors and Choreographers Foundation (SDCF) proudly reveals this season's Joe A. Callaway Award winners for Direction and Choreography from more than 200 eligible productions in the 2012 - 2013 New York City theatre season. This year's awards will be presented to Ruben Santiago-Hudson for his direction of The Piano Lesson produced by Signature Theatre and Marlo Hunter for her choreography of Unlock'd produced by Prospect Theater Company. The winners join previous Joe A. Callaway Award Winners including Susan Stroman (1991), Harold Prince (1993), Julie Taymor (1996), Jack O'Brien (2001), Bartlett Sher (2002), Daniel Sullivan (2004), John Tiffany (2012) and Steven Hoggett (2012).

Previews begin Thursday, October 24, for Year of the Rooster by Youngblood playwright Eric Dufault, directed by John Giampietro, at the Ensemble Studio Theatre, 549 West 52nd Street. Year of the Rooster is a comic, mythic elevation of the gritty subculture of American cockfighting by a 25-year-old playwright. It opens the Ensemble Studio Theatre's 46th season Monday, October 28, at 7:00pm .

Music Theatre of Connecticut MainStage, Fairfield County's award-winning professional theatre company, kicks off their 2013/2014 Season with the Tony Award winning play 'Master Class', by Terrance McNally. Performances are November 1-17, Fridays and Saturdays at 8pm, with matinees Saturdays at 4pm and Sundays at 2pm, at MTC MainStage Studio Theatre, 246 Post Road East (Colonial Green/Lower Level) in downtown Westport, CT. Tickets range from $25-$45 ($5 discount for seniors/students) and are available by calling 203.454.3883 or visiting www.musictheatreofct.com

Minnesota storyteller/songwriter Rachel Nelson brings her memoir musical THE URBAN HERMIT to the 2013 United Solo Theater Festival on Nov. 3. This coming-of-age story about coming out, sobering up, and street busking is directed by Beth Margolis Brooks, founding member of the Margolis-Brown Adaptors Theatre Company.

Under Artistic Director Sharon Watson, Phoenix Dance Theatre come to London to perform at the Royal Opera House from Nov 19th for four nights only. Particle Velocity - a programme of four exciting and musically diverse dance works - features All Alight, the debut work for the company from Richard Alston.

After a national search that attracted more than forty applicants, Metro Theater Company's Board of Directors has selected Julia Flood to lead the company forward as artistic director, succeeding Carol North, who will step down this winter after thirty-six years with the organization. Flood assumes her new post in February.

Central Texas' most well-known children's theatre company, Pollyanna Theatre in Strategic Alliance with the Long Center, presents The Boy Who Loved Monsters and the Girl Who Loved Peas by well-known playwright Jonathan Graham at the Rollins Studio Theatre at the Long Center for the Performing Arts, 701 West Riverside, Austin, TX 78704. The show runs from October 12 - 20 with multiple show times, and two 'pay what you like' parties with the cast.

The Alumnae Theatre Company presents the first annual FireWorks Series.

Summoners Ensemble Theatre and the Merchant's House Museum announce A Christmas Carol at the Merchant's House Museum. John Kevin Jones recreates his outstanding solo performance of A Christmas Carol, directed by Dr. Rhonda Dodd, in the intimate Greek revival double parlor of the landmark 1832 Merchant's House Museum (29 East 4th Street, Manhattan).

Rising Circle Theater Collective kicks off its 2013-14 Season with The Refinery – a workshop production of Matthew Paul Olmos' new play 'nobody rides a locomotive no'mo', directed by Mariana Carreno King. The cast includes Dacyl Acevedo (Will work for Food), Bernardo Cubria (so go the ghosts of mexico), Heather Velazquez (Pinkolandia)

Off-Broadway's award-winning Irish Repertory Theatre presents the New York premiere A MIND-BENDING EVENING OF BECKETT, a presentation of three of Samuel Beckett's short plays, with direction and puppet design by Bob Flanagan. With a cast that features Sameerah Luqmaan-Harris, Rachel Pickup, Paul Radki and Rebecca Leigh Silverman, A MIND-BENDING EVENING OF BECKETT is currently performing in the W. Scott McLucas Studio Theatre at the Irish Repertory Theatre (132 West 22nd Street) through December 1st. BroadwayWorld has a first look at the cast in action below!

Emergent Arts will present "The UFO Show 5 (Unidentified Funny Objects): Scary Clowns", with emcee Khurum Sheikh, a haunted evening of standup on October 24 at 8pm at The Mix Studio Theatre, 8 North Washington Street, Ypsilanti, Michigan. This is an adult evening of comedy. Featured comics will be Jeremy Ross, Marty Smith, Denice Rohdes and the improv troupe Wait,What? with Allen Smock, Anna Imesch, Autumn Waters, and Jeff Lehman.

Premiere Stages at Kean University will present free interactive Staged Readings of the 2013-2014 Liberty Live Commission, At Liberty Hall by James Christy, November 8th through 10th in the University Center Little Theatre at Kean University. The story of an unlikely pair of American immigrants, At Liberty Hall follows two high school students who've just moved to New Jersey: Christian Rosario, a funny but unfocused teenager from Queens by way of the Dominican Republic; and Alexander Hamilton, 16, the subject of Christian's 10th grade history project. This time-bending story finds common threads of humor, honor and awkwardness as told through the experiences of a someday-Founding Father and a kid looking for a way out of the projects.

The critically-acclaimed off-Broadway hit Blood Type: RAGU, written and performed by Frank Ingrasciotta, has been invited to perform an encore at the 2013 United Solo Festival on 10/31 at 9PM.

The Flying Carpet Theatre (FCT) presents the New York premiere of THE MEDICINE SHOWDOWN, a new play by Topher Payne and Adam Koplan that interweaves a traditional story (inspired by Henrik Ibsen's classic 'Enemy of the People') with scenes from a turn-of-the-century medicine show, complete with tap dance, old time melodrama, country music and vaudevillian comedy. THE MEDICINE SHOWDOWN begins performances October 12 prior to an official press opening of October 16 at the East 4th Street Theatre (83 East 4th Street - btw. Bowery and Second Avenue) in Manhattan.

'Seascape With Sharks And Dancer', by Don Nigro, will be Produced by Strangers At Home Theatre Company at West End Studio Theatre, 959 Islington Street, Portsmouth, NH.

Renaissance Theaterworks (RTW) presents the 1st show of its 21st season THE BELLE OF AMHERST a play based on the life of Emily Dickinson. Directed by Suzan Fete, featuring Jenny Wanasek. Running tonight, October 18 - November 10, 2013 at the Studio Theatre, 158 N. Broadway.

This award-winning adaptation from Chaim Potok's bestselling novel is the story of two boys, two fathers and two very different Jewish communities -'five blocks and a world apart'. The Chosen has become a classic and is taught at many schools in the GTA.

Theatre & Dance at Wayne will present the premiere of Sarah Ruhl's dark comedy Dead Man's Cell Phone to open the 2013-2014 season at the Studio Theatre, tonight, October 17 - 26, 2013.

Amphibian Stage Productions presents its final main stage production of the 2013 season, Death Tax by Lucas Hnath. Georgia Clinton, Stormi Demerson, John Forkner, and Laurel Whitsett will star in this dark comedy, running tonight, October 17 through Sunday, November 10 at Amphibian's theater at 120 S. Main Street. Rene Moreno will direct the production.