Susan Smith News

Silver Spring Stage presents The Language Archive by Julia Cho, directed by Joseph Coracle and produced by Bob Scott, a sweet-tempered and eloquent comedy of a coldhearted scholar trying to rescue a dying language while his marriage is falling apart is surprisingly warmed by the discovery of love. The Language Archive will perform weekends April 10 to May 2, 2015.

The Wilbury Theatre Group's Founding Artistic Director Josh Short has announced the Group's 2015-16 season, including a new drama from one of New York's most promising young playwrights, the world premiere of a new play by Wilbury playwright-in-residence Ben Jolivet, two of the most acclaimed off-Broadway musicals of the last few years, an irreverent new adaptation of Anton Chekhov's The Seagull, and the New England premiere of Jez Butterworth's Jerusalem.

WAM Theatre has just announced the cast for their staged reading of SILENCE by Moira Buffini, the first reading in the 2015 Fresh Takes Play Reading Series. The inaugural series last year sold out, and whetted audience appetites for more professional readings of plays that explore the lives and experiences of women and girls.

Gregory Boyd, Artistic Director of the Tony Award-winning Alley Theatre, announces 6 of the 8 plays that will comprise its 2015-2016 Inaugural Season in the renovated theatre.

59E59 Theaters welcomes terraNOVA Collective with the NY premiere of UNDERLAND, written by Alexandra Collier and directed by Mia Rovegno. UNDERLAND begins performances tonight, April 3 for a limited engagement through Saturday, April 25. Press opening is Saturday, April 11 at 8:15 PM.

Florida Studio Theatre announces its annual Richard and Betty Burdick New Play Reading Series, which will present three new staged readings by contemporary American playwrights. The series will take place in the Keating Theatre on Saturday, April 25 at 2:00pm, Saturday, May 2 at 2:00pm, and Saturday, May 9 at 2:00pm, and is part of FST's Sarasota Festival of New Plays. Tickets for the series are 3 staged readings for $25, or individual readings for $10. Additionally, FRIENDS of FST can purchase a subscription for all 3 staged readings for $15. They may be purchased by calling the FST Box Office at (941) 366-9000 or by visiting floridastudiotheatre.org.

The NATIONAL NEW PLAY NETWORK (NNPN), the country's alliance of non-profit theaters that champions the development, production, and continued life of new plays, announces its 48th and 49th Rolling World Premieres: Chad Beckim's Lights Rise on Grace and Lauren Yee's in a word, as well as openings for its 43rd, 44th, and 47th plays, Uncanny Valley by Thomas Gibbons, Colossal by Andrew Hinderaker, and River City by Diana Grisanti.

Park Square continues its 40th season with Julia Cho's THE LANGUAGE ARCHIVE. George (Kurt Kwan*) speaks a dozen languages, but he can't communicate with his wife, Mary. Consumed by his quest to document the dying languages of disappearing cultures, George is unable to say what he needs to say so Mary sets off for a new adventure. THE LANGUAGE ARCHIVE is a magical and quirky fable about finding the words that can change your world. Talkin' Broadway called it "…a tour de force… passionate, wise and wonderful."

Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company has announced its 2015-2016 season, featuring a world premiere as well as new plays receiving their Washington area premieres after garnering accolades from performances in New York, Los Angeles, and London including the Laurents/Hatcher Award, the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, and the Obie Award for Best New American Play. Woolly's new season features the work of Sheila Callaghan, Jennifer Haley, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, Rajiv Joseph, the Chicago Neo-Futurists and Canadian duo Marcus Youssef and James Long.

?Today, The Ground Floor: Berkeley Rep's Center for the Creation and Development of New Work announces that it has selected 14 projects for its fourth Summer Residency Lab featuring works from more than 20 talented artists.

Actors' Shakespeare Project brings the language of love and loss to center stage in Jenny Schwartz's play God's Ear, today, March 25-April 12, 2015, at The Davis Square Theatre, 255 Elm Street, Somerville. Performances are Wed. (March 25 only)-Fri, 7 pm; Sat., 2 pm; (except March 28) & 7 pm; Sun., 2 pm. (Press performance Saturday, March 28 at 7pm; please RSVP to jbpr@comcast.net.) Tickets are $28-$50; $15 student rush. For tickets and information, visit www.actorsshakespeareproject.org or call 617-776-2200 x225.

Long Wharf Theatre's inaugural Contemporary American Voices Festival, a weekend of new play readings, will take place on Saturday, April 18 and Sunday, April 19, 2015.

Centering on the lives of four strippers, and propelled by the poetry and athleticism of live pole dancing, PUSSY VALLEY is a profound exploration of the African American, white, gay, straight, young, and old denizens of a strip club in contemporary rural Mississippi. Embedded in a world of poverty, abuse, power imbalances, racism, jealousy, homophobia, abandonment, and sexploitation, this searing drama reveals resilient women in pursuit of happiness, stability, motherhood, independence, a decent living, and romance, always battling for personal integrity.

Previews begin tomorrow, today, March 20 for the Playwrights Horizons (Tim Sanford, Artistic Director; Leslie Marcus, Managing Director) world premiere of IOWA, a new musical play written by Susan Smith Blackburn Prize finalist Jenny Schwartz (God's Ear, Somewhere Fun), music by Todd Almond (Stage Kiss at PH, Kansas City Choir Boy, The Tempest, On the Levee) and lyrics by Mr. Almond and Ms. Schwartz. Directed by two-time Obie Award winner Ken Rus Schmoll (Red Dog Howls, Middletown, What Once We Felt; next season's Antlia Pneumatica at PH), the musical play will be the fifth production of the theater company's 2014/2015 Season.

Following critically acclaimed workshop presentations, McCasland's plays will return to NYC in a month-long festival celebrating the young playwright. Together with The Clarion Theatre, they'll present six plays beginning on May 6th, 2015, with a company of actors performing in repertory. All of the plays focus on historical figures, including Laurette Taylor, Billie Holiday, Tennessee Williams, Gertrude Stein, Lillian Hellman and more.

Olivier Award-winning playwright Katori Hall returns to Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater with the world premiere of her most personal project to date-the fierce comedy-drama The Blood Quilt. Hall is an inaugural resident playwright of Arena Stage's American Voices New Play Institute, and The Blood Quilt is one of three plays from Hall receiving world premieres around the country this season. Hall reunites with director and Howard University alumna Kamilah Forbes (artistic director of the Hip-Hop Theater Festival) following their Broadway collaboration on The Mountaintop. The Blood Quilt runs April 24-June 7, 2015 in the Kreeger Theater.

Lynne Meadow (Artistic Director) and Barry Grove (Executive Producer) just announced two productions for Manhattan Theatre Club's upcoming 2015-2016 theatrical season. MTC's Off-Broadway season at New York City Center (131 West 55th Street) will feature the American premiere of Incognito by Nick Payne, directed by Tony Award winner Doug Hughes and Important Hats of the Twentieth Century, the world premiere comedy by Nick Jones, directed by Moritz Von Stuelpnagel.

MCC THEATER has announced that the New York premiere of Jennifer Haley's The Nether directed by Anne Kaufman will receive the distinct honor of being filmed for the Theatre on Film and Tape Archive for the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center. The filming will take place during the Friday, March 20th performance. The Nether recently extended performances through Sunday, March 29, 2015. The production opened on Tuesday, February 24th at the Lucille Lortel Theatre (121 Christopher Street). For info and tickets, please visit www.mcctheater.org.