Thomas Morgan News

Emelin Theatre has announced its April 2022 event schedule.

The Nasher Sculpture Center announces 'SCULPTING SOUND: Twelve Musicians Encounter Bertoia', a series of six historic concerts, from February 22–27, 2022, bringing together twelve master musicians to explore the expressive range of Harry Bertoia's sounding sculptures, in complement to the exhibition Harry Bertoia: Sculpting Mid-Century Modern Life on view at the Nasher January 29 – April 23, 2022. 

Theatre Tuscaloosa's Page to Stage program will return for the 2021-2022 season with Busy Day, a musical memoir about and performed by Rickey Powell, in the Bean-Brown Theatre on October 29 and 30 at Shelton State Community College (9500 Old Greensboro Rd).

The world is not the same as it was when radio host Ismaila Alfa was first commissioned to write a play for Prairie Theatre Exchange. The global pandemic and the murder of George Floyd changed the world. What has not changed is Alfa's need to explain the world to his daughters.

As trending in the greater jazz community, creative women earned significant recognition: Composer-orchestra leader Maria Schneider, whose album Data Lords (ArtistShare) is Record of the Year, and drummer-producer educator Terri Lyne Carrington, Jazz Musician of the Year, won multiple awards. Women prevailed in several other instrumentalists' categories, too.

See all results of JJA members' 25th annual voting in 47 categories that honor writers, photographers, broadcasters, books, documentaries, podcasts and live-stream productions as well as musicians' achievements, at JAJazzAwards.org. 

Trained in both jazz and classical music, West Coast-based pianist Dahveed Behroozi is the uncommon musician to earn endorsements from icons in both disciplines. Ursula Oppens, a renowned virtuoso of contemporary classical music, has praised Behroozi's “creativity, curiosity and integrity,” adding that “his performances are stunning, his interpretations astonishing.” Likewise, jazz piano star Fred Hersch has described Behroozi's music-making as “intense and immersive,” with the pianist's evolution as an improviser revealing “deep musical knowledge and devotion.”

Zero Grasses: Ritual for the Losses, the new album by vocalist, composer and multi-instrumentalist Jen Shyu, will be released by Pi Recordings on Friday, April 23.

Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater's second world premiere film of the spring/summer season, Inside Voices: A film by Arena Stage's Voices of Now Ensembles, will be available online on Saturday, June 20.

McCarter Theatre Center is proud to announce the return of A Christmas Carol, directed by Adam Immerwahr. This family-friendly production runs December 10 - 29 in the Matthews Theatre. A popular annual event for families all across the region, McCarter Theatre Center's production of Charles Dickens' timeless story brings a tale of memory and redemption beyond the stage and out into the aisles and lobbies.

Nathan Fletcher, County of San Diego Supervisor and documentary film enthusiast, has been named to the San Diego International Film Festival's Social Impact Advisory Board.  

Known for groundbreaking performances that bridge a variety of genres and cultural traditions, Jen Shyu (pronounced 'shoe') returns to National Sawdust to give the world premiere of her multilingual, multimedia monodrama ZERO GRASSES on Wednesday, October 30, at 7:00 p.m. The work was commissioned by John Zorn, who invited Ms. Shyu to compose a new work for his series at National Sawdust in celebration of The Stone, his revolutionary venue dedicated to the experimental and avant-garde. This premiere reunites her with Romanian director Alexandru Mihail, who also directed her acclaimed one-woman show Nine Doors, which premiered at National Sawdust in 2017 and was reprised at last year's Resonant Bodies Festival.

A young bully goat and a wise old goat with magic dust take to the stage in the children's show Billy the Baaadly Behaving Bully Goat: The Musical as part of the Philadelphia Fringe Festival, September 7-22 at Nest (1301 Locust Street, Philadelphia). 

Meredith Wilson's 'The Music Man' is one of American musical theatre's most produced shows. Professional, community and educational theatres stage the show on a regular basis. The songfest, which is as American as apple pie and a Fourth of July fireworks display, is now on stage at Porthouse Theatre.

After a successful run in the New York International Fringe Festival, C.A.G.E. Theatre Company is proud to encore The Long Rail North, written by award-winning playwright, Michael Hagins, and directed by Planet Connections' former Artistic Director, Brock H. Hill. The riveting play about a Black Union soldier and a young White Southern girl, will be at the Soho Playhouse, for a special three-performance run.

After a successful run in the New York International Fringe Festival, C.A.G.E. Theatre Company is proud to encore The Long Rail North, written by award-winning playwright, Michael Hagins, and directed by Planet Connections' former Artistic Director, Brock H. Hill.

Singer/songwriter Bill Frisell performs music from his newest pop culture-inspired project at Pepperdine University's Smothers Theatre in Malibu on Tuesday, January 22 at 8 p.m.  

After a successful run in the New York International Fringe Festival, C.A.G.E. Theatre Company is proud to encore The Long Rail North, written by award-winning playwright, Michael Hagins, and directed by Planet Connections' former Artistic Director, Brock H. Hill. The riveting play about a Black Union soldier and a young White Southern girl, will be at the Soho Playhouse, for a special three-performance run.

Soufra, an inspirational documentary about social entrepreneur Mariam Shaar, who overcame the limitations imposed from a life in an impoverished refugee camp to successfully launch a thriving catering company, screened at the Pontifical Orientale Institute at The Vatican on December 5th. The film, directed by Thomas Morgan and executive produced by Academy Award-winning actress Susan Sarandon, showed during the final part of the 2018 Laudato si' Challenge and was joined by Morgan, Sarandon and the film's subject Mariam Shaar, who opened the summit. The three-day challenge in Vatican City and ROME welcomed leaders from all sectors (public, private and faith) to come together and seek a way to sustainably improve the lives of 10 million people who have been forced out of their homes.