Williamstown Theatre News

In honor of the conclusion of the 2013 Williamstown Theatre Festival, the staff, including interns, apprentices, and more crafted an elaborate 'Lip Dup' to the tune of Queen's 'Don't Stop Me Now.' Check it out below!

Lark Play Development Center is proud to announce that seven plays have been chosen for its 20th annual Playwrights' Week, which will take place September 23rd - 28th.

The Old Globe today announced the complete cast and creative team for The Last Goodbye, a new musical fusing Shakespeare'sRomeo and Juliet with the incendiary songs of the legendary singer-songwriter Jeff Buckley. Conceived and adapted by Michael Kimmel, the rock musical is directed by two-time Tony Award nominee Alex Timbers (Peter and the Starcatcher, Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson). Choreography is by Emmy Award nominee Sonya Tayeh ('So You Think You Can Dance'), and orchestrations, music direction and arrangements are by Kris Kukul. The Last Goodbye will run on the Donald and Darlene Shiley Stage in the Old Globe Theatre, part of the Globe's Conrad Prebys Theatre Center, Sept. 20 - Nov. 3, 2013. Preview performances run Sept. 20 - Oct. 5. Opening night is Sunday, Oct. 6 at 6:30 p.m. Tickets are currently available by subscription only. Single tickets go on sale Sunday, Aug. 18 at 12 noon. Tickets can be purchased online at www.TheOldGlobe.org, by phone at (619) 23-GLOBE or by visiting the Box Office at 1363 Old Globe Way in Balboa Park.

Barrington Stage Company (BSC), the award-winning theatre in downtown Pittsfield, MA, under the leadership of Julianne Boyd, Artistic Director, and Tristan Wilson, Managing Director, presents Scott and Hem in the Garden of Allah, a world premiere play written and directed by BSC Associate Artist Mark St. Germain about the friendship and rivalry between F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway.

At First Sight (and Other Stories) is a 90-minute compilation of some of their most celebrated works mixed with vignettes created especially for this production - written, directed, and featuring the company of BKBX- each piece designed to take the audience on a journey from epic fantasy adventure to the intimate and very real moments of everyday life. Weaving comedy and drama through the show's fabric, At First Sight (and Other Stories) will entertain as well as enlighten. The show runs Thursdays - Saturdays: November 7 - 9, 14 - 16, and 21 - 23 @ 7:30 p.m. Matinees: November 9, 16, and 23 @ 2:00 p.m.

Writers Theatre opens its 2013-14 season with the Midwest Premiere of The Old Man and The Old Moon, a new play with music by PigPen Theatre Co., directed by Associate Artistic Director Stuart Carden and PigPen Theatre Co., and presented by Writers Theatre and TOMATOM LLC. The show runs September 3 - November 10, 2013, at 325 Tudor Court, Glencoe.

Dancer/actress Charlotte Bydwell brings her acclaimed solo show, Woman of Leisure and Panic, to the 17th annual New York International Fringe Festival for five performances, beginning today, August 11, and continuing through August 23 at the Theater at the 14th Street Y, 344 East 14th Street (near First Avenue). The show, written, choreographed and performed by Bydwell, premiered in the 8th Annual soloNOVA Festival, 2011, and received a nomination for a New York Innovative Theatre Award for Outstanding Performance Art Production.

The Flea Theater is proud to announce the New York Premiere of Jonathan Caren's THE RECOMMENDATION. This play about friendship, class and where loyalty has its limits will be directed by Flea Resident Director Kel Haney and feature members of The Bats. Previews begin August 23 with opening slated for September 6. Says Producing Director Carol Ostrow, "we are thrilled to open our fall season with a play that speaks to our times and shows off the talents and diversity of our company."

A bomb goes off in New York City. The course of nine lives and a nation are irrevocably changed. Sifting through the pieces of the past and the future, Somewhere Safer's provocative story examines questions of polarization, citizenship and idealism in modern America. This fast paced and fiercely intelligent play was the inaugural recipient of Square One development with On the Square Productions and was twice featured as part of the company's Write Angle Reading Series. It was also a finalist for the 2012 Old Vic/New Voices Playwrights' Exchange, and featured in Flux Theatre Ensemble's 2013 Have Another series. Atmospheric and evocative, Somewhere digs into the serious and timely questions America faces today about what kind of nation we can and should be, and who will lead us there.

This week's topics: Matinees, Vocal Health, Favorite/least favorite Broadway Theater, Chenoweth as Dolly, Love's Labour's Lost, First Date stage door, THE BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY-

Williamstown Theatre Festival Artistic Director Jenny Gersten has announced the opening of the seventh and final production of the 2013 season: Blood Play, the smash hit by the Obie Award-winning company The Debate Society, opens tonight on the Nikos Stage and plays through August 18, following tonight's preview performance.

JAMES SNYDER (Broadway's Cry-Baby, Goodspeed's Carousel) has joined the company of If/Then, the new musical by the Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning creative team behind Next To Normal, Tom Kitt (music), Brian Yorkey (book and lyrics), and Michael Greif (director). Mr. Snyder joins the previously announced Idina Menzel, LaChanze, and Anthony Rapp.

Williamstown Theatre Festival Artistic Director Jenny Gersten announced today the full cast and creative team for the last production of the 2013 season: Blood Play, the smash hit by The Debate Society will be presented on the Nikos Stage from tonight, August 7 - 18, 2013 (opening Thursday, August 8 at 7:30 p.m.).

Berkshire Playwrights Lab will present a staged reading of Richard Dresser's The Handyman, directed by Joe Cacaci, today, August 7 at 7:30pm at the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center (14 Castle Street, Great Barrington, Mass.).

Rehearsals began Tuesday for Animal Crackers, the first production of Center Stage's 2013-14 Season. This classic American musical comedy is set to feature City Paper Best Actor Bruce Nelson as Groucho Marx playing the ineffable Captain Spaulding. Under the direction of Northlight Theatre Artistic Director BJ Jones-who previously directed Center Stage's smash production of A Skull in Connemara-Animal Crackers begins previews on September 4 and runs through October 13.

Barrington Stage Company (BSC), the award-winning theatre in downtown Pittsfield, MA, under the leadership of Julianne Boyd, Artistic Director, and Tristan Wilson, Managing Director, presents Scott and Hem in the Garden of Allah, a world premiere play written and directed by BSC Associate Artist Mark St. Germain about the friendship and rivalry between F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway.

Beijing Playhouse will hold two workshops this summer, one focused on how to audition and the other focused on how to sing for the stage.

Back by popular demand, Todd Waite reprises his role as Houston's favorite holiday elf. A compact, one-character comedy, The Santaland Diaries is a hilarious cult classic featuring comic encounters during the height of the holiday crunch. NPR humorist and best-selling author of Me Talk Pretty One Day and Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, David Sedaris has become one of America's pre-eminent humor writers. Recommended for mature audiences due to language and subject matter.