Katricia Lang - Page 9

HAMILTON proves that ethnically and culturally diverse casts can produce smash hits. However, before the performing arts community can pat herself on the back for being so accepting, she should turn her head to the right. All too often, inclusive theater excludes theater artists with disabilities. Dionysus Theatre founding artistic director Deborah Nowinski has spent decades pushing back against the mixture of prejudice and apathy that makes this so. Below, Nowinksi talks with BroadwayWorld about a most recent effort-her guidebook for educators and instructors seeking to create ability diverse casts- 'Your Role in Inclusion Theatre' and much, much more.

Ensemble Theatre's Act One Young Professionals presents DRAMA-TRY: A DRAMATIC NIGHT OF POETRY. Here to talk about the poetry showcase are Andrea Browne and Henry Mosley, Co-Chairs of the Act One Young Professionals Steering Committee, and event host/emcee, the poet Se7en.

NobleMotion Dance's Andy Noble says art is in his family's DNA. Perhaps this is why his grandparents, Hans and Ilse Juergensen, and his mother, Claudia Juergensen Noble, are the nucleus of L'DOR VADOR: THREE GENERATIONS OF POETRY AND DANCE, he and his wife's multidisciplinary contemporary dance creation.

The Ensemble Theatre presents DETROIT '67 by Dominique Morisseau and directed by Eileen J. Morris.

The Boiling Point Players presents the A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM mixtape replete with dance breaks and an all-female cast.

Roundabout Theatre Company presents Sam Mendes and Rob Marshall's Tony Award-winning version of Kander & Ebb's wildly popular Broadway musical CABARET.

ALL THE WAY opens with blinking blood-red lights, deafening gunshots, vibrant colors in impressionistic soft-focus. Moments later, you can cut the tension with a knife or the crisp, clear black and white projections. From the start, Director Kevin Moriarty establishes that the Dallas Theater Center and Alley Theatre's stunning co-production of Robert Schenkkan's exhilarating political thriller is no documentary or a biopic.

'THE TROJAN WOMEN tells the gripping story of the women the day after Troy fall to the Greeks. The women wrestle with their fate as defeated slaves. With a beautiful modern translation this dramatic play is at once immersive and accessible,' says director Tom Stell.

In David Mamet's THE DUCK VARIATIONS, two elderly men spend their time watching birds and making conversation that is often for those very same birds. Firecracker Productions gender-swaps the characters and fills the play with the virtues, flaws, dreams, and musings of two women (and two women actors).

The Alley Theatre takes on Mark Brown's stage adaptation of Jules Verne's inventive novel.

'The personal is political,' wrote radical feminist Carol Hanisch. Next Iteration Theater Company explores this concept in theatrical form with its world premiere of THE BABY, a political and family drama by Houston and London-based playwright Lisa Boss Omlie.

Stark Naked Theatre Company stages luminary playwright Edward Albee's WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF?, the explosive, heart pounding drama about marital discord, dysfunction and delusion between George, a university professor, and his wife Martha, as well as their unwitting guests, a younger couple Nick and Honey.

Actress and performer Carolyn Johnson returns to Stages Repertory Theatre to star as Judy Garland in drama musical END OF THE RAINBOW. The role requires Johnson do justice to Garland's greatest hits and misses. Johnson tells BroadwayWorld how she plans to fulfill her duty.

Per usual, The Ensemble Theatre honors Black history every month of the year. Less usual: The theater company commemorates August Wilson and Black American history with its continued staged readings of Wilson's AMERICAN CENTURY CYCLE and currently staged production of Wilson's play FENCES.

In tribute to Artistic Director Emeritus Ben Stevenson's 80th birthday, Houston Ballet stages Stevenson's lush version of the preeminent ballet THE SLEEPING BEAUTY for the first time in 5 years. In Ivan Vsevolozhsky's libretto, Carabosse, an evil fairy, curses Princess Aurora (the Sleeping Beauty). The princess sleeps for a hundred years, only to be saved when her handsome prince, Florimund, awakens her with a kiss.

THE AMAZING NINA SIMONE recounts the highs and lows of musical genius Nina Simone.

Cirque du Soleil's TORUK - THE FIRST FLIGHT is definitely outside of the box. The main characters are 10-feet-tall extraterrestrials with striped skin and feline features. TORUK is inspired by James Cameron's AVATAR.

Rebecca 'Becky' Foster is listless. At 45+, the middle-class, middle-aged mother and wife resignedly trudges through life.

The Rice Theatre Program presents EURYDICE, an adaptation of the myth of Eurydice and Orpheus that leads to some funny, heartfelt theater and imaginative staging.

The visually appetizing lyrical opera RUSALKA hits the Houston Grand Opera stage as part of the Glyndebourne Tour. Composed by Antonin Dvorak and written by poet Jaroslav Kvapil in 1900, RUSALKA is a rather tragic fairytale about an ill-fated love affair between a water sprite (or rusalka) and a prince.