Erika LaVonn

Playwright Pearl Cleage's WHAT I LEARNED IN PARIS---now on stage at South Coast Repertory in Costa Mesa through March 19, 2022---takes place during the historic win of Atlanta's first black mayor in 1973 and focuses on a romantic triangle between a young campaign staffer and two much older men she works with at the election HQ.

MARY STUART at Pioneer Theatre Company is a well-acted and thought-provoking look at two of the most powerful women in history.

Playwright Dominique Morisseau is a gifted rising voice in the theater, recognized with a 2018 Macarthur 'Genius' Grant. Her straight play PIPELINE centers contemporary lives we see on stage too rarely: an anguished black mother trying to keep her teenage son safe, and her financially successful ex-husband, estranged from both of them. Because Morisseau drops us into both public and private school dilemmas for people of color, we gain insight into the deep inequities in our educational systems in this country, though this never feels like an 'issue play' for two reasons: there is no grasping for simple resolutions and the characters are so thoroughly imagined.

In playwright Kevin Artigue's riveting and thought-provoking new two-person play SHEEPDOG---which finishes up its World Premiere run at Orange County's South Coast Repertory through May 5, 2019 as part of the theater's annual Pacific Playwrights Festival---the ripped-from-the-headlines plot point that finds a young black man being fatally shot by a white police officer becomes an added layer of troubling complication to an already shaky relationship between two genuinely good, aspirational people who are deeply in love---who also happen to be an interracial couple both employed as police officers. A love story rattled by external forces, the play posits the question of whether it is even possible for two people---or at least these two specific people---to carry on a successful romantic relationship while having this specific kind of a job and also while each identifies with one of two separate communities with a long tragic history between them. SHEEPDOG tackles the subject with grace and open-mindedness and therefore makes it one of the most powerful and provocative new plays to come out this season.

Virtuoso performances are the order of the day in Arizona Theatre Company's revival of August Wilson's TWO TRAINS RUNNING, directed by Lou Bellamy and featuring standout performances by James Craven, Alan Bomar Jones, Erika LaVonn, Ahanti Young, Lester Purry, Cedric Mays, and Dennis Spears.

August Wilson's Two Trains Running, the seventh in his 10-part, decade-by-decade saga of ordinary African Americans in the turbulent 20th century that The New York Times described as his "most adventurous and honest attempt to reveal the intimate heart of history," will be on stage at Tucson's Temple of Music & Art Jan. 19-Feb. 9 and at the Herberger Theater Center in Phoenix, Feb. 14-March 3.

August Wilson's Two Trains Running, the seventh in his 10-part, decade-by-decade saga of ordinary African Americans in the turbulent 20th century that The New York Times described as his "most adventurous and honest attempt to reveal the intimate heart of history," will be on stage at Tucson's Temple of Music & Art Jan. 19-Feb. 9 and at the Herberger Theater Center in Phoenix, Feb. 14-March 3.

Directed by Lou Bellamy and starring members of Penumbra Theatre, Portland Playhouse's FENCES is a must-see.

Premiere Stages at Kean University will host an exclusive benefit performance of the 2015/2016 Liberty Live Commission, My Lord, What a Night by Deborah Brevoort, at Liberty Hall Museum tonight, October 14.

Premiere Stages at Kean University will host an exclusive benefit performance of the 2015/2016 Liberty Live Commission, My Lord, What a Night by Deborah Brevoort, at Liberty Hall Museum on Friday, October 14.

The Seattle Rep continues their long standing relationship with the works of one of America's greatest playwrights with their current production of August Wilson's "The Piano Lesson". As usual the show comes alive with a rich and stirring history only made more poignant through the stunning direction and performances.

The Piano Lesson by August Wilson will run tonight, October 22 through November 9, 2014, directed by Timothy Bond, at Syracuse Stage. BroadwayWorld has a first look at the cast in action below!

The Piano Lesson by August Wilson will run October 22 through November 9, 2014, directed by Timothy Bond, at Syracuse Stage. BroadwayWorld has a first look at the cast in action below!

In August Wilson's Pulitzer Prize-winning masterpiece The Piano Lesson, the past threatens to pull apart brother and sister. Bernice treasures a one-of-a-kind piano, an heirloom with carved figures of their enslaved ancestors. Boy Willie suddenly arrives from the South determined to sell the piano and buy the land his family worked on. When the ghost of the piano's original owner appears, family conflicts escalate to a dramatic confrontation. With lyrical language rolling from the rowdy to the tender, this is one of Wilson's finest.

On the heels of successful presentations of A Raisin in the Sun, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom and The Amen Corner, the Guthrie Theater welcomes the return of the acclaimed Penumbra Theatre Company with The Mountaintop - the recipient of the 2010 Olivier Award for Best New Play - written by Katori Hall and directed by Penumbra Founder and Co-Artistic Director Lou Bellamy. The Mountaintop begins performances tonight, March 28 and continues through April 19.

On the heels of successful presentations of A Raisin in the Sun, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom and The Amen Corner, the Guthrie Theater welcomes the return of the acclaimed Penumbra Theatre Company with The Mountaintop - the recipient of the 2010 Olivier Award for Best New Play - written by Katori Hall and directed by Penumbra Founder and Co-Artistic Director Lou Bellamy. The Mountaintop begins performances on March 28 and continues through April 19.

How good can chicken taste when you really wanted ham-when you've spent an exhaustive amount of energy for it? Chicken will never taste the same again: probably sour and, perhaps pridelessly cheap. Fittingly for TWO TRAINS RUNNING, ham and chicken are inherently a cultural war cry, excitedly felt at Syracuse Stage.

The Alabama Shakespeare Festival, one of the country's leading theatres in the creation of new stage works, will produce the world premieres of Nobody and The Fall of the House this spring. Produced in a series called Provocative Premieres, Nobody will run March 12-28 and The Fall of the House will run April 9-25. Both plays have been developed through ASF's prestigious Southern Writers' Project new play development program. The Provocative Premieres are suggestive, stimulating and extreme, promising to take audiences to the edge.

The Alabama Shakespeare Festival, one of the country's leading theatres in the creation of new stage works, will produce the world premiere of The Fall of the House this spring. Produced in a series called Provocative Premieres, The Fall of the House will run April 9-25. The play has been developed through ASF's prestigious Southern Writers' Project new play development program. The Provocative Premieres are suggestive, stimulating and extreme, promising to take audiences to the edge.