Shirley Jo Finney

North Coast Repertory Theatre has announced Season 42, featuring a  host of plays that include two world premieres, a beloved musical masterpiece, side-splitting  comedies, an eerie Gothic thriller, a poignant drama, and a taut psychological study.  

The Fountain Theatre and Grand Performances will present two free performances of the Fountain’s critically acclaimed, award-winning stage adaptation of Claudia Rankine’s Citizen: An American Lyric.

Stage Directors and Choreographers Foundation has selected Colette Robert as this season’s SDCF Denham Fellow for her upcoming production of The Harriet Holland Social Club Presents the 84th Annual Star-Burst Cotillion in the Grand Ballroom of the Renaissance Hotel, which she also authored. 

The Department of Theater/Dance’s LAUNCH PAD new play development program at UCSB, presents a preview production of brand new play, A Medusa Thread, written by Candrice Jones and directed by Shirley Jo Finney. Artist in residence through UCSB’s LAUNCH PAD Program (Risa Brainin, Artistic Director), Candrice Jones brings her unique and deeply personal perspective to UCSB.

The Department of Theater and Dance at UC Santa Barbara has announced another exciting year of performances, this time back in-person. This season includes everything from unique takes on old classics to new and original works in both theater and dance.

YI Love Jewish will host and present a play reading of Lessons by playwright Wendy Graf! The event will be 7 pm Monday, August 30 at The Betsy Hotel in South Beach.

NNPN has announced the dates of The BIPOC Reading Series Festival, a collaboration with UC Santa Barbara's LAUNCH PAD, AMPLIFY, and New & Reimagined Work. A beauty shop in purgatory, a small Michigan high school & the U.S.-Mexico border are just some of the places UC Santa Barbara’s upcoming BIPOC Reading Series Festival will transport audiences.

The Department of Theater and Dance presents a rich and exciting season of innovative performances. Despite the challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic, the department is committed to providing their community with quality education, theater, and equal access to all of the shows. With over ten productions in the pipeline, there is something for everyone, and for the first time, every single one can be watched for free, right from your couch. 

Part history, part mystery and part ghost story, Bayezaa??s lyrical integration of past, present, fact and legend turns Emmetta??s story into a soaring work of music, poetic language and riveting theatricality, transformed into an online format that breaks the notion of what a virtual performance can be. With the actors seen as cut-outs inserted into backdrops to fit each scene, characters move about each other in cars, on a living room couch, or while riding on a Ferris Wheel as if they really are in the scene together at the same time.

The original director and cast of the Fountain Theatre's 2010, multiple award-winning production of The Ballad of Emmett Till by Ifa Bayeza will reunite for a live-streamed reading of the play on Friday, Aug. 28, which marks the 65th anniversary of Till's murder.

The Ensemble Theatre kicks off its video-on-demand presentation of The Green Book by Calvin Alexander Ramsey in partnership with the Harris County Public Library (HCPL), available to rent through Vimeo June 14-28, 2020, and will feature a one-day livestream meet and greet with the playwright.

A chance meeting in an airport lounge leads to a Burmese odyssey and a search for a missing monk... and maybe love. John Lacey directs the 'virtual premiere' of Unemployed Elephants-A Love Story, a romantic comedy by Wendy Graf (No Word in Guyanese for Me, Exit Wounds).

In response to current events and in solidarity with #BlackLivesMatter, The Fountain Theatre will present a one-time, live online reading of Stephen Sachs' critically acclaimed, award-winning stage adaptation of Claudia Rankine's Citizen: An American Lyric. This compelling portrait of racism in America will stream live on Sunday, June 7 at 5 p.m. PT on Facebook, Twitter, the Fountain's Youtube channel, and Zoom (zoom ID #959 8241 0639).

The Ensemble Theatre presents the regional premiere of The Green Book, written by award-winning author Calvin Alexander Ramsey and directed by award-winning director Shirley Jo Finney with Opening Night and Media Reception Thursday, November 14, 2019, 6:30 p.m. 3535 Main Street, Houston, Texas 77002.

UCSB's Department of Theater and Dance presents The White Card, the first time this play has been staged on a college campus. It is a theater production by award winning writer Claudia Rankine. The White Card opens on November 21st and runs through November 24th in the Studio Theater on the UCSB campus. Directed by Shirley Jo Finney, UCSB students come together to express crucial ideas about race in our society. 

UCSB's Department of Theater and Dance presents The White Card, the first time this play has been staged on a college campus. It is a theater production by award winning writer Claudia Rankine. The White Card opens on November 21st and runs through November 24th in the Studio Theater on the UCSB campus. Directed by Shirley Jo Finney, UCSB students come together to express crucial ideas about race in our society. 

An upbeat piece, 'Into the Beautiful North' brushes against self-awareness without being preachy by providing likable characters in stylized peril and a timely expression of another side of the "border crisis." The cast hits the comedic notes while sustains the eagerness that fuels the journey.

Playwright Wendy Graf has been named the inaugural Gold Medallion winner by theMoss Hart & Kitty Carlisle Hart New Play Initiative for her play Exit Wounds.

Once again, the NAACP Beverly Hills/Hollywood Branch's Theatre Viewing Committee has spoken, and the nominations are in for the 28th Annual NAACP Theatre Awards. This year's pedigreed list of nominees collectively represents a rich, extensive dossier of legacies and accolades for both stage and screen. These nominees include members of a legendary 'gospel royal family' as well as a Legend whose part of an elite group of artists in the EGOT winners circle. These, along with all their fellow nominees, will be honored for their excellence on the small and large stages during our annual awards dinner, slated to be held on Monday, June 17, 2019, 6:00 p.m.at the prestigious Millennium Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles, California.

Two new character-driven relationship plays, both by award-winning women writers and both inspired by events currently at the forefront of our national consciousness, beat out 1241 other submissions in the inaugural Moss Hart & Kitty Carlisle Hart New Play Initiative. Hart NPI artistic director Christopher Hart will direct Silver Medallion-winning plays Confederates by Suzanne Bradbeer, opening Nov. 9, and Exit Wounds by Wendy Graf, opening Nov. 16, atGrove Theater Center in Burbank, where the two plays will continue to run in repertory through Dec. 16. One will be named the Gold Medallion winner and open on March 13, 2019 for a six-week, off-Broadway run in the 196-seat "Theater A" at 59E59 Theaters in New York City.