What happens when a letter crafted uniquely for one reader is put on stage for all to see? Intimate thoughts laid bare, intended for one, are held up for us like a mirror, making us reflect on our own hearts, lives, and times. Letters Aloud, the reading series that brought you last year's Father's Day event DEAR DAD, embraces the theme of romantic love in the upcoming 'WITH OR WITHOUT YOU - letters of loving, longing and leaving'. By turns steamy and sweet, this selection of personal letters from such luminaries as Ansel Adams, Henry Miller, Frida Kahlo, Virginia Woolf, Elizabeth Taylor, Henry VIII and Guns 'n Roses guitarist Slash will inspire your passions-and maybe that Valentine's Day card that you have yet to write.
A Contemporary Theatre and Executive Director Carlo Scandiuzzi and Artistic Director Kurt Beattie are pleased to announce that Colin Chapman has been elected as the new President of the Board of Trustees. Chapman's two-year term of service was approved at the annual meeting on December 12, 2013. Outgoing President Charles Sitkin will now assume the role of Chairman. Several new members who have recently joined the board and are listed below.
Phoenix Theatre of Indianapolis announces four post-play discussions following Nina Raine's Tribes. Dates for these discussions are listed below and will be moderated by Purdue University Professor and Coordinator of Undergraduate Theatre Studies, Richard Rand, who also directed the play.
A Contemporary Theatre announces a full calendar of winter and spring shows that cover a broad range of modern theatre. From new plays to unique musicals to literary and reading events to sexy cabarets, 2014 is off with a bang at ACT Theatre. On the Mainstage, ACT kicks off 2014 with a co-production of Little Shop of Horrors with The 5th Avenue Theatre, follows with the dark and desperate Bethany by Laura Marks, and then revisits the genius of Arthur Miller's classic The Price.
Phoenix Theatre of Indianapolis announces four post-play discussions following Nina Raine's Tribes. Dates for these discussions are listed below and will be moderated by Purdue University Professor and Coordinator of Undergraduate Theatre Studies, Richard Rand, who also directed the play.
King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table are storming The 5th Avenue Theatre in Monty Python's Spamalot, the perfect musical to fight the winter blues. Based on the blockbuster 1975 film Monty Python and the Holy Grail, this hilarious musical comedy lays siege to Seattle featuring a stellar lineup of local talent including Joshua Carter, Allen Fitzpatrick, Richard Gray, Laura Griffith, Louis Hobson, Greg McCormick Allen, Matt Owen, and Dane Stokinger. Called "Fantastic! Gorgeously silly!" by The New York Post, Spamalot blends cerebral audacity with slapstick absurdity in this wacky version of King Arthur's mythical search for the Holy Grail. Bringing to the stage such classic Monty Python shticks as the Knights Who Say Ni, the killer rabbit, flying cows, and "Always Look on the Bright Side of Your Life," Spamalot is side-splitting fun.
FIRST DATE, which opened on August 8, 2013 at Broadway's Longacre Theatre, plays its final performance today, Sunday, January 5, 2014, at 3pm, having played 34 previews and 174 regular performances. First Date, starring Zachary Levi and Krysta Rodriguez, began performances on Broadway on July 9, 2013, and has a book by Austin Winsberg, music and lyrics by Alan Zachary and Michael Weiner, direction by Bill Berry, musical staging by Josh Rhodes, orchestrations by August Eriksmoen, and musical supervision, vocal and incidental arrangements by Dominick Amendum.
Alley Theatre Artistic Director Gregory Boyd announces the cast and creative team for Other Desert Cities. A riveting new play by Pulitzer Prize nominee and creator of TV's hit drama Brothers & Sisters, Jon Robin Baitz's Other Desert Cities was named the Outstanding Play by the Outer Critics Circle and called 'the best new play on Broadway' by The New York Times. Jackson Gay returns to direct this new production after helming the Alley Theatre's productions of August: Osage County, Red andIntelligence-Slave.
A new crop of local talent joins Goodman Theatre's artistic team for the 2013/2014 Season. The four Chicago-based writers named to the fourth season of the Playwrights Unit-a year-long residency program designed to support and develop new works-include Andrew Hinderaker, Gift Theatre ensemble member; Mickle Maher, cofounder of Theater Oobleck; Anne Garcia-Romero, a resident playwright at Chicago Dramatists; and Laura Schellhardt, who oversees undergraduate playwriting at Northwestern University. A partnership with Chicago Dramatists, the Playwrights Unit meets twice per month with members of the Goodman's artistic team to discuss their plays-in-progress and provide feedback for one another. The program includes readings of the playwrights' works-in-progress at Chicago Dramatists in early 2014, and culminates in summer 2014 with staged readings of their completed works at the Goodman. Playwrights Unit alumni include Greg Allen, Alice Austen, Ike Holter and Christopher Oscar Peña (2012/2013 Season); Philip Dawkins, Nambi E. Kelley, Elaine Romero and Martin Zimmerman (2011/2012 Season); and Seth Bockley, Lisa Dillman, Laura Jacqmin and Rohina Malik (2010/2011 Season).
ACT - A Contemporary Theatre presents its 38th annual production of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, adapted by Gregory A. Falls. This year, A Christmas Carol is directed by John Langs with Artistic Director Kurt Beattie returning to play Ebenezer Scrooge, in alternating performances with first timer Peter Crook making his first appearance in the role. Also new to the cast, G. Valmont Thomas, who's performance in 'Master Harold and the Boys,' just earned him the 2013 Gregory Award for Outstanding Actor. Mr. Thomas recently returned to Seattle after a long stint at Oregon Shakespeare Festival and will take on the charismatic role of Spirit 2 (Ghost of Christmas Present).
It's just been announced that FIRST DATE, which opened on August 8, 2013 at Broadway's Longacre Theatre (220 W. 48th Street), will play its final performance on Sunday, January 5, 2014, at 3pm, having played 34 previews and 174 regular performances. FIRST DATE began performances on Broadway on July 9, 2013, and has a book by Austin Winsberg, music and lyrics by Alan Zachary and Michael Weiner,direction by Bill Berry, musical staging by Josh Rhodes, orchestrations by August Eriksmoen, and musical supervision, vocal and incidental arrangements by Dominick Amendum.
ACT - A Contemporary Theatre presents its 38th annual production of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, adapted by Gregory A. Falls. This year, A Christmas Carol is directed by John Langs with Artistic Director Kurt Beattie returning to play Ebenezer Scrooge, in alternating performances with first timer Peter Crook making his first appearance in the role. Also new to the cast, G. Valmont Thomas, who's performance in "Master Harold and the Boys," just earned him the 2013 Gregory Award for Outstanding Actor. Mr. Thomas recently returned to Seattle after a long stint at Oregon Shakespeare Festival and will take on the charismatic role of Spirit 2 (Ghost of Christmas Present).
University of Washington faculty member Valerie Curtis-Newton, Head of MFA Performance and Directing, directs the second-year Professional Actor Training Program (PATP) students as they tackle the complex characters of Lanford Wilson's Fifth of July. This is the second show in the 2013-2014 season and it offers the School of Drama students an opportunity to experience the challenges associated with taking on meaty ensemble acting roles.
Dr. Barbara Ann Teers's National Black Theatre (NBT) will open its 45th Season with the New York Premiere of The Last Saint On Sugar Hill, written by Keith Josef Adkins and directed by Seret Scottannounced NBT's Director of Theatre Arts Program, Jonathan McCrory. Preview performances begin tonight, October 29th at NBT, 2031 Fifth Avenue starting at 7:30pm. The opening night is set for Friday, November 1st at 7pm. The production will run through Sunday, November 24th.
Following the success of their critically acclaimed production ofJesus Hopped the A Train (2012 Gregory Award and Gypsy Lee Rose Award winners), Seattle theatre company Azeotrope is excited to bring two powerful shows in repertory: Red Light Winter by Adam Rapp and 25 Saints by Joshua Rollins, directed by Artistic Associate Desdemona Chiang. Both shows open Today, October 26, and play through November 24; produced in association with Central Heating Lab at A Contemporary Theatre.
ACT - A Contemporary Theatre welcomes Sir Alan Ayckbourn to direct an entirely local cast for the American premiere of his play Sugar Daddies at ACT, now playing through November 3, 2013. BroadwayWorld has a first look at highlights below!
Broadway's FIRST DATE, the critically acclaimed new musical comedy starring Zachary Levi and Krysta Rodriguez, will hold an online auction to raise funds for Operation Smile through FirstDateAuction.com.
The cast of Broadway's First Date, the critically acclaimed new musical comedy starring Zachary Levi and Krysta Rodriguez, celebrates the release of their Original Broadway Cast Album with a one night only cabaret at Broadway's nightclub, 54 BELOW, tonight, October 15, 2013 at 9:30 PM.
ACT - A Contemporary Theatre announces a full calendar of fall and winter shows that cover a broad range of modern theatre. Alan Ayckbourn's Sugar Daddies kicks off the season with a dark British comedy about a young woman's entanglement with a dangerous older man; directed by theatre legend Sir Alan Ayckbourn himself. In our Central Heating Lab, where ACT partners with other Seattle groups to produce new and exciting alternative theatre, AZEOTROPE returns with a double-header of sex and drugs, followed by Das Fallopia bringing the ham and cheese as they make their ACT debut with the longtime Seattle hit, Ham for the Holidays. Fans of new works will have plenty to sink their teeth into with REPRESENT! Multicultural Playwrights Festival, The Construction Zone, 14/48, and the American Premiere of Re:Union a shocking tale of war, protest, and self-immolation, in partnership with Vancouver's Horseshoes and Hand Grenades Theatre and Seattle's New Century Theatre Company. ACT strives to bring lovers of bold and daring new work to the theatre as well as appeal to people's holiday spirit with the beautiful and family friendly adaption of A Christmas Carol.
