A. Gentle News

Eastbound Theatre, a division of the Milford Arts Council is excited to present the third show of its 23rd season, the compelling piece, 4,000 Miles, by Amy Herzog.

When a classic play from the past is revived, there's always the temptation to point out its relevance to today, or at least to present it through a contemporary lens. In some ways, that's what playwright Lucas Hnath is doing with his entirely new play, A DOLL'S HOUSE, PART 2, where characters from Ibsen's 1879 drama rehash the events that led to the play's famous ending and introduce subsequent events of Hnath's own invention.

Mid-Michigan's award winning professional theatre company, Williamston Theatre, located at 122 S. Putnam Street in downtown Williamston, presents Taking Shakespeare by John Murrell, a gentle comedy about the power of storytelling. Performances for this Michigan Premiere begin Thursday, May 18 and run through Sunday, June 18. Tickets are now on sale.

Incisive. Intuitive. Irresistible. The new golden boy of pop music and EDM (electronic dance music) is New York City's very own LODATO.

Lyrically driven, the songs on Amanda Anne Platt & The Honeycutters blend the band's old-school country roots attitude with their shared influences of rock and folk.

Following the sell-out run in 2015 at The Vaults deep under Waterloo Station, Les Enfants Terribles' and ebp bring their Olivier award nominated Alice's Adventures Underground back to celebrate the 150th anniversary of Lewis Carroll's beloved book. Less like a gentle retelling of the story and more like experiencing falling down the rabbit hole yourself, Alice's Adventures Underground is a more grown up way to immerse yourself in this fantastic story.

The Jeff Awards announced, via a special video presentation, a total of 127 nominations in 26 categories for the 44th Annual Non-Equity Jeff Awards for productions that opened between April 1, 2016, and March 31, 2017.  Hosting the video presentation were Alexis Roston and Lillian Castillo, who will be this year's Mistresses of Ceremonies at the Awards event on June 5 at The Athenaeum.

Now in his 90s, innovative and influential director Peter Brook is still making theater. 30 years ago, he staged a 9 hour marathon depicting portions of the great Hindu epic THE MAHABARATA to wide acclaim and some controversy. With BATTLEFIELD, he and his collaborator Marie-Helene Estienne return to that source material for an elegiac and stripped down 70 minute meditation on life, death, and how to resist despair.

With thought provoking reflections, Sharon Spence's 'A Jar Full of Fireflies' (published by Balboa Press AU) conveys to readers positive elements from her life experiences- from being a young girl to womanhood, experiencing, death, abandonment, abuse and divorce, and finally love and freedom.

ALL THE ROADS HOME, making its world premiere at Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, captures perfectly that intangible (yet excruciatingly real) moment when you realize your dream has completely passed you by.

In one of its largest, most ambitious productions in recent seasons, Mad Horse Theatre has mounted a searing account of Stephen Adly Guirgis's riveting drama, The Last Days of Judas Iscariot. The sixteen-member cast under the direction of Stacey Koloski forms an intense, cohesive ensemble to recount this imaginary narrative about the fate of Christ's betrayer and to grapple with huge questions about guilt and salvation, doubt and faith, blame and forgiveness.

Good Theater Artistic Director Brian P. Allen chose to close the season with a lovely, lyrical production of Horton Foote's platy, The Trip to Bountiful, in which Louisa Flaningam's luminous interpretation of Carrie Watts is surely one of the Portland theatre calendar's highlights.

The Alliance Theatre and High Museum of Art today announced Early Learner Day - an arts festival for the very young, April 22, 2017, from 8:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., at the Woodruff Arts Center. 

Incisive. Intuitive. Irresistible. The new golden boy of pop music and EDM (electronic dance music) is New York City's very own LODATO.

MRS. MANNERLY, a memory play by Jeffrey Hatcher, takes inspiration from the playwright's memories of a childhood etiquette class that he took at the tender young age of ten. Walking with an etiquette book balanced on your head, learning complex table settings with a confounding array of flatware and stemware, and dropping a quarter in a jar each time you interrupt...those were the ways of Mrs. Mannerly's classes in 1967. Mrs. Mannerly (Jennifer Underwood) has high standards; so high, in fact, that not one student in her thirty-six years of teaching proper deportment has ever achieved perfection. Young Jeffrey (Suzanne Balling) wants to be the first and he has a trick up his sleeve that he thinks makes him a shoe-in to achieve that sought after goal... he has discovered Mrs. Mannerly has a secret past.

Beth Henley's 1981 Pulitzer Prize winning CRIMES OF THE HEART delves into the tragedy riddled lives of three sisters, highlighting the importance of remembering that people have their own secret stories and not everything is as they first appear.

Richmond, Virginia Music Director Steven Smith will lead the Richmond Symphony for the seventh Altria Masterworks concert of the season on Saturday, April 8 at 8pm and Sunday, April 9 at 3pm. The Symphony's Rennolds Memorial Concert will take place at the Dominion Arts Center's Carpenter Theatre and will feature Schubert's well-known “Unfinished” Symphony, as well as major choral works by Bruckner and Vaughan Williams. Joining the Symphony on stage will be the Richmond Symphony Chorus under the direction of Erin R. Freeman and guest vocalists Michelle Areyzaga (soprano) and Kevin Deas (bass-baritone).

The Producing Unit presents a staged reading of American Dreams, a performance piece exemplifying the broad and varied brands of "American" living. Directed by Peter Frisch and featuring Bill Egan, Tom Hinshaw, Meredith McMinn, Robert Riechel, Jeremy Tristan, and Ivy Vahanian, this series of monologues from a dozen different characters invites audiences to consider the very concept of the "American Dream," and how this socially constructed entitlement varies for each individual-yet exists consistently as a vital thematic goal.

Featuring a quintet of charming and engaging players, under the deft and focused direction of Everett Tarlton, Seeing Stars in Dixie (which winds up a month-long run at The Barn this coming Sunday, March 19) is the kind of laugh-out-loud funny that only comes from the heart, as it relates the story of a group of people in Natchez, Mississippi, circa 1956, who are caught up in all the hoopla and hullabaloo of a movie, starring Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift, being made right over yonder. It's based in fact: Taylor, Clift, Lee Marvin, Eva Marie Saint and all the accompanying Hollywood types came to Natchez to film Raintree County, a Southern gothic tale that transformed the sleepy, small town into a veritable beehive of Tinsel Town talk and celebrity hijinks.