A. Smith News

Plan-B Theatre Company has announced the 2016-17 Script-in-Hand Series of free readings of plays-in-progress.

FIRST TAKE, ESPN's lively weekday morning studio debate show featuring Stephen A. Smith, Max Kellerman and host Molly Qerim, will move to ESPN at 10 a.m. ET beginning Tuesday, Jan. 3, 2017.

TV One today announced that production is underway in Atlanta, Georgia for the new film, HIT A LICK, which marks the feature-length directorial debut for Tasha Smith (For Better Or Worse, Empire) and stars Lil Mama, Lance Gross, Tami Roman, Big Freedia, Lil Zane, and Floyd Mayweather.

Berkshire Theatre Group is pleased to announce the full schedule of events for the Made in the Berkshires Festival, which will be held on November 11 through November 13, at The Colonial Theatre in Pittsfield, MA and The Unicorn Theatre in Stockbridge, MA, celebrating the sixth year of this wonderful festival featuring local art and artists.

The 6th annual festival features cutting-edge theatrical works performed as staged readings, live music, film, short stories and dance in a festival atmosphere like no other. New and innovative pieces as well as established work will be presented by local Berkshire County playwrights, actors, directors, musicians and performers. Featured as performance blocks, Made in the Berkshires will allow audiences to enjoy the breadth and depth of the artistic talent that has landed in Berkshire County while celebrating the best in the visual and performing arts. Professional artists and artists-in-the-making gather to share their talent with the Berkshire community. The festival will once again be curated by Hilary Somers Deely and Barbara Sims; two local artists who have helped create the rich cultural tapestry that permeates the area.

Producers Paul Blake and Sony/ATV Music Publishing announce that the Tony & Grammy Award-winning Broadway hit Beautiful-The Carole King Musical, about the early life and career of the legendary and groundbreaking singer/songwriter, will make its Memphis premiere at the Orpheum Theatre February 28 - March 5.

Academy Award nominee and Emmy, Grammy and Golden Globe Award winner Queen Latifah, from the new FOX series STAR, and entertainment icon Snoop Dogg will host PITBULL'S NEW YEAR'S REVOLUTION

Nigel Farnall and Angelica Puscasu have won the inaugural Achates Philanthropy Prize, created to celebrate first-time cultural philanthropists across the UK, for their generous support for Theatre Royal Stratford East. The couple were nominated by the theatre for donating £3,000 towards the organisation over the past twelve months. 

The Dixie Swim Club - the Jones-Hope-Wooten comedy about five Southern women who meet on their college's swim team and hold a beachfront reunion every year thereafter - opens this week at Murfreesboro's Center for the Arts, in a new production helmed by George W. Manus Jr.

Berkshire Theatre Group is pleased to announce the full schedule of events for the Made in the Berkshires Festival, which will be held on November 11 through November 13, at The Colonial Theatre in Pittsfield, MA and The Unicorn Theatre in Stockbridge, MA, celebrating the sixth year of this wonderful festival featuring local art and artists.

ESPN2's FIRST TAKE kicks off ESPN's week of Veteran's Day programming with a live telecast from Joint Base Charleston in Charleston, S.C., on Monday, Nov. 7, at 10 a.m. ET.

Featuring a new line-up of incredible talents whose full stories and journeys have yet to be told, TV One's longest-running and award-winning UNSUNG series premieres six new episodes beginning, Today, Nov. 2

On 28 November 2016 Matthew Seadon-Young and Barbara Drennan will join the West End cast of Beautiful - The Carole King Musical to play Gerry Goffin (Carole King's husband and song-writing partner) and Genie Klein (King's mother) respectively.  

Revered singer-songwriter Brendan O'Shea returns to Irish Arts Center, December 2. At this performance, Brendan will showcase selections from his newest album, Mid-Atlantic Ghost, featuring a collection of songs written in and inspired by his home place connections, both here in the US and abroad. This event will serve as the official album launch. Originally from Killarney in the South-West of Ireland, Brendan O'Shea moved to the US in the late 90s and has become a staple within the East Village indie-folk scene.

Featuring a new line-up of incredible talents whose full stories and journeys have yet to be told, TV One's longest-running and award-winning UNSUNG series premieres six new episodes beginning, Wednesday, Nov. 2

The new musical COME FROM AWAY will honor the residents of Newfoundland and Labrador and the "come from aways" whose lives inspired the new musical COME FROM AWAY with two special benefit concert performances at Gander's hockey arena.

Feinstein's/54 Below, Broadway's Supper Club, presents The Rage: Carrie 2, An Unathorized Musical Parody in Concert tonight, October 28th at 11:30pm.

Joining the world-wide 500th anniversary commemorations of the creation in Venice of the world's first ghetto, Salon/Sanctuary Concerts' eighth season explores the musical worlds shaped by ancestors and descendents of exiles. From Esther to Shylock, from Troubadors to Dowland, we glimpse at fault lines of acceptance refracted through the prism of music.

The global smash hit musical MAMMA MIA! at London's Novello Theatre is now extending its booking period until 14 October 2017, taking the show through to its 19th playing year in London.

ESPN's blockbuster opening week of the NBA season is highlighted by two prime-time doubleheaders (Wednesday, Friday) and superstars LeBron James, Stephen Curry, Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook and James Harden in action.