Aaron Sorkin News

GOOD MORNING, THEATERATI! Welcome to Friday, June 9, 2017 - we're awfully glad to have you here! It's a big weekend in Nashville, maybe the biggest ever, thanks to the perfect storm of events and celebrations all across the region. It's CMA Music Festival weekend, Bonnaroo is pulsating some miles down the road (taking most of the attendees through Music City on their way to Manchester) and the Nashville Predators take on a team from Pittsburgh in the Stanley Cup Final's sixth game on Sunday night at Bridgestone Arena.

The 1st Annual Logan Festival of Solo Performance, presented with generous support from the Reva & David Logan Foundation, will run at 1st Stage from July 6-16, 2017. This innovative festival, the first of its kind in the DC region, will gather acclaimed solo performers from across the country for two-weeks of performances, workshops, discussions, and events. The main stage festival schedule features:

Dramatic Escape transports viewers into the lives of a group of maximum security prisoners who are attempting to mount a stage production of A Few Good Men as a part of the Rehabilitation Through the Arts program at Sing Sing Correctional Facility in Ossining.

NBC has delayed its plan to present BYE BYE BIRDIE LIVE, starring Jennifer LOPEZ until 2018. The network originally planned to broadcast the live musical around the holiday season.

David Mamet's MasterClass on Dramatic Writing is officially available starting today.

Great music, classics, comedy, a carnivorous space alien and a high-flying partnership with New York's 2 Ring Circus highlight the Syracuse University Department of Drama's 2017/2018 season. From Gershwin to Chekhov, from Paula Vogel to Isabel Allende, the season offers a rich and wide-ranging celebration of theatrical experiences.

Online education platform MasterClass announced today that the Pulitzer Prize winning playwright, screenwriter, and director of such works as GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS, AMERICAN BUFFALO, and WAG THE DOG will offer his first ever online writing class.

The powerful music of German composer Kurt Weill comes to life in 'Berlin to Broadway with Kurt Weill: A Musical Voyage' performed by the Syracuse University Department of Drama.

MasterVoices (formerly The Collegiate Chorale), closes its 75th anniversary season with Victor Herbert's Babes in Toyland on April 27, 2017 at 7pm at Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage at Carnegie Hall (57th Street and 7th Avenue, New York, NY 10019). The production will be conducted and directed by MasterVoices' Artistic Director Ted Sperling and will feature Kelli O'Hara (Contrary Mary), Bill Irwin (Master Toymaker), Christopher Fitzgerald (Alan), Lauren Worsham (Jane), Jay Armstrong Johnson (Tom Tom), Jonathan Freeman (Uncle Barnaby), Chris Sullivan (Gonzorgo), Jeffrey Schecter (Roderigo), Michael Kostroff (Chief Inspector Marmaduke), and Blair Brown (The Narrator), with the 130 singers of MasterVoices and Orchestra of St. Luke's. Musical Staging by Andrew Palermo, Costume Consulting by Tracy Christensen, and Concert Adaptation by Joe Keenan and Ted Sperling.

The Juilliard School will confer honorary doctorates upon six luminaries during its 112th commencement ceremony on Friday, May 19, 2017, at 11 a.m. in Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center (Broadway at 65th Street, New York City).

Violinist Gil Morgenstern's Reflections Series International is pleased to return to City Winery after its sold out inaugural performance last December. Reality Chamber Theatre, a series of informal, interactive concerts designed to pull back the curtain on the creative process, aims to speak to both traditional and new audiences.

Samantha Womack, Les Dennis and Carrie Hope Fletcher star in The Addams Family, coming to The Marlowe Theatre, Canterbury, next month (May).

The Humanitas Play LA Workshop is expanding its presence in Los Angeles, it was announced today. After last year's successful partnership with Centre Theatre Group, Play LA is broadening its focus. Each of the six plays developed from the ground up in this year's workshop will be given works-in-progress readings in the inaugural Humanitas Play LA Festival of New Works on April 28, 29, and 30. Six celebrated local theatres will be partnering with Humanitas to give these developing works a physical space in which to grow.

Jonathan Biggins (writer and director) looks at the apparent state of Australian media and news reporting in his new play TALK.

Yes, he has directed some of entertainment's greatest comedians, including Tina Fey, Steve Carrell, Alec Baldwin, and Jim Carrey, BUT its onstage where Don Scardino first made a name for himself. As one of Broadway's most sought after young actors, he appeared in such cult musicals as ANGEL, KING OF HEARTS, and PARK! But, then he donned his directing cap to bring A FEW GOOD MEN, LENNON, and countless others to life! 

Bay Street Theater has announced the full creative team and members of the cast of THE MAN IN THE CEILING, with book by Jules Feiffer, music and lyrics by Andrew Lippa, and directed by Jeffrey Seller, producer of Hamilton.

Social commentary and satire with parallels to today, told through fantasy or absurdism, will be the focus of Promethean Theatre Ensemble's 2017-18 season.

MCC Theater today announced complete casting for the American Premiere of the play The End of Longing, a new play written by and starring 'Friends' star Matthew Perry in his NYC playwriting and stage acting debuts.

"The greatest of evils and the worst crime is poverty," declared George Bernard Shaw in the introduction to his famous play "Major Barbara". Written in 1906, this deliciously provocative comedy is the next offering in the Syracuse University Department of Drama season. Performances in the Storch Theatre at the Syracuse Stage/Drama complex begin March 31, with the official opening night on April 1.

Late last month, Viola Davis took home the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role as Rose Maxson in FENCES. Based on the August Wilson play of the same name, FENCES is the story of an African-American family living in the Hill District of Pittsburgh in 1950s.