Alfred Uhry News

The Alliance Theatre regretfully announces the cancellation of its planned world premiere of iSondheim: aMusical Revue. iSondheim, with music by Stephen Sondheim and book and direction by James Lapine, was to begin performances Apr. 15.

Martin McDonagh?s dark comedy ?The Lieutenant of Inishmore,? originally scheduled as the fourth production of Center Theatre Group/Mark Taper Forum?s 2009 season, will be postponed to the Taper?s 2010 season, it was announced today by CTG Artistic Director Michael Ritchie. There will be no production in the Taper in July and August.

Starting tomorrow, Wednesday, February 25 at 10:00 AM, Playwrights Horizons (Tim Sanford, Artistic Director; Leslie Marcus, Managing Director) will be accepting entries for its popular LIVEforFIVE online lottery for $5 tickets to its next production, the World Premiere of INKED BABY, a new play by 2007 Susan Smith Blackburn nominee Christina Anderson in her Off-Broadway playwriting debut. A total of 40 tickets will be available via the online lottery.

Point Park University's Conservatory Theatre Company presents the multiple Tony Award-winning musical Parade at the Pittsburgh Playhouse, the performing arts center of Point Park University, Feb. 27 through March 1 and March 12 through 22, 2009; a preview performance is open to the public on Thurs., Feb. 26. Tony Award-winner Michael Rupert directs; he is joined by Zeva Barzell as associate director and Douglas Levine as music director.

Celebrated American author and playwright Quiara Alegr?a Hudes returns to the Alliance Theatre in March, bringing with her a tender and funny new play about family. A finalist in the National Endowment for the Arts New Play Development Program, 26 Miles takes audiences on a road trip with a teenage daughter and her mother in an '83 Buick Regal. Along the way, they discover plenty about themselves, their relationship and what family really means. Alliance Theatre Associate Artistic Director Kent Gash is thrilled to direct this remarkable and very humorous World Premiere presented in association with the National New Play Network on the intimate and decidedly underground Hertz Stage.

Roundabout Theatre Company (Todd Haimes, Artistic Director) is proud to announce the full cast for the upcoming New York premiere of Distracted, by Lisa Loomer, directed by Mark Brokaw. Distracted will begin previews on Saturday, February 7th and open officially on Wednesday, March 4th, 2009 at the Laura Pels Theatre in the Harold and Miriam Steinberg Center for Theatre (111 West 46th Street).

Atlanta's nationally acclaimed Alliance Theatre has been awarded a $1.1 million 2008 Arts in Education Model Development and Dissemination (AEMDD) grant from the U.S. Department of Education through its Office of Innovation and Improvement. The grant money will be distributed over a four-year period and will be used in planning, researching and implementing programs to introduce young English Language Learners (ELL) to the theatre art form and build verbal communication abilities. There were 74 applicants for the grant nation wide. The Alliance ranked first out of 15 awardees.

Experience the hit animated series 'Class of 3000' live on stage for the first time with the World Premiere Class of 3000 LIVE. This one-hour play based on the Emmy Award-winning Cartoon Network series created by Andr? Benjamin of OutKast and Tommy Lynch is directed and adapted by the Alliance's Rosemary Newcott and features original songs by Benjamin. Opening Night is Saturday, Mar. 7, 2000 at 7 p.m. Tickets to shows Mar. 7 - 29 are available at the Woodruff Arts Center Box office by calling 404.733.5000 or online at www.alliancetheatre.org. For the animated series, Andr? Benjamin developed the story of international music star Sunny Bridges, who flees his own celebrity to return to Atlanta. In Class of 3000 LIVE, new musical inspiration is just around the corner for Sunny when he's discovered by a group of young middle school musical prodigies in desperate search of a music teacher. Though his students don't realize it, Sunny is about to teach them new forms of expression and creativity, and the kids are about to re-ignite his passion for music and his community.

Playwright Julia Brownell's Smart Cookie is a wickedly funny comedy about how a shocking surprise helps a wealthy Manhattan socialite become the woman she never realized she wanted to be. The clear favorite of the 2008 Kendeda Graduate Playwriting Competition judges, this World Premiere play combines laugh-out-loud humor with a provocative story about social image and the powers that can change a person's attitudes.

To coincide with the World Premiere of the 2008 Kendeda GPC winning play, Julia Brownell's Smart Cookie, Atlanta's finest actors and directors will present a first look at the 2008 Kendeda Graduate Playwriting Competition finalists. This is an intimate chance to hear works by some of America's most interesting up-and-coming writers.

Smart Cookie, by Julia Brownell and directed by Jeremy B. Cohen will be performed at the Alliance Theatre from January 30 - February 22, 2009. The show contains Teenage Sexuality, Thematic Elements (Abortion), and Adult Language (parents: call the box office for specific details). Meet Cookie. In between crafting her impeccable social image, you might catch her at the spa, avoiding carbs at New York?s best restaurants, or giving her husband?s money to the MET. As you can imagine, she?s very busy ? until one day a visit from her prep school son and his foreign exchange girlfriend changes everything. This year?s Kendeda winner is a sly, wicked comedy about the power of surprise to help us become the people we never realized we wanted to be

Playwrights Horizons announces completion of a major renovation to 440 Studios, which is Lower Manhattan's largest rehearsal space complex (located at 440 Lafayette Street). The $1.2 million project took 8 months for demolition and renovation.

Playwrights Horizons announces completion of a major renovation to 440 Studios, which is Lower Manhattan's largest rehearsal space complex (located at 440 Lafayette Street). The $1.2 million project took 8 months for demolition and renovation. 440 Studios is the third and fourth floors of the Playwrights Horizons Theater School. When not in use by the School for classes, workshops and productions, the rehearsal studios and theaters are rented out to hundreds of New York City cultural groups each year. The School and the studios are an integral part of Playwrights Horizons and perform a vital service for students, the theater community and the surrounding neighborhood. The renovation of the third floor was made possible, in large part, through generous capital funding from New York City and New York State.

As of this morning, Wednesday, January 28, Playwrights Horizons (Tim Sanford, Artistic Director; Leslie Marcus, Managing Director) is now accepting entries for its popular LIVEforFIVE online lottery for $5 tickets to its next production, the New York premiere of THE SAVANNAH DISPUTATION, a new play by Evan Smith (Psych and The Uneasy Chair at Playwrights Horizons, Servicemen at The New Group). At least 50 tickets will be available via the online lottery. A ticketing initiative created last season as part of the theater company's Arts Access program, LIVEforFIVE makes $5 tickets available for the first preview performance of each Playwrights Horizons production through a lottery via the company's website (www.playwrightshorizons.org). The LIVEforFIVE lottery for THE SAVANNAH DISPUTATION will be for tickets to the first preview on Friday, February 6 at 8:00 PM at Playwrights Horizons' Mainstage Theater (416 West 42nd Street).

To coincide with the World Premiere of the 2008 Kendeda GPC winning play, Julia Brownell's Smart Cookie, Atlanta's finest actors and directors will present a first look at the 2008 Kendeda Graduate Playwriting Competition finalists. This is an intimate chance to hear works by some of America's most interesting up-and-coming writers.

On March 12, 2009 at 7:00 p.m., The Collegiate Chorale appears with The New York City Opera Orchestra at the newly renovated Alice Tully Hall in a performance of Kurt Weill and Ira Gershwin's 1945 Broadway operetta The Firebrand of Florence. The performance, led by guest conductor Ted Sperling, stars baritone Nathan Gunn, soprano Anna Christy, baritone Terrence Mann, and soprano Victoria Clark. Krysty Swann, David Pittu and Patrick Goss complete the cast, and narration will be provided by Stage Director Roger Rees. Boasting a score by Kurt Weill, lyrics by Ira Gershwin, and a book by playwright and screenwriter Edwin Justus Mayer, The Firebrand of Florence had a short run on Broadway in 1945. The work was subsequently not heard for over a half-century until three presentations - Ohio Light Opera (1999), the BBC Symphony Orchestra in London (2000) and the Radio Symphony Orchestra in Vienna (2000) - shed new light on the relatively obscure work. The performances were not only accepted, but widely acclaimed, thus giving hope for a new life in a new century. Variety's theater critic Steven Suskin says 'I have long believed that Firebrand in concert should be a dazzling delight.' Benvenuto Cellini, the great Florentine artist, is sentenced to hang, but he is pardoned when the duke realizes that he has not completed a previously commissioned sculpture. Freed, he is able to turn his attention to his favorite model (and object of his affections), Angela. The Duke also is interested in Angela. In a typical operetta plot, Cellini swashbuckles around the stage, keeping the Duke away from Angela, keeping himself away from the Duchess, and escaping yet another death sentence by fleeing to Paris, as the end of the show recapitulates the beginning.

26 Miles, a world premiere by Quiara Alegr?a Hudes (directed by Kent Gash) will be performed at the Alliance Theatre from March 20 to April 12, 2009.

Based on Cartoon Network's animated television series created by Andre Benjamin and Tommy Lynch and adapted and directed by Rosemary Newcott, Class of 3000 Live will be performed from March 6 to March 29, 2009.

Smart Cookie, by Julia Brownell and directed by Jeremy B. Cohen will be performed at the Alliance Theatre from January 30 - February 22, 2009. The show contains Teenage Sexuality, Thematic Elements (Abortion), and Adult Language (parents: call the box office for specific details). Meet Cookie. In between crafting her impeccable social image, you might catch her at the spa, avoiding carbs at New York?s best restaurants, or giving her husband?s money to the MET. As you can imagine, she?s very busy ? until one day a visit from her prep school son and his foreign exchange girlfriend changes everything. This year?s Kendeda winner is a sly, wicked comedy about the power of surprise to help us become the people we never realized we wanted to be

iSondheim: A Musical Revue, a world premiere in honor of America's greatest living composer of musical theatre will run at the Alliance Theatre from April 15 to May 10, 2009.The revue features music and lyrics by Stephan Sondheim, and orchestrations by Michael Starobin. iSondheim is is directed by James Lapine and is based on a concept by David Kernan. Stephen Sondheim?s work revolutionized the Broadway musical with such wide-ranging hits as West Side Story, Gypsy, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Sweeney Todd and Into the Woods. This unique mixed-media musical revue, interspersed with commentary from the legendary composer, was developed by his longtime collaborator James Lapine (last at the Alliance to direct The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee). Be among the first to experience this celebration of the power of creativity in the American musical theatre. The box office is open Monday - Friday from 10 am to 8 pm and Saturday - Sunday 12 pm to 8 pm. For more information call the box office at: 404.733.5000. Now in its 40th season, Atlanta?s nationally acclaimed Alliance Theatre, recipient of the 2007 Regional Theatre Tony Award?, is the leading professional resident theatre of the Southeast, creating the powerful experience of shared theatre for diverse people on two stages for youth and adult audiences.