American Playwrights News

Cherry Lane Theatre will end its Obie award-winning MENTOR PROJECT 2017 season with Jocelyn Bioh's NOLLYWOOD DREAMS, directed by Saheem Ali and mentored by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins.

Playwrights Stephen Orlov of Montreal and Samah Sabawi of Melbourne discuss their challenging artistic journey and creative process in editing this groundbreaking collection. Double Exposure: Plays of the Jewish and Palestinian Diasporas is the first English-language anthology worldwide by Jewish and Palestinian writers in any genre of drama, prose or poetry. This unique anthology about the Israel-Palestine conflict includes three plays penned by Jewish playwrights, three by Palestinian playwrights, and one by both. The afternoon also features scene readings by actors.

Naomi Wallace's searing psychological drama The War Boys, directed by James Will McBride, is entering its final two weeks at Access Theater (380 Broadway, NYC). Performances continue through April 16, 2017.

The Tennessee Williams Theatre Company of New Orleans has done Williams canon and New Orleans audiences a tremendous favor by staging the play that was considered the starting point of Williams' decline.

spit&vigor has announced the workshop performance of NEC SPE / NEC METU, written by Sara Fellini (winner - 2014 Planet Connnections Award for Outstanding New Script, nominated - 2015 NYIT Award for Outstanding Full Length Script) and directed by Pat Diamond (Yale School of Drama, Manhattan School of Music).

Today, American Conservatory Theater (A.C.T.)'s Associate Artistic Director Andy Donald announced the first projects to be chosen for A.C.T.'s inaugural New Strands Residency program. Three playwrights/plays from New York City's acclaimed Ma-Yi Theater Company will participate.

SWEAT, the acclaimed new play by Pulitzer Prize winner Lynn Nottage, directed by Kate Whoriskey opens tonight on Broadway at Studio 54 (254 West 54th Street). With warm humor and tremendous heart, Lynn Nottage's Sweat tells the story of a group of friends who have spent their lives. Let's see what the critics have to say.

Roundabout Theatre Company (Todd Haimes, Artistic Director/CEO) is thrilled to announce artistic plans for 2017, which welcome back a group of artists whom the theater has long respected, with new works, new roles and with a new playwright support initiative.

American Theater Group, the South Orange Performing Arts Center's  new theatre company in-residence, presents a staged reading of A Good Farmer by Sharyn Rothstein on Sunday, April 2 at 7 p.m.  The powerful story, set in upstate New York, tells a compelling tale of one family's struggle to maintain their farm through adversity. The wheels of crisis are set into motion when they hire a Mexican immigrant to help them. The topical play highlights the humanity of those whose only crime was to come to American and make a better life for their families, and the bonds we all share as immigrants seeking the American dream. 

After 25 years at the helm, Carey Perloff, artistic director at American Conservatory Theater (A.C.T.), announced today that she will be departing the Bay Area's premier nonprofit theater organization following the conclusion of the 2017-18 season.

Florida Studio Theatre announces its annual Richard and Betty Burdick New Play Reading Series, which will present three new staged readings by contemporary American playwrights.

 Set in Buffalo, New York, the playwright's home town, Over the Tavern carries us back to the Eisenhower years of the 1950s and introduces us to the Pazinskis - Mom, Dad and their four children, Eddie, Annie, Georgie and, the hero of our tale, 12-year-old Rudy, a precocious kid who's starting to question family values and the Roman Catholic Church. Rudy believes God put us on earth to "have fun," and he's trying to figure out why his family isn't having any. When Rudy goes up against the ruler-wielding Sister Clarissa and announces that instead of being confirmed he'd rather shop around for a more 'fun' religion, all hell breaks loose

Cherry Lane Theatre has announced casting for the second production of the Obie award-winning MENTOR PROJECT 2017 now in its 19th season.

F*It Club, the New York Innovative Award-winning film and theatre company, continues its annual series of short, commissioned world-premiere plays at the IRT Theater as part of their 3B Development Series in Manhattan's West Village with The Spring Fling: Rebound, seven new short plays by Ngozi Anyanwu (Good Grief), Lucy Boyle (The Blue Deep), Liza Birkenmeier (Radio Island), Ryan King (Burying Augustus), Dan Moyer (Half Moon Bay), Matthew Paul Olmos (So Go The Ghosts of Mexico), and Leah Nanako Winkler (Kentucky).

The American Playwriting Foundation, which awards the largest annual grant in American theater to an unproduced play, is partnering with two of the most vibrant theaters in London to give eight American playwrights per year an opportunity to create artistic relationships with the British theater community.

Naomi Wallace's blistering play, The War Boys, will have its New York premiere at Access Theater (380 Broadway between White & Walker Streets) for a limited four-week engagement with an opening set for Saturday, March 25th at 8PM.

Set one hundred years ago in Paris, The Radiant centers on the true, tempestuous, and love-torn life of Madame Marie Sklodowska Curie. Widowed at thirty-nine, with two young children to raise and support, she becomes involved in a scandalous affair with her young married assistant, an affair which rocks Paris and nearly costs her her career - and her life. But, she survives this and the great bias against women scientists throughout Europe then and goes on to discover and isolate radium, earn two Nobel Prizes, and revolutionize the world of science forever, ushering in "The Atomic Age" and the first cure for cancer.

Playwrights Horizons is now accepting entries today, Monday, March 6, for the LIVEforFIVE online lottery for $5 tickets to their world premiere production of The Profane, a new play by Zayd Dohrn (Outside People, Reborning).

Cherry Lane Theatre has announced casting for the second production of the Obie award-winning MENTOR PROJECT 2017 now in its 19th season.

Seattle Repertory Theatre is bringing back the work of Seattle legend August Wilson, a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner and playwright. Two Trains Running will be performed in Seattle Rep's Bagley Wright Theatre as part of its 2017/2018 season. The full 2017/2018 season announcement will be made later this spring.