American Playwrights News

Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater announces Polly Carl will join the company in a new position as Director of the American Voices New Play Institute (AVNPI) beginning July 1, 2011. As director, Carl will develop and direct all existing staff and activities of the Institute, as well as support the artistic planning, production, development and study of new work by Arena Stage. This position reports to Arena Stage Associate Artistic Director David Dower.

Marin Theatre Company Artistic Director Jasson Minadakis and Producing Director Ryan Rilette announced the sixth play of the company's expanded 45th Anniversary Season today - the West Coast premiere of A Steady Rain by Keith Huff.

The Public Theater (Artistic Director Oskar Eustis, Interim Executive Director Joey Parnes) will continue its popular series of free staged readings of new plays by the Emerging Writers Group, beginning Wednesday, June 1 and running through Tuesday, June 28 at The Public Theater.

The Fine Arts Center Theatre Company announces its 2011-2012 season, featuring Assassins, Of Mice and Men, and Hairspray as well as the Colorado Premiere of the Pulitzer Prize nominated play, In the Next Room, or the vibrator play.

Blue Coyote Theater Group and Access Theater present the latest chapter in their downtown cult series Standards of Decency.

Infamous Commonwealth Theatre (ICT) opens the second production of their 2011 season dedicated to the topic Sacrifice with Lanford Wilson's Fifth of July directed by Edward Morgan.

Executive Producer Lou Spisto today announced that The Old Globe will produce the World Premieres of four new plays and musicals in its 2011-12 Winter Season. The season will feature the World Premiere musicals Some Lovers by music legend Burt Bacharach and Tony Award winner Steven Sater and Nobody Loves You by Gaby Alter and Itamar Moses, as well as the West Coast Premiere of John Kander and Fred Ebb's The Scottsboro Boys, recently nominated for 12 Tony Awards including Best Musical, directed and choreographed by five-time Tony Award winner Susan Stroman. The two plays receiving World Premiere productions are Somewhere by Globe Playwright-in-Residence Matthew Lopez and The Recommendation by Jonathan Caren. The new season also includes revivals of Richard O'Brien's The Rocky Horror Show and the Eugene O'Neill classic Anna Christie directed by Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award winner David Auburn. Special events include the World Premiere of Odyssey by Todd Almond, a music theater event conceived and directed by Lear deBessonet celebrating the Globe's 75th Anniversary, The Old Globe/University of San Diego Graduate Theatre Program production of Twelfth Night and Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas!, which returns for its 14th consecutive year.

Blue Coyote Theater Group and Access Theater present the latest chapter in their downtown cult series Standards of Decency.

Clubbed Thumb, the Obie Award-winning New York theatre company that commissions, develops and produces funny, strange, and provocative news plays, presents SUMMERWORKS 2011, its 16th annual festival of original works by American playwrights, from June 5-25 at HERE Arts Center (145 6th Avenue) in Manhattan, it has been announced by Maria Striar, Clubbed Thumb's Producing Artistic Director.

Clubbed Thumb, the Obie Award-winning New York theatre company that commissions, develops and produces funny, strange, and provocative news plays, presents SUMMERWORKS 2011, its 16th annual festival of original works by American playwrights, from June 5-25 at HERE Arts Center (145 6th Avenue) in Manhattan, it has been announced by Maria Striar, Clubbed Thumb's Producing Artistic Director.

Acclaimed Off-Broadway theater company Playwrights Horizons (Tim Sanford, Artistic Director; Leslie Marcus, Managing Director) will hold its annual Spring Gala Benefit on Monday evening, May 2nd at 583 Park Avenue. The company is currently celebrating its 40th Anniversary Season.

A comedy about marriage, intimacy, and electricity. At the dawn of the electrical age, a new medical device is developed to pacify 'hysterical' women, but it produces a shockingly different result. Nominated for the 2010 Tony Award for Best Play and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. The NY Times called the play 'a sex comedy for adults with open hearts and minds.'

Blue Coyote Theater Group and Access Theater present the latest chapter in their downtown cult series Standards of Decency.

Acclaimed Off-Broadway theater company Playwrights Horizons (Tim Sanford, Artistic Director; Leslie Marcus, Managing Director) has announced initial details for its 2011 special online Auction in connection with its annual Spring Gala Benefit. Bidding for the auction, which will feature an eclectic array of items and unique opportunities, begins tomorrow, Tuesday, April 26 at 8AM at www.biddingforgood/playwrightshorizons. Online bidding will continue for three weeks through Wednesday, May 18 (with items staggered to close at 8PM and 9PM).

Artistic Director Jasson Minadakis and Producing Director Ryan Rilette announce Marin Theatre Company's 2010-11 season, its most ambitious ever.

Transport Group Theatre Company, the winner of a special Drama Desk Award and two OBIE Awards, has announced casting and dates for the New York premiere of Lysistrata Jones, a new musical with a book by Douglas Carter Beane; music and lyrics by Lewis Flinn; directed and choreographed by Dan Knechtges.

The Drama Desk and Obie Award-winning Keen Company (Carl Forsman, Artistic Director/Wayne Kelton, Executive Director) today announced that their acclaimed 25th Anniversary production of Benefactors would extend to May 7th to accommodate overwhelming demand.

The Drama Desk and Obie Award-winning Keen Company (Carl Forsman, Artistic Director/Wayne Kelton, Executive Director) today announced that their acclaimed 25th Anniversary production of Benefactors would extend to May 7th to accommodate overwhelming demand.

Uptown Players begins its second full season at the Kalita Humphreys Theater with the regional premiere of The Young Man From Atlanta by the late legendary Texas playwright, Horton Foote, running April 1 - 17, 2011.

Joe's Pub presents OUR HIT PARADE on Wednesday, March 30 at 9:30 PM, featuring Randy Harrison, John Roberts, Molly Pope, Erin Markey, Eye Of The Tiger, Jenn Harris, Billy Eichner & Natalie Joy Johnson. Our Hit Parade is a live top-ten countdown show created by Tony nominee and Obie winner Kenny Mellman (Kiki & Herb), carnal chanteuse Bridget Everett (At Least It's Pink at Ars Nova), pop song opera impresario Neal Medlyn (Neal Medlyn's Unpronounceable Symbol at P.S. 122), producer and MTV cameraman Brendan Kennedy, and writers Ada Calhoun and Peter Schjeldahl.