American Playwrights News

Tennessee Williams is one of the best-known American playwrights of the 20th Century, and in this centennial year of his birth, it seems fitting to bring you one of his most complex pieces of work. Over the years on Roundabout's stages, you have seen everything from Williams' early classics like A Streetcar Named Desire and The Glass Menagerie to the less-frequently-staged Suddenly Last Summer and The Night of the Iguana. Through these productions, you've had an opportunity to truly get to know this complicated playwright, which I think makes you the ideal audience for Milk Train, a thorny, rarely-produced Williams gem. Michael Wilson, this production's director, spent ten years bringing the plays of Williams to his audience at Hartford Stage Company, knowing that Williams is a playwright to be savored, one who evolved a great deal throughout his career. Although he would continue to tackle certain themes and characters, much changed in Williams' life, and in the world, between his first success with The Glass Menagerie in 1945 and the first production of Milk Train eighteen years later. Knowing his work so well now, I think you are ready to embrace a play from that later, more multifaceted period.

Playwrights Horizons announced in December that it had commissioned FAR FROM HEAVEN, a new musical with book by Tony Award winner and two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist Richard Greenberg (Take Me Out, Three Days of Rain), music by Tony Award nominee Scott Frankel (Grey Gardens) and lyrics by Tony Award nominee Michael Korie (Grey Gardens, The Grapes of Wrath).

Transport Group, the winner of a special 2007 Drama Desk Award and 2007 and 2010 OBIE Awards, has announced that Titus Burgess (The Little Mermaid, Guys & Dolls), Chuck Cooper (Tony winner for The Life), and Alexander Gemignani (Sweeney Todd, Assassins) have joined the cast of the one-night-only event Boys Night Out: An Evening With…Michael John LaChiusa, which will take place on Monday, January 10, 2011 at 7pm at the Mainstage Theater at Playwrights Horizons, 416 West 42nd Street.

Playwrights Michael Lew (MICROCRISIS, STOCKTON) and Rehana Mirza (BARRIERS, THE GOOD MUSLIM) take the helm as co-directors of Ma-Yi Theater Company's Writers Lab succeeding co-director Lloyd Suh and co-director Qui Nguyen, it has been announced by Ma-Yi Artistic Director Ralph Pena.

Playwrights Horizons (Tim Sanford, Artistic Director; Leslie Marcus, Managing Director) presents the World Premiere of A SMALL FIRE, a new play by Obie Award winner Adam Bock (The Drunken City at PH, The Receptionist, The Thugs, Swimming in the Shallows).

As Arena Stage begins a new life in its renovated home at the Mead Center for American Theater in Southwest D.C., it opens its inaugural season with a classic American musical that similarly embraces life on a new frontier. Rodgers and Hammerstein's Oklahoma! is the first production at the Mead Center and features an all-star cast under the direction of Artistic Director Molly Smith. Rodgers and Hammerstein's Oklahoma! runs October 22-December 26, 2010 in the Fichandler Stage.

Transport Group, the winner of a special 2007 Drama Desk Award and 2007 and 2010 OBIE Awards, has announced that the one-night-only event Boys Night Out: An Evening With...Michael John LaChiusa will take place on Monday, January 10, 2011 at 7pm at the Mainstage Theater at Playwrights Horizons, 416 West 42nd Street.

Santa Rosa's 6th Street Playhouse announces its 2010-2011 'All-American' season featuring four musicals and eight plays. The twelve-show season offers a wide variety of theater productions, from Aug. 13, 2010 through June 26, 2011, including family musicals, comedies, American classics and two world premieres.

Breaking The Leg, written by comedienne Heather Henderson and produced by rapper Clifford 'Redd' Johnson offers a new perspective on the African-American theater experience. In the shadows of successful African-American playwrights like Tyler Perry and David E. Talbert, Breaking The Leg sets out to deconstruct stereotypes and challenge the idea that all black plays are the same. The production will be at the City Theatre for a limited two performances on Saturday, Dec. 18 and Sunday, Dec. 19. Both shows start at 7:00 p.m.

Playwrights Horizons (Tim Sanford, Artistic Director; Leslie Marcus, Managing Director) announced today that it has commissioned FAR FROM HEAVEN, a new musical with book by Tony Award winner and two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist Richard Greenberg (Take Me Out, Three Days of Rain), music by Tony Award nominee Scott Frankel (Grey Gardens) and lyrics by Tony Award nominee Michael Korie (Grey Gardens, The Grapes of Wrath). The musical is being adapted from the acclaimed, award-winning 2002 Focus Features/Vulcan Productions motion picture Far From Heaven, written and directed by Todd Haynes.

Marin Theatre Company presents the World Premiere of Tall Tales by Steve Yockey, based on classic American folk tales about larger-than-life heroes.

Playwrights Horizons (Tim Sanford, Artistic Director; Leslie Marcus, Managing Director) announced today that it has commissioned FAR FROM HEAVEN, a new musical with book by Tony Award winner and two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist Richard Greenberg (Take Me Out, Three Days of Rain), music by Tony Award nominee Scott Frankel (Grey Gardens) and lyrics by Tony Award nominee Michael Korie (Grey Gardens, The Grapes of Wrath). The musical is being adapted from the acclaimed, award-winning 2002 Focus Features/Vulcan Productions motion picture Far From Heaven, written and directed by Todd Haynes.

'Broadway Bound,' Simon's semi-autobiographical play follows the fledgling careers of hopeful ‘professional comedy writers' Stanley and Eugene Jerome as they try to break into the world of show business while trying to cope with their parents' continuing marital strife. When their ‘comedy' material is finally broadcast on the radio for the first time, their family's reaction is anything but laudatory.

Walnut Street Theatre's Independence Studio on 3 season continues with legendary Playwright Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie.

Playwrights Horizons (Tim Sanford, Artistic Director; Leslie Marcus, Managing Director) has announced complete casting for the World Premiere of A SMALL FIRE, a new play by Obie Award winner Adam Bock (The Drunken City at PH, The Receptionist, The Thugs, Swimming in the Shallows).

Drama Desk and Obie Award-winning Ma-Yi Theater Company's FLIPZOIDS - a play by Ma-Yi Artistic Director Ralph B. Pena and directed by Obie Award-winner Loy Arcenas, to be presented Off-Broadway at the Peter Jay Sharp Theatre (416 West 42 St.) in Manhattan.

Acclaimed theater company Playwrights Horizons (Tim Sanford, Artistic Director; Leslie Marcus, Managing Director) will host its second annual Holiday Craft Fair on Tuesday, December 14 from 1PM to 4PM in Playwrights Horizons' festively made-over Ford Motor Company Lobby (416 West 42nd Street).

Acclaimed theater company Playwrights Horizons (Tim Sanford, Artistic Director; Leslie Marcus, Managing Director) will host its second annual Holiday Craft Fair on Tuesday, December 14 from 1PM to 4PM in Playwrights Horizons' festively made-over Ford Motor Company Lobby (416 West 42nd Street). Featuring works created by PH's very own staff, the crafts for sale will include jewelry, knitwear, handmade greeting cards, homemade jam and much more!

Last night, December 10, actress Cate Blanchett sat down with Charlie Rose to discuss playing te famed Blanche Dubois in BAM's A Streetcar Named Desire.

Juilliard's Drama Division announced the complete schedule for its 2010-2011 season of fully-staged productions featuring students in their fourth and final year of acting training at Juilliard. This season's plays include Lorraine Hansberry's A RAISIN IN THE SUN, directed by Jade King Carroll, October 20-24; David Auburn's PROOF, directed by Harris Yulin, November 11-15; and Chekhov's THE SEAGULL, directed by Richard Feldman, December 9-13.