American Playwrights News

The National Asian American Theatre Company (NAATCO) -- whose revivals of western classics performed by all Asian-American casts since 1989 include such acclaimed productions as BERNARDA ALBA, OTHELLO, A LONG DAY'S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT, OUR TOWN, YOU CAN'T TAKE IT WITH YOU and IVANOV -- will expand its mission to include world premieres about non-Asian peoples performed by an all-Asian cast with the world premiere of LEAH'S TRAIN, Karen Hartman's play about three generations of women from a Jewish family whose lineage spreads from Russia to present-day San Francisco, previewing February 6th prior to opening February 10th Off-Broadway at the TBG Theatre (312 West 36th Street) in Manhattan.

Tony- and Emmy- winner Elaine Stritch will be honored for her 'many achievements and humanity' on Monday, February 9 at the 6th annual pre-Valentine's gala, LOVE 'N' COURAGE hosted by Betsy Von Furstenberg at The National Arts Club (15 Gramercy Park South) with cocktails at 6:30pm, dinner at 7:00pm. Proceeds benefit the emerging playwrights' program at Theater for the New City, one of the last bastions for experimental and political theater in 21st century New York in the East Village. Joining the list of previously announced list of celebrities who will turn out to salute Ms. Stritch on Feb. 9 are Barbara Barrie, Eli Wallach, Anne Jackson, along with Hal and Judy Prince.

Primary Stages (Casey Childs, Founder & Executive Producer; Andrew Leynse, Artistic Director; Elliot Fox, Managing Director) has announced its upcoming 25th anniversary season of new works offering a 3-play series celebrating female playwrights. The 2009-2010 Season will see the world premiere of A Lifetime Burning by Cusi Cram, and the New York premieres of Happy Now? by Lucinda Coxon, and Night Watcher by Charlayne Woodard at Primary Stages at59E59 Theaters (59 East 59 th Street). In a statement, Casey Childs, Founder & Executive producer, said, 'Primary Stages hasalways had a commitment to playwrights and we have been lucky to help nurture andenjoy the success of many extraordinary women writers. We are thrilled to premiere these new works by these three playwrights as a way to celebrate our 25th Anniversary.

Cooler than Kill Bill, hotter than Shaft! The OBIE Award-winning Ma-Yi Theater Company teams up with the NYIT Award-winning Vampire Cowboys for 'SOUL SAMURAI' the story of Dewdrop and her fight through the mean streets of a post-apocalyptic Brooklyn. After avenging her lover's murder in the heart of Coney Island, Dewdrop now must make it back home to the Lower East Side before the shoguns of Kings County find her. In a play that mixes hip-hop culture, blaxploitation, and the martial arts, this production dials it back old school with this seventies-inspired samurai story. This is one slick slice with a sharp sword and a score to settle! 'SOUL SAMURAI' is being sponsored by the 2009 New York Comic Con.

The Bull presents a pulp revival of Fool for Love wherein two lovers, Eddie and May, trapped in a motel room that only exists on the horizon of the desert, battle to the death of their love in order to escape their lurid past. Fool for Love is arguably the hippest love story to hit the stage in three decades...yet recent renditions have lacked the comedy needed to lighten the weighty themes this play provides. We prefer to take it one step further into the brutal surrealism the play already offers. The characters in our version of Fool for Love are just that, characters.

The American Actor's Company (The Traveling Lady) is proud to present the Off-Broadway premiere of The Unseen by Craig Wright. Performances of this limited Off-Broadway engagement will be at the Cherry Lane Theatre (38 Commerce St) beginning previews March 5th, Opening March 8th and closing March 28th. Performances run Tuesdays ? Sundays at 8 PM, Saturdays at 2 PM, Sundays at 3 PM. Tickets are $45 and can be purchased by calling Telecharge at 212-239-6200 or by going to www.telecharge.com. For more information please visit www.unseentheplay.com.

Transport Group Online Auction in Time for Valentine's Day We want to offer you more great theatre...and access to great Valentine's Day gifts! Support an online auction to benefit our world-premiere musical, Being Audrey, about a woman obsessed with Audrey Hepburn. In these dark times, what would Holly Golightly do? SHOP! Go to the auction: visit http://www.charityfolks.com/cfauctions/auction_verticalngo.asp?slrid=1699 Bidding open now til 3pm on February 4th only @ www.charityfolks.com/transportgroup All items ship in time for Valentine's Day!

Keen Company announced today that Tony Award-winner Ron Holgate (1776, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Grand Hotel, recent revivals of Kiss Me, Kate and Guys and Dolls) will join John Cullum and Jonathan Hogan for its upcoming production of Heroes, replacing previously announced Tony Roberts. Mr. Roberts has withdrawn from the production to attend to family matters. The New York premiere of this 2006 Olivier Award-winning play by Gerald Sibleyras with a translation by Tom Stoppard, will be helmed by Keen Artistic Director Carl Forsman and run from February 24 - April 11 at The Clurman Theatre / Theatre Row ( 410 West 42nd Street ). The official opening is set for March 8.

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).

Desire Under the Elms at Goodman Theater opens tonight. Rumors have spread that the show has Broadway in its sights, and hopes to come to New York next spring. The show has been extended before opening night, as it will now play through March 1. Goodman Theatre Artistic Director Robert Falls and renowned actor Brian Dennehy bring their artistic partnership to new heights with Eugene O'Neill's haunting drama, Desire Under the Elms-marking their fifth collaboration on O'Neill's work over two decades. Falls' cast includes stage and screen stars Carla Gugino (Entourage, Spy Kids, Sin City) Pablo Schreiber (Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Awake and Sing!), Boris McGiver (The Wire) and Daniel Stewart Sherman (Broadway's Cyrano de Bergerac). The centerpiece production of Goodman Theatre's two-month 'A Global Exploration: Eugene O'Neill in the 21st Century,' Desire Under the Elms appears January 17 - March 1 in the Goodman's 856-seat Albert Ivar Theatre. Tickets are $25 - 82; a full Exploration calendar, including dates, times and ticket prices, appears at the end of the release. Allstate is the Corporate Sponsor Partner of Desire Under the Elms and The Elizabeth F. Cheney Foundation is the Sponsor Partner. UBS is the Lead Corporate Sponsor for 'A Global Exploration: Eugene O'Neill in the 21st Century' and The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation is the Sponsor Partner. Motorola Foundation is the Corporate Sponsor Partner. American Airlines is the Exclusive Airline of Goodman Theatre.

The New York Playwrights Lab - the 35 year-old organization founded keep established playwrights writing for the theatre - will offer a sample of its members' newest works in a series of free readings at 6:00 PM January 19-23 at the Cherry Lane Theatre in New York City.

Keen Company (Artistic Director Carl Forsman, Executive Director Wayne Kelton) is thrilled to present John Cullum, Jonathan Hogan and Tony Roberts in the New York premiere of Heroes, by G?rald Sibleyras with a translation by Tom Stoppard and directed by Carl Forsman. Heroes received the 2006 Olivier Award for Best New Comedy. Performances begin on Tuesday, February 24 and run through April 11 at The Clurman Theatre / Theatre Row, 410 West 42nd Street, between 9th and 10th Avenues. Opening is scheduled for Sunday, March 8. An evocative comedy about three World War I veterans living in a veterans' home who plot a new assault - a trip to a stand of poplar trees in the distance. But should they bring the stone dog with them? Author G?rald Sibleyras calls Heroes a play 'about the universal desire to escape the confines of life.' Winner of London's Olivier Award for Best New Comedy in 2006 and Paris' Moliere Award for Outstanding Comedy in 2003, Keen presents its New York debut.

Goodman Theatre Artistic Director Robert Falls and renowned actor Brian Dennehy bring their artistic partnership to new heights with Eugene O'Neill's haunting drama, Desire Under the Elms-marking their fifth collaboration on O'Neill's work over two decades. Falls' cast includes stage and screen stars Carla Gugino (Entourage, Spy Kids, Sin City) Pablo Schreiber (Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Awake and Sing!), Boris McGiver (The Wire) and Daniel Stewart Sherman (Broadway's Cyrano de Bergerac).

Emmy Award winner Glynn Turman (The Wire), Tony nominee Rocky Carroll (Navy NCIS) and John Cothran, Jr. (Black Snake Moan) are set to head the cast when L.A. Theatre Works presents Ceremonies in Dark Old Men by Academy Award nominee Lonne Elder, III. Five performances take place January 14-18 at the Skirball Cultural Center, where they will be recorded to air on LATW's nationally syndicated, weekly radio theater series, The Play's The Thing.

Target Margin Theater (David Herskovits, Artistic Director), Off-Broadway's extraordinary, Obie Award-winning theater company, present the New York premiere of the never-before-seen production of Ten Blocks on the Camino Real by Tennessee Williams at The Ohio Theater (66 Wooster Street). Under the direction of David Herskovits, the six-member cast features Purva Bedi, Satya Bhabha, Curt Hostetter, McKenna Kerrigan, Dara Seitzman and Raphael Nash Thompson. This production will offer an extremely rare view of the theatrical process of playwright Tennessee Williams.

The Tony Award-winning actress ELAINE STRITCH will honored for her 'achievements and humanity' at Theater for the New City's 6th annual LOVE 'N' COURAGE benefit for the theater's Emerging Playwrights Program, it has been announced by Crystal Field, Executive Artistic Director of Theater for the New City. Co-hosted by playwright and actor CHARLES BUSCH and actress JULIE HALSTON, this year's benefit will take place at the beautiful National Arts Club (15 Gramercy Park South), on Monday, February 9, with cocktails beginning at 6:30pm, followed by dinner and performances.

The New York Playwrights Lab - the 35 year-old organization founded keep established playwrights writing for the theatre - will offer a sample of its members' newest works in a series of free readings at 6:00 PM January 19-23 at the Cherry Lane Theatre in New York City.