American Playwrights News

Lee Blessing's latest play For the Loyal receives its West Coast premiere at Sixry-six Theatre Co. With a cast of five stellar actors and directed ingeniously by artistic director Paul Rush, For the Loyal is set in a midwest University town where the football coach comes under scrutiny for molesting a young boy. The play is intelligent, immensely thought provoking and should be a big draw for audience who love gritty, humanely penetrating theatre.

Chance Theater, Anaheim's official resident theater company, is delighted to announce its OTR New Works lineup for 2020. We will be presenting two staged readings from past and president Resident Playwrights, as well as a LAB Workshop production, and our first commissioned play, which is being written by our first Resident Playwright, Adam Szymkowicz. All performances will take place at the Bette Aitken theater arts Center. 

The Phoenix Theatre continues its inaugural season of dreams in 2020 bringing new life to a classic Tennessee Williams play, The Glass Menagerie. This play is set to run January 17- February 2, 2020 in Chester County at SALT Performing Arts in Chester Springs, PA. The theatre is dedicated to re-envisioning and reinvigorating the classics, making theatre accessible and affordable for all. The Phoenix Theatre is in residence at SALT Performing Arts, 1645 Art School Road, Chester Springs. Tickets for The Glass Menagerie are already on sale online at www.thephoenixtheatrepa.com. Tickets cost $25 for adults and $15 for students.

Geva Theatre Center's 2019-2020 Fielding Studio Series begins with Queen, written by Madhuri Shekar and directed by Pirronne Yousefzadeh. The production begins performances on November 6 and runs in the Fielding Stage through November 24.

In 1984, TheaterWorks' founder Steve Campo took a long hard look at Hartford's cultural landscape and decided to start a new theater company. From day one, TheaterWorks' mission was to provide Hartford with performances of important works by contemporary American playwrights a?" works otherwise not performed in the region, works that are high-spirited, highly charged, sometimes controversial, but always engaging. Thirty plus years later, TheaterWorks Hartford is ushering in a new 'era' with a redesigned logo, bold new branding, an updated website and a $5.7 million renovation of its Pearl Street home. 

Teenage Dick, Mike Lew's devastatingly funny, sharply written new play about perception, disability and the lengths we're willing to go to rise above our station in life, will receive its Chicago premiere at Theater Wit, March 6-April 19, 2020.

Evan Yionoulis, Richard Rodgers Director of Juilliard's Drama Division, announced today that Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Marsha Norman will step down as co-director of Juilliard's Lila Acheson Wallace American Playwrights Program at the end of the 2019-20 academic year

Playwrights Horizons today announced that its beloved longtime Artistic Director, Tim Sanford, will step down from the position in July 2020.

30 years after its stage debut, experiencing MISS SAIGON nowadays exposes just how outdated and out-of-touch it is with our increasingly diverse world view. The musical's original production---which first debuted in the West End in 1989 before transferring to Broadway in 1991---became a global hit despite some loud, very understandable controversy. Most audiences, however, ignored the accusations of orientalism, misogyny, and white-washing and instead focused on the show's epic melodrama and theatrical splendor, much of it powered by the lush music of Claude-Michel Schönberg and the lyrics by Alain Boublil and Richard Maltby Jr. The show continues at Orange County's Segerstrom Center for the Arts in Costa Mesa through October 13, 2019.

4th Wall Theatre Company, Houston's home for extraordinary performances up close, is proud to open their 2019-2020 Season with Tennessee Williams's brilliant and timeless classic, “The Glass Menagerie.” Winner of the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1948, the 2014 Broadway revival received seven Tony nominations, again confirming the enduring poignancy and timeless power of this classic tale of family ties that cross time and memory.

The Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust today announced that Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Jackie Sibblies Drury and Horton Foote Prize-winning playwright Lauren Yee are the recipients of 2019 Steinberg Playwright Awards.

Ensemble Studio Theatre Los Angeles (EST/LA) presents the world premiere of CHARLOTTE STAY CLOSE, a new play by Christine Hamilton-Schmidt, directed by Jonathan Muñoz-Proulx.

Partial Comfort Productions presents the World Premiere of NOTHING GOLD CAN STAY by Chad Beckim. Directed by Shelley Butler, previews begin October 1 at the Jeffrey and Paula Gural Theatre at The A.R.T./New York Theatres.

The North Carolina Black Repertory Company (NC Black Rep) will hold auditions in Manhattan on Saturday October 26, 2019 for the title role in the world premiere of Phenomenal Maya by Nambi E. Kelley. The play is inspired by the life of Dr. Maya Angelou and was commissioned by NC Black Rep in August 2018.

The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts announces the biennial festival New Visions/New Voices from May 15-17, 2020, marking the 16th showcase of this industry workshop. Dedicated to the development of new plays and musicals for young people and their families, this innovative series pioneers a unique and vital forum for the field of Theater for Young Audiences (TYA).

Vermont's JAG Productions has partnered with New York's Cherry Lane Theatre to present the World Premiere of Nathan Yungerberg's Esai's Table, directed by Obie Award Winner Stevie Walker-Webb (Jordan Cooper's Ain't No Mo' at the Public).

The Sheen Center for Thought & Culture (18 Bleecker Street at the corner of Elizabeth Street in NYC) and The American Slavery Project present Unheard Voices for two morning performances at 11AM and two evening performances at 7PM on October 15 and 16.Unheard Voices marks the 400th anniversary of the arrival of enslaved Africans to the Jamestown Colony.

Golden Thread Productions, the first American theatre company devoted to the Middle East will celebrate the 20th anniversary of its prestigious ReOrient 2019 Festival of Short Plays with seven fully produced short plays, two panel discussions, and a national convening of Middle Eastern theatre artists.

Partial Comfort Productions (Samuel D. Hunter's A Bright New Boise, Robert O'Hara's Booty Candy, Thomas Bradshaw's The Bereaved) will present the World Premiere of NOTHING GOLD CAN STAY by Chad Beckim (pictured above). Directed by Shelley Butler, previews begin October 1 at the Jeffrey and Paula Gural Theatre at The A.R.T./New York Theatres. Opening night is slated for October 8.