American Playwrights News

Ferocious Lotus Theatre Company names May Liang as its new Artistic Director, effective September 2019. Previously the company's Literary Manager, Liang succeeds Founding Artistic Director Lily Tung Crystal, who is stepping down to become the Artistic Director of Theater Mu in the Twin Cities, Minnesota. Tung Crystal remains part of Ferocious Lotus as co-founder and artistic director emeritus.

Ralph B. Peña is currently directing Ma-Yi's Felix Starro Off-Broadway at Theatre Row. The new musical is making an impact on both audience members and the history books as it marks the first time a musical created by Filipino-Americans will be presented Off-Broadway. Peña took the time to chat with BroadwayWorld about the upcoming production.

Season 15 kicks off with a modern-verse translation of William Shakespeare's MEASURE FOR MEASURE. This world-premiere adaptation was commissioned as part of Play On Shakespeare, an initiative by the Oregon Shakespeare Festival to commission 36 modern American playwrights a?" over half of which are women and people of color a?" to a?oetranslate' Shakespeare's works into contemporary modern English to celebrate the Bard's enduring impact. These commissions challenge the playwrights to bring the same level of dramatic pressure and rigor of language to their work as is present in the originals, deepening our understanding and engagement with Shakespeare. 

White Horse Theater Company will present the World Premiere of Broken Story written and directed by Cyndy A. Marion at The Gene Frankel Theatre (24 Bond Street, New York, NY 10012), November 8-16. Performances will be on Friday, November 8 at 8pm, Saturday, November 9 at 8pm, Sunday, November 10 at 3pm, Tuesday, November 12 at 8pm, Wednesday, November 13 at 8pm, Thursday, November 14 at 8pm, Friday, November 15 at 8pm, Saturday, November 16 at 2pm, and Saturday, November 16 at 8pm. Tickets ($25) are available for purchase in advance at https://whtc.ticketleap.com/BrokenStory/. The performance will run approximately 80 minutes, with no intermission.

The award winning Avante Garage Theatre Company announces their next ambitious project - 'WORD POWER! Impolite Poems, Plays and Power Ballads of Protest!' This three-performance special engagement will consist of a collection of poems, short stories, 10 minute (or shorter) plays and songs that demonstrate the frustrations that many Americans are having right now with the state of our country and the world at large.

The Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust today announced that the 12th-Annual a?oeMimia?? Awards will be presented on Monday, January 13, 2020 at Lincoln Center Theater. The a?oeMimia?? Awards are presented annually to honor the outstanding artistry and accomplishments of some of the most gifted American playwrights.

a??a??a??a??a??a??a??The Lark, a theater company devoted to the support of extraordinary playwrights and the development of new plays, is thrilled to announce that Sam Chanse, J. Julian Christopher, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, C.A. Johnson, and Abe Koogler have been selected as the 2019-20 Rita Goldberg Playwrights' Workshop Fellows. This year marks the 20th iteration of the Workshop, which was established by renowned playwright Arthur Kopit, and brings together emerging and established playwrights in a space where they are free to explore new material, without commercial pressures.

The cast and creative team of SUMMER SHORTS celebrated the opening with friends and family at the Museum Tower Terrace on West 53rd Street in Manhattan on Monday, August 5 hosted by SUMMER SHORTS producer Throughline Artists.

Victory Gardens Theater Artistic Director Chay Yew, Executive Director Erica Daniels and Director of New Play Development Skyler Gray announce the lineup for the 11th Anniversary IGNITION Festival of New Plays, including The Tasters by Meghan Brown; The Gradient by Steph Del Rosso; [hieroglyph] by Erika Dickerson-Despenza; #NEWSLAVES by Keelay Gipson; Reckoning: Furies from a New Queer Nation by Geraldine Inoa; and They Could Give No Name by Exal Iraheta. The 2019 Festival runs August 2 -4, 2019 at Victory Gardens Theater, located at 2433 N Lincoln Avenue.

Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater will kick off the company's season-long August Wilson Festival on Friday, September 13, 2019 with performances beginning for Jitney.

Houston playwright/director/producer Vincent Victoria's play'Mr Booker T. at the Door' isamong the plays chosen to be read at this year's National Black Theater Festival from July 28th - August 3rd in Winston-Salem North Carolina.

The NOLA Project, an ensemble-based theatre company focused on presenting new and classic works of theatre often with large casts in unique and immersive settings throughout the city of New Orleans, announces its 15th Anniversary Season: This Way to Adventure. For its 15th Season, the company will present four exciting and provocative plays, three of which are world premieres.

Playwrights Foundation, the West Coast's premiere launchpad for exceptional emerging playwrights has named the artistic teams, actors and daily schedule for the 2019 Bay Area Playwrights Festival (BAPF). The 2019 Bay Area Playwrights Festival runs July 19-28, 2019 at Potrero Stage at the base of San Francisco's Potrero hill.

The Boston Symphony Orchestra will move forward with presenting the world premiere of Andre Previn and Tom Stoppard's Penelope at Tanglewood's Ozawa Hall on Wednesday, July 24 at 8 p.m. New to the performance lineup is Boston-born actress Uma Thurman, who will take on the newly created part of narrator, joining the previously announced performers-the Emerson String Quartet, pianist Simone Dinnerstein, and vocalist Renee Fleming, to whom the work is dedicated.

Cameron Mackintosh today announces he is delighted that in honour of Stephen Sondheim's 90th birthday next March, the Queen's Theatre will be renamed the Sondheim Theatre, making him the only living artist to have a theatre named in his honour both in the West End and on Broadway. Following the renovation of wartime bomb damage and a major restoration of the auditorium and the complete backstage, the newly named Sondheim Theatre will continue as the home of world's longest running musical Les Miserables as it enters its 35th year.

Since its founding in 1989, Ma-Yi Theater Company has distinguished itself as one of the country's leading incubators of new work shaping the national discourse about what it means to be Asian American today.

Julian Glover talks about his long life on stage and screen, and about his role in the new production of The Night of the Iguana at the Noel Coward Theatre

First Flight presents the Chicago premiere of the play White Desert by Maxwell Anderson at two Chicago area locations; Fridays, July 26 & August 2 at 7pm at the American Indian Center, 3401 W. Ainslie St. and on Saturdays and Sundays, July 27, 28, August 3 & 4 at 7pm at the Unity Lutheran Church, 1212 W. Balmoral Ave. Admission is $15.

You have ten plays with ten sets, ten casts, ten directors, and ten different playwrights. All of them run only ten minutes at most. It's easy enough to assert that if you don't like something, just wait ten minutes and something new is in front of you!

Since its founding in 1989, Ma-Yi Theater Company has distinguished itself as one of the country's leading incubators of new work shaping the national discourse about what it means to be Asian American today. Building on the recent success of the Lortel Award-winner KPOP and Mike Lew's Teenage Dick, Ma-Yi is pleased to announce programming for its 30th anniversary season.