Andra Velis Simon News

The League of Chicago Theatres announces the Theatre Thursdays line-up for the 2016-2017 Chicago theatre season including world premiere productions of Carroll Gardens (16th Street Theater), A Life Extra Ordinary (The Gift Theatre), Cinderella at the Theater of Potatoes (The Hypocrites), The Rip Nelson Holiday Spectacular (Hell in a Handbag Productions), Mr. and Mrs. Pennyworth (Lookingglass Theatre Company), The Wolf at the End of the Block (Teatro Vista), The Snare (Jackalope Theatre Company), Linda Vista (Steppenwolf Theatre Company), and Relativity (Northlight Theatre). Additional information for each event is available at http://bit.ly/theatrethursdays.

Just in time for the holidays, The Hypocrites presents the second play of its 20th Anniversary Season, the world premiere of CINDERELLA AT THE THEATER OF POTATOES. Experience the classic fairy-tale heroine, Cinderella, in a completely new light in Andra Velis Simon's brand new musical adaptation, based on the opera Cendrillon and other compositions by Pauline Viardot-Garcia and directed by Artistic Director Sean Graney. BroadwayWorld has a sneak peek at the star below! 

The Hypocrites has announced casting for its second production of its 20th Anniversary season, the world premiere of CINDERELLA AT THE THEATER OF POTATOES.

The Fall of 2016 will see Chicago bursting with new works and adaptations. Long regarded as the leader in the U.S. for producing new work, Chicago companies will stage a record number of new plays making their world premieres in Chicago. More than 250 companies of the Chicago theater community typically produce more than 100 world premieres each season.  

The Hypocrites has announced its 20th Anniversary Season, featuring five dynamic productions, including a world premiere musical adaptation and two Chicago premieres. The company is also thrilled to launch a new play development initiative, with its first-ever new play commissions.

The Tony Award-winning Oregon Shakespeare Festival will launch its 81st year with preview performances beginning on February 19, and the season officially kicking off Friday night, February 26 in the Angus Bowmer Theatre with Shakespeare's Twelfth Night (director, Christopher Liam Moore).

See H.M.S. Pinafore From The Pillow Pit

The Oregon Shakespeare Festival wrapped up its 80th year Sunday night, November 1, with the final performances of Much Ado about Nothing and Pericles. Preparations for the 2016 season are well under way; 2016 member ticket sales start this week and preview performances begin February 19. The 2016 opening weekend is February 26-28.

Artistic Director Les Waters and Managing Director Jennifer Bielstein are delighted to welcome back Chicago's theatre renegades The Hypocrites to Louisville with their playful reimagining of H.M.S. Pinafore by Gilbert and Sullivan. Director Sean Graney and his multi-talented ensemble of actors will lead audiences on an extended voyage through a reel of rare delights as they turn W.S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan's classic operetta on its head in this charmingly silly interpretation. Co-adapted by Sean Graney, Andra Velis Simon and Matt Kahler, H.M.S. Pinafore will run as part of the Brown-Forman Series with preview performances beginning on November 1 7, opening on November 19 and running through December 13, 2015. Single tickets are on sale now and can be purchased online at ActorsTheatre.org or by calling 502.584.1205.

The Hypocrites launch their 2015-16 season with the Chicago premiere of the smash Broadway musical AMERICAN IDIOT, featuring music by Grammy Award-winning punk rock band Green Day, book by Green Day frontman/guitaristBillie Joe Armstrong and Michael Mayer and lyrics by Armstrong, direction by Steven Wilson, musical direction by Andra Velis Simon and choreography by Katie Spelman. BroadwayWorld has procured a video of the cast performing 'Wake Me up When September Ends,' so check it out here!

Berkeley Repertory Theatre proudly welcomes Chicago theatre rebels The Hypocrites for the West Coast premiere of Pirates of Penzance. Join the party in the Theatre's Osher Studio on Center Street for a delightfully and fantastically eccentric take on Gilbert and Sullivan's preposterous topsy-turvy world. Presented promenade-style, this unique production allows the audience to move around the space with the actors for a more immersive experience. Directed and adapted by Sean Graney, artistic director of The Hypocrites, Pirates of Penzance follows the adventures of Frederick, who was mistakenly apprenticed as a young boy to a band of sentimental pirates. Now 21, he falls head-over-heels for the Major-General's daughter and forswears the buccaneer's life forever, or so he thinks. This buoyant, award-winning production is a 'spirited, affectionate, and nearly irresistible,' says the Boston Globe.

The Hypocrites launch their 2015-16 season with the Chicago premiere of the smash Broadway musical AMERICAN IDIOT, featuring music by Grammy Award-winning punk rock band Green Day, book by Green Day frontman/guitarist Billie Joe Armstrong and Michael Mayer and lyrics by Armstrong, direction by Steven Wilson, musical direction by Andra Velis Simon and choreography by Katie Spelman. AMERICAN IDIOT will play now through October 25, 2015 at The Den Theatre's Heath Main Stage, 1329 N. Milwaukee Ave. in Chicago's Wicker Park neighborhood. The press opening is this Sunday, September 6 at 7 pm. BroadwayWorld has a first look at the cast in action below!

The Hypocrites are thrilled to launch their 2015-16 season with the Chicago premiere of the smash Broadway musical AMERICAN IDIOT, featuring music by Grammy Award-winning punk rock band Green Day, book by Green Day frontman/guitarist Billie Joe Armstrong and Michael Mayer and lyrics by Armstrong, direction by Steven Wilson, musical direction by Andra Velis Simon and choreography by Katie Spelman. AMERICAN IDIOT will play tonight, August 28 - October 25, 2015 at The Den Theatre's Heath Main Stage, 1329 N. Milwaukee Ave. in Chicago's Wicker Park neighborhood.

The latest in unauthorized gossip and buzz from the heart of Chicago's showtune video bars, and musical theater news from Chicago to Broadway. 'Pippin' performs at the Cadillac Palace and Sidetrack, dueling showtune concerts on August 17, and a summer 'Altar Boyz.' Plus local premieres of 'The Boy From Oz,' 'American Idiot' and 'Dogfight,' 'Gypsy' in Lake County, and 'The Producers' in true rep with 'Victor/Victoria!'

The Hypocrites are thrilled to launch their 2015-16 season with the Chicago premiere of the smash Broadway musical AMERICAN IDIOT, featuring music by Grammy Award-winning punk rock band Green Day, book by Green Day frontman/guitarist Billie Joe Armstrong and Michael Mayer and lyrics by Armstrong, direction by Steven Wilson, musical direction by Andra Velis Simon and choreography by Katie Spelman. AMERICAN IDIOT will play August 28 - October 25, 2015 at The Den Theatre's Heath Main Stage, 1329 N. Milwaukee Ave. in Chicago's Wicker Park neighborhood.

The American Repertory Theater expands its 2015/16 Season programming with the OBERON Presents series, featuring a range of artists, companies, and programs. As the second stage of the A.R.T., a unique club theater venue, OBERON challenges artists to explore new relationships with space, performance, and audience experience. OBERON hosts a range of experimental work -- these shows invite audiences to listen to new voices and to hear old stories in new ways. This exploration is integral to A.R.T.'s mission to expand the boundaries of theater.

Co-founders John Stoops and Tim Evans proudly announce the third season of the Three Oaks Theater Festival, an annual summer event that brings limited-engagement runs of highly- acclaimed, professional productions to audiences in Harbor Country, Michigan. This season will be performed at the Acorn Theater with a staged reading to take place at the Vickers Theatre.

The Hypocrites are pleased to announce their 2015-16 Season, featuring an unprecedented seven productions for Chicago audiences! The season kicks off this summer with the triumphant return engagement of the critically acclaimed ALL OUR TRAGIC, an unparalleled twelve-hour theatrical adaptation that combines all 32 surviving Greek tragedies into a single epic narrative, adapted and directed by Artistic Director Sean Graney and featuring most of the original cast.

The latest in unauthorized gossip and buzz from the heart of Chicago's showtune video bars, and musical theater news from Chicago to Broadway. 'Once' and 'On Your Feet!' arrive, Kooman and Dimond try one out, 'Loving Repeating' returns, 'The Fantasticks' grows its orchestra, local 'Spider Woman' and 'Idiot' productions, two new works about the deaths of pop musicians, and the real-life death of PJ Paparelli.