Andrew W. Mellon News

Throughout the 2016-17 season, the sound artist and master storyteller Nate DiMeo-whose popular podcast, The Memory Palace, a finalist for the 2016 Peabody Awards, paints vivid, poetic pictures of episodes in American history-will animate The Met by interrogating the collection to draw out the revealing secrets and stories of the art.

The Huntington Theatre Company's 2016 Breaking Ground festival of new plays will be held December 1 - 4 at the Huntington's home for new work, the Calderwood Pavilion at the BCA. The festival is a vital part of the Huntington's new play development efforts and highlights the work of locally-based Huntington Playwriting Fellows and national writers in partnership with the Huntington. Over the last decade, Breaking Ground plays have gone on to appear at the Huntington as well as theatres in Boston, across the country, and internationally. 

As part of its 25th Anniversary Celebration, Target Margin Theater presents the Unseen O'Neill Lab. Lead artists Ann Marie Dorr, Kathleen Kennedy Tobin and Eva von Schweinitz revive some of O'Neill's known but rarely-seen works including Beyond the Horizon, Dynamo, and The Great God Brown.

The Harris Theater for Music and Dance is pleased to announce the new details of the first commission by inaugural Choreographer in Residence, Brian Brooks; Terrain, for Hubbard Street Dance Chicago will see its world premiere as part of Hubbard Street's Season 39 Fall Series, November 17-20, 2016.

United States Artists (USA) has announced the 2016 USA Fellowship Awards. This year, 46 artists across nine creative disciplines will receive unrestricted $50,000 cash awards. The awards honor their creative accomplishments and supports their ongoing artistic and professional development.

The League of American Orchestras has released Orchestra Facts: 2006-2014, the organization's first comprehensive longitudinal study of American orchestra finances and operations.

At an evening reception and screening hosted by the Howard and Abby Milstein Foundation at the Times Center in Midtown Manhattan last night, major civic and civil rights figures celebrated the newest PBS series by Emmy and Peabody-award winning Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Black America Since MLK: And Still I Rise.

Acclaimed orchestral collective The Knights, flexible in size and repertory, are dedicated to transforming the concert experience. Led by brothers Colin and Eric Jacobsen and evolving from late night chamber music reading parties among a group of friends, The Knights engage listeners and defy boundaries with programs that showcase the players' roots in the classical tradition and passion for musical discovery. TheNew Yorker calls them "One of Brooklyn's sterling cultural products…known far beyond the borough for their relaxed virtuosity and expansive repertory." During their third season as one of BRIC's Artists-in-Residence, the group will be rehearsing works that will be performed at BRIC House and elsewhere, as well engaging with the community in a multitude of ways, including three concerts.

La Jolla Playhouse announces a special engagement of the critically-acclaimed one-woman show, The Wholehearted, written and co-directed by UC San Diego Department of Theatre and Dance professor Deborah Stein (The Bitter Game), performed and co-directed by Suli Holum. Presented in association with Center Theatre Group, the show runs in the Sheila and Hughes Potiker Theatre December 14 - 18. Tickets and information are available at LaJollaPlayhouse.org or858-550-1010.

Joyce Theater Foundation, Inc. (Linda Shelton, Executive Director) is proud to present a two-week engagement of The Lucinda Childs Dance Company, November 29 to December 11, featuring two programs of works created over five decades by the Bessie and Obie Award-winning choreographer, produced by Pomegranate Arts.

Two years after his Bay Area debut directing Cutting Ball's explosive production of Ubu Roi, Yury Urnov returns this winter to tackle Henrik Ibsen's masterpiece, Hedda Gabler, translated by Paul Walsh. Featured in the title role is Britney Frazier, who last performed at Cutting Ball in Superheroes in 2014. Hedda Gabler opens in previews on January 19 and runs through February 26, 2017. Opening night is scheduled for Saturday, January 21 at 8 p.m. The press opening will take place the following Monday, January 23 at 7 p.m. Tickets are $15 - $45, and may be purchased online at cuttingball.com/productions/hedda-gabler or by phone at 415-525-1205. 

A world-premiere play, Among the Dead by Hansol Jung; a world-premiere musical by Michi Barall, Paul Lieber, and Matt Park, PEER GYNT & the Norwegian Hapa Band; and the special presentation of the hit play The Wong Kids in the Secret of the Space Chupacabra Go! by Lloyd Suh in Manila comprise the season to be produced by Ma-Yi Theater Company during their 2016-2017 season, it is announced by the company's Producing Artistic Director Ralph B. Peña and Executive Director Jorge Z. Ortoll. 

Due to critical and popular demand, Playwrights Horizons has announced a second extension of their hit world premiere production of A Life, a new play by Obie Award winner Adam Bock (A Small Fire and The Drunken City at Playwrights, The Receptionist, The Thugs, Swimming in the Shallows).

The Artists in Residence (AIR) Open Studio Series begins a shared journey into the creative process of each artist. Audiences will have an opportunity to engage with AIR artists as they open the doors to their rehearsal practice and artistic process.

The International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) continues its OpenICE program with three consecutive days of open-access programming at the Abrons Arts Center from November 10 to 12. In addition to several educational and outreach events which will serve children and adult clients of the Henry Street Settlement and Abrons Arts Center during the November weekend, OpenICE will present three concerts and two workshop events that are free and open to the public.

Playwrights Horizons (Tim Sanford, Artistic Director; Leslie Marcus, Managing Director) begins accepting entries today, Monday, October 31, for the LIVEforFIVE online lottery for $5 tickets to their world premiere production of RANCHO VIEJO.

National New Play Network the alliance of theaters dedicated to the development, production and continued life of new plays-is proud to announce that its database of new scripts, the New Play Exchange (newplayexchange.org), now includes 10,000 plays by living writers.

Carnegie Hall presents Music Director George Manahan and the American Composers Orchestra (ACO) on Today, October 28 at 7:30 p.m., in the first of two concerts in Zankel Hall this season as part of the orchestra's 40th anniversary. The concert, a Halloween-themed program titled Orchestra Underground: Contempo-Scary Music, includes two world premieres: Paul Moravec's "The Overlook Hotel Suite" from The Shining, featuring music from his new opera based on the classic Stephen King horror novel, and Judith Shatin's Black Moon for Orchestra and Conductor-Controlled Electronics, co-commissioned by Carnegie Hall for its 125 Commissions Project. The program also features electrifying music from Bernard Herrmann's Psycho Suite-from Alfred Hitchcock's legendary film-and David Del Tredici's Dracula. Guest artists include soprano and narrator Nancy Lundy and electronic engineer Maxwell Tfirn.

Internationally renowned, New York City-based experimental theater company Theater Mitu explores the history, contradictions and mythology of the ever-complicated landscape of the US/Mexico border in a uniquely theatrical multi-media event. Led by Juarez born-and-raised artistic director Ruben Polendo, the company brings Juarez: A Documentary Mythology to The Los Angeles Theatre Center as part of the Latino Theater Company's 30th anniversary season. The limited 3-week engagement takes place Oct. 27 through Nov. 13.

Following eight extraordinary years leading the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra (CSO), the Orchestra announced today that President Trey Devey will be stepping down in six months to assume the presidency of the Interlochen Center for the Arts, Michigan's largest arts institution.