Andrew W. Mellon News

Playwrights Horizons has announced additional casting for its 2012/2013 Season.

Artistic Director Jenny Gersten announced new Main Stage and Nikos Stage productions for the 2012 Williamstown Theatre Festival (WTF) season, the Festival's 58th Season and second under Ms. Gersten's leadership.

13P, the innovative collective of 13 playwrights, is about to culminate the mission it set forth upon its founding in 2003: to produce one play by each of its members. Pulitzer Finalist, TONY Award nominee and MacArthur "Genius" Fellowship recipient Sarah Ruhl (P#13) is creating a new, chamber version of her Melancholy Play (2001) with the composer Todd Almond and Davis McCallum, who directed a version of the work in 2002.

New York City Center's ninth annual Fall for Dance Festival, running September 27 - October 13, has been expanded to 12 evenings of dance to meet the extraordinary ticket demand.

Anthony Freud, general director of Lyric Opera of Chicago, announced today that The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation is awarding $2 million to the internationally acclaimed company in support of expanded community engagement and new artistic initiatives.

Tickets are on sale now for "Radiate" featuring Jomama Jones at the Kirk Douglas Theatre. The off-Broadway smash hit show is coming to Los Angeles for two nights only in a workshop presentation as part of DouglasPlus programming, on August 3 and 4, 2012, at 8 p.m.

Sundance Institute today announced the acting company and creative advisors for the eight projects being developed at its 2012 Theatre Lab, July 9-29 at the Sundance Resort. Under the supervision of Philip Himberg, Producing Artistic Director, and Associate Director Christopher Hibma, the Lab is the centerpiece of the Theatre Program's year-round work and is designed to support emerging and established artists and to create a place where their original work can be effectively mentored and challenged.

New York City Opera is proud to announce the six selections that will appear in this year's VOX Festival, the company's workshop for new American operas.

The Glimmerglass Festival, the Central New York summer opera and musical theater company, has announced its 2013 season and its partnership in The Festival of American Romantics in Cooperstown, New York.

The Oregon Shakespeare Festival will open the world premiere production of Party People at 1:30 p.m. Saturday, July 7 in the New Theatre. Written by UNIVERSES (Mildred Ruiz-Sapp, Steven Sapp, William Ruiz, a.k.a. Ninja), the play is directed by Liesl Tommy, who last directed Ruined (2010) at OSF. Party People will run through November 3.

Williamstown Theatre Festival Artistic Director Jenny Gersten announced today the full cast and creative teams for Last of the Red Hot Lovers, which will be presented on the Nikos Stage from July 11 through July 22 (opening July 12), and the Preview Production of Far From Heaven, which will play the Main Stage from July 19 through July 29 (opening July 21). Both shows begin rehearsals today in preparation for their runs at the Festival.

After an unprecedented response to this year's call for applications, and an exhaustive peer panel process, Brooklyn Arts Exchange has announced the 2012-13 Artists In Residence and Space Grant recipients.

The Opera Company of Philadelphia, in collaboration with Gotham Chamber Opera and Music-Theatre Group in New York, announces that composer Missy Mazzoli has been selected as its second Composer In Residence (CIR).

Mayor Nutter announced that the City of Philadelphia's Office of Arts, Culture and the Creative Economy (OACCE) will receive a $200,000 grant from ArtPlace, a new national collaboration of foundations, banks and federal agencies formed to accelerate creative place-making across the U.S. OACCE is one of three organizations in Philadelphia receiving support in 2012: University City District (UCD) and Asian Arts Initiative are also receiving ArtPlace support for their place-making projects.

The NATIONAL NEW PLAY NETWORK (NNPN), the country's alliance of non-profit theaters that champions the development, production, and continued life of new plays, will award grants of more than $60,000 to playwrights for Commissions and Residencies in 2012-13. The Awards were announced at the organization's Annual Conference on June 6 in Kansas City, MO, hosted by member Unicorn Theatre Company.

The NATIONAL NEW PLAY NETWORK (NNPN), the country's alliance of non-profit theaters that champions the development, production, and continued life of new plays, has announced the winner of the 2012 Smith Prize for a new play on American political themes: George Brant's Grounded, the powerful, surprising story of an F-16 pilot who gets "repurposed" to fly drones following her unexpected pregnancy. In addition to upcoming development stints with the New Harmony Project and the Bay Area Playwrights Festival, Grounded will receive a staged reading at NNPN's Annual Conference at Unicorn Theatre in Kansas City, Mo., tonight June 8, directed by Artistic Director Cynthia Levin.

13P, the innovative collective of 13 playwrights, is about to culminate the mission it set forth upon its founding in 2003: to produce one play by each of its members. Pulitzer Finalist, TONY Award nominee and MacArthur "Genius" Fellowship recipient Sarah Ruhl (P#13) is creating a new, chamber version of her Melancholy Play (2001) with the composer Todd Almond and Davis McCallum, who directed a version of the work in 2002.

Center Theatre Group Artistic Director Michael Ritchie has set the 2012-2013 season at the CTG/Kirk Douglas Theatre in Culver City. In a season of contrasts - of surprising comedy and startling drama, the 2012-2013 season at the Kirk Douglas Theatre will include the magical and mystical hi-jinks of the CTG-commissioned "Elephant Room" by Trey Lyford, Geoff Sobelle and Steve Cuiffo; the acclaimed Gate Theatre Dublin production of the Beckett classic "Krapp's Last Tape" with one of Britain's greatest actors, John Hurt; the comic genius of The Second City with their unique, satirical twist on a Dickens's favorite - "A Christmas Carol: Twist Your Dickens!" written by Peter Gwinn and Bobby Mort; the world premiere of the otherworldly drama "The Nether" by the 2012 Susan Blackburn Smith prize-winning playwright Jennifer Haley; and the world premiere of the powerful boxing drama "The Royale" by Los Angeles playwright Marco Ramirez.

New York Theatre Workshop world premiere production of Food and Fadwa, written by Lameece Issaq and Jacob Kader, and directed by Shana Gold, opens officially tonight, June 7 at NYTW. Food and Fadwa is a co-production with Noor Theatre, a company-in-residence at New York Theatre Workshop.

American Lyric Theater has been selected by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) to receive a $20,000 grant to support its Composer Librettist Development Program (CLDP), a full-time resident artist program for emerging opera composers and librettists. Artists are selected through an open application process to participate in the tuition-free program that provides professional training by renowned and respected artists including composer-librettist Mark Adamo, composer Anthony Davis, librettist Michael Korie, and dramaturg Cori Ellison.