Anton Chekhov News

Updated this week! Check out upcoming Non-Equity Auditions from Sunday, May 8, 2016 for productions in your area and around the country.

Exposing the complacency of an aristocratic family in a changing world, David Mamet's adaptation of Anton Chekov's farcical tragedy, THE CHERRY ORCHARD unfolds at New Theatre.

IVANOV is a formative work in the canon of Anton Chekhov. He was presenting us with the situations and character types we'd come to know and understand, but with the lack of irony that often permeates his material. The St. Louis Actors' Studio has put together a splendid evening of entertainment with their superbly performed and directed production. However, it should be noted that this is a translation by Tom Stoppard, and thus, should be viewed with that in mind. Adaptations are tricky enough on their own, but when you're dealing with a play written in another language, you're often relying on a literal translation in order to produce your take. And, that's precisely what this is. It's Tom Stoppard's IVANOV, full of unexpected humor and nicely etched characterizations, but far afield from Chekhov's early foray, which he himself revised after its initial premier. Either way, this is worth checking out, and surprisingly amusing.

Lantern Theater Company closes its 2015/16 season with the Philadelphia premiere of 36 Views by award-winning playwright Naomi Iizuka. Directed by longtime Lantern artistic collaborator Peter DeLaurier and featuring scenic, sound, and projection design by Jorge Cousineau, 36 Views runs May 26 - June 26, 2016. Theater critics and members of the press are invited to attend opening night on Wednesday, June 1 at 7 p.m. [A full schedule of performances and related special events is included in the fact sheet below.]

Plosive Productions will present the Ottawa premiere of the 2013 Broadway hit Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike by Christopher Durang. It is directed by David Whiteley and runs from May 20 to June 5 at The Gladstone Theatre.  Preview performance is Thursday, May 19 and opening night for reviewers is Friday, May 20th. 

Concluding its highly successful 2015/16 season, Folger Theatre stages the world premiere of District Merchants, a variation of Shakespeare's play, The Merchant of Venice. Commissioned by Folger Theatre as part of the 2016 celebration of 400 years of Shakespeare and in tandem with the Folger exhibition America's Shakespeare, playwright Aaron Posner sets this new exploration of class and difference in our own political place of power, Washington, D.C., just after the Civil War.

Roundabout Theatre Company has announced that Ghostlight Records (Kurt Deutsch, Co-Founder & Album Producer) will record the cast album of the critically acclaimed Broadway revival of She Loves Me on Monday, April 25, 2016. For more information and to sign-up for updates, visit sh-k-boom.com/she-loves-me. She Loves Me is currently playing a limited engagement at Studio 54 through July 10, 2016.

February 1949. The tenants of a boarding house in Camden Town, alerted by a smell of gas coming from one of the rooms, discover a young man lying unconscious, and signs of what might be a botched suicide attempt. In an attempt to make contact with the victim's family or friends, they decide to telephone the first person listed in his book of personal telephone numbers. It is the celebrated playwright Terence Rattigan....

The Artistic Home has announced its cast for their production of Anton Chekhov's classic comedy of unrequited love and unrealized dreams, The Seagull.

The Great Fire takes place in the all-too-familiar Australian disaster zone: mum and dad's place at Christmas. On an idyllic Adelaide Hills property, a family gathers to decide the next phase of their lives as part of the ever-gentrifying arts industry in this domestic drama written by Kit Brookman. This reviewer should declare that, having been born and raised in Adelaide and therefore aware of the artistic prowess of the Brookman family there, I may be somewhat biased in my familiarity for this piece. Nevertheless, we carry on.

I'm perfectly fine when a play chooses to break the fourth wall and become self-referential. The ability for anything to be able to point out its own shortcomings is a sign of self-actualization. But when a play repeatedly does so and then pats itself on the back for its cleverness of doing so as does Aaron Posner's "Stupid F**king Bird", currently playing at ACT, then it becomes wearing almost to the point of insulting. And while Posner's play certainly has its funny moments, those repeated exposes onto itself started to feel like the play was flipping the audience the bird (and I don't mean a Seagull).

REVIEW: Stupid F*#%ing Bird - Start the Effing Play

The Omaha Community Playhouse is announcing its Alternative Programming series for the 2016-17 season.

Featuring a lively cast of characters thrust into comedic situations, Christopher Durang's "Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike" is a lighthearted exploration of familial bonds and hometown roots.

Apollinaire Theatre Company presents THREESOME by Yussef El Guindi, directed by Danielle Fauteux Jacques and featuring Alison Meirowitz, Mauro Canepa and Geoff Van Wyck.

Elements Theatre Company honors the 400th Anniversary of Shakespeare's death with Labyrinth: A Legacy of Language, Friday & Saturday, April 22 & 23. 

The European premiere of The New Group's critically acclaimed Off-Broadway production, The Spoils, a razor-sharp new comedy written by and starring internationally acclaimed actor Jesse Eisenberg (The Social Network, Batman v Superman: Dawn Of Justice), will transfer for a strictly limited season at London's Trafalgar Studios, from 27 May to 13 August, with press night on 2 June. 

Roundabout Theatre Company (Todd Haimes, Artistic Director) has just announced Academy Award nominee Diane Lane will return to Broadway to play 'Ranevskaya' in a new production of The Cherry Orchard. Ms. Lane made her Broadway debut as a child, in the 1977 revival of The Cherry Orchard.

I recently read that unless material comes out of living experience, it does not live. The truth of this premise resonated clearly when I attended preview night for Orlando Shakespeare's final play of its regular season, VANYA AND SONIA AND MASHA AND SPIKE, a show with an unmistakable heartbeat. 

?A full schedule of exciting and varied performances, including original dance and theatre works and a rarely performed Chekhov play, are planned for the Center for Performance Experiment at the University of South Carolina this April.