April Matthis News

This fall, Tony-nominated actress Danielle Brooks will make her return to Broadway in The Piano Lesson. This morning, Brooks sat down with Ryan Seacrest and Katie Lowes, who has been seen on Broadway in Waitress, on LIVE! to discuss the upcoming production, working with Samuel L. Jackson, and more. Watch the new video clip now!

The complete cast and creative team have been announced for the first Broadway revival of August Wilson's The Piano Lesson at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre. Joining the cast are Nadia Daniel and Jurnee Elizabeth Swan. Rounding out the company are Shirine Babb, Charles Browning, Peter Jay Fernandez, Sharina Martin, Warner Miller, Doron JePaul Mitchell and Kim Sullivan.

The first Broadway revival of August Wilson's The Piano Lesson will now play the Ethel Barrymore Theatre for its 17-week engagement. The production was originally supposed to come to the St. James Theatre, current home of Into The Woods, which is rumored to be extending.

Williamstown Theatre Festival is celebrating tonight’s first performance of Most Happy in Concert, Tony Award-nominated director Daniel Fish’s reimagining of Frank Loesser’s critically adored score to the musical The Most Happy Fella, choreographed by Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, playing through Sunday, July 31 on the Main Stage.

Williamstown Theatre Festival announced today additional casting and creative team members for the 2022 Summer Season, the final two Fridays@3 readings, and fellowships.

The Public Theater announced the schedule today for The Public’s 2022-23 Season at the Public Theater. Learn all about the shows, schedule and how to get tickets.

Clubbed Thumb has announced complete casting for the final production of the rescheduled 25th SUMMERWORKS festival of new plays, Bodies They Ritual. Performances will run June 22-July 2.

Kandi Burruss, the Grammy Award-winning singer / songwriter, actress, entrepreneur, star of “the Real Housewives of Atlanta” on BRAVO, and producer of Thoughts of a Colored Man, alongside Todd Tucker, announced today that they will be joining the producing team for The Piano Lesson on Broadway.

Tony Award-nominated and five-time Obie Award-winning theater company Clubbed Thumb has announced complete casting for the rescheduled 25th SUMMERWORKS festival of new plays. 

The highly anticipated Broadway revival of August Wilson’s seminal, Pulitzer Prize®-winning drama The Piano Lesson, and the first in more than 30 years since the play’s Main Stem premiere, is the first marquee of the 2022 / 2023 season to hit Broadway at the iconic St. James Theatre, the production’s future home, on the occasion of Mr. Wilson’s 77th Birthday today.

Producers Brian Anthony Moreland, Sonia Friedman and Tom Kirdahy announced additional cast for the revival of August Wilson’s seminal, Pulitzer Prize-winning drama The Piano Lesson, the first Broadway revival in more than 30 years since the play’s Main Stem premiere in 1990.

The Acting Company has announced the return of The Louanna O. Carlin & John MacDonald Reading Series with Kia Corthron’s Sam’s Coming, which will receive a public reading on Monday, April 18 at 7:30 PM at The Mainstage Theater (416 West 42nd Street).

After closing during previews two years ago due to the pandemic, this March The Shed presents the world premiere of Help, a new play by acclaimed author and poet Claudia Rankine (Just Us, Citizen: An American Lyric), directed by Obie Award–winner Taibi Magar (Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992, Signature Theater; Is God Is, Soho Rep). 

After closing during previews two years ago due to the pandemic, this March The Shed will present the world premiere of Help, a new play by acclaimed author and poet Claudia Rankine (Just Us, Citizen: An American Lyric), directed by Obie Award–winner Taibi Magar (Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992, Signature Theater; Is God Is, Soho Rep). 

After closing during previews two years ago due to the pandemic, this March The Shed presents the world premiere of Help, a new play by acclaimed author and poet Claudia Rankine (Just Us, Citizen: An American Lyric), directed by Obie Award–winner Taibi Magar (Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992, Signature Theater; Is God Is, Soho Rep). Help stars April Matthis (Toni Stone, Roundabout Theatre; Fairview, Soho Rep).

Baryshnikov Arts Center has announced the launch of BAC Open, an artist residency program providing critical support to six artists and their collaborators developing projects of dance, theater, music, and multimedia.

Ringing in a hopeful 2022, Roy and Edna Disney/CalArts Theater, CalArts' downtown center for contemporary arts, will kick off a full year of live performance and art. Through performances, screenings, and exhibitions, REDCAT will once again welcome in-person audiences—as well as online audiences around the world—from January through June 2022. 

Just last night, Roundabout Theatre Company's Broadway premiere of Trouble in Mind opened on Broadway. Trouble in Mind is led by LaChanze as 'Wiletta Mayer,' with Michael Zegen as 'Al Manners,' Chuck Cooper as 'Sheldon Forrester,' Danielle Campbell as 'Judy Sears,' Jessica Frances Dukes as 'Millie Davis,' Brandon Micheal Hall as 'John Nevins,' Simon Jones as 'Henry,' Alex Mickiewicz as 'Eddie Fenton,' and Don Stephenson as 'Bill O'Wray.'

As part of its new Words Matter initiative, The Workshop Theater will be presenting four newly-commissioned one-act plays by Samantha Chanse, Caridad Svich, Ellen McLaughlin, and Rehana Lew Mirza on behalf of JALBCA.

Alex Poots, Artistic Director and CEO, today announced five new commissions by pioneering artists from across the performing arts, visual arts, and pop culture for The Shed’s winter/spring 2022 season.