Arena Stage News

Rachel Reiner Productions is proud to present the World Premiere of Victor L. Cahn's EMBRACEABLE ME, directed by Eric Parness. EMBRACEABLE ME began performances on Friday, October 23 and will open on Wednesday, October 28, running thru November 14 at Theatre Row's Kirk Theatre (410 West 42nd Street).

The Yale Repertory Theatre will present Danai Gurira's ECLIPSED with an opening night of October 29th. The cast will feature Pascale Armand, Zainab Jah, Adepero Oduye, Stacey Sargeant, and Shona Tucker.

This past Sunday, Bruce Weber penned a big review of Tiny Kushner in the new Bay Area section now appearing in West Coast editions of the Times.

The SF Playhouse (Bill English, Artistic Director; Susi Damilano, Producing Director) continue their 7th Season dedicated to 'The Power of Laughter' with the Bay Area Premiere of David Greenspan's She Stoops to Comedy.

Wishful Drinking at Broadway's Studio 54 (254 West 54th Street) celebrated its official opening on Sunday, October 4th, 2009.

Lucy fans get ready. The new play I Loved Lucy by Lee Tannen has been adapted by the author from his best-selling memoir of the same name for a special (invitation only) second NYC staged reading on Tuesday, October 27th.

Burning Coal Theatre Company's production of Ragni, Rado and McDermott's HAIR will let its final rays of sunshine in on Sunday, September 27, 2009. The show, which debuted on Broadway in 1968, conjures the essence of peace and love demonstrated by the hippie counterculture movement over 40 years ago.

The consequences of love can be horrifying, yet miraculously tender. Callie meets Sara and an astonishing chain of events is set into motion. This story pays homage to life's abrupt and unexpected transformations...to romance, and to the search for personal identity.

Goodman Theatre launches its new 2009/2010 Season with tap dancing, acrobatics, tumbling, guitar- and ukulele-playing in an original take on the rarely-produced Marx Brothers classic musical Animal Crackers, written by George S. Kaufman and Morrie Ryskind, with music and lyrics by Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby

Wishful Drinking at Broadway's Studio 54 (254 West 54th Street) celebrated its official opening on Sunday, October 4th, 2009.

Artistic director of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Bill Rauch, is the confirmed recipient of the 2009 Margo Jones Award. He will be awarded the prize in a closed ceremony at the Ashland Springs Hotel on October 24.

The Yale Repertory Theatre will present Danai Gurira's ECLIPSED beginning October 24th, with an opening night of October 29th. The cast will feature Pascale Armand, Zainab Jah, Adepero Oduye, Stacey Sargeant, and Shona Tucker.

The Yale Repertory Theatre will present Danai Gurira's ECLIPSED beginning October 24th, with an opening night of October 29th. The cast will feature Pascale Armand, Zainab Jah, Adepero Oduye, Stacey Sargeant, and Shona Tucker.

Acclaimed theater company Playwrights Horizons (Tim Sanford, Artistic Director; Leslie Marcus, Managing Director) has announced nine initial performers who will participate in the return of its unique benefit evening STORIES ON 5 STORIES on Monday, November 9. Among those taking part in the special event will be two-time Academy Award winner and two-time Obie Award winner Diane Wiest (Memory House at Playwrights Horizons/PH, Hannah and Her Sisters, Bullets Over Broadway), Tony Award winner Debra Monk (Assassins at PH, Redwood Curtain, Curtains), Obie Award winner Jason Butler Harner (current Stage Manager in Our Town, Hedda Gabler, The Coast of Utopia), Clarence Derwent Award winner Zoe Kazan (100 Saints You Should Know at PH; Come Back, Little Sheba; Things We Want), Theatre World Award winner Cassie Beck (The Drunken City and Prayer for My Enemy at PH), Cristin Milioti (The Retributionists at PH, the upcoming The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter), Sue Jean Kim (The Drunken City and BFE at PH, 365 Days/365 Plays), Carmen M. Herlihy (The Thugs, Crooked) and Greg Keller (Broadway's Uncle Vanya, The Rainmaker). Additional performers will be announced in the coming weeks.

Rachel Reiner Productions is proud to present the World Premiere of Victor L. Cahn's EMBRACEABLE ME, directed by Eric Parness. EMBRACEABLE ME will begin performances on Friday, October 23 and will open on Wednesday, October 28, running thru November 14 at Theatre Row's Kirk Theatre (410 West 42nd Street).

Yale School of Drama (James Bundy, Dean; Victoria Nolan, Deputy Dean) will offer a new concentration in Projection Design under Wendall Harrington, within the Design Department (Ming Cho Lee, Stephen Strawbridge, Co-Chairs) beginning in the fall of 2010, the first such course of graduate theatre training in the United States.

The world premiere of Rajiv Joseph's (Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo) Gruesome Playground Injuries features Selma Blair (Hellboy, Hellboy 2: The Golden Army, Storytelling, Legally Blonde, NBC's Kath & Kim) playing Kayleen and Brad Fleischer (Center Theatre Group's premiere of Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo, Broadway's Coram Boy, Off Broadway's Streamers) playing Doug.

The Shakespeare Society (Michael Sexton, Artistic Director) will present Marlowe vs. Shakespeare: Rivalry, Imitation, and Influence, featuring John Douglas Thompson who plays the title role in the acclaimed Irish Rep revival of The Emperor Jones in a performance that was called "wondrous" by Ben Brantley in The New York Times; Matthew Rauch who currently stars in Still Life at MCC; and Columbia professor James Shapiro, author of the acclaimed book 1599: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare, on Monday, November 9 at 7:00pm at the Kaye Playhouse at Hunter College, East 68 Street, between Park and Lexington Avenues.

The Shakespeare Society will host an evening entitled MARLOWE VS. SHAKESPEARE: RIVALRY, IMITATION, & INFLUENCE, which will be held at the Kaye Theatre on November 9th. The evening will feature Broadway's John Douglas Thompson and Matthew Rauch, as well as Columbia University professor James Shapiro. The evening will be a discussion of the Elizabethan authors, Marlowe and Shakespeare, and their works.

Producer Daryl Roth is pleased to welcome Mary Birdsong, Lisa Joyce, Jane Lynch and Mary Louise Wilson to the rotating company of Love, Loss, and What I Wore, an intimate collection of stories by Nora Ephron and Delia Ephron, and directed by Karen Carpenter, beginning Wednesday, October 21st. The actresses join current company member Tyne Daly.