Arizona Theatre Company News

Arizona Theatre Company opens the 2014-15 season with the Arizona premiere of the hilarious comedy of ill manners, the 2013 Tony Award winner for Best Play, Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, from Sept. 13 to Oct. 4 at the Temple of Music and Art, 330 S. Scott Ave. in Tucson.

59E59 Theaters welcomes Contemporary American Theater Festival with the New York premiere of UNCANNY VALLEY, written Thomas Gibbons and directed by Tom Dugdale. UNCANNY VALLEY begins performances on Thursday, October 2 for a limited engagement through Sunday, October 26. Press opening is Wednesday, October 8 at 7:15 PM. The performance schedule is Tuesday - Thursday at 7:15 PM; Friday at 8:15 PM; Saturday at 2:15 PM & 8:15 PM; and Sunday at 3:15 PM & 7:15 PM. Performances are at 59E59 Theaters (59 East 59th Street, between Park and Madison Avenues). Tickets are $35 ($24.50 for 59E59 Members). To purchase tickets, call Ticket Central at (212) 279-4200 or go to www.59e59.org.

California Shakespeare Theater continues its 2014 season with Shakespeare's comic exploration of love in all its glory and madness, A Midsummer Night's Dream, directed by Shana Cooper, with movement by Erika Chong Shuch. A Midsummer Night's Dream plays at the Bruns Amphitheater from September 3 through September 28.

Cincinnati Shakespeare Company officially opens their 2014-2015 season with the highly anticipated production of the Regional Premiere of F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby" adapted for the stage by Simon Levy. This production is directed by Cincinnati Shakespeare's Producing Artistic Director, Brian Isaac Phillips and features Cincinnati Shakespeare's Resident Ensemble of actors including Jared Joplin, Justin McCombs, Sara Clark and Kelly Mengelkoch. The Ensemble is generously sponsored by BKD and Taft and the Design is sponsored by Legg Mason.

The world's most famous fictional sleuth adds a novel chapter to his repertoire with playwright Jeffrey Hatcher's electrifying new whodunit SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE ADVENTURE OF THE SUICIDE CLUB, which opens the Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park's 55th season. The play is an inventive mash-up of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's iconic characters and the Robert Louis Stevenson short story "The Suicide Club," providing a clever, intricately woven new mystery for Holmes to deduce. SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE ADVENTURE OF THE SUICIDE CLUB runs Sept. 6 through Oct. 4 in the Robert S. Marx Theatre.

A great, big Broadway season is on its way, with fourteen productions already slated to open in the next few months. With several weeks until the craziness begins, there is still plenty of time to catch up on what's been going on at Broadway's already occupied theaters . BroadwayWorld will be profiling the hits of the Great White Way that continue to draw crowds after months, years, and (in some cases) decades. Meet the current cast of Broadway's MATILDA below!

Sundance Institute and the LUMA Foundation today announced that the two organizations will again collaborate to host the second Sundance Institute | LUMA Foundation Theatre Directors Retreat in Arles, France, July 29 through August 11. The Retreat is one of 10 residential programs hosted by Sundance Institute this summer, collectively representing 15 weeks of support and mentorship for promising independent artists in theatre and film from the United States and around the world.

The Jungle Theater announced today that Founder Bain Boehlke will step down from his current duties as Artistic Director, effective June 30, 2015. An interim director will be appointed while the Jungle Board of Directors searches for a permanent replacement. Margo Gisselman will continue in her role as Executive Director.

It's 1967. Lyndon B. Johnson is in office, Jackie Kennedy and Aristotle Onassis have just become an "item," protests against the Vietnam war are going strong - and Judge Francis Biddle, former Attorney General under FDR and Chief Judge at the Nuremburg Trials, is 81 years old. Trying, the award-winning play inspired by the real-life experiences of playwright Joanna McClelland Glass as personal secretary to Biddle during the last year of his life, opens at International City Theatre on Aug. 22, directed by John Henry Davis and starring Tony Abatemarco and Paige Lindsey White.

Peninsula Players Theatre, America's Oldest Professional Resident Summer Theater and Door County's theatrical icon, continues its 79th season July 9 with Agatha Christie's classic whodunit 'And Then There Were None.' While the Players have produced other Christie works 'And Then There Were None' makes its Players debut with this production.

Kristiana Colon's Octagon, the unlikely story of eight young poets' win-at-all-costs and damn-the-consequences approach to the three-minute competition of a poetry slam, has been named the 2014 winner of Arizona Theatre Company's National Latino Playwriting Award.

The Theatre @ Boston Court and Circle X Theatre Co. present Stupid f**king Bird, by Aaron Posner, directed by Michael Michetti. Opening night is Today, June 28, 2014 on the Main Stage at Boston Court Performing Arts Center, 70 North Mentor Avenue.

Northlight Theatre, under the direction of Artistic Director BJ Jones and Executive Director Timothy J. Evans, announces casting for the first three productions of the 40th Anniversary Season.

The fourth play in MALIBU PLAYHOUSE's 2013-2014 season will be the World Premiere of Flim-Flam: Houdini and the Hereafter by Gene Franklin Smith,, opening tonight, June 20, 2014. The play will be directed by Thomas James O'Leary and stars Rick D. Wasserman, Melissa Kite, Gigi Bermingham, Peter Van Norden, Sabra Malkinson and Cameron Mitchell Jr.

A donor wishing to remain anonymous has stepped up with a $200,000 gift to help Arizona Theatre Company (ATC) continue its recovery from financial challenges last summer. This gift needs to be matched by the end of ATC's fiscal year on June 30, 2014.

The Playwrights' Center has announced the 2014-15 recipients of its McKnight Theater Artist Fellowships: costume designer Mathew LeFebvre; actor, director and choreographer Austene Van and actor Sally Wingert.

Gloucester Stage Company kicked off the 35th Anniversary Season on June 12 with Jacques Brel Is Alive and Well and Living in Paris, the internationally acclaimed musical revue of satirical and poignant songs by the late Belgian genius, Jacques Brel. Scroll down for a first look at the cast!

The Snow Queen:The New Musical that made its world premiere at San Jose Repertory Theatre last December, is an 'Official Selection of the 2014 New York Musical Theatre Festival,' the most prestigious musical theatre festival in the world. A full featured production of the fantastical coming-of-age tale based on Hans Christian Andersen's story was chosen as the one 'Family Musical' in the annual festival that runs July 7 - July 27, 2014. Half of the original cast will return, including Jane Pfitsch, who will take time off from Cabaret on Broadway with Alan Cumming to reprise her role as the Snow Queen. The show will have five performances at The Alice Giffin Jewel Box Theatre at the Pershing Square Signature Center.

To close its 47th Season, Marin Theatre Company will produce the West Coast premiere of Failure: A Love Story by the 'hugely talented Chicago writer' (Chicago Tribune) Philip Dawkins. Directed by MTC's artistic director Jasson Minadakis, this 'enchanted and enchanting' play about love and loss will feature five actors playing multiple characters, using puppets and playing live music both original (by MTC's frequent collaborator Chris Houston, a Berkeley-based composer and musician) and from the era of the play - 1920s Chicago.