Bob Telson News

Avant Bard continues its Season 27 with the legendary African American musical The Gospel at Colonus, a soaring celebration of transcendence and the fragility of life. The Gospel at Colonus transforms Sophocles' timeless tale of the last days of Oedipus into a parable for our times. Check out photos and a backstage video from the show below!

Avant Bard theatre proudly presents the legendary African American musical The Gospel at Colonus, starring esteemed stage and film actor (and Arlington Circuit Court Chief Judge) William T. Newman Jr. as Oedipus. The production runs February 23 through March 26, 2017, at Gunston Arts Center in Arlington, VA.

Avant Bard theatre proudly presents the legendary African American musical The Gospel at Colonus, starring esteemed stage and film actor (and Arlington Circuit Court Chief Judge) William T. Newman Jr. as Oedipus. The production runs February 23 through March 26, 2017, at Gunston Arts Center in Arlington, VA.

Avant Bard theatre proudly presents the legendary African American musical The Gospel at Colonus, starring esteemed stage and film actor (and Arlington Circuit Court Chief Judge) William T. Newman Jr. as Oedipus. The production runs February 23 through March 26, 2017, at Gunston Arts Center in Arlington, VA.

The New Colony is pleased to announce its full 2017 Season, featuring four world premiere productions by four Chicago playwrights. The season kicks off this winter with ensemble member Sean Kelly's fantasy adventure PSYCHONAUT LIBRARIANS, directed by Krissy Vanderwarker.

The New Colony is pleased to announce its full 2017 Season, featuring four world premiere productions by four Chicago playwrights. The season kicks off this winter with ensemble member Sean Kelly's fantasy adventure PSYCHONAUT LIBRARIANS, directed by Krissy Vanderwarker.

On March 11, 2016, Columbia/Legacy Recordings, will release You and I, the very first studio recordings made by Jeff Buckley for Columbia Records.

While watching THE GOSPEL AT COLONUS, the African-American version of Sophocles' OEDIPUS AT COLONUS as created by Lee Breuer (with music by Bob Telson), I was reminded of the reimagining of the Old Testament by Marc Connelly in the 1930 Pulitzer Prize-winning THE GREEN PASTURES. Like GOSPEL, THE GREEN PASTURES serves up time-honored material by transposing it to a religious setting;. PASTURES relates the Old Testament as envisioned by a young Afro-American boy; thus, Heaven is one big fish fry. When I first saw the 1936 film version (which Connelly, a white man, scripted for Warners' director William Keighley), I found it a special experience -- a wonderful all-black cast was an anomaly for a young viewer in the late 1950's and early i60's; now, with the passage of time (and legislation), I can understand why modern audiences would find it politically incorrect (though that cast is still peopled with some amazing talent). Interestingly, Mr. Breuer eschews following Connelly's suit, and though he utilizes a Black minister and church service to tell his tale, he focuses instead on an ancient Greek tragedy rather than the Old -- or New -- Testament.

Ebony Repertory Theatre (ERT - Founder/Producer Wren T. Brown) announced today that they will present the Pulitzer Prize Finalist and Tony Award-nominated production of THE GOSPEL AT COLONUS starring Tony Award-winner Roger Robinson (Joe Turner's Come and Gone) as Oedpius. The acclaimed production, conceived and adapted by Lee Breuer (Mabou Mines' Trilogy) and music by Bob Telson (Lincoln Center Theater's Chronicle of a Death Foretold), is a soul stirring dramatic-musical which takes place within the framework of a Pentecostal church service set against the tragic Greek background of the story of Oedipus at Colonus, in which the exiled king Oedipus seeks a place where he may be properly buried. ERT's production, directed by Andi Chapman (Actors Co-op's Steel Magnolias - Drama-Logue Award for Outstanding Director), will commemorate the 30th Anniversary of the Los Angeles Premiere. Performances will run tonight, June 18 - July 19, 2015 with an official press opening on Saturday, June 20 at the Nate Holden Performing Arts Center (4718 West Washington Boulevard) in Los Angeles.

Ebony Repertory Theatre (ERT - Founder/Producer Wren T. Brown) announced today that they will present the Pulitzer Prize Finalist and Tony Award-nominated production of THE GOSPEL AT COLONUS starring Tony Award-winner Roger Robinson (Joe Turner's Come and Gone) as Oedpius. The acclaimed production, conceived and adapted by Lee Breuer (Mabou Mines' Trilogy) and music by Bob Telson (Lincoln Center Theater's Chronicle of a Death Foretold), is a soul stirring dramatic-musical which takes place within the framework of a Pentecostal church service set against the tragic Greek background of the story of Oedipus at Colonus, in which the exiled king Oedipus seeks a place where he may be properly buried. ERT's production, directed by Andi Chapman (Actors Co-op's Steel Magnolias - Drama-Logue Award for Outstanding Director), will commemorate the 30th Anniversary of the Los Angeles Premiere. Performances will run June 18 - July 19, 2015 with an official press opening on Saturday, June 20 at the Nate Holden Performing Arts Center (4718 West Washington Boulevard) in Los Angeles.

The Martin E. Segal Theatre Center at the CUNY Graduate Center announces its Spring 2015 season of public programs. The Segal Center's 2015 Spring season offers ten new public events beginning on March 9 -- featuring contemporary theatre and performing artists from around the world -- including the annual three-day PEN World Voices International Play Festival, and retrospectives of the work of formidable American artists Lee Breur and Richard Foreman. All free.

It is hard not to like The Gospel at Colonus, the current Zach revival at the Topfer Theatre. The production is at once joyous and tragic; beautifully rich and amazingly stark - it will have you on your feet swaying to heartfelt, robust gospel music and it will also push you hard in your seat as you contemplate the tragic life of the main character(s).

Presenters La MaMa and St. Ann's Warehouse, and producers piece by piece productions, Mabou Mines and Dovetail Productions-all ardent and longtime supporters of the 'bad boy of avant-garde theater' (Village Voice) Lee Breuer-unite for the World Premiere of Breuer's epic magnum opus, La Divina Caricatura. Breuer wrote and directs the work, a mixed-media pop-opera with Bunraku puppets, a cast of singers and live music composed by Lincoln Schleifer that ranges from Motown to Broadway and reggae to raga. La Divina Caricatura, a metaphorical send-up of Dante's classic, concerns Rose the Dog, who makes a pilgrimage through love to Paradiso. Rose thinks she's a woman and fantasizes a mad love affair with her master John, an East Village independent filmmaker. The show, Part 1 of a trilogy, draws on material that stretches all the way back to Breuer's doo-wop opera Sister Suzie Cinema (1975).

Presenters La MaMa and St. Ann's Warehouse, and producers piece by piece productions, Mabou Mines and Dovetail Productions-all ardent and longtime supporters of the "bad boy of avant-garde theater" (Village Voice) Lee Breuer-unite for the World Premiere of Breuer's epic magnum opus, La Divina Caricatura. Breuer wrote and directs the work, a mixed-media pop-opera with Bunraku puppets, a cast of singers and live music composed by Lincoln Schleifer that ranges from Motown to Broadway and reggae to raga. La Divina Caricatura, a metaphorical send-up of Dante's classic, concerns Rose the Dog, who makes a pilgrimage through love to Paradiso. Rose thinks she's a woman and fantasizes a mad love affair with her master John, an East Village independent filmmaker. The show, Part 1 of a trilogy, draws on material that stretches all the way back to Breuer's doo-wop opera Sister Suzie Cinema (1975).

Over the last 20 or so years, there have been three nightclubs in New York that have been considered the venue Holy Grail for cabaret singers. Two of them--the Oak Room at the Algonquin Hotel and Feinstein's at the Loews Regency--have in the past year or so sadly died a corporate death, leaving the upper east side Cafe Carlyle as the Carnegie Hall of cabaret haunts. When she first came to New York from California 24 years ago, Natalie Douglas would save her pennies to see the legendary Bobby Short perform at the Carlyle and dream that she would some day star in a show from that stage. Last Thursday and Friday night, after almost a quarter century performing in every New York venue on the cabaret map and many prestigious clubs around the world, and after winning numerous MAC, Bistro and Nightlife Awards, Douglas finally soloed at the venerable venue and the audiences who saw her shows probably wondered why it took so long.

Two years into its second half-century, La MaMa, under the artistic direction of Mia Yoo, continues the omnivorous work of its founder, the late Ellen Stewart. The institution's fall 2013 season is a mixture of established artists and forms La MaMa has long supported (Lee Breuer, Dario D'Ambrosi, puppetry) and celebrated artists and programs new to La MaMa (Irina Brook, Chiori Miyagawa and Alice Reagan, Pascal Rambert, Maureen Fleming, Dan Fishback and Max Steele, and many others). Show-by-show descriptions are below.

Lincoln Center Festival, which runs from today, July 6 through 28, 2013 will unfold in six venues on and off the Lincoln Center campus. Music figures prominently in the 2013 Festival with international productions by an eclectic range of renowned composers, singers, musicians and directors. In addition to performances, a panel discussion on Lera Auerbach's opera, The Blind, is scheduled. A chronological listing follows.

Lincoln Center Festival, which runs from July 6 through 28, 2013 will unfold in six venues on and off the Lincoln Center campus. Music figures prominently in the 2013 Festival with international productions by an eclectic range of renowned composers, singers, musicians and directors. In addition to performances, a panel discussion on Lera Auerbach's opera, The Blind, is scheduled. A chronological listing follows.