Caryl Churchill News

Award-winning theatre company Son of Semele Ensemble is announcing its departure from their Silver Lake home of 18 years. Led by Founding Artistic Director Matthew McCray since 2000, the company has been in residence at 3301 Beverly Boulevard in a black box theatre they created in 2003. 

Theatre for a New Audience will present a new virtual production of The Oresteia, the New York premiere of Ellen McLaughlin’s adaptation and translation of Aeschylus’ trilogy, featuring music composed by Kamala Sankaram, directed by Andrew Watkins (TFANA, as Assistant Director: The Winter's Tale, The Skin of Our Teeth, The Father, A Doll's House).

Mia Katigbak, co-founder and actor-manager of NAATCO, today announced that NAATCO will extend on demand performances of the US Premiere of a new play by Caryl Churchill, What If If Only, realized by Les Waters and Jared Mezzocchi. The performances will be available through Sunday June 20th only.

The company will reopen the theater with the July 2021 production of the romantic comedy “Pride and Prejudice” by Kate Hamill, based on the novel by Jane Austen. County Players will also continue the well-received CP2 Readers Theater Series with three mini-festivals.

The Charlotte Peters directed play, which follows a father and daughter’s surprising story, is set to make its ‘IRL’ appearance as part of the King’s Head Theatre’s annual festival of new-writing, Playmill, where it runs from Monday 12th to Saturday 17th July. 

Andrew Gall has always been a writer – and a multitalented actor, director, playwright and designer for 30-plus years. But in his new home of Richmond, Virginia, the formerly North Carolina-based theatre veteran’s newest project is a return to source material he couldn’t fully appreciate until this point in his career – and he shines it through a societal and political prism that’s never been more relevant as it is today.

And they're off! London theatres have been open for several weeks now, and the reviews once again are coming hard and fast as a glance at this very site will confirm. Quick off the mark have been the smaller-sized shows: solo plays like Cruise or Harm or a three-person West End entry like Amy Berryman's Walden (though that title was beset by pre-opening dramas of its own, more of which below). But as the big musicals prepare their own re-emergence on to a scene marked out already by the producer Sonia Friedman's RE:EMERGE season (of which Walden is the first of three to open), excitement is in the air. The question now remains as to who, precisely, the audience is likely to be for these shows, given the difficulty for many in travelling to the UK.

Mia Katigbak, co-founder and actor-manager of NAATCO, today announced that NAATCO will present remote live performances of the US Premiere of a new play by Caryl Churchill, What If If Only, realized by Les Waters and Jared Mezzocchi. The performances will stream Monday June 7th through Saturday June 12th nightly at 7:00 pm EST.

This past semester, I took one of my favorite classes I’ve had so far in my time at Tisch, Feminism and Theatre. My teacher, Gwendolyn Alker’s, syllabus set the stage for the amazing class. We read plays by playwrights of all different backgrounds, about all kinds of subjects, and we talked about why they’re important, in conjunction with feminist theoretical texts. 

The Royal Court Theatre has announced its reopening programme, which will run from 16 June to 18 December 2021.

Today, on The Old Vic's 203rd birthday, THE OLD VIC: BACK TOGETHER Season. This Season has been announced. The seventh from Artistic Director Matthew Warchus will run from July 2021 to July 2022, and will be an uplifting and thought-provoking combination of both streamed and live shows.

Led by acclaimed actor Paul McGann (Withnail and I; Doctor Who), Churchill's earlier works will be brought to life for this limited season. Further casting will be announced in due course. 

New York Theatre Workshop announced today that Artistic Director James C. Nicola will depart the theater on June 30, 2022. Nicola has been the Artistic Director of New York Theatre Workshop since 1988.

Simon Russell Beale will play JS Bach in the world premiere of Nina Raine's Bach & Sons, directed by Nicholas Hytner.  Performances at The Bridge are from 23 June – 9 September 2021 with opening night on 29 June 2021. 

The 2021 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize has been awarded to U.S. playwright Erika Dickerson-Despenza for her play about the Flint, Michigan water crisis, cullud wattah. Awarded annually since 1977, The Susan Smith Blackburn Prize is the largest and oldest international prize honoring Women+ playwrights.

The Susan Smith Blackburn Prize will present a virtual presentation to announce the 2021 winner of one of the most prestigious playwriting awards, and the oldest and largest prize awarded to women+ playwrights, today, April 7, 2021 at 3pm EST/ 8pm BST. Tune in right here at BroadwayWorld to watch the presentation, hosted by Pulitzer Prize-winning Playwright and Susan Smith Blackburn Prize winner (1983) Marsha Norman.

Ahead of the announcement of the 2021 The Susan Smith Blackburn Prize winner, BroadwayWorld is excited to spotlight each of this year's finalists. Learn more about Ife Olujobi and read an excerpt form her play, Jordans!

This happens to be my first review for BroadwayWorld in over a year. The last one I did was for North Carolina Theatre's production of Kinky Boots back in February of 2020, which took place one month before the COVID-19 pandemic began. Thanks to the streaming option from Raleigh Little Theatre, I am now back in business.

Theatre for a New Audience presents First Love, a theatricalization for Zoom of Samuel Beckett's short story of the same name, directed by six-time OBIE winner JoAnne Akalaitis and performed by Tony and Emmy Award nominee Bill Camp (Broadway: Death of a Salesman, The Crucible; TV: The Queen's Gambit, The Night Of). The creative team includes Eamonn Farrell (Video Design), Jennifer Tipton (Lighting Design) and Kaye Voyce (Scenic and Costume Design).

BLUEBARN THEATRE has announced the artists and schedule for: THE BONFIRE SERIES. Embracing the uncertainty of the times and theater's never-ending capacity to adapt, BLUEBARN has imagined an adventurous new way to bring the power of story back to our lives.