Cate Blanchett News

Universal Pictures Stage Productions, Working Title Films and Old Vic Productions in association with Weinstein Live Entertainment announced today that the 2009 Tony Award-winning Best Musical Billy Elliot the Musical, featuring music by Elton John, book and lyrics by Lee Hall, choreography by Peter Darling and direction by Stephen Daldry, will be presented in Toronto as part of the 2010/2011 Mirvish Subscription Season.

Vs Macbeth, directed by Sam Haren at Sydney Theatre Company's Wharf 2 from 18 March 2010, is a radical version of Shakespeare's great play of chance and destiny, interrogating both the famous story and the larger anxieties associated with its superstitious history as a work prone to accidents and mistakes.

Queensland Theatre Company presents Will Eno's award-winning solo show Thom Pain (based on nothing) an underground hit in New York, London and Edinburgh. Starring Jason Klarwein as the charismatic and disturbed Thom Pain, Brisbane audiences are set to be both charmed and shocked by his acerbic wit and vulnerability.

Sydney Theatre Company's TOT MOM will close on February 7, 2010.

Full casting has been announced for the upcoming Australian premiere of the musical SPRING AWAKENING, set to begin performances at the Sydney Theatre Company on February 4th. The principal cast will include Akos Armont as Moritz, Andrew Hazzard as Melchior and Clare Bowen as Wendla. SPRING AWAKENING runs through February 28th.

The Sydney Theater Company's production of 'A Streetcar Named Desire' helmed by Liv Ullman and starring Cate Blanchett was an immediate success when it played a limited engagement at the BAM Harvey Theatre late last year. Since the closing of the show, rumors abound of a possible Broadway run. An entry in the The New York Times' ArtsBeat blog today reports that Stephen C. Byrd, the producer who holds the rights to 'Streetcar' has decided not to attempt to transfer the Sydney Theatre Company's production. Instead, spokesman Gary Springer said on Tuesday that a revival of sorts may be in the works, incorporating a multiracial cast into the production, while eyeing a Broadway run in the Spring 2011.

Full casting has been announced for the upcoming Australian premiere of the musical SPRING AWAKENING, set to begin performances at the Sydney Theatre Company on February 4th. The principal cast will include Akos Armont as Moritz, Andrew Hazzard as Melchior and Clare Bowen as Wendla. SPRING AWAKENING runs through February 28th.

Theatre artists and productions nominated for The 26th Annual Helen Hayes Awards were announced this evening at a press conference hosted by The National Theatre in its Helen Hayes Gallery. The complete list of nominees can be found below.

On Friday January 22, the Sydney Theatre Company welcomes Lions at your Door to kick off The Wharf Sessions for 2010.

Nominations were announced today for the Sydney Theatre Awards for 2009, which will be presented at a gala ceremony on Monday January 18 at 6pm at the new venue of the Showroom of Club Swans, Kings Cross.

YoungArts, the core program of the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts (NFAA), is set to honor two internationally-acclaimed artists, dancer and choreographer Desmond Richardson and actress and director Liv Ullmann. Richardson will accept the YoungArts Alumni Award and Ullmann will accept the Arison Award at YoungArts' An Affair of the Arts Performance and Gala, January 16 at the Gusman Center and the Alfred I. DuPont Building. SunTrust Bank is Title Presenting Sponsor.

SocialMiami.com is reporting that director Liv Ullmann and Broadway veteran Desmond Richardson will receive YoungArts Awards granted by the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts at the YoungArts Gala on January 16, 2010. The Gala is the culmination in a week long workshop provided by YoungArts that allows young artists to take master classes in the arts.

Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes treated daughter Suri Cruise to evening out at the Ahmanson Theatre to see the LA engagement of the beloved stage musical, MARY POPPINS. This is the second time Suri has seen the world's most famous nanny on stage. Katie brought her to see the smash hit Broadway production in August 2008 during NY rehearsals for her own Broadway debut in Arthur Miller's All My Sons.

The Australian is reporting that actress Cate Blanchett and her husband, playwright, screenwriter and director Andrew Upton have jointly re-upped as artistic director of the Sydney Theater Company until 2013. There's no word yet on any impact that this might have on the potential transfer of 'A Streetcar Named Desire' to Broadway.

Nominations were announced today for the Sydney Theatre Awards for 2009, which will be presented at a gala ceremony on Monday January 18 at 6pm at the new venue of the Showroom of Club Swans, Kings Cross.

As previously reported, buzz has begun that the Cate Blanchett-led production of 'A Streetcar Named Desire,' now playing its final performances at BAM, may have a Broadway future. In a new report in the New York Times, Patrick Healy reports: 'Stephen C. Byrd, a theater producer who holds the rights to mount 'A Streetcar Named Desire' on Broadway, said in an interview that he would 'love' to transfer the critically acclaimed production now at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, starring Cate Blanchett, to Broadway in 2010.'

Sydney Theatre Company presents TOT MOM, Created by Steven Soderbergh Friday 18 December 2009 to Sunday 7 February 2010 - SEASON EXTENDED. Opens 23 December 2009 at 8pm

In the New Yorker online today, John Lahr weighs in on some of 2009's best plays and players, and makes his Tony prediction.

The New York Times is reporting that multiple producers have contacted Cate Blanchett and BAM in regards to moving A Streetcar Named Desire to the Great White Way. The BAM production, like it's Kennedy Center predecessor, is entirely sold out and has been one of the winter's hottest tickets. No official announcements have been made, though the Times reports that a move would occur no earlier than the spring of 2010.