Charles Ludlam News

Hell in a Handbag Productions is pleased to announce casting for THE ARTIFICIAL JUNGLE, the final play by the legendary master of camp, Charles Ludlam.

A brand new video offering a sneak peek into the upcoming New York premiere of Tevye Served Raw made its debut today on YouTube. Watch it below!

Find out what happens to the beloved characters in Fiddler on the Roof after the musical ends. TEVYE SERVED RAW is an evening of Sholem Aleichem material, with adaptations of his Tevye stories ("What, Me Worthy?" and "Get Thee Gone!"), scenes from his own long-unseen Yiddish stage version, and three of his purely comedic stories, newly adapted ("Strange Jews on a Train," "The Yiddish Sisyphus" and "A Stepmother's Trash-Talk").

A modern take on an old classic can be risky business, and morphing a murder mystery into a comical farce sounds intriguing on the page. Micro sized casts have done wonders with Hitchcock's 'The 39 Steps' and Charles Ludlam's 'The Mystery of Irma Vep,' so it is no surprise that comic playwright Ken Ludwig, known best for his brilliant 'Lend Me A Tenor' should take a stab at the genre. His adaptation of the classic Sherlock Holmes mystery 'The Hound of The Baskervilles' has been shortened to 'BASKERVILLE' and opened last night at Shea's 710 Theatre. This production by MUSICALFARE unfortunately is high on hijinks and low on true comedy.

Gulfshore Playhouse's production of THE MYSTERY OF IRMA VEP by Charles Ludlam finishes off their 2017-18 theatre season with a clever, quick, and absolutely hilarious show. It was a mystery, a comedy, a tragedy, and so much more, all in one fantastic Penny Dreadful production.

Since 2004, director Mallory Catlett has worked across disciplines to expand the boundaries of theater. Through original works with her own company, Restless NYC, and collaborations with some of today's leading artists-composer Mika Karlsson (The Echo Drift), Dread Scott (Decision), Aaron Landsman (City Council Meeting & Perfect City)-Catlett creates theater that The New York Times calls "lurid, feverish and powerful." She has been called a "downtown treasure" by Time Out New York.

Gulfshore Playhouse, Naples' premiere professional regional theater, presents "The Mystery of Irma Vep," a Penny Dreadful by Charles Ludlam, Saturday, April 28 through Sunday, May 20.

If you want 'bang' for your entertainment buck, make a beeline to the Theater im Keller's Website and try to secure a ticket to BERLIN? WE! LOVE! YOU! As the show only performs on weekends and seating is very limited, I would advise you to plan ahead and take any ticket you can get, but get into that theater and watch these talented comedic actors strut their collective stuff.

LA MAMA presents COFFEEHOUSE CHRONICLES #146 "MARIO MONTEZ" -- Saturday March 24, at 3:00pm - 5:00pm?-- Located at, La MaMa, Downstairs (66 East 4th Street, NYC). Moderated by CONRAD VENTUR, Panelists include Brian Belovitch, Bibbe Hansen, Joe E. Jeffreys, Tom Kalin, Agosto Machado, and Lola Pashalinski.

Orlando Shakespeare Theater (Orlando Shakes) in Partnership with UCF announces the upcoming productions for their 30th Anniversary Season. With Broadway's original hip hop musical, two Shakespearean dramas, a hysterical Penny Dreadful parody, the return of a Christmas classic, a Tony Award nominated new drama, the World Premiere of a newly commissioned play, and a fresh twist on three classic fairy tales, the nationally renowned Theater's Season includes a wide range of productions to celebrate classic, contemporary, and children's plays.

Hell in a Handbag Productions is pleased to announce its 2018 season, kicking off this spring with a revival of its 2013 hit L'IMITATION OF LIFE, a dead on parody of the 1959 film Imitation of Life about race, mothers and daughters - and looking fabulous! Adapted by Ricky Graham and Running with Scissors and directed by ensemble member Stevie Love, ensemble member Ed Jones and Robert Williams reprise their roles as Lana Turner and Annie Johnson.

Morphing identity, bending gender, mapping space through gesture and singing the song of suffering so exquisite that its high notes touch the exultant limits of transcendence, for over three decades it is fair to say that Kelly has been a foundational figure of the downtown stage. Now, John allows us to see his concurrent practice as a visual artist-more modest and ancillary to his career in hybrid theatrics-but just as central to his aesthetic core, quieter and suffused with a fragile melancholia, and just as revelatory.

Urban Stages (Frances Hill, Founding Artistic Director), will close its 34th season with the New York Premiere of Sean Christopher Lewis's DOGS OF RWANDA, directed by Frances Hill and Peter Napolitano. This limited engagement at Urban Stages (259 West 30th Street), begins performances on Friday, March 9, opens on Monday, March 12 and will run through Saturday, March 31, 2018. Tickets for are $35 ($25 during previews; $50 on opening and $15 student rush) and may be purchased via OvationTix at www.urbanstages.org or by phone at 1.866.811.4111.

Howl! Happening is pleased to present a rare look into the heart and art of a consummate creator: John Kelly's Sideways into the Shadows. Resonating and in conversation with Kelly's major new performance work Time No Line at La MaMa (February 22 March 11, 2018), Sideways into the Shadows is a journey through Kelly's creative life that exposes both the unfolding of his artistic process and the generational rupture and emotional cost of the AIDS pandemic.

Axis Company presents High Noon, an adaptation of the screenplay for the 1952 Western film, devised by an ensemble led by Artistic Director Randy Sharp. In Axis' High Noon, the Wild West is not the place of heroes and rollicking adventure, but a landscape of overbearing nothingness where humans, and their troubled moral compasses, are cast in glaring light. As a town awaits the alleged return, and potential revenge streak, of a released murderer on an incoming train, their just-married, retiring marshal decides to try to rally a crowd to fight him.

Urban Stages presents this year's award-winning series, WINTER RHYTHMS 2017, which begins tonight, December 12, featuring some of New York's best musical performances through Saturday, December 23, 2017 at Urban Stages Theatre (259 West 30th Street, just East of 8th Avenue).

In 24-Decade History: Holiday Sauce, a concert at The Town Hall in New York City, tonight, December 12th, Taylor Mac explores Christmas as calamity, celebrating the holiday season in all of its dysfunction.

This month, on the heels of Edgar Oliver's acclaimed, sold-out New York Trilogy, Axis Theatre Company presents the 16th annual production of its beloved family holiday show, Seven in One Blow, or the Brave Little Kid.

To watch New York stage treasure Everett Quinton engaged in his classic brand of silliness - or, to be more accurate, ridiculousness - is just as fulfilling a cultural experience as watching a great tragedian immersed in a dramatic Shakespearean role.

Urban Stages announces the line-up for this year's award-winning series, WINTER RHYTHMS 2017, which will begin Tuesday, December 12 and will feature some of New York's best musical performances through Saturday, December 23, 2017 at Urban Stages Theatre (259 West 30th Street, just East of 8th Avenue).