Dan Baker News

The Playwrights Realm - under the leadership of Co-Artistic Directors John Dias and Katherine Kovner and Producing Director Stephanie Ybarra - and the Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts present the 2009 WRITERS JAM SESSION - a week of readings by emerging artists, featuring such acting talents as Tovah Feldshuh (IRENA'S VOW, GOLDA'S BALCONY), Michael Cumpsty (DEMOCRACY, COPENHAGEN), Mather Zickel ('Rachel Getting Married,' 'I Love You, Man'), etc. free and open to the public - at the NYU Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program Center (113 2nd Avenue, between 6th and 7th Streets). For reservations please email jd1429@nyu.edu.

IS LIFE WORTH LIVING?, an exaggeration by Lennox Robinson, comes to The Mint. Performances begin August 19.

The Drama Desk and Obie Award-wining Mint Theater Company today announced that it its 2009 - ?10 season will kick off with two plays celebrating the art and antics of the actor.

Next up for award winning Rogue Machine (following their critically acclaimed inaugural season featuring the premiere of Jeffrey Hatcher's COMPLEAT FEMALE STAGE BEAUTY, Brett Neveu's AMERICAN DEAD and John Pollono's RAZORBACK) is: HALF OF PLENTY by Steppenwolf playwright Lisa Dillman.

Off-Broadway's NIGHT SKY explores what the noted author and physicist Stephen Hawking has called the two remaining mysteries -- the brain and the cosmos -- as the play looks at what happens to a bright, articulate astronomer, her family and her career when she is struck by a car and loses her ability to speak conventionally, a condition known as 'aphasia.'

Scheduled May 22nd through June 20th, performances of NIGHT SKY run Tuesdays through Fridays at 8:00pm; Saturdays at 3:00pm & 8:00pm; and Sundays at 3:00pm (with an added performance on Monday, June 1st at 8:00pm and no performance on Wednesday, June 3rd) at Baruch Performing Arts Center (55 Lexington Avenue).

NIGHT SKY, a play by Susan Yankowitz, will be presented Off-Broadway this spring with previews beginning May 22 prior to its official opening June 2 at the Baruch Performing Arts Center (55 Lexington Ave.) in Manhattan.

NIGHT SKY, a play by Susan Yankowitz about a brilliant astronomer who loses her ability to speak, will be presented Off-Broadway this spring with previews beginning May 22 prior to its official opening June 2 in the Rose Nagelberg Theatre at the Baruch Performing Arts Center (55 Lexington Ave.) in Manhattan.

NIGHT SKY, a play by Susan Yankowitz, will be presented Off-Broadway this spring with previews beginning May 22 prior to its official opening June 2 at the Baruch Performing Arts Center (55 Lexington Ave.) in Manhattan.

NIGHT SKY, a play by Susan Yankowitz about a brilliant astronomer who loses her ability to speak, will be presented Off-Broadway this spring with previews beginning May 22 prior to its official opening June 2 in the Rose Nagelberg Theatre at the Baruch Performing Arts Center (55 Lexington Ave.) in Manhattan.

Next up for award winning Rogue Machine (following their critically acclaimed inaugural season featuring the premiere of Jeffrey Hatcher's COMPLEAT FEMALE STAGE BEAUTY, Brett Neveu's AMERICAN DEAD and John Pollono's RAZORBACK) is: HALF OF PLENTY by Steppenwolf playwright Lisa Dillman.

Noted director Robert Lepage makes his Met debut with a technologically innovative new production of Hector Berlioz's masterpiece, La Damnation de Faust, opening on November 7. Music Director James Levine will conduct the first staging of the work at the Met since 1906, with Marcello Giordani in the title role, Susan Graham as Marguerite, and John Relyea as Méphistophélès.

Noted director Robert Lepage makes his Met debut with a technologically innovative new production of Hector Berlioz's masterpiece, La Damnation de Faust, opening on November 7. Music Director James Levine will conduct the first staging of the work at the Met since 1906, with Marcello Giordani in the title role, Susan Graham as Marguerite, and John Relyea as Méphistophélès.

On Monday, February 4 The Vineyard Theatre - where Edward Albee's Pulitzer Prize-winning play Three Tall Women debuted in 1994 - celebrated Albee's 50-year career as one of the world's leading dramatists, as he turns 80 during this theatrical season. Co-hosts for the evening were Tony Award-winners Tyne Daly and Bill Irwin plus international artist Eartha Kitt.

International singing sensation Eartha Kitt - one of only a handful of performers to be nominated for a Tony (three times), a Grammy (twice) and an Emmy Award - is set to join previously announced co-hosts Tony Award-winners Tyne Daly and Bill Irwin with a special performance at The Vineyard Theatre's 80th birthday tribute to Edward Albee on Monday, February 4 beginning at 6pm at The Rainbow Room

Casting has been announced for the Pasadena Playhouse's production of John Patrick Shanley's Defiance