David Mamet News

Great Barrington Public Theater unveiled plans for its 2020 season, to be produced at the Daniel Arts Center, Bard College at Simon's Rock, Great Barrington. In keeping with the Public's core mission, the 2020 season will consist of new works and new voices, primarily spotlighting the deep pool of local area talent. Tickets will be price-conscious and affordable to all.

At a platform at the National Theatre on a blustery February evening, Michael Billington spoke with artistic director Rufus Norris about his career and processes. Billington stepped down from his role as chief theatre critic of the Guardian, a position he held for 48 years, at the end of 2019. 

There are no punches pulled in Merely Players Presents' (MPP) upcoming production of David Mamet's GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS. It is MPP's third full-length production of its inaugural season. Mounted in the round, this 1982 Pulitzer Prize-winner seats all playgoers ringside to experience the backroom machinations of a real estate sales force driven to fraud, thievery, and betrayal by the twin engines of the economy - fear and greed.

The Paley Center for Media today announced that it will pay tribute to Kerry Washington with the special program Celebrating Kerry Washington: Conversation & Exclusive Preview Screening of Little Fires Everywhere. The program will take place on Tuesday, March 17 at 7:30 pm.

As BroadwayWorld previously reported, actress Lynn Cohen who gained fame in 'Sex and the City' and 'The Hunger Games' died on February 14th. Cohen has appeared in over 120 movies as well as a string of Broadway and Off-Broadway plays and television appearances. She was 86. Today, BroadwayWorld remembers Cohen with a look back at some photos from our archives...

To celebrate the upcoming revival of David Mamet's American Buffalo, directed by Neil Pepe, a limited number of specially priced tickets will be made available on Thursday, February 20 at the Circle in the Square Theatre box office (235 W 50th Street). These one-time only prices are commensurate with the cost of a ticket to one of the play's previous productions, including the 1977 world premiere staging where American Buffalo received the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best American Play.

Screen and stage actor Lynn Cohen has passed away.

The Off Broadway Alliance, the organization of Off Broadway producers, theaters, general managers, press agents, and marketing firms, will hold the next event in its Seminars series focused on the Off Broadway producing process on Sunday, March 1, 2020

59E59 Theaters (Val Day, Artistic Director; Brian Beirne, Managing Director), will welcome the world premiere of BOYS WILL BE BOYS, written by Melissa Bubnic and directed by Lily Dorment.

An enduring member of the Marvel universe (both cinematic and TV) as Agent Phil Coulson, Clark Gregg will be making his Los Angeles stage acting debut in his long-time friend David Mamet's new play THE CHRISTOPHER BOY'S COMMUNION. Slated for an eleven-performance run at the Odyssey beginning February 13, 2020; this cast includes: Fionnula Flanagan, Dominic Hoffman, William H. Macy, David Paymer, Rebecca Pidgeon and John Pirrucello. I managed to catch Clark for a quick phoner.

The composers of Netflix's The Witcher, Sonya Belousova and Giona Ostinelli, took the time to speak with us about their work on the show.

In David Mamet's book On Directing Film, he breaks down the way a linear narrative can be conveyed by placing images in direct contrast to each other. a?oeThe dream and the film are the juxtaposition of images in order to answer a question.a?? Certainly, with a majority of the action taking place upstage of a scrim and the fusion of filmed and live material, ArtsEmerson's Detroit Red, an original play by Will Power about Malcolm X's early adult life in Roxbury, leaves one feeling more as though one has watched a movie or woken from a dream than sat through a performance. Recently, I also saw Gloria: A Life, which is playing at the American Repertory Theatre. While I admittedly found the show to be trite and pandering, it obtusely fused projection effects with live performance in a way that felt cheap, gimmicky, and more like a new SnapChat filter than anything else. Contrast that with Ari Herzig's film work for Detroit Red, which snaps the audience effectively between viewpoints in black and white and splays broad images across the haziness of Adam Rigg's nondescript set. The success of the production lies in the success of the filmed elements, which establish a framing device, pinpointing the action to an exact moment in time. Additionally, the projections act as effective abstractions, allowing the actors to waver between realism and poetry as photos of their faces appear as oversized watermarks in space. Lighting designer Alan Edwards equally contributes to the cinematic feel of the piece. Sharp shafts of light slice through open space and act, ingeniously, as the camera lens might in film, focusing our attention on specifics and the relevant details. Aside from a few extraneous hat changes for the three actors who take on all the roles in the piece, between the work of Herzig, Rigg, and Edwards, the performance seems to be a study in the logistics of jump-cuts or cross-fades in real time. Adding to the film-instead-of-theatre feeling in the space, the performance actively roused and engaged the audience, which had a huge swathe of Boston school groups present. The crowd felt comfortable verbalizing responses, in part, because of our physical separation from the action presented to us, and to be able to laugh, cheer, gasp, and grimace in solidarity with those around you is a rare treat.

NEW YORK'S Atlantic Theater Company is home to many high-profile Off-Broadway shows, some of which transfer to Broadway, including the Tony-winning musicals The Band's Visit and Spring Awakening. It is also an acting school that teaches the Practical Aesthetics acting technique.

Variety reports that Matt Damon wills star in James Mangold upcoming film 'The Force.'

David Mamet's new play, THE CHRISTOPHER BOY'S COMMUNION, will be staged for the first time, for a limited time only. Featuring a cast, that includes Rebecca Pidgeon, William H. Macy, Clark Gregg and recent Tony Award nominated Fionnula Flanagan, the story follows a grisly murder that has taken place in Central Park. It runs February 13 - 23, 2020 as a guest production at the Odyssey Theatre, for 10 performances only.

It was like a surge of electricity that filled my body and crackled in my lungs. Against the background bustle of the office in Auckland, New Zealand, where I worked, a friendly voice on the phone had just told me some of the most exciting news I'd ever heard. a?oeOkaya?? thank youa?? was all I managed to get out at the end before hanging up and grinning in disbelief. I had been accepted to study acting at the Atlantic Acting School in New York on a full scholarship. I did a little dance.

Artistic Director Lisa Spirling today announces an entire year of programming for 2020 at the home of new writers, including the news that all four remaining finalists of the 2018 Theatre503 International Playwriting Award will be staged at the venue by November 2020. This follows on from the success of Award winner Out of Sorts by Danusia Samal premiering in October 2019. In February, the search for the best debut and emerging writers in the world will begin again as the 2020 Theatre503 International Playwriting Award opens for submissions.

Artistic Director Louise Fischer has announced New Theatre's program for the first half of the 2020 season.

2019 has come and gone, which means it's time to get excited for the new shows coming in 2020! This year will bring anticipated revivals of Company, West Side Story, and The Music Man, fan favorite Six, brand new musicals Diana, Mrs. Doubtfire, and MJ, and many more.

Each year, Broadway champions works both new and old, welcoming a fresh crop of plays from playwrights both at home and abroad every season. Their works enrapture audiences, offering takes on comedy, drama, history and everything in between, dazzling in their relevance, sparkling in their spectacle, and often challenging in their complexity.