During this time when productions all over the world have been put on pause, we are coming together to celebrate plays that have left their mark on theater history. This week we will be focusing on the plays of August Wilson. Today's play, Fences!
American Conservatory Theater (A.C.T.) Conservatory Director Melissa Smith announced today that honorary Master of Fine Arts degrees will be conferred upon playwright Lydia R. Diamond and Magic Theatre's outgoing artistic director Loretta Greco. Both recipients will receive their degrees at a virtual graduation ceremony for the A.C.T. Master of Fine Arts Program class of 2020 on Monday, May 18 at 12 p.m.
New Dramatists has cancelled its previously announced 71st Annual Spring Luncheon due to the COVID-19 emergency. The event, to have taken place on Thursday, May 21st at the New York Marriott Marquis, was to honor Tony Award winners Tony Kushner and Jeanine Tesori with its 2020 Distinguished Achievement Award.
Wynn Handman, the famed New York acting teacher and Artistic Director of The American Place Theatre, died at home April 11, 2020 of Covid-19 related pneumonia. He was 97.
BroadwayWorld is saddened to report that Wynn Handman, co-founder of the American Place Theatre, has died at age 97. Handman's daughter, Laura Handman, confirmed that his cause of death was COVID-19-related illness.
Anika Noni Rose will be reading bedtime stories to your little ones via Instagram with Bedtime Stories for the Littles! Bedtime Stories for the Littles will be taking place on her on her IGTV every Sunday at 7:30PM ET.
Production on the film adaptation of Shakespeare's Macbeth starring Tony and Academy Award-winners Denzel Washington and Frances McDormand has been placed on hold.
AMC announced today that it has greenlit National Anthem, an 8-episode anthology series created by writer/director Scott Z. Burns (The Report, Contagion) and executive produced by Oscar® and Emmy® Award-winner Mark Johnson (Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul, Rectify, Rain Man, The Natural, Bugsy). The musical dramedy is the first series greenlit under Johnson's multi-year overall deal with AMC Studios, through which he will continue to develop new series for the company's Entertainment Group as well as projects for potential sale to other content companies. National Anthem is the tragically funny story of a middle class midwestern family tumbling down the ladder of American society; periodically bursting into song as they struggle to catch themselves. Award-winning musician T Bone Burnett (Crazy Heart, The Hunger Games) is attached as the series' music producer with words and music by Craig Finn (The Hold Steady).
Starz, a Lionsgate company (NYSE: LGF.A, LGF.B), today announced Chris Bauer ('The Deuce,' 'True Blood,' 'The Wire'), Allen Maldonado ('The Last O.G.,' 'Black-ish,' 'You're the Worst') and two-time Super Bowl champion James Harrison ('S.W.A.T.', Remember Amnesia) have been cast as series regulars in the STARZ Original series 'Heels.'
Redhouse Arts Center continues its 2019/2020 season with August Wilson's Pulitzer Prize winning American masterpiece, Fences. The sixth Play in Wilson's Pittsburgh Cycle, Fences explores the African-American experience through the eyes of a former Negro League baseball star, Troy Maxson.
New Dramatists will honor Tony Award winners, Tony Kushner and Jeanine Tesori with its 2020 Distinguished Achievement Award at its 71st Annual Spring Luncheon Tribute on Thursday, May 21st at the New York Marriott Marquis.
Deadline reports that three time Tony-nominee David Alan Grier has joined the cast of upcoming ABC comedy 'Prospect.'
Deadline reports that Liza Lapira has joined 'The Equalizer,' which also stars Queen Latifah. The series is described as a re-imagining of the one from the 1980s.
Michael B. Jordan will receive this year's “CinemaCon® Male Star of the Year Award,” Mitch Neuhauser, Managing Director of CinemaCon, announced today. CinemaCon, the official convention of NATO, will be held March 30-April 2 at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. Jordan will be presented with this special honor at the “CinemaCon Big Screen Achievement Awards” ceremony taking place on the evening of Thursday, April 2, at The Colosseum at Caesars Palace, hosted by The Coca-Cola Company, the official presenting sponsor of CinemaCon.
The Minutes is officially in previews on Broadway! The cast of The Minutes includes Ian Barford, Blair Brown, Cliff Chamberlain, K. Todd Freeman, Armie Hammer, Tracy Letts, Danny McCarthy, Jessie Mueller, Sally Murphy, Austin Pendleton, Jeff Still.
In back-to-back events, the African American community comes together for a weekend celebrating Black excellence. On February 22, the 51st NAACP Image Awards airing live on BET Networks is the preeminent multicultural awards show from an African American point of view. It celebrates the accomplishments of people of color in the fields of television, music, literature and film and honors individuals or groups who promote social justice through creative endeavors. The next evening, the American Black Film Festival will host its annual awards season gala, ABFF Honors. The ceremony celebrates Black culture by recognizing individuals who have made distinguished contributions to American entertainment. The honorees being celebrated at ABFF Honors have leveraged their career to carve out a space for people of color in Hollywood helping to create a more diverse landscape. ABFF Honors is an opportunity for the industry to acknowledge how far entertainment has come and thank the individuals who have made it their mission to propel the African American community forward.
The time is 2008, the place Detroit...this and more sets the stage for a hard hitting, knockout Tour de Force that chills you to the bone. Dominique Morisseau's Skeleton Crew is a searing, eye opening look into the workforce division between blue-collar and white-collar and what might happen when the division of power crosses the line. I think director L. Peter Callender sums it up best in his director's notes by saying, 'Dominique Morisseau's 'Detroit Project' plays: DETROIT '67, PARADISE BLUE, and SKELETON CREW, not unlike August Wilson's 'Century Cycle' or Shakespeare's History plays, offer a sharply focused, raw, sometimes harsh, always heart-wrenching, beautifully penned look at the rigors of survival when driven souls must make high stakes, life or death choices. Dreams, hope, despair, mystery and secrets all fill the hearts and minds of her characters in the poetic and humorous Skeleton Crew.' The tight knit ensemble of four of the finest actors to hit the stage in some time do Morisseau's words justice and do so with gusto. From the moment the music is heard, to the first words spoke you are gripping on every breathtaking moment in this top-notch performance, that left you winded and exaspirated in all the best ways possible. The chill left down my spine from this show still lingers even days later.
Tamara Tunie has been set to star in Ghost Bike, a dramatic indie short film, directed and written by Mark Blane (upcoming recurring role in the J.J. Abrams/Sara Bareilles helmed AppleTV+ drama Little Voice). Ghost Bike is Blane's follow-up to his debut feature film Cubby which had an international festival run and North American release in theaters and on VOD platforms in 2019. Cubby, which Blane starred in, wrote, and co-directed, was recently nominated in the 'Buried Treasure' category of the 26th Annual Chlotrudis Awards for Independent Film. Shooting for Ghost Bike gets underway this month in New York City.
Mabou Mines, the esteemed experimental theater company, and Weathervane Productions, in association with Philip Glass' Days and Nights Festival, add free documentary film screening and Promenade concert performance, and announce complete casting for a unique upcoming celebration of legendary playwright and director María Irene Fornés. The February 21-March 7 engagement centers on the New York premiere of Philip Glass' transformation of her five-page play Drowning into an opera and a version of Fornés' acclaimed Mud. JoAnne Akalaitis directs these two intimate productions-both with new music composed by Glass-at Mabou Mines (150 First Avenue).
BNS Productions brings August Wilson's FENCES to Charlotte, NC. Tony Award-Winning Fences is Wilson's 6th cycle out of a 10-Cycle series of Pittsburgh-based stage plays about the African American experience.
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