Drama Department News

In this week's edition, we caught up with Catherine Charlebois, who is starring as 'Nessarose' in Wicked- currently playing at the GershwinTheatre.

Simon Stephens will deliver the keynote platform at conference 'Turning the Page: Creating New Writing (1945-2013)' at the University of Reading today, September 13th 2013.

Court Theatre continues its 2013-2014 season with the revival of the OBIE Award-winning play An Iliad by Denis O'Hare and Lisa Peterson, directed by Artistic Director Charles Newell and starring Timothy Edward Kane. An Iliad will run November 13 - December 8, 2013 at Court Theatre, 5535 S. Ellis Avenue.

Lincoln Amphitheatre will host the National Players', America's longest running touring company, presentation of William Shakespeare'sMacbeth on September 13 and 14.

Junkets Publisher is a small independent not-for-profit publisher specialising in new Southern African plays in The Playscript Series (for which Junkets won the 2009 Arts & Culture Trust Excellence Award) and The Collected Series, which are anthologies of Southern African plays. In partnership with the National Arts Festival, Junkets is about to publish two groundbreaking volumes of South African monologues: NOW I AM ALONE 1 and NOW I AM ALONE 2. Both volumes have been compiled by Robin Malan, Diana Wilson and David Fick.

Symphony Space will open its 2013-14 Music season with 'Kurt Weill on Broadway,' Monday, October 7 (8 pm) at the Peter Jay Sharp Theatre. The show takes place on the 70th anniversary of the Broadway opening of Weill's One Touch of Venus. Ted Chapin hosts a stellar cast featuring Melissa Errico, Brent Barrett, Judy Blazer, and Ron Raines, plus winners of the international Lotte Lenya Competition.

UCT Drama Department presents KNOW VOID, six physical expressions of freedom, choreographed and performed by the UCT third-year theatre-makers and performers. The movement pieces explore the themes of love, liberation, otherness, sexuality and the essence of human existence in six individually crafted artworks of dance.

Laurence Luckinbill, Tony Award-nominated actor, author and Abingdon Theatre Company Honorary Board Member, will read his new one-man show ABRAHAM in the June Havoc Theatre (312 West 36th Street) on Monday, September 16 at 7:00pm. All tickets are $25 and include a wine reception following the reading. Proceeds benefit Abingdon's upcoming 21st Season and its mission to develop and produce new plays by American playwrights.

President Lincoln's favorite play will take the stage live on the grounds Abraham Lincoln walked as a boy in Indiana in September.

San Jose Rep presents its sassy and sentimental summer hit Love, Loss, and What I Wore. The cast features Dawn Wells (Mary Ann from Gilligan's Island), Zuzanna Szadkowski ('Gossip Girl'), Tony-nominated Dee Hoty (Mamma Mia and TV's 'Smash'), Sandra Tsing Loh (off-Broadway Aliens in America and NPR's 'The Loh Down on Science') and Ashley Austin Morris ('Ugly Betty' and 'The Electric Company').

Mary Testa, a two-time Tony Award nominee and celebrated veteran of Broadway, Off-Broadway, and film, is coming to Houston this summer for two performances only. In addition to her theatrical and film work, she has done numerous solo cabaret performances, but she has a real treat in store for Houston audiences. For the first time ever, she is doing a cabaret performance comprised of musical numbers she performed in various shows. Both of these evenings are sure to fun-filled treats that audiences simply won't want to miss. In anticipation of these thrilling performances, Mary Testa and I talked about her lauded career in theatre and her upcoming cabaret at Houston's Music Box Theater entitled ON BROADWAY… AND A LITTLE BIT OFF!

Hot off the heels of the National Arts Festival, the productions featured this year promise to entertain, enthrall and even educate. This inter-varsity festival, FRESH FROM FEST 2013 at the Arena Theatre, creates a much needed platform for up and coming student theatre-makers to showcase their work directly after the hype of performing at Festival in Grahamstown.

Midtown Direct Rep will present a reading of the Terrance McNally Award finalist play, The Drama Department by James Hindman as part of Midtown Direct Rep's play development series focused on new and innovative American theatre: Theatre in the Loft. Directed by Peter Flynn, the reading will take place tonight, Sunday, July 14th at 7:00PM. Admission: $15 Cover, Cash Bar, No Drink Minimum.

Renowned Oscar Wilde expert Alan Stanford, PICT's interim Producing Artistic Director, will direct his adaptation of the great Irish playwright's comedy, Lady Windermere's Fan. Wilde's play, first produced in 1892 in London, satirizes the morality of Victorian society. Stanford has moved the setting forward in time to 1947; in post-World-War II London, Wilde's language and ridicule of high-society still resonate. Oscar Wilde was not so much a writer of polite English comedy, but rather a biting Irish satirist who lampooned the social absurdities and prejudices of the English upper classes, prejudices that lasted well into the Twentieth Century. This production, which runs tonight, July 11 through July 27, is PICT's third show of the season, and features a cast of 17 actors.

Eight exceptional educators from schools and performing arts centers around the country will work one-on-one with Broadway greats at the 4th Annual FREDDIE G BROADWAY EXPERIENCE July 10th - 14th.

San Jose Rep announced today the cast for its sassy and sentimental summer hit Love, Loss, and What I Wore: Dawn Wells (Mary Ann from Gilligan's Island), Zuzanna Szadkowski ('Gossip Girl'), Tony-nominated Dee Hoty (Mamma Mia and TV's 'Smash'), Sandra Tsing Loh (off-Broadway Aliens in America and NPR's 'The Loh Down on Science') and Ashley Austin Morris ('Ugly Betty' and 'The Electric Company'). The off-Broadway hit makes its Bay Area premiere July 19 - July 28, 2013.

Disney Channel's first-ever Flash Forward Weekend, featuring all-new futuristic episodes of favorite series and guest star appearances by Ava Sambora ('This is 40') and Leo Howard (Disney XD's 'Kickin' It'), premieres FRIDAY, JULY 26 - SUNDAY JULY 28 on Disney Channel. The summer celebration continues SATURDAY, JULY 27 on Disney Channel with the Dance Along edition of 'Teen Beach Movie,' featuring stars from the movie teaching kids at home groovy dance steps to the exuberant summer jam 'Surf's Up.'

Jason Little (Hair), Sainty Reid (Finding Nemo) and special guest, All My Children star, Eric Nelsen will join the previously announced cast, Adam Dannheisser (Rock of Ages), Danielle Ferland (Into The Woods), Jim Ferris (Lion King) and Christiane Noll (Tony Nominee for Ragtime).

Disney Channel announces July 2013 Programming Highlights

Renowned Oscar Wilde expert Alan Stanford, PICT's interim Producing Artistic Director, will direct his adaptation of the great Irish playwright's comedy, Lady Windermere's Fan. Wilde's play, first produced in 1892 in London, satirizes the morality of Victorian society. Stanford has moved the setting forward in time to 1947; in post-World-War II London, Wilde's language and ridicule of high-society still resonate. Oscar Wilde was not so much a writer of polite English comedy, but rather a biting Irish satirist who lampooned the social absurdities and prejudices of the English upper classes, prejudices that lasted well into the Twentieth Century. This production, which runs July 11 through July 27, is PICT's third show of the season, and features a cast of 17 actors.