Dramatists Guild News

On this day, we're wishing a very happy birthday to composer Andrew Lippa!

Tune in tonight as the Dramatists Guild Foundation (DGF) gathers award-winning writers, directors and performers for a virtual benefit to support the playwrights, composers, lyricists and librettists who get the story started

The Sappho Project has announced the appointment of three founding members of its Board of Directors, making up the full slate of board members for 2020. Joining the Board of Directors is BRIAN LOWDERMILK (they/them or she/her), ANEESH SHETH (she/her), and REGINA VICTOR (they/them).

Ego Actus Theatre Company today announced it will still present Gary Morgenstein’s new drama A Black and White Cookie, but in an updated version that is set against the backdrop of New York City reopening, post-pandemic. The play will premiere on the On The Air series Saturday, January 16 at 7:30PM/ET, and Sunday, January 24 at 3PM/ET. 

Esteemed American playwrights Ed Bullins, Constance Congdon, and Philip Kan Gotanda have been announced as the inaugural recipients of the Legacy Playwrights Initiative Award(s). The winners will be recognized by their friends and peers at the Dramatists Guild Foundation “Write in the Dark” virtual benefit on December 21, 2020.

Need something new to read, watch, or listen to? Check out this week's list of new and upcoming releases! This week's list includes the CD edition of soundtrack to the Netflix film adaptation of The Prom, new album from Jason Robert Brown, a song from Andrew Lloyd Webber's production of Cinderella, and more!

Dramatists Guild Foundation will gather award-winning dramatists and actors for a virtual benefit to support the playwrights, composers, lyricists and librettists who get the story started, held Monday, December 21, at 7:00pm on DGF’s website.

The Assembly presents two new works developed by the resident artists of the Deceleration Lab, an initiative to foster new theatrical projects that use and experiment with multi-perspective and multi-disciplinary models of creation.

CHRISTMASTOWN COMES TO FIRST STAGE will stream for free via First Stage's YouTube channel as one of First Stage's Signature Theater Events, part of Through Our Lens - A Virtual Performance Series in the 2020/21 season from December 13, 2020 - January 2, 2021.

Ryan Murphy's film adaptation of 'The Prom' is on its way to Netflix, premiering tomorrow, December 11th!

In response to the lockout by the Metropolitan Opera against Local One stagehands, members of the Coalition of Broadway Unions and Guilds issued the following statement:

Need something new to read, watch, or listen to? Check out this week's list of new and upcoming releases! This week's list includes the soundtrack to the Netflix film adaptation of The Prom, new music from Jackie Burns, and more!

On December 11, Broadway Records will release LEGACY, a collection of two previously unheard song cycles by the award-winning composing duo Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty. One of the song cycles, A BOY WITH A CAMERA, was inspired by photographs taken in the 40’s and 50’s by Ahrens’s  father, and is a celebration of New York City itself. This piece was recorded in November 2004 with Sarah Uriarte Berry and Steven Pasquale, with Steve Marzullo at the piano. Listen below as we give you a sneak peek of 'Rising City' performed by Pasquale.

Theater Resources Unlimited has announced their monthly panel Art and Activism: How Theater Can Open (and Change) Minds on Tuesday, December 22, 2020 at 6pm via Zoom. The Zoom session will open at 6pm for roundtable introductions of attendees, and the program will start at 6:30pm - come prepared with your best 20-second summary of who you are, and what you need.

On February 6th and 7th, the American Alliance for Theatre & Education and the Dramatist Guild Foundation will be co-hosting 'Everyone's a Playwright: Writing as a Teaching Tool and Expressive Engine.'

Sean Chandler host of the podcast 'Your Program Is Your Ticket', in association with the Broadway Podcast Network, has announced the latest episode of its 'Act II...Places' series featuring Group.BR's Debora Balardini and Andressa Furletti.

The Center for Performing Arts at Rhinebeck presents The Covid Confessions, a new play written and directed by Louisa Vilardi. The Covid Confessions is a full length play made up of monologues that encapsulate our lives during the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic and provide us with a snapshot into people's lives.

Azuka Theatre, InterAct Theatre Company and the Philadelphia Region of the Dramatists Guild of America announce their participation in the Nationwide Reading of the seven winning plays of #ENOUGH: Plays to End Gun Violence, a national short play competition for middle and high school students. On December 14, 2020 -- the 8-year remembrance of the shootings at Sandy Hook -- the winning titles will be performed on Zoom in Philadelphia and at nearly 50 other theatres and schools across the country and abroad.

Steppenwolf Theatre Company will present Wally World, the second of six productions debuting on its Steppenwolf NOW virtual stage. Written by Isaac Gómez and co-directed by Gómez and Lili-Anne Brown (Animal Farm), the play will be presented as a two-act radio production, which begins streaming December 16, 2020.

WORDS MATTER includes the remaster of two works, scored for chorus and piano: 'Testimony,'' by award-winning composer Stephen Schwartz and 'Who Would You Be' by American composer Shawn Crouch.