Edith Wharton News

The winners of the 2021 Richard Rodgers Awards for Musical Theater were announced today by the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Each musical received a Studio Production Award.

San Francisco Ballet has announced the postponement of Mrs. Robinson, Cathy Marston’s world premiere which was scheduled to debut on Program 05, April 22–May 12, until the 2022 Season. Mrs. Robinson was choreographed for the stage in the 2020 Season and was reimagined for film in the 2021 Digital Season.

A backstage drama of poetry, business, and murder.

After Summer 2020's pandemic cancellations and virtual programs, Berkshire Opera Festival looks ahead with cautious optimism to its grand return to the stage in Summer 2021. In addition to its signature Mainstage performance, free concert, and impressive casts of rising stars and luminaries, the season is notable for an exciting expansion of its offerings.

The groundbreaking reading series continues as Obie Award winner Metropolitan Playhouse presents its next free 'screened' reading: XINGU, a one-act play by Kimberly Wadsworth based on a short story by Edith Wharton, live streamed at no charge, with talkback to follow, on October 10th, 2020 at 8 PM, EDT. 

The groundbreaking reading series continues as Obie Award winner Metropolitan Playhouse presents its next free 'screened' reading:  THE CLOD, a one-act play by Lewis Beach, live streamed at no charge, with talkback to follow, on October 3rd, 2020 at 8 PM, EDT.

Symphony Space's signature series, Selected Shorts, returns this fall with four events moved from our stages to the screen of your choice for virtual viewing. 

92Y Poetry Center's Read By podcast continues with never-before-heard readings by Anne Carson (July 26 at 11 am) and Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Jennifer Egan (August 2, 11 am).

Ta??HE OFFICE Performing Arts+ Filma?? today launched Artists at Work (AAW), a new program inspired by FDR's Depression-era Works Progress Administration and its Federal Project Number One, which at its peak employed more than 40,000 writers, musicians, artists, and actors nationwide.

BroadwayWorld is saddened to report that Kristin Linklater, world-renowned vocal coach and mother of Broadway veteran Hamish Linklater, passed away earlier this month in her Orkney home. She was 84 years old.

Looking to hone your acting chops while stuck inside? Preparing for your next big audition, whenever that may be? We've rounded up 10 MORE monologue books that are sure to fit the bill!

San Francisco Ballet announces further free weekly streams on SF Ballet @ Home, featuring commissioned works from the 2018 Unbound festival and other notable ballets from SF Ballet's repertory.

The Civilians, the award-winning New York-based theater company, presents the ninth annual R&D Group FINDINGS Series. 

The winners of the 2020 Richard Rodgers Awards for Musical Theater were announced today by the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In the Green by Grace McLean AND The Loophole by Jay Adana and Zeniba Now Each musical received a Staged Reading Award.

San Francisco Ballet has announced Cathy Marston's next creation for the Company: Mrs. Robinson, inspired by the 1960s American novella and film The Graduate and re-told from the perspective of Mrs. Robinson, one of America's most notorious seductresses. Mrs. Robinson is Marston's second work for the Company; her ballet Snowblind, based on Edith Wharton's novella Edith Frome, premiered to critical acclaim at the Company's 2018 Unbound: A Festival of New Works, with repeat performances in the 2019 Repertory Season and at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC and Sadler's Wells Theatre in London. Mrs. Robinson will premiere March 24, 2020 at the War Memorial Opera House on Program 05: Ballet Accelerator, which also includes Artistic Director Helgi Tomasson's 7 For Eight and David Dawson's Anima Animus. Performances will run through April 4, 2020.

The Old Globe today announced it will present the seventh annual Powers New Voices Festival, a weekend of readings of new American plays by some of the most exciting voices writing for the American theatre today, playing January 10a?'12, 2020. Playwrights include Chad Beckim, Jiréh Breon Holder, Tony Meneses, and Karen Zacarías; directors include Shelley Butler, Edward Torres, and James Vásquez.

Tony Award-winner Elizabeth Ashley and Tony Award-nominee Penny Fuller will star in a reading of Wharton/Williams, a work based on the short stories of novelist Edith Wharton and Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Tennessee Williams. Adapted by award-winning playwright/librettist Charles Leipart, Wharton/Williams will be directed by Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Award-winner Michael Wilson.

Shakespeare & Company has announced its Shakespeare lineup for the 2020 summer season. Under the direction of Artistic Director Allyn Burrows and Managing Director Adam Davis, the season will include three Shakespeare plays: King Lear directed by Nicole Ricciardi featuring the Drama Desk and Emmy Award-winning actor Christopher Lloyd (Taxi, Back to the Future trilogy) in the title role, Much Ado About Nothing directed by Kelly Galvin, and The Comedy of Errors directed by Michael F. Toomey. Season FLEXpasses are now on sale. Additionally, the Company has announced their annual Summer Gala will be held on Saturday, June 27th. 

At the outset of Mosaic Theatre's fifth season opener, 'Fabulation, or the Re-Education of Undine,' the biggest problem facing its central character is the lack of a celebrity for a big Manhattan benefit she's throwing. A high powered PR agent, she throws out a bunch of names cavalierly, and belittles her assistant, who is responsible for getting it all done.

Goodman Theatre has welcomed four Chicago-based writers to its Playwrights Unit. The 2019-20 playwrights are Monty Cole, Nancy García Loza, Alex Lubischer, and Steve Pickering, according to American Theatre.