Edward Albee News

Vassar & New York Stage and Film's Powerhouse season will continue through Sunday, August 2, with the Mainstage play Vera Laughed (through 8/2); the Martel Musical Tina Girlstar (7/31 - 8/1); the ever-popular Readings Festival 2 (7/30 - 8/2); and a free concert reading by the Powerhouse Apprentice Company of the new musical Hello! My Baby.

Vassar & New York Stage and Film's Powerhouse season will continue through Sunday, August 2, with the Mainstage play Vera Laughed (through 8/2); the Martel Musical Tina Girlstar (7/31 - 8/1); the ever-popular Readings Festival 2 (7/30 - 8/2); and a free concert reading by the Powerhouse Apprentice Company of the new musical Hello! My Baby.

Piece by Piece Productions and Rising Phoenix Repertory in association with Rattlestick Playwrights Theater will present the New York premiere of Slipping, written by Daniel Talbott and directed by Kirsten Kelly, beginning Tuesday, July 28 at 8pm at the Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, 224 Waverly Place. The opening night is set for Tuesday, August 4 at 7pm.

The American Theatre Wing has announced the return of its acclaimed interview show 'Downstage Center,' back by popular demand. The show returns as a podcast on Monday, August 3 with Tony Award-winner and Billy Elliot star Gregory Jbara.

New Hampshire Theatre Project will hold open auditions for their 2009-2010 professional productions of Edward Albee's Seascape, directed by Blair Hundertmark, and Aristophanes' Lysistrata, adapted and directed by Genevieve Aichele & Meghann Beauchamp.

Albert Schultz, Founding Artistic Director of Soulpepper Theatre Company, today announced that the company's production of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? will run August 29 - October 24, 2009, at the Young Centre for the Performing Arts.

MCC Theater (Robert LuPone, Bernard Telsey, Artistic Directors; William Cantler, Associate Artistic Director; Blake West, Executive Director) has announced casting for two productions of its 2009-10 season.

Florida Studio Theatre extends Willy Russell's Shirley Valentine into a sixth week at the Gompertz Theatre, through August 9, 2009. Shirley Valentine has been a hit with audiences and critics alike. Additional dates and times are Saturday August 1 at 8 PM, Saturday, August 8 at 8 PM & Sunday, August 9 at 3 PM.

The Dramatists Guild of America have announced the winners of their annual awards, which will be distributed at an awards ceremony Monday, November 2, 2009, at The Players Club in New York.

Women's Project, the 32-year-old non-profit theater dedicated to producing plays written and directed by women, will increase main stage production next season by 50%. The theater's board of directors authorized Julie Crosby, producing artistic director, to increase main stage productions from two to three at the company's Julia Miles Theater on West 55th Street.

Tickets will go on sale this Sunday, July 19, 2009 for the first-ever Broadway production of OLEANNA, the provocative drama by Pulitzer Prize winner David Mamet. Direct from a smash hit engagement in Los Angeles, starring Bill Pullman and Julia Stiles and directed by Tony Award winner Doug Hughes, OLEANNA is a gripping account of a power struggle between a male university professor and one of his female students.

The third offering on Vassar & New York Stage and Film's Powerhouse Theater Mainstage this season will be Keith Bunin's funny, sexy, romantic, and moving story Vera Laughed, about a great writer living in exile - with his wife and his mistress. Vera Laughed will open on Wednesday, July 22, and run through Sunday, August 2, at the Powerhouse Theater on the Vassar College campus.

Second Stage Theatre (Carole Rothman, Artistic Director; Ellen Richard, Executive Director) concludes its 30th Anniversary mainstage season with the New York premiere of VANITIES, a new musical written by Jack Heifner, featuring music and lyrics by David Kirshenbaum, directed by Judith Ivey. With musical staging by Dan Knechtges, VANITIES features Lauren Kennedy, Sarah Stiles, and Anneliese van der Pol.

Tickets will go on sale this Sunday, July 19, 2009 for the first-ever Broadway production of OLEANNA, the provocative drama by Pulitzer Prize winner David Mamet. Direct from a smash hit engagement in Los Angeles, starring Bill Pullman and Julia Stiles and directed by Tony Award winner Doug Hughes, OLEANNA is a gripping account of a power struggle between a male university professor and one of his female students.

MadLab Theatre will present The Quintessential Roulette, featuring the best plays from each of the 10 previous Theatre Roulettes, MadLab's annual shorts festival, the longest running such festival in Columbus.

During Arena Stage's 58th season the theater faced the difficult challenges of the economic crisis early on, and after the conclusion of its 2009 fiscal year, Arena reports the books have closed in the black. While the financial success, in the face of such an unpredictable year, is paramount to the strength of Arena and its future, the theater also succeeded on and off the stage this year in numerous, exceptional ways.

Second Stage Theatre (Carole Rothman, Artistic Director; Ellen Richard, Executive Director) will conclude its 30th Anniversary mainstage season with the New York premiere of VANITIES, a new musical written by Jack Heifner, featuring music and lyrics by David Kirshenbaum, directed by Judith Ivey. With musical staging by Dan Knechtges, VANITIES will feature Lauren Kennedy, Sarah Stiles, and Anneliese van der Pol and will begin preview performances on Thursday, July 2. Opening night is Thursday, July 16 at 6:30pm

THE ORPHANS' HOME CYCLE, the world premiere of a three part theatrical event by the late Academy Award and Pulitzer Prize winning playwright Horton Foote, will feature a company of 22 actors under the direction of Michael Wilson. The exciting, sweeping work will be co-produced in the 2009-2010 season by Hartford Stage (Michael Wilson, Artistic Director; Michael Stotts, Managing Director) and Signature Theatre Company (James Houghton, Founding Artistic Director; Erika Mallin, Executive Director).

A nonfiction author, columnist, television personality and former psychotherapist, Meri Wallace's past works include the full-length plays Yom Kippur and Secrets Women Share (both at the MITF.) Among her short plays are: At the Bank (Queens' Players); Saving Carmella and The Match (Where Eagles Dare Short Play Lab); Marta's Spa (Love Creek); Jordan, Save My Brother, and The Boat Man (Accidental Angels Festival); and Jeannie (published in an anthology of short plays for young actors edited by Dr. Roger Ellis).

Edward Albee is generally regarded as America's greatest living playwright. He is also one of its bravest and most versatile, and none of his plays proves this more than the 1975 drama Seascape, presented by The American Century Theater, July 30 through August 22, at the Theater II, Gunston Arts Center, 2700 S. Lang St,, Arlington.