Elizabeth Swados News

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New Your City Center's Encores! Off-Center series is back and better than ever! The series will kick off the 2016 season with Runaways through July 9th. RUNAWAYS is set in 1977 when Liz Swados spent several months observing and interviewing childRunaways before shaping their stories, fears, and fantasies into a musical. A deeply unconventional work in its day, Runaways feels like the funkiest, most heartbreaking mixtape ever to come out of a 1970s boom box, packed with reggae anthems, hip-hop, soul-food lullabies, and spoken-word poetry. The Encores! Off-Center production will honor a theater visionary who was ferocious, inspiring, and left us far too soon.

Executive Producer Aaron Grant has announced that American Idol Finalist Ace Young will star in the new musical SINGLE as part of the New York Musical Festival.

New Your City Center's Encores! Off-Center series is back and better than ever! The series will kick off the 2016 season with Runaways from July 6-9th. RUNAWAYS is set in 1977 when Liz Swados spent several months observing and interviewing child Runaways before shaping their stories, fears, and fantasies into a musical. A deeply unconventional work in its day, Runaways feels like the funkiest, most heartbreaking mixtape ever to come out of a 1970s boom box, packed with reggae anthems, hip-hop, soul-food lullabies, and spoken-word poetry. The Encores! Off-Center production will honor a theater visionary who was ferocious, inspiring, and left us far too soon.

The Off Broadway Alliance, the organization of Off Broadway producers, theaters, general managers, press agents and marketing professionals, presented the 6th annual Off Broadway Alliance Awards on June 21st at Sardi's, honoring outstanding achievement in Off Broadway theatre for the 2015 - 2016 season. Honorees were on hand to receive their awards and Anne Jackson & Eli Wallach, Anne Meara, and Elizabeth Swados were posthumously inducted into the Off Broadway Hall of Fame. Scroll down for photos from the event!

The Archives of La MaMa just launched La MaMa's Digital Collections Website (catalog.lamama.org). Its development was made possible by a generous 'hidden archival collections' grant from the Council on Library and Information Resources. The site, which premieres on June 27, 2016 as part of La MaMa's 55th anniversary season, is freely available for use by artists, scholars, educators, and the interested public. Scroll down for a sneak peek at the collection!

The Flea Theater's Artistic Director Niegel Smith and Producing Director Carol Ostrow the fall 2016 season, which will include an A.R. Gurney World Premiere and a new look at the Greeks by Ellen McLaughlin.

New Your City Center's Encores! Off-Center series is back and better than ever! The series will present RUNAWAYS from July 6-9th. Before the production goes up, BroadwayWorld has your first look behind the scenes at rehearsals this past weekend. 

The York Theatre Company (James Morgan, Producing Artistic Director; Evans Haile, Interim Executive Director; David McCoy, Chairman of the Board), as part of The York Theatre's Musical Theatre Training Program, and in association with Rosita Sarnoff andCraig Zehms, presents The Marymount Manhattan College Student Workshop Presentation of Nightclub Cantata  with music by Elizabeth Swados and words by Swados and David Avidan, Nazim Hikmet, Nancy Larrick, Isabella Leitner, Eve Merriam, Pablo Neruda, Frank O'Hara, Sylvia Plath, Muriel Rukeyser, and Delmore Schwartz, at The York Theatre Company at Saint Peter's (619 Lexington Avenue, entrance on East 54th Street, just East of Lexington Avenue). 

Where better to escape the New York City heat than in the comfort of a theatre? Below, we're rounding up some of the hottest shows of the summer- brought to you by The New York City Spectacular!

Academy Award nominee and soon-to-be Broadway lead Diane Lane has committed $20,000 towards a four-year, $5,000 annual grant for NYC-based female educators vested in music in honor of composer Elizabeth Swados.

New York City Center today announced the cast of the Encores! Off-Center production of Runaways, Elizabeth Swados' landmark musical about the stories, fears, and fantasies of runaway children. Cast largely from an open call attended by over 300 teenagers of 'all ethnicities, body types, gender identification, and ability levels,' the 'wolfpack' of 25, as director Sam Pinkleton affectionately calls them, embody the ferocious kinetic energy of today's New York-just as the original cast reflected the New York of 1978.

The Off Broadway Alliance, the organization of Off Broadway producers, theaters, general managers, press agents, and marketing professionals, today announced the winners of the 6th Annual Off Broadway Alliance Awards, honoring commercial and not-for-profit Off Broadway productions that opened during the 2015-2016 season.

The Off Broadway Alliance, the organization of Off Broadway producers, theaters, general managers, press agents, and marketing professionals, has announced the nominees for the 6th Annual Off Broadway Alliance Awards, honoring commercial and not-for-profit productions that opened Off Broadway during the 2015-2016 season.

The Flea Theater is excited to welcome playwright Sarah Gancher with the world premiere of THE PLACE WE BUILT. Artistic Associate Danya Taymor (My Daughter Keeps Our Hammer, I Hate Mexicans) directs members of The Bats, The Flea's resident acting company, with music direction and arrangements by The Bengsons. Previews start tonight, April 14th, with opening night slated for April 25th.

Roundabout Theatre Company (Todd Haimes, Artistic Director) has just announced Academy Award nominee Diane Lane will return to Broadway to play 'Ranevskaya' in a new production of The Cherry Orchard. Ms. Lane made her Broadway debut as a child, in the 1977 revival of The Cherry Orchard.

Adam Rapp's WOLF IN THE RIVER, an impressionistic glimpse into the poetry of broken people, will now run through May 16. Written and directed by Adam Rapp, featuring members of The Bats, The Flea's resident acting company.

The Flea Theater is excited to welcome playwright Sarah Gancher with the world premiere of THE PLACE WE BUILT. Artistic Associate Danya Taymor (My Daughter Keeps Our Hammer, I Hate Mexicans) directs members of The Bats, The Flea's resident acting company, with music direction and arrangements by The Bengsons. Previews start April 14th, with opening night slated for April 25th.

Want to be in an Encores! production? This is your chance! New York City Center will hold an open audition for teen actors (ages 13-18) on Saturday, March 19, at Talent Unlimited High School (317 East 67th Street) for the Encores! Off-Center production of Runaways-Elizabeth Swados' landmark 1978 musical about the stories, fears, and fantasies of young people living on the streets.

WAITRESS, which begins performances at the Brooks Atkinson on March 25th, is making history! It will be the first show in Broadway history to have four top creative spots in a show filled by four separate women. The team includes music and lyrics by Sara Barellies, book by Jessie Nelson, choreography by Lorin Latarrom and direction by Diane Paulus. While this is definitely a landmark, other Broadway shows have had a significant number of female creatives, or a completely female creative team - driven by one person! So embrace your inner girl power, and celebrate the amazing female driven shows that came before!