Ellen Stewart News

In the midst of the COVID-19 crisis, the Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company is keeping its dancers in shape by conducting regular Company Classes and rehearsals online from Nai-Ni and Company dancer's living rooms using Zoom while inviting intermediate/advanced level dancers around the world to join the class at no cost.

Randy Reinholz (Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma), Producing Artistic Director of Native Voices at the Autry, is stepping down after more than two decades leading America's only Equity theatre company devoted exclusively to developing and producing new work by Native American, Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian, and First Nations playwrights.

Getting on the phone with Albert Poland totally swept me away and into the world we love for a glorious 45 minutes...

Repertorio Español has announced the finalists of The 2020 Miranda Family Voces Latinx Playwriting Competition, an initiative to develop and promote Latinx plays that resonate with and accurately depict the Latinx experience by playwrights of all racial and national backgrounds.

Due to the ongoing health crisis, the traditional in-person event is replaced by an enduring online tribute.

In the midst of the COVID-19 crisis, the Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company is keeping its dancers in shape by conducting regular Company Classes online from Nai-Ni and Company dancer's living rooms using Zoom. After a few weeks, Company members and Nai-Ni invited former dancers of the Company and friends to join through Zoom.

Jun Maeda, the Obie Award-winning designer and resident set designer at La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club (ETC) since 1970, died on Monday, April 6 - three days after his 79th birthday - at Mt. Sinai West Hospital in Manhattan.

The Nominating Committee of the Off Broadway Alliance has announced important dates for the 10th Annual Off Broadway Alliance Awards.

The Global Theater Initiative invites all theatres, individual artists, institutions, and audiences to celebrate the 59th annual World Theatre Day on March 27, 2020. Each year, a renowned theatre artist is invited by the International Theatre Institute Worldwide in Shanghai to craft an international message to mark the global occasion.

Hideki Noda's powerfully dynamic, physically demanding, utterly engaging and thoroughly entertaining works have been seen across the world's stage and now he returns to one of the most significant homes of the underground theatre movement in NYC -- The Ellen Stewart Theater at La MaMa -- in One Green Bottle, playing from February 29-March 8th. The three-person gender-swapping show puts an absurdist spin on the current self-driven, self-obsessed 'selfie' society. One Green Bottle is unmissable, uproariously hysterical and absolutely delightful with depth that lingers long after the last 'one green bottle should accidentally fall...' as the song goes.

La MaMa in association with Concrete Temple Theatre and Playfactory Mabangzen will present the U.S. premiere of THE WAITRESS & THE ROBBER, written by Renee Philippi and directed by Ms. Philippi and Eric Nightengale, with an original score by Lewis Flinn. THE WAITRESS & THE ROBBER begins performances on Thursday, April 9 for a limited engagement through Sunday, April 26. Press Opening is Sunday, April 12 at 3:00 pm. Performances are at the Ellen Stewart Theatre at La MaMa (66 East 4th Street, between Bowery and 2nd Avenue, 2nd Floor). The performance schedule is Thursday - Saturday at 7:00 pm; Sunday at 3:00 pm. Tickets are $25 ($20 for Students/Seniors). To purchase tickets, visit http://lamama.org/waitress-robber/

The Global Theater Initiative (GTI), a partnership between Theatre Communications Group (TCG) and The Laboratory for Performance and Politics (The Lab) at Georgetown University, invites all theatres, individual artists, institutions, and audiences to celebrate the 59th annual World Theatre Day on March 27, 2020. Each year, a renowned theatre artist of world stature is invited by the International Theatre Institute (ITI) Worldwide in Shanghai to craft an international message to mark the global occasion. This year the message has been written by Pakistani playwright Shahid Nadeem. The message has been translated into multiple languages. Read all the World Theatre Day Messages here.

La MaMa, in association with Tokyo Metropolitan Theatre and NODA・MAP, will present the U.S. Premiere of One Green Bottle from February 29 through March 8, 2020 at The Ellen Stewart Theatre, La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club, 66 E. 4th Street, NYC. Performances: Mon and Wed-Sat at 7pm, Sun at 5pm. Tickets are $35 ($30 for students and seniors) plus a $1 facility fee, and are available online at www.lamama.org, by phone at 212-352-3101.

Noche Flamenca, the renowned company founded and led by Artistic Director Martín Santangelo and dancer Soledad Barrio, performs its celebrated dance-theater work Antígona, March 19 a?" April 5 at La MaMa's Ellen Stewart Theatre.

La MaMa presents the New York Premiere of Kinding Sindaw Melayu Heritage's Pananadem (Remembering) from March 12-14, 2020 at 7pm, and March 15, 2020 at 3pm at La MaMa's Ellen Stewart Theatre, 66 E. 4th Street (2nd Floor), NYC. Tickets are $25 for adults and $20 for students and seniors, and can be purchased online at https://web.ovationtix.com/trs/cal/42/1583038800000, by phone at 212-352-3101, or in person at the La MaMa Box Office one hour prior to showtime, 66 East 4th Street, NYC.

La MaMa in association with Allied Productions Inc. presents GENERATOR: Pestilence Part 1, the first of a three-part cycle and the most ambitious live art creation in the 35-year partnership of Jack Waters and Peter Cramer. Known for their challenging and innovative interventions in art and politics, GENERATOR is a homecoming, a return to Waters' and Cramer's theatrical roots at La MaMa where two of their earliest performance works premiered in 1987.

Go ahead a?" take the apple. Founding artistic director Ron Sossi directs a revival of The Serpent by Jean-Claude van Itallie a?" winner of the 1969 Obie award and arguably the most successful ensemble work ever created a?" as part of the Odyssey Theatre Ensemble's 50th Anniversary a?oeCirca '69a?? Season. Sossi previously directed the West Coast premiere exactly 50 years ago, in the spring of 1970, as the second production ever at the then brand-new Odyssey Theatre. The Serpent opens on March 7 at the Odyssey's current home in West L.A., where performances will continue through May 3.

La MaMa will present the New York Premiere of Kinding Sindaw Melayu Heritage's Panandem (Remembering) from March 12-14, 2020 at 7pm, and March 15, 2020 at 3pm at La MaMa's Ellen Stewart Theatre, 66 E. 4th Street (2nd Floor), NYC. Tickets are $25 for adults and $20 for students and seniors, and can be purchased online at https://web.ovationtix.com/trs/cal/42/1583038800000, by phone at 212-352-3101, or in person at the La MaMa Box Office one hour prior to showtime, 66 East 4th Street, NYC.

La MaMa's 58th Season continues to celebrate the centennial of La MaMa's celebrated founder, the late Ellen Stewart with the announcement of its Winter/Spring lineup in its 58th season. The season features dozens of artists, playwrights, choreographers, directors, and award-winning theater companies and composers, including Elizabeth Swados, Anne Bogart, Noche Flamencia, Culture Hub, Hideki Noda/Tokyo Metropolitan Theatre, Nick Payne, En Garde Arts, Split Britches, and more.

Casting has been announced for the upcoming New York City premiere of Leaving the Blues, a new play by Jewelle Gomez, directed by Mark Finley. Rosalind Brown (original Broadway productions of Footloose and One Mo' Time) will play the lead role of Alberta Hunter, the great American jazz singer and songwriter. The cast also features Michael Michele Lynch, Joy Suddath, Cooper Sutton, Benjamin Mapp, Ameerah Briggs, Tsebiyah Mishael Derry and Erik Ransom.