Emily Shackelford News

Music Theater Heritage, the professional theater in residence at Crown Center, has announced the cast and creative team for Stephen Schwartz’s GODSPELL. This is the first time a Stephen Schwartz musical has been presented in the theater’s 22 seasons.

All new photos have been released from IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE: a live radio play at Music Theater Heritage.

Music Theater Heritage, the professional theater in residence at Crown Center, has announced casting for its holiday production It's A Wonderful Life: a live radio play. The production is directed by MTH Artistic Associate Emily Shackelford.

Kansas City Repertory Theatre opens its 60th Anniversary 2023-24 season with the timeless passionate tour-de-force, Cyrano de Bergerac, written by Edmond Rostand, freely adapted by Martin Crimp and directed by Associate Artistic Director Nelson T. Eusebio III. Performances run September 5 through 24, 2023, at Spencer Theatre.   

Kansas City Repertory Theatre kicks off its 60th Anniversary Season with the timeless classic Cyrano de Bergerac. Get all the details on the cast and performance dates here.

In perhaps its most ambitious season to date, Music Theater Heritage has announced bold and imaginative programming for its 2024 season. Utilizing three different venues, MTH's 22nd Season highlights stories that orbit around the power of love and the lengths we take to protect it. The season includes Tony Award winners, re-imaginings, original concert productions, and represents some of the most celebrated dramatists, composers, and songwriters of the 20th century. 

Part of the fun of live theater is revisiting favorite materials and seeing how new directors and new actors re-interpret the material.  Often, the resulting production is only peripherally connected to the original show.  One example of this phenomenon is “Gypsy: A Musical Fable,” often called the greatest musical play of all time. 

Music Theater Heritage has announced the cast and creatives for its summer production of Gypsy. Famously one of Stephen Sondheim’s earliest works, Gypsy features a book by Arthur Laurents, music by Jule Styne and lyrics by Sondheim. It is based on the memoirs of burlesque performer Gypsy Rose Lee.

Music Theater Heritage has announced the cast and creatives for its upcoming production of The Secret Garden. Based on the classic novel, The Secret Garden is a compelling tale of forgiveness and renewal, with haunting melodies and a glorious score.

The production is directed and choreographed by MTH Artistic Associate Emily Shackelford, making her professional directing debut. The talented six-person ensemble features Chelcie Abercrombie, Taylor Avazpour, Valerie Chamberlain, Arthur Clifford, Catera Combs, and Douglass Walker.

San Diego Junior Theatre, the nation's longest-running youth theatre program, opens its 75th Anniversary Season with The SpongeBob Musical!

Music Theater Heritage has released the first look at its regional premiere of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s SONG & DANCE. The production is led by Emily Shackelford and directed by Jessalyn Kincaid with choreography by Caroline Dahm. The elusive musical features one act told entirely through “Song” and the other told entirely through “Dance.”

Music Theater Heritage has announced the cast and creative team for the second production of its 2022 Season, the regional premiere of Andrew Lloyd Webber's SONG & DANCE. The production is led by Emily Shackelford, who last appeared at MTH in its record-setting production of CATS in 2018. SONG & DANCE is directed by Jessalyn Kincaid and Linnaia McKenzie with choreography by Caroline Dahm.

LIFE SUCKS now playing at Cygnet Theatre through Feb 27th is a new take on a theatre classic; it's Uncle Vanya with a modern comedic twist.

San Diego Junior Theatre will present A Year with Frog and Toad, the first show of its 74th Season. A Year with Frog and Toad is the touching story of two unlikely friends, the cheerful Frog, and curmudgeonly Toad.

Syracuse Stage along with the Syracuse Department of Drama brings a captivating and raw production of Sarah DeLappe's The Wolves under the impressive direction of Melissa Rain Anderson. The production features numerous Syracuse University student actors along with members of the Actors' Equity Association as they bring the Pulitzer Prize nominated drama about nine young women soccer players to life with such immense intensity and talent. The production is intense, chilling, and brilliant.

The Syracuse Stage season continues with the critically acclaimed 'The Wolves,' Sarah DeLappe's Pulitzer Prize nominated drama about nine young women soccer players. Co-produced with the Syracuse University Department of Drama and directed by Melissa Rain Anderson, 'The Wolves' runs Jan. 22 - Feb. 16 in the Storch Theatre at the Syracuse Stage/SU Drama Complex, 820 E. Genesee St., Syracuse.

Most Midwesterners older than a certain age have heard the name and may even know how young Buddy Holly died.  Some fans know exactly where they were and from whom they heard the news.  Many fewer know much about Buddy's backstory.   That hole in the history in early Rock and Roll is plugged by the new production of "Buddy … The Buddy Holly Story" at New Theater Restaurant in Overland Park now through July 7.

Indecent is about the power of theater to dazzle and uplift. Playwright Vogel has discussed plays that make the hair stand up on her neck. That is exactly what Indecent does: makes the hairs stand up on the back of the neck, and we may be at a loss to explain.

Paula Vogel's 2015 play Indecent, in a production now arrived at Center Stage after stops at D.C.'s Arena Stage and the Kansas City Rep, is a staggering tour de force of playwriting prowess that is also a tour of a largely forgotten world: international Yiddish theater shortly after the turn of the last century. A play about a play about a play, it follows Sholem Asch's God of Vengeance on a circular path, from Lodz, Poland in 1906 to Warsaw, to various stages in Europe, through Ellis Island and various New York theaters, culminating with an abortive stay on Broadway, and thence back to Lodz once more, at the peak of the Holocaust. And then, in a sort of coda, it concludes in Connecticut with the last days of Mr. Asch. All these parts are contained within an initial framing device in which, like Pseudolus in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, a stage manager named Lemml (Ben Cherry), introduces the players and musicians, apparently members of a turn-of-the-century Yiddish theater troupe, and identifies the kinds of parts they will play (like male and female Ingenues). Everything that follows, i.e. a play about presenting a play, is presented as a play performed by this troupe.