Estelle Parsons News

Melvin Bernhardt, director of two Pulitzer Prize-winning plays and Tony winner for DA, died on Saturday, September 12, 2015. He was 84.

REELING, the second-oldest LGBTQ+ film festival in the world and a beloved Chicago cultural institution for more than 30 years, features a host of events of interest to the theater community. GREY GARDENS Tony Award winner Mary Louise Wilson will be present for the Chicago premiere of SHE'S THE BEST THING IN IT, a documentary about Wilson also featuring Frances McDormand, Melissa Leo, Tyne Daly, Estelle Parsons, Valerie Harper and Charlotte Rae.

To kick off its 21st Season and celebrate the world of William Shakespeare, Frog & Peach Theatre Company will host a Benefit Gala NATURAL MAGIC on Thursday, September 24 at 7pm at the Greenwich House Music School (46 Barrow Street) to raise funds for the company (which includes free and subsidized tickets for NYC public school students).

Gloucester Stage proudly presents the New England Premiere of Israel Horovitz's Gloucester Blue from September 17 through October 3 at 267 East Main Street, Gloucester, MA.

Old Log Theatre's 2015/16 season opens with the regional premiere of Eric Coble's new dramatic comedy THE VELOCITY OF AUTUMN. This two person play takes place in a simple Brooklyn brownstone; 79-year-old Alexandra lives a solitary existence with her fleeting memories and is at an impasse with her family over how she should spend her autumn years.  Alexandra's long-absent son enters as a most unlikely mediator, to try and save his mother's life as much as his own. Funny and sweet, aching and revelatory, this perceptive play reveals both the fragility and ferocity of life.

Come to class with Las Vegas' most notorious teacher, Miss Margarida! Table 8 Productions presents MISS MARGARIDA'S WAY Oct. 22-25 at Troesh Studio Theater at The Smith Center for the Performing Arts. The limited engagement stars Las Vegas local Annette Houlihan Verdolino as the tyrannical eighth-grade teacher Miss Margarida in the first professional production of the critically acclaimed play to be staged in 25 years. Tickets are on sale now and are available in person at The Smith Center box office, by calling 702.749.2000 or by visiting www.TheSmithCenter.com.

REELING, the second-oldest LGBTQ+ film festival in the world and a beloved Chicago cultural institution for more than 30 years, features a host of events of interest to the theater community. GREY GARDENS Tony Award winner Mary Louise Wilson will be present for the Chicago premiere of SHE'S THE BEST THING IN IT, a documentary about Wilson also featuring Frances McDormand, Melissa Leo, Tyne Daly, Estelle Parsons, Valerie Harper and Charlotte Rae.

Kaliyuga Arts and Bridge Street Theatre present THE KILLING and THE LOVE DEATH, Two Short Plays by William Inge, tonight, August 14, through August 23, 2015.

With over 50 million copies sold worldwide, John Gray's 1992 NY Times Best-Seller, Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus is one of the most read self-help books in the world, helping men and women enrich their personal relationships. Celebrated playwright Eric Coble (Broadway's The Velocity of Autumn) has adapted Gray's principles into a hysterical and inspiring night of theatre called … Men are from Mars -- Woman are from Venus LIVE!  

Old Log Theatre's 2015/16 season opens with the regional premiere of Eric Coble's new dramatic comedy THE VELOCITY OF AUTUMN. This two person play takes place in a simple Brooklyn brownstone; 79-year-old Alexandra lives a solitary existence with her fleeting memories and is at an impasse with her family over how she should spend her autumn years.  Alexandra's long-absent son enters as a most unlikely mediator, to try and save his mother's life as much as his own. Funny and sweet, aching and revelatory, this perceptive play reveals both the fragility and ferocity of life.

Today, in an excerpt from The O'Neill: Transformation of Modern American Theater, we hear from Manhattan Theatre Club Executive Producer Barry Grove who cites his semester away at NTI for 'literally changing the arc of my life - it led to Broadway, the National Playwrights Conference, my Equity card as a Stage Manager, the RSC with the infant Shakespeare & Co, a national tour launch, and a summer stock tour - all before I graduated from Dartmouth!'

Kaliyuga Arts and Bridge Street Theatre present THE KILLING and THE LOVE DEATH, Two Short Plays by William Inge, August 14-23, 2015.

Small-town life is anything but a picnic in William Inge's newly discovered, previously unproduced play OFF THE MAIN ROAD currently receiving its decades-delayed world premiere at the Williamstown Theatre Festival in the Berkshires. This dense and diffuse melodrama meanders through a forest of darkness and despair only to return its three generations of hapless women back to the starting point with little to show for their travels.

Mary Louise Wilson has been a luminary force in the theatre world for nearly five decades. The veteran actor's performances have ranged from a Tony Award-winning portrayal of Edith Bouvier Beale in Grey Gardens to a Drama Desk Award-winning role as legendary Vogue editor Diana Vreeland in Full Gallop, which she co-authored with Mark Hampton. But she hasn't limited her talents to the stage. Wilson's astonishing resume also features roles on Louis C.K.'s award-winning television show Louie, Amazon's recent hit Mozart in the Jungle, and the Academy Award nominated film Nebraska. The biting wit and brutal honesty that Wilson brings to her many outstanding performances is once again illuminated in her forthcoming memoir MY FIRST HUNDRED YEARS IN SHOW BUSINESS (Published by The Overlook Press / Hardcover / $28.95 / ISBN: 978-1-4683-1085-6 / Publication Date: July 13, 2015).

Mary Louise Wilson has been a luminary force in the theatre world for nearly five decades. The veteran actor's performances have ranged from a Tony Award-winning portrayal of Edith Bouvier Beale in Grey Gardens to a Drama Desk Award-winning role as legendary Vogue editor Diana Vreeland in Full Gallop, which she co-authored with Mark Hampton. But she hasn't limited her talents to the stage. Wilson's astonishing resume also features roles on Louis C.K.'s award-winning television show Louie, Amazon's recent hit Mozart in the Jungle, and the Academy Award nominated film Nebraska. The biting wit and brutal honesty that Wilson brings to her many outstanding performances is once again illuminated in her forthcoming memoir MY FIRST HUNDRED YEARS IN SHOW BUSINESS (Published by The Overlook Press / Hardcover / $28.95 / ISBN: 978-1-4683-1085-6 / Publication Date: July 13, 2015).

Williamstown Theatre Festival presents the first Main Stage production of its 61st season, OFF THE MAIN ROAD, featuring Golden Globe and Emmy Award-winner Kyra Sedgwick in the World Premiere of a play by Pulitzer Prize-winner William Inge. Performances begin tonight, June 30.

 Williamstown Theatre Festival (Mandy Greenfield, Artistic Director) kicked-off rehearsals for the first two productions of its 61stseason. Rehearsals are in full swing for the first two shows, Off the Main Road on the Main Stage, featuring Golden Globe and Emmy Award-winner Kyra Sedgwick in the World Premiere of a play by Pulitzer Prize-winner William Inge, and Legacy 0n the Nikos Stage, with Tony Award nominee Jessica Hecht and Drama Desk Award-winner Eric Bogosian in Daniel Goldfarb's World Premiere. Both casts arrive in the Berkshires ahead of performances that begin on June 30.

An invitation-only reading of the new musical Amandine, featuring a book and lyrics by Winter Miller and music and lyrics by Lance Horne, will be presented on May 28, directed by Outer Critics Circle Award nominee Markus Potter.  The evening will feature the talents of Tony Award nominees Daphne Rubin-Vega (Rent) and Elizabeth A. Davis (Once), along with Nick Blaemire (Found), Erin Markey (Erin Markey at Joe's Pub with Kenny Mellman), John Kelly (James Joyce's The Dead), and Romain Fruge (Threepenny Opera).

79 year-old Alexandra has pretty much had it with her kids - well, at least two of them.  She's a feisty artist, willing to make a stand and she's rigged her second story brownstone in Brooklyn with homemade Molotov cocktails to try and force her kids to recognize that she's still capable of living on her own.  She'd rather blow up the whole block than move into some kind of 'assisted living facility'.

79 year-old Alexandra has pretty much had it with her kids - well, at least two of them.  She's a feisty artist, willing to make a stand and she's rigged her second story brownstone in Brooklyn with homemade Molotov cocktails to try and force her kids to recognize that she's still capable of living on her own.  She'd rather blow up the whole block than move into some kind of "assisted living facility".