Frances News

Sting's The Last Ship Opened last night at Center Theatre Group/Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles. Those in attendance included Pierce Brosnan, Courteney Cox, Keala Settle, Melanie Griffith and more.

I LOVE WHITE MEN, written and performed by Sim Yan Ying 'YY,' opens Friday, January 24 at Caveat NYC. The production, developed with Renee Yeong (director) and Nicholas Chan (dramaturg), will run through January 26 at the Lower East Side venue.

Mark DeGarmo Dance presents the February 2020 edition of its annual transcultural transdisciplinary Salon Performance Series with performances by Catey Clark, Joan Liu, Jill Moshman, and Frances Rosario-Puleo on February 6th at 7pm in Mark DeGarmo Dance Studio Theater 310. The artists' respective works-in-progress draw on such diverse wellsprings as: the calmness of disaster, boundaries imposed by education, exploring place through sensory memory, and examining the inclusions that form spirals in gemstones.

National YoungArts Foundation (YoungArts) today announced the nominees for the 2020 U.S. Presidential Scholars in the Arts, one of the nation's highest honors for high school students who exemplify academic and artistic excellence. YoungArts is the sole nominating agency for this high honor and the 60 candidates, representing 16 states and nine artistic disciplines, are all YoungArts Winners. The students have been nominated to the U.S. Presidential Scholars Program for their artistic achievement on the heels of the organization's annual signature program, National YoungArts Week, which concluded in Miami on January 12.

Theater for the New City's Emerging Playwrights Program will be beneficiary of the theater's 17th Annual Love 'n Courage benefit Monday, February 24, 2020 at The Players, 16 Gramercy Park South. The evening honors James Rado, the Tony and Grammy Award winning, actor, playwright, composer and co-author of the musical 'Hair.'

HBO Max announced today it will be crowning The Prince, created by Gary Janetti (Family Guy, Will & Grace), as the latest animated comedy series order for the streamer. The series is inspired by Janetti's hilarious Instagram account which has nearly one million followers and has garnered international media attention for its satire of British Royals through the eyes of a young Prince George, eldest child of Prince William and Princess Kate. Janetti will star in the series as Prince George alongside the voice talents of Orlando Bloom as Prince Harry, Condola Rashad as Meghan Markle, Lucy Punch as Kate Middleton, Tom Hollander as both Prince Philip and Prince Charles, Alan Cumming as George's butler Owen, Frances De La Tour as Queen Elizabeth, and Iwan Rheon as Prince William.

Urban Stages (Frances Hill, Founding Artistic Director) will begin 2020 with The Tourist Trap plays. Seven playwrights have been challenged to write a brand spanking new short play using a tourist trap (Mount Rushmore, Hollywood Sign, etc) as a springboard. This will be the ninth installment of short play premieres under Urban Stages New Pages' facilitated by Bara Swain. The program provides increased visibility and networking opportunities to playwrights at all career levels as well as free public programming.

When James Rado, Gerome Ragney and Galt MacDermot''s musical Hair debuted in 1967 and transferred to Broadway a year later, they made history.

Every Tuesday night, four volunteers gather in a drab branch of Brightline taking phone calls from strangers facing hardship. Outside, the world is falling apart. As they try to help the callers, they attempt to conceal their anxieties and fears while trying to deal with their own personal catastrophes.

The Producers Guild of America (PGA) hosted the 31st Annual Producers Guild Awards on the evening of Saturday, January 18 at the Hollywood Palladium. A full list of winners is below.

Today, the Producers Guild of America announced presenters and a first-time red carpet livestream. In collaboration with YouTube Originals, the livestream event will be available exclusively on Entertainment Tonight's YouTube channel for the 2020 Producers Guild Awards being held Saturday, January 18 at the Hollywood Palladium. To date, the list of presenters includes: Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin, Melissa McCarthy, Ben Falcone, Frances McDormand, Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Taika Waititi, Kate Beckinsale, Don Johnson, Laura Dern, Greta Gerwig, Caitriona Balfe, Zazie Beetz, Choi Woo-shik, Constance Wu, Jared Harris, Rachel Brosnahan, Eva Longoria, Billy Eichner, Nick Kroll, Zoey Deutch, Kaitlyn Dever, Yayha Abdul-Mateen II, Judith Light.

The International Committee of The League of Professional Theatre Women (Shellen Lubin and Catherine Porter, Co-Presidents), an organization which has been championing women in the professional theatre for over three decades, is pleased to announce that Hanane Hajj Ali of Lebanon has been chosen to receive the 2020 Gilder/Coigney International Theatre Award.

An evening of music and comedy in aid of the victims of the Australian bushfires, hosted by Deborah Frances-White of The Guilty Feminist podcast. Two hours of entertainment, featuring the best of London's stand-up scene and the glittering West End.

Outcry Youth Theatre's magical production of The Secret Garden runs 10 performances, January 17-26 at the Addison Theatre Centre's Studio Theatre. Several performances of this family friendly show are already sold out, so buy your tickets today!

New adaptations of The Suicide and Miss Julie and Jessica Swale's acclaimed drama Blue Stockings will be staged at Storyhouse in Chester this spring as the venue continues its Season 11 of drama.

Production photos and footage have just been released of Sting's musical, THE LAST SHIP. The national tour of THE LAST SHIP is now playing in Los Angeles at Center Theatre Group's Ahmanson Theatre through February 16 followed by engagements at the Golden Gate Theatre in San Francisco, Washington D.C. at the National Theatre; St. Paul, MN at the Ordway and Detroit, MI at the Detroit Opera House.

Different Stages continues its 2019 - 2020 season with the premier of Rita Anderson's Gliders. In the summer of 1969, three generations of seemingly ordinary women begin to uncover secrets about themselves even as the extraordinary events of the Apollo 11 mission unfold overhead. With space flight on their minds, five women struggle to break free of the expectations and obstacles that confront them on earth. It will take every ounce of courage they have to bust through the atmosphere that contains them. Gliders is a magical exploration of what it feels like to be lost in space in a changing world as the cast 'glides' into and out of reality--and the present. '(S)he who does not know history is condemned to repeat it.'

The Wizard of Oz Arena Spectacular will embark on a tour of Australian, kicking off at the Qudos Bank Arena on Saturday 25th January 2020 for two shows only.

Twenty years ago, Choreographer and Artistic Director Julie Ludwick teamed up with dancer and Assistant Director Janet Aisawa to found Fly-by-Night Dance Theater, Inc., a Modern Dance company that embraces low-flying Aerial Dance. Together they have created a repertory based on the philosophies of Joan Skinner and Robert Davidson that has expanded the expressive possibilities of Aerial Dance.

Berkeley Repertory Theatre today announced the theatre company has been approved for a $50,000 Art Works grant to support The Ground Floor: Berkeley Rep's Center for the Creation and Development of New Work. Overall, the National Endowment for the Arts has approved 1,187 grants totaling $27.3 million in the first round of fiscal year 2020 funding to support arts projects in every state in the nation, as well as the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico.