Frances News

Good morning BroadwayWorld! Today's top stories: we have your first look at the cast of Be More Chill, and more!

Casting of Goodspeed Musicals' Cyrano is complete. Film and TV actor Blake Jenner will play Christian. He joins previously announced Emmy and Golden Globe Award-winning actor Peter Dinklage, who will play Cyrano alongside film actress Haley Bennett as Roxanne in this bold new musical.

First Run Features is proud to announce the New York theatrical premiere of The Lost Village, a new documentary directed by Roger Paradiso. The film opens at New York's Cinema Village on October 19, 2018.

Millions of Poldark fans were left heartbroken on Sunday evening when Heida Reed's character Elizabeth Warleggan met her untimely and tragic end in the season finale. After four series as a lead in the much-loved BBC drama, Heida Reed bowed out in a dramatic episode which saw her character Elizabeth die from a concoction taken to induce early labour. As the nation tuned in for the season four finale this week, the emotional scenes saw Poldark fans take to social media in their droves to express their dismay at the shock departure of this popular character.

RANDOM ACTS OF FLYNESS, a new late-night series from artist Terence Nance (“An Oversimplification of Her Beauty”), kicks off its six-episode season this FRIDAY, AUG. 3 (midnight-12:30 a.m. ET/PT), exclusively on HBO, followed by other episodes subsequent Fridays at the same time. The show explores evergreen cultural idioms such as patriarchy, white supremacy and sensuality from a new, thought-provoking perspective.

Today, twenty-one arts leaders and activists announce the launch of Turn The Spotlight, a foundation created to pair top-tier mentors with exceptional women, people of color, and other equity-seeking groups in the arts. Beth Stewart, a New York City-based arts entrepreneur and classical music publicist, will lead the foundation, which is supported by an Advisory Board of arts world luminaries, including soprano Julia Bullock, journalists Anne Midgette and Celeste Headlee, conductors Lidiya Yankovskaya and Nicole Paiement, stage director Francesca Zambello, classical music publicist Mary Lou Falcone, arts advocates Monica Yunus and Camille Zamora, and women's rights advocate Amanda Mejia.

21c Museum will present OFF-SPRING: New Generations, a group exhibition opening at 21c Lexington on August 4. Featuring 37 artists, the exhibition explores the development of personal and group identity through religious, cultural, institutional, and domestic rituals. To mark the opening of the exhibition, 21c Lexington will host a reception on August 4 from 6 - 9 p.m. with remarks by 21c Chief Curator and Museum Director Alice Gray Stites, and a special presentation by and artist Stacey Steers, whose work is featured in OFF-SPRING. This event is free and open to the public.

The Guilty Feminist podcast will join forces with Amnesty International UK to bring The Secret Policeman's Podcast to this year's Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

HISTORY MATTERS/BACK TO THE FUTURE presents an evening of scenes from women's plays of the past, performed by renowned actors April Matthis (Lear; The Sound and the Fury; April Seventh, 1928), Maryann Plunkett (Blue Valentine, The Apple Family Plays) and Jay O. Sanders (Blindspot, The Apple Family Plays) directed by Joan Vail Thorne, founder of History Matters/Back to the Future.

The Oregon Shakespeare Festival will open the U.S. premiere of Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig's Snow in Midsummer, directed by Justin Audibert, on August 5 in the Angus Bowmer Theatre. Preview performances are August 2, 3 and 4, and the play runs through Oct. 27, 2018.

The Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) North Miami will present the exhibition "Tracing the Red Thread," by distinguished South Florida-based artist Mira Lehr, Sept. 6 - Nov. 4, 2018. The multimedia, museum-wide installation will reflect Lehr's eco-feminist philosophy, the concept of mankind working with nature rather than dominating over it. Lehr uses the classical myth of Ariadne to explore the beauty, fragility and interconnectedness of the endangered aquatic ecosystem of the South Florida coast.

The Secret Policeman's Podcast Announced For The 2018 Edinburgh Festival Fringe

Artistic Directors Douglas Aibel and Sarah Stern announce casting for Vineyard Theatre's Developmental Lab production of Tori Sampson's THIS LAND WAS MADE, directed by Whitney White.

It's 1910 and spoilt, lonely Mary Lennox lives a life of luxury in India with her aristocratic parents. But when an unexpected twist of fate suddenly leaves her orphaned, she is sent to live with an unknown uncle in Misselthwaite Manor - a mysterious place - on the wild Yorkshire Moors. With the help of some unexpected friends, Mary sets about discovering the legend of its secret garden.

A classic play by Alan Ayckbourn receives its 40th anniversary production at the Stephen Joseph Theatre this summer.

HISTORY MATTERS/BACK TO THE FUTURE presents an evening of scenes from women's plays of the past, performed by renowned actors April Matthis (Lear; The Sound and the Fury; April Seventh, 1928), Maryann Plunkett (Blue Valentine, The Apple Family Plays) and Jay O. Sanders (Blindspot, The Apple Family Plays) directed by Joan Vail Thorne, founder of History Matters/Back to the Future.

In advance of the 2018-19 Broadway revival of "The Secret Garden," Gulfshore Playhouse Education will present the Tony Award-winning musical as part of the Summer 2018 Teen Conservatory program.

HERE (Kristin Marting, Founding Artistic Director, and Kim Whitener, Executive Director) is proud to announce its 2018-2019 season, which marks the OBIE-winning institution's 26th year of producing of daring new hybrid performance by new artists from all disciplines - theatre, music, art, dance, puppetry, and media art.

The Royal Players of Benton, AR announce the upcoming 2018-2019 season.  Filled with musicals, plays, family entertainment, and thought-provoking content, there is something for everyone in the upcoming season. 

Today, Intiman Theatre announced the casting for its third mainstage production of its 2018 WILD, WICKED, WOKE Season: NATIVE GARDENS by Karen Zacarias, one of the most produced Latina playwrights in the nation. Intiman's production of NATIVE GARDENS will be directed by Seattle-based director Arlene Martinez-Vazquez and will play at The Jones Playhouse from September 6-30, 2018.