Frances News

Genesian Theatre starts off its 2018 season with David Williamson's TRAVELLING NORTH, a middle class story of finding love, moving on and getting older. 

Producers Gerald Goehring and Michael F. Mitri announced today that the highly anticipated, first-ever Broadway revival of the Tony Award-winning musical, The Secret Garden, will open next season. With book and lyrics by Tony Award winner Marsha Norman and music by Tony Award nominee Lucy Simon, The Secret Garden will be directed, choreographed, and reimagined for a new generation by Tony Award winner Warren Carlyle.

The renowned Frog & Peach Theatre Company follows up their record breaking Sheen Center debut of 2017's Macbeth with A Midsummer Night's Dream. William Shakespeare's rollicking romp of romance, wizardry, and show biz. The production opened on February 1 and runs through February 25 at The Sheen Center Black Box Theatre.

UCSB's Department of Theater and Dance presents The World of Extreme Happiness, a play by faculty member and award-winning playwright Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig. The World of Extreme Happiness opens February 16 and runs through February 25 in the Performing Arts Theater. This moving tragedy about the complexities of human nature set in present-day China comes to life under the direction of Daniel Stein.

World-renowned psychic medium Lisa Williams will present two mediumship demonstrations and teach a workshop for all aspiring mediums at the April 7 and 8 Victory of Light (VOL) Psychic Expo at the Sharonville Convention Center in Cincinnati, Ohio.

The Traverse Theatre is excited to announce two new creative appointments for 2018, which see the theatre continue to support and champion woman writers in developing a piece of work from first spark to finished script. Both appointments will result in the completion of a new full-length play.

Gioachino Rossini's laugh-out-loud romantic comedy returns to Opera Santa Barbara for the first time since 2001. The Barber of Seville has been entertaining audiences for more than 200 years with its outrageous stage antics and vocal acrobatics. Featuring some of opera's most recognizable tunes, audiences are sure to leave the theater singing Figaro, Figaro, Fiiiiiii-garo!

The Cincinnati Arts Association (CAA) is proud to present the 2018 Overture Awards Finals Competition. The Overture Awards provides $4,000 to six area high school students for education and training expenses, with eighteen finalists each winning $1,000. The program also provides a $2,500 Arts Educator Award for Excellence in Arts Instruction.

THE SECRET GARDEN by Paul Ledoux, adapted from the novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett. Directed by Allen MacInnis. Featuring Simon Bracken, Vivien Endicott-Douglas, Natalia Gracious, Dan Lett, Sarah Mennell, Jake Runeckles and Benjamin Sutherland.

According to Deadline, the SAG Awards have set the date for the 2019 awards ceremony on TNT and TBS. The show will be held on Sunday, January 27, 2019. Read more about it from Deadline here!

Oz Creator Tom Fontana's Screenplay By Stalin, Directed by Laura Savia, Follows Two Writers Burdened with Creating the Screenplay of Stalin's Life, Monday, January 29, 2018

On last night's Tonight Show, Jimmy Fallon and his guest Sarah Jessica Parker perform a romantic scene they've written together using Mad Lib words. Watch the hilarious clip below!

Dirty Dancing - The Classic Story on Stage is an unprecedented live experience, exploding with heart-pounding music, passionate romance and sensational dancing. Seen by millions across the globe, this timeless love story features the hit songs "Hungry Eyes," "Hey Baby," "Do You Love Me?" and the heart-stopping "(I've Had) the Time of My Life." The dazzling new production will make its way to The McCallum Theatre for five performances, Friday, February 16, through Sunday, February 18.

AARP The Magazine's 17th Annual Movies for Grownups® Awards were held tonight at the Beverly Wilshire, Beverly Hills, celebrating 2017's standout films with unique appeal to movie lovers with a grownup state of mind and recognizing the inspiring artists who make them. Co-produced by the Great Performances series, the awards will be broadcast for the first time on Friday, February 23 at 9 p.m. on PBS, (check local listings), pbs.org/gperf and PBS apps.

On Family Day, Monday, February 19, Young People's Theatre (YPT) will be a hive of activity from top to bottom floors, with a performance of the children's classic The Secret Garden, two performances of the award-winning show for babies, One Thing Leads to Another - PLUS Family Workshops, FREE tours and drop-in activities!

Lena Hall-helmed musical film Becks held its premiere last night, February 5, 2018. Becks is being released this Friday, February 9th in select cities across the country and VOD. It won this year's LA Film Festival and is Lena Hall's feature film debut in the lead role starring alongside Mena Suvari, Christine Lahti and Dan Fogler.

In response to popular demand, Soho Rep. (Sarah Benson, Artistic Director; Cynthia Flowers, Executive Director) extends the world premiere of Aleshea Harris's Relentless Award-winning Is God Is, directed by Taibi Magar by two weeks, through March 25. In this play, which dauntlessly cracks jokes as it eviscerates, twin sisters Anaia (Alfie Fuller) and Racine (Dame-Jasmine Hughes) undertake a murderous journey from the Dirty South to the California desert, seeking payback for a horrendous act. Is God Is treats both morality and genre as notions to be exploded, drawing on the ancient, the modern, the tragic, the Spaghetti Western, hip-hop and Afropunk in its subversion of theatrical constructs.

The World Science Festival and Con Edison are pleased to announce that City of Science, the touring mini-metropolis of mind-expanding demonstrations and hands-on activities for families, comes to the Bronx on Sunday, March 11.

Perhaps the most iconic moment of last night's Super Bowl was the the epic Dirty Dancing commercial featuring NFL's Eli Manning and Odell Beckham, Jr.

When playwright Ernest Thompson was growing up, he and his family summered at a lakefront cabin in Maine. That special place was the inspiration for On Golden Pond, his lots extraordinarily popular, bittersweet play about love and aging, recrimination and reconciliation.