Goodman Theatre News

The UC San Diego Department of Theatre and Dance presents A Great Day in November on the Banks of the Greatest of the Great Lakes by Kate Benson, directed by Vanessa Stalling.

Raven Theatre is pleased to continue its 2018-19 season with Paula Vogel's Pulitzer Prize-winning masterpiece HOW I LEARNED TO DRIVE, directed by Artistic Director Cody Estle. This artful, surprising and often-funny memory play that explores how we are shaped by the people who hurt us will play February 7 - March 24, 2019 on Raven's 99-seat East Stage, 6157 N. Clark St. (at Granville) in Chicago

The Brown/Trinity Rep MFA Program presents its December thesis show, tick, tick…BOOM!, directed and choreographed by Ken-Matt Martin, a third year student in the Brown/Trinity Rep MFA Directing program. Written by Jonathan Larson, the Pulitzer Prize- and Tony Award-winning composer of Rent, this rock musical set in 1990 New York City tells the story of an aspiring theater composer, as he is forced to reevaluate his passions and decide whether he should keep pursuing his dream or give it all up for a stable career. Performances run November 29 through December 9 at the Pell Chafee Performance Center, 87 Empire St., Downtown Providence. General admission is $15 with a discounted price of $10 for seniors and $7 for students. Tickets are on sale now at Trinity Rep's box office, by phone (401) 351-4242, or online at www.TrinityRep.com.

Town Hall Theatre "Lost & Found" Season 2018/19 continues with our holiday offering: the West Coast Premiere of GREAT EXPECTATIONS, an adventure-packed adaptation of the classic Dickens' coming-of-age story by Gale Childs Daly. GREAT EXPECTATIONS will have 12 performances, including two previews, November 29 through December 16, 2018, at Town Hall Theatre Company, 3535 School Street, in Lafayette, CA. Tickets are $18 - $30, and are available through the Box Office at (925) 283-1557 or online at www.TownHallTheatre.com.

Join Keen Company for the first public reading of three new plays, developed through the Keen Playwrights Lab. The 2018 Playwrights Lab features playwrights Kia Corthron, Rinne Groff, and Edwin Sanchez. Tickets are FREE and open to the pubic! Space is limited, so reservations are a must.

The UC San Diego Department of Theatre and Dance presents A Great Day in November on the Banks of the Greatest of the Great Lakes by Kate Benson, directed by Vanessa Stalling.

Producer Scott Rudin announced today that Tony Award nominee Kristine Nielsen will complete the starry cast of Gary: A Sequel to Titus Andronicus, the new comedy by Pulitzer Prize finalist and MacArthur Fellow Taylor Mac, joining the previously announced three-time Tony Award winner Nathan Lane and two-time Tony Award winner Andrea Martin. Directed by five-time Tony Award winner George C. Wolfe, Gary is set just after the blood-soaked conclusion of William Shakespeare's first tragedy, Titus Andronicus.

There's just one month left to vote for the 2018 BroadwayWorld Chicago Awards, brought to you by BroadwayHD! Nominations were reader-submitted and now our readers are already setting records as they vote for their favorites. Regional productions, touring shows, and more are all included in the awards, honoring productions which opened between October 1, 2017 through September 30, 2018. Our local editors set the categories, our readers submitted their nominees, and now you get to vote for your favorites! Voting will continue through December 31st, 2018.

As usual, Mixed Blood Theatre is doing something pretty remarkable right now. They're presenting three plays in rep, all written by young black men. Under the umbrella 'Prescient Harbingers' (meaning: 'having or showing knowledge of events before they take place;' 'a person or thing that announces or signals the approach of another'), these three brilliant plays explore what it means to be a black man in America, directly or indirectly (one is even subtitled BEING BLACK FOR DUMMIES), along with commenting on race relations in America and more generally on modern life in America. Young black men are dying at an alarming rate, and these are voices we need to listen to if we ever hope to understand the problem so that we can stop it from happening. If you are a young black man, I can only imagine how validating it must feel to see these voices and these stories on stage. If you're not, I encourage you to go see one, two, or preferably all three of these plays with an open mind and an open heart. Listen, hear, laugh, cry, be disturbed, get angry, join the movement for justice and equality.

'Scrooge? I have to redeem old Scrooge? The one man I knew who was worse than I was? Impossible!'  

More than 1.5 million people have experienced Goodman Theatre's family-favorite, A Christmas Carol, 'one of Chicago's treasured Christmas traditions' (Theatermania), now returning for the 41st year. Under Artistic Associate Henry Wishcamper's direction for the sixth year, the annual production 'remains the greatest seasonal story of all' (Chicago Tribune) and features Chicago actor Larry Yando, who leads the 26-member cast as the irascible businessman Ebenezer Scrooge. Joining Yando is Paris Strickland, who reprises her role as Tiny Tim for the second year. One Christmas Eve, Scrooge is visited by four ghosts who take him on a spectacular adventure through his past, present and future, helping him rediscover the joys of life, love and friendship. 

Director Linda Fortunato has cast Neil Friedman as Kris Kringle, Stella Rose Hoyt as Susan, Courtney Jones as Doris and Christopher Kale Jones as Fred for Theatre at the Center's Miracle On 34th Street: The Musical. Previews began November 15 with Opening Night on November 18 and a continued run through December 23. This production is sponsored in part by American Community Bank.

Milwaukee Repertory Theater is pleased to announce the complete cast and creative team for the Midwest premiere of Junk by Milwaukee native and Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Ayad Akhtar. Since its Broadway premiere at Lincoln Center last year, Ayad Akhtar along with Artistic Director Mark Clements have continued to hone Junk to bring Milwaukee audiences a new, two hour no intermission riveting story set in the financial world of the 1980s.

Casting for Cameron Mackintosh's acclaimed new production of Boublil and Schonberg's legendary musical MISS SAIGON-a smash hit in London, on Broadway, and currently breaking box office records on a national tour in the U.K.-has been announced for its highly anticipated engagement in Washington, D.C. at the Kennedy Center Opera House for December 12, 2018-January 13, 2019.

Firebrand Theatre is pleased to announce award-winning actress Barbara E. Robertson will star as Anna (Annie) Edson Taylor in its Chicago premiere of QUEEN OF THE MIST featuring book, music and lyrics by Michael John LaChiusa (The Wild Party, Marie Christine) direction by Elizabeth Margolius and music direction by Charlotte Rivard-Hoster. Newly-arranged for an all-femme quintet, QUEEN OF THE MIST will play May 25 - July 6, 2019 at The Den Theatre's Janet Bookspan Theatre, 1331 N. Milwaukee Ave. in Chicago.

-A small theater company moves into an abandoned Chicago storefront. Led by their adventurously thirsty artistic director, they embark on an explosive new play with the hope of finally breaking it big. When the ensemble realizes their source material might not be as original as once assumed, they are thrust into an intense confrontation with residents of their new community, who not only want them out, but will take their story back by any means necessary. Red Rex is the sixth play in Ike Holter's seven part 'Rightlynd Saga," which also includes Exit Strategy, Prowess, and The Wolf at the End of the Block.

Kokandy Productions is pleased to announce the appointment of Derek Van Barham as the company's new Producing Artistic Director, succeeding Allison Hendrix, who served in the position since Kokandy was founded in 2010. Barham is joined by three new Artistic Associates: Adrian Abel Azevedo, Leda Hoffmann and Nik Whitcomb. The new artistic team is supported by Kokandy's Board of Directors, which includes: Preston Cropp, Allison Hendrix, Gitta Jacobs, Scot Kokandy and Katie Svaicer.

North Raleigh Arts and Creative Theatre partners with Actors Comedy Lab to present 'an alternative holiday production': Jacob Marley's Christmas Carol by Tom Mula.

The Chicago theatre community will present a wide variety of festive plays, musicals, dance and comedy offerings this Holiday season.  In support, the League of Chicago Theatres will create its annual comprehensive Holiday Theatre Guide that will be available beginning in mid-November at hotels, theaters, events, and destinations across the Chicago area. An updated list of holiday shows with additional details about each production will be available throughout the season at ChicagoPlays.com. Additionally, many holiday shows will be available at Hot Tix, Chicago's local, half-price ticketing service.

TheatreWorks Silicon Valley will kick off the new year with the Tony and Olivier Award nominated drama Frost/Nixon. Written by Golden Globe winner Peter Morgan (creator of Netflix's The Crown), Frost/Nixon is a riveting political prizefight where the cameras roll, the truth spins, and it becomes clear that he who controls the medium controls the message.