Helen Hayes News

The fourth annual FilmTwo Initiative launches today in LA to support the career sustainability of thirteen artists developing their second features. FilmTwo encompasses two days of focused programming, including a writing workshop (led by Joan Tewkesbury), industry mentoring sessions, and one-on-one story meetings, kicking off a year of tailored creative and tactical support as part of the Institute's continuum of support for artists at key inflection points in their careers. The FilmTwo Initiative is supported by Universal Filmed Entertainment Group.

In his life, he won eight GRAMMY awards, sold over 35 million records worldwide, and filled arenas around the world. On Sunday, April 7, The American Pops Orchestra will bring the music and style of the legendary Luther Vandross back to the nation's capital.

Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater announces the full company for the world premiere of Tazewell Thompson's inspirational a cappella music infused play, Jubilee. Inspired by the world-renowned Fisk Jubilee Singers, this uplifting new work chronicles the bold African American ensemble as they travel the world, captivating kings, queens and audiences with hymns and spiritual songs supported by their rich voices. Written and directed by Thompson with vocal arrangements and music direction by Dianne Adams McDowell, Jubilee runs April 26 - June 2, 2019 in the Kreeger Theater.

On Tuesday, April 30th at 7:30pm, The University of North Alabama College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Entertainment Industry proudly presents RONALD RAND bringing to life Harold Clurman, 'the elder statesman of the American Theatre' in his internationally-celebrated solo play, LET IT BE ART! in the George S. Lindsey Theatre, in Florence, Alabama.

In 2017, the Broadway musical version of Anastasia (which opened at Hartford Stage nice months earlier), based on the 1997 film, featuring music by Stephen Flaherty, lyrics by Lynn Ahrens and a book by Terrence McNally debuted to much fanfare, and now Nashville audiences are in the thrall of the cast and crew of the national touring company, onstage at Tennessee Performing Arts Center's Andrew Jackson Hall through Sunday, March 24.

The Keegan Theatre is pleased to announce the cast and creative team for the upcoming production of the 2009 Tony Award-winner for Best Play, GOD OF CARNAGE by Yasmina Reza (also the playwright of the 1998 Tony Award-winner for Best Play, ART). In this shrewd and vicious comedy, Reza ferociously and hilariously strips her affluent, over-achieving characters down to their savage core, as they gleefully flout the terms of human civility.

The Drama League's 2019 Spring Charity Auction has launched, featuring more than twenty once-in-a-lifetime prize packages.

The Dramatists Guild of America is proud to announce they will present the 2019 Horton Foote Playwriting Award to playwrights Amy Herzog and Heidi Schreck at the Dramatists Guild's annual awards presentations in July. The Richenthal Foundation is again sponsoring the award. Each writer will receive a $12,500 prize.

Tony winner Steve Kazee is set to star opposite Rachel Bilson in Fox's wedding night pilot Lovestruck, according to TVLine.

Theater J Artistic Director Adam Immerwahr and Managing Director Jojo Ruf announce the 2019-2020 season, welcoming home audiences to a beautiful and refreshed theater located in the newly renovated Edlavitch DC Jewish Community Center on 16th Street. The season includes four plays and one musical, all being produced for the first time in DC, as well as the triumphant return of a recent Theater J hit. From an intoxicating new musical set in Tel Aviv based on the Song of Songs to the late-career masterpiece by multiple Pulitzer Prize-winner Edward Albee, Theater J's season celebrates journeys of every kind with a provocative and ambitious slate of plays. Of the six shows, three have future runs: two in New York City and one at Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park.

Mean Girls star Kate Rockwell just announced her upcoming solo concert, Back To My Roots, based off her solo album of the same name, at The Loft at City Winery on April 22.

Powerful drama: still made in America. Lynn Nottage's 2017 Pulitzer Prize-winning play Sweat opens tonight in its Chicago premiere at Goodman Theatre. Ron OJ Parson directs the collision of race, class and friendship at a pivotal moment in America-hailed as 'extraordinarily moving' (The New York Times) and 'passionate and necessary...a masterful depiction of the forces that divide and conquer us' (Time Out New York). Sweat marks the fourth Nottage play to be produced at the Goodman, following Crumbs from the Table of Joy (2006), Ruined (a 2008 world-premiere Goodman commission that earned the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for Drama) and By the Way, Meet Vera Stark (2013). Sweat appears through April 14 in the Albert Theatre. Tickets ($20 - $80; subject to change) are available at Goodmantheatre.org/Sweat, by telephone at 312.443.3800 or at the box office (170 N. Dearborn).

Soho Rep. presents the New York Premiere of Obie Award-winning playwright Christopher Chen's Passage (April 23-May 26), a fantasia on colonialism past and present that asks the question: if Country Y occupies Country X, can someone from Country X and someone from Country Y ever form a mutual relationship? Directed by Saheem Ali, Passage is a playful and gripping experiment that isolates power as the sole differentiator between people challenging the arbitrary binaries that define how we live.

The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts announces a concert featuring three-time Tony Award  winner Jason Robert Brown (Parade, Songs for a New World, The Last Five Years, The Bridges of Madison County) and 2018 Tony Award winner Lindsay Mendez (Carousel, Wicked, Dogfight) on April 18, 2019 in the Eisenhower Theater.

As a playwright you always hope that your script gets a first class production at a top theatre. Today's subject, Heather McDonald, is currently living her theatre life on a high as her world premiere play Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity is receiving such royal treatment. Featuring the likes of performers Holly Twyford, Felicia Curry, and Yesenia Iglesias, the production plays through April 7th in Signature Theatre's ARK space.

Tony Award Winner Frances Ruffelle will appear on iHeartRadio/Here TV's On the Rocks with Alexander radio show, Tuesday March 19th at 7pmPST/10pmEST for an in-depth chat about her career on stage as well up-coming visit and performance at Rockwell Table & Stage.

What the Constitution Means to Me began previews on Broadway just a couple of days ago, on March 14. The show's playwright and star Heidi Schreck chatted last night with Stephen Colbert about how she has a long, personal relationship with the document that begins 'We the People.'

Three-time Emmy Award nominee Adam Driver (Pale) and Golden Globe Award Winner and Emmy Award Nominee Keri Russell (Anna) will lead the first revival of Pulitzer Prize Winner Lanford Wilson's Burn This. Directed by Tony Award winner Michael Mayer, Burn This is set to begin performances on tonight, March 15, 2019. Get to know the cast below as they begin Broadway performances!

Steppenwolf Theatre Company presents the Chicago premiere of The Children written by acclaimed British playwright Lucy Kirkwood and helmed by celebrated Chicago director Jonathan Berry. Filled with dark humor, this thought-provoking and haunting play features three of Chicago's top actors tackling complex roles: ensemble members Ora Jones (Rose) and Yasen Peyankov (Robin) with Janet Ulrich Brooks (Hazel). Following sold-out runs in London and New York, Steppenwolf proudly presents this brave and profound work that confronts the responsibility each generation must face for the way it leaves the world.

Last night, NBC's Joe Fryer sat down to interview Andrew Barth Feldman, the new star of Broadway's hit musical "Dear Evan Hansen." At 16-years-old, Feldman is the show's youngest star. Feldman talked about how lucky he feels to be trusted with performing at such a young age, something that has never really been done before.