Jacqueline Thompson News

The St. Louis Shakespeare Festival’s production of William Shakespeare’s King Lear, directed by Carl Cofield, opened in Forest Park on June 4 in St. Louis, MO. In the title role is Tony, Emmy and Grammy Award winner André De Shields (Hadestown, The Wiz, Ain’t Misbehavin’, Play On!, The Full Monty). 

Yes, André de Shields is playing Lear! His long career in musical theater stretches from the original Hair to The Wiz to Hadestown, and it is bespangled with awards (Emmy, Grammy and others). He’s an icon. Now, at seventy-five, he takes on the most demanding role in all of Shakespeare.

After more than a year since the pandemic canceled live dance and theatre, COCA's Pre Professional Division student artists will take their places on stage for the productions of TRIumphant,  Harmonious, and Spring Improv Troupe.

The St. Louis Shakespeare Festival announced today that Tony, Emmy and Grammy award-winner André De Shields will star in King Lear as part of its 21st summer of free Shakespeare in Forest Park. The production marks the theater's return to live outdoor performance, one of the first scheduled in the country.

Tickets are now on sale for COCA's premiere of the COCAwrites Festival, a showcase of new  work created by a multigenerational team of St. Louis theatre professionals and COCA students for  multigenerational audiences.

COCA begins a new tradition with its premiere of the COCAwrites Festival, a festival of new work created by a multi-generational team of St. Louis theatre professionals and COCA students for multi-generational audiences.

The Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, in partnership with StoneLion Puppet Theatre, has announced a breathtaking, unique family event: “The Glowy Snowy Day.” Families are invited to drive through the experience on the Webster University campus, just a few hundred feet from The Rep’s main performing home. 

Award-winning actors/producers Sterling K. Brown (This Is Us, Frozen 2) and Ryan Michelle Bathé (Sylvie's Love, All Rise) join Emmy nominee Ellie Kemper (Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, The Office) and more than 25 outstanding St. Louisans as readers for Metro Theater Company's upcoming virtual holiday event, A Christmas Carol: A St. Louis Virtual Holiday Reading.

COCA has announced its 2020-2021 COCA Presents performance season, offering innovative performances that transform the way audiences think about the world, as part of the organization's Grand Opening season following the conclusion of its Create Our Future campaign.

COCA, the Center of Creative Arts, announced today Academy Award winning screenwriter and Tony-nominated playwright, Tarell Alvin McCraney will join as special guest for COCA's new play festival, COCAwrites: Plays on Zoom.

The J's New Jewish Theatre has received 21 nominations for the 2020 St. Louis Theatre Circle Awards for outstanding achievement in St. Louis Professional Theatre. This beats the previous record of 12 nominations received in 2014.

The Black Rep and COCA announce that the two longstanding St. Louis organizations will collaborate to produce a student youth production of Four Little Girls: Birmingham 1963 by Christina Ham. Performances will be held October 18-20 and 25-27, in the newly opened Staenberg Performance Lab at COCA. 

The setting strikes a chord with the audience upon entering the space. Hardwood floors, a simple flat set to the backdrop of the Brooklyn Skyline. The time is the 1950's the season, fall. Five actors/actresses tell the plight of this family in a struggling neighborhood in Brooklyn, and the events that envelope them truly show the heart, and passion inside each and every one of its' centralized characters.

Rehearsals are underway for freeFall's production of Lynn Nottage's Crumbs from the Table of Joy. This Tampa Bay professional theatre premiere opens March 23 and runs through April 14. Crumbs from the Table of Joy stars Alicia Thomas (Ernestine), Rae Davis (Ermina), and Michael J. Kinsey (Godfrey) as the Crump family. This break out play for two-time Pulitzer Prize winning playwright Lynn Nottage (Sweat, Ruined) is the coming of age story of a young African American girl whose family is finding their way through 1950's Brooklyn, as she teeters between filtering her life experiences through the fantasy of movies and learning the real poetry and pain of the world. Crumbs from the Table of Joy also stars freeFall favorites Trenell Mooring (freeFall's Our Town and The Little Prince) and Emilee Dupre (Broadway's Chaplin and freeFall's smash hit Cabaret).

Rehearsals are already underway for freeFall's next production of Pulitzer Prize Winning playwright Lynn Nottage's Crumbs from the Table of Joy. This Tampa Bay professional theatre premiere opens March 23 and runs through April 14. Crumbs from the Table of Joy stars Alicia Thomas (Ernestine), Rae Davis (Ermina) and Michael Kinsey (Godfrey) as the Crumb family. This break out play by Lynn Nottage is the coming of age story of a young African American girl whose family is finding its way through 1950's Brooklyn, as she teeters between filtering her life experiences through the fantasy of movies and learning the real poetry and pain of the world. Crumbs from the Table of Joy also stars freeFall favorites Trenell Mooring (freeFall's Our Town & The Little Prince) and Emilee Dupre (Broadway's Chaplin, freeFall's smash hit Cabaret).

The New Jewish Theatre has opened 'District Merchants', by Aaron Posner, and it is certainly among the finest productions I've ever seen there. Posner's script is most remarkably beautiful-it's masterful indeed.

The New Jewish Theatre's 2018-19 season continues with an adaptation of The Merchant of Venice - Aaron Posner's District Merchants, an Uneasy Comedy. The production will be directed by St. Louis Theatre Circle Award winner, Jacqueline Thompson, and runs January 24 - February 10, 2019.

The New Jewish Theatre's 2018-19 season continues with an adaptation of The Merchant of Venice - Aaron Posner's District Merchants, an Uneasy Comedy. The production will be directed by St. Louis Theatre Circle Award winner, Jacqueline Thompson, and runs January 24 - February 10, 2019.

Ben Nordstrom and Kari Ely will play opposite one another in "Into the Breeches!," the headlining production of Shakespeare Festival St. Louis' new program titled, In the Works, set for Oct. 28 through Nov. 24, at the Grandel Theatre. Written by George Brant and directed by Nancy Bell, the month-long, ticketed production is the culmination of the Festival's 2018 season.