James Stevens News

Union Avenue Opera is preparing for its 2025 Festival Season, bringing a mix of beloved musical theater, historical drama, and grand opera to St. Louis audiences. Learn more here!

Opera Theatre of Saint Louis has a rich history in world premiers, often commissioning new works from  significant composers and librettists.  But it seeks to foster brand new talents too. Its New Works Collective is a three-year project wherein each year OTSL commits to developing and producing three new short operas from fledgling composers and librettists.

The Union Avenue Opera completes its 30th season with a lavish production of Into the Woods.  It’s yet another large challenge for this small company—and once again they meet and conquer it with élan.    

When the musical Ragtime was produced for Broadway in 1998 it was a colossal, big-budget show.  It cost some ten million dollars.  What in the world were the folks at tiny little Union Avenue Opera thinking when they decided to include this show in their twenty-ninth season?  Ragtime, the musical treatment of E. L. Doctorow’s vast rambling nostalgic, wonderfully American novel, is far removed from opera.

“The Turn of the Screw,” a deft psychological exploration of the dimensions of horror and the human mind. UAO’s successful staging of the work appropriately raised more questions than it answered, about danger, fear, the limits of human perception, and a host of other commonplaces in horror.

Brandon Uranowitz narrates the true, moving and harrowing testimonies of Broadway audience members who have found their family history and themselves in the narrative of the epic drama, Leopoldstadt. Watch the video.

Leopoldstadt, Tom Stoppard’s Olivier Award-winning Best New Play, has begun its final 12 weeks of performances at the Longacre Theatre on Broadway. See how to purchase tickets!

Get a first look at new photos of Leopoldstadt on Broadway!

New cast members will be joining Leopoldstadt, Tom Stoppard’s Olivier Award-winning Best New Play. See who is starring in the production, and how to purchase tickets!

The Longacre Theatre was the place to be earlier this week as the best of Broadway came out to celebrate the arrival of Leopoldstadt, Tom Stoppard's Olivier Award-winning Best New Play, directed by two-time Tony Award nominee Patrick Marber. BroadwayWorld was there for the big night and you can check out photo coverage from the after party below!

Leopoldstadt, Tom Stoppard’s Olivier Award-winning Best New Play, directed by two-time Tony Award nominee Patrick Marber, and produced by Sonia Friedman Productions, Roy Furman, and Lorne Michaels opens on Broadway this Sunday, October 2 at the Longacre Theatre. Get a first look at photos here!

Broadway is getting ready for the arrival of Leopoldstadt, Tom Stoppard's Olivier Award-winning Best New Play, directed by two-time Tony Award nominee Patrick Marber and produced by Sonia Friedman Productions, Roy Furman, and Lorne Michaels. Check out photos of the cast meeting the press!

This, Sondheim's most charming work, receives a splendid production at Union Avenue Opera. Yesterday I mentioned to two of my kids that we'd just seen A Little Night Music. Now they had both memorized most of Sweeney Todd some forty years ago while in grade school or junior high, so I was appalled to find that neither of them was familiar with this earlier Sondheim masterpiece. What sort of wretchedly deprived childhood had we given them?!

Following a successful run of Verdi's Falstaff that critics hailed as 'musical perfection,' 'an effervescent treat,' 'delightful,' and 'not to be missed,' Union Avenue Opera is preparing for the final production of its 28th Festival Season featuring four performances of Stephen Sondheim's acclaimed A Little Night Music.

The 92nd Street Y, New York (92NY) will present a conversation with Tom Stoppard on Sunday, September 18 at 4:30pm at the 92nd Street Y.

Broadway rehearsals have begun for Leopoldstadt, Tom Stoppard's Olivier Award-winning Best New Play, directed by two-time Tony Award nominee Patrick Marber and produced by Sonia Friedman Productions, Roy Furman, and Lorne Michaels.

The full, 38-member company of Tom Stoppard's Olivier Award-winning Best New Play, Leopoldstadt has officially been announced, including Broadway veterans Caissie Levy and Brandon Uranowitz. Check out the entire cast, the show schedule and how to get tickets!

This summer, Union Avenue Opera will make its highly anticipated return to its home stage within the historic Union Avenue Christian Church. Union Avenue Opera will offer a three-opera festival season opening with Tchaikovsky's masterpiece, Eugene Onegin (July 8, 9, 15, 16) which last appeared on the UAO stage in 2003.

The casts for BAPF’s live streamed readings spotlight acclaimed actors including TV/film actor and theatre mainstay Emily Kuroda, known for her role as Mrs. Kim in “Gilmore Girls,” as well as Bay Area theatre veterans Halili Knox, Tasi Alabastro, Keiko Shimosato Carreiro and Michael Ray Wisely, plus many others.

The three upcoming readings are: Alice Childress’s Trouble in Mind, directed by Awoye Timpo; George Bernard Shaw’s Arms and the Man, directed by 2020 SAG Award nominee, Obie Award winner, and Tony Award nominee Colman Domingo; and Thornton Wilder’s The Matchmaker, directed by Dawn Monique Williams.