Jim May News

On April 13, megastar Dwayne Johnson returns to the big screen in the highly anticipated new film Rampage.

Mare Nostrum Elements, founded and directed by Kevin Albert and Nicola Iervasi, presents, in collaboration with LaGuardia Performing Arts Center, the fifth annual Emerging Choreographer Series (ECS), showing works by nine young dancemakers.   The talented choreographers, selected from a group of 79 applicants this year, are indeed fortunate in the many benefits ECS offers.

SOKOLOW THEATRE/DANCE ENSEMBLE, in its first season under the artistic direction of Samantha Geracht, will appear in rarely seen works by legendary American modern dance pioneer Anna Sokolow, including her Moods, which has not been performed since the late 1970's, along with Dreams and Preludes.   The Company will be joined by guests Jennifer Conley, former soloist with the Martha Graham Dance Company, performing Sokolow's solo Poem, and Clarence Brooks, former Company member, in ?Sweet in the Morning, ?by choreographer Leni Wylliams.   Four performances, March 8-11 at the Mark O'Donnell Theater at the Actors Fund Arts Center, 160 Schermerhorn Street, Brooklyn.

The Sokolow Theatre/Dance Ensemble, the only New York modern dance company performing the works of the late Anna Sokolow, has undergone a change in artistic directorship to a new generation of dancers with deep experience in the work of the iconoclastic choreographer.

The Sokolow Theatre/Dance Ensemble, the only New York modern dance company dedicated to the works of the late Anna Sokolow, has undergone a change in artistic directorship to a new generation of dancers with deep experience in the work of the iconoclastic choreographer.

Rubicon Theatre Company has announced the complete cast of RETURN TO THE FORBIDDEN PLANET, a fabulously campy send up of 'Forbidden Planet' and other sci-fi film and TV shows of the 1950s which melds plot elements from The Tempest with language from multiple plays by Shakespeare.

Rubicon Theatre Company presents RETURN TO THE FORBIDDEN PLANET, a fabulously campy send up of 'Forbidden Planet' and other sci-fi film and TV shows of the 1950s which melds plot elements from The Tempest with language from multiple plays by Shakespeare.

Rubicon Theatre Company has announced the complete cast of RETURN TO THE FORBIDDEN PLANET, a fabulously campy send up of 'Forbidden Planet' and other sci-fi film and TV shows of the 1950s which melds plot elements from The Tempest with language from multiple plays by Shakespeare.

Evan Linder's new play BYHALIA, MISSISSIPPI begins with a scene familiar to those in the audience: a mother and her adult daughter squabbling. The daughter, Laurel, is several months pregnant. And while her mother just wants to be present for the birth of her grandchild, Laurel has had enough. But as the play progresses, we soon learn that Laurel and her husband Jim may not be quite ready for the demands of parenthood. And in a surprising twist following the birth of the child, Laurel and Jim-who are self-declared "white trash"-must also come face-to-face with some harsh realities and confront long-standing, deeply embedded racist beliefs. In this way, Linder's play provides striking food for thought on contemporary social issues, while also becoming a specific portrait of the life of this one couple. And while Chicago audiences may largely be unfamiliar with the small-town Southern lifestyle of BYHALIA'S characters, he makes us feel for these flawed personalities.

 Celebrating dance and the beauty of age, Dances For a Variable Population (DVP), will present three performances of The Phoenix Project, a citywide public dance project that empowers older adults and reevaluates the aesthetics of aging. This world premiere collaboration will take place in three boroughs-Bronx, Queens and Harlem-over three Todays, June 4, 11 and 13. The Phoenix Project will make its Bronx debut at the New York Botanical Garden's award-winning and picturesque Peggy Rockefeller Rose Garden on June 4. In the subsequent weekends, the piece will move with excerpts of the full work to Queens at the Queensbridge Riis Senior Center on June 11, and close their performances as part of the Summer on the Hudson Festival at the West Harlem Piers Park on June 18 as part of a Family Day event.

I longed to see more. One would love to see the Martha Graham Dance Company commission a new from Ms. Zall. Unlike their usual fare, she clearly understands stagecraft and is able to communicate in the language of their founder. It seems to me that all she needs is the opportunity. Denise Vale, the Graham company's Artistic Associate was in the audience. Perhaps she will communicate what a boon it would be to work with Ms. Zall to her colleagues.

Celebrating dance and the beauty of age, Dances For a Variable Population (DVP), will present three performances of The Phoenix Project, a citywide public dance project that empowers older adults and reevaluates the aesthetics of aging.

 Celebrating dance and the beauty of age, Dances For a Variable Population (DVP), will present three performances of The Phoenix Project, a citywide public dance project that empowers older adults and reevaluates the aesthetics of aging. This world premiere collaboration will take place in three boroughs-Bronx, Queens and Harlem-over three Saturdays, June 4, 11 and 13. The Phoenix Project will make its Bronx debut at the New York Botanical Garden's award-winning and picturesque Peggy Rockefeller Rose Garden on June 4. In the subsequent weekends, the piece will move with excerpts of the full work to Queens at the Queensbridge Riis Senior Center on June 11, and close their performances as part of the Summer on the Hudson Festival at the West Harlem Piers Park on June 18 as part of a Family Day event.

ComicCon, the media-saturated annual juggernaut of promotion and sci-fi excess that puts celebrities and their costumed super-fans together in the same breathing space is the setting for playwright Eliza Clark's engaging new play FUTURE THINKING, now having its world premiere performances at Orange County's South Coast Repertory Theater in Costa Mesa through April 24, 2016. Directed by Lila Neugebauer, this modern day play offers a fresh story that explores how many of us strive for an ideal future that's both a mix of fantasy and reality, and that, at times, these two forces are often at odds with each other as we barrel towards what lies ahead.

On March 9-13, the Sokolow Theatre/Dance Ensemble will present three major works by Anna Sokolow and the premiere of a new work by guest artist Rae Ballard. These theatre/dance works transport the audience through the breadth and depth of the human experience.

The Sokolow Theatre/Dance Ensemble will present a program of works by legendary modern dance choreographer Anna Sokolow, a tribute to the melting pot that is New York, including the rarely seen Ride the Culture Loop, created in 1975 for the Juilliard Dance Ensemble, and the world premiere of We Remember by guest choreographer and former company member Rae Ballard, March 9-13 at the Theater at the 14h Street Y, 344 East 14th Street.   Other Sokolow works are the 1968 Steps of Silence and her tribute to her friend Kurt Weill, created in 1988.  All works have been staged by longtime Sokolow company members.  

Susan Vencl began choreographing late in life -- when she was almost old enough to collect Social Security -- and she gets philosophical about the passage of time. 'Your past and future are embedded in the present moment,' she says. That idea drives 'Long Before Afterward,' her dance of sliding movement, sweeping turns and Grecian patterns which play with our perspective in sometimes mathematical ways. The Hawkins- and Limon-influenced piece will be performed to a suite of nine expressionistic works by acclaimed composer Arlene Sierra and will be presented by Susan Vencl Dance for its debut February 19, 20 and 21 at 8:00 PM at Graham Center of Contemporary Dance, 55 Bethune Street.

Susan Vencl began choreographing late in life -- when she was almost old enough to collect Social Security -- and she gets philosophical about the passage of time.  'Your past and future are embedded in the present moment,' she says.  That idea drives 'Long Before Afterward,' her dance of sliding movement, sweeping turns and Grecian patterns which play with our perspective in sometimes mathematical ways.  The Hawkins- and Limon-influenced piece will be performed to a suite of nine expressionistic works by acclaimed composer Arlene Sierra and will be presented by Susan Vencl Dance for its debut February 19, 20 and 21 at 8:00 PM at Graham Center of Contemporary Dance, 55 Bethune Street.

KNOXVILLE, TN - Diplomat, politician, lawyer and musician, James W. Symington is all these and more, a public servant who served America when public service was a noble calling. His new book, HEARD AND OVERHEARD: Words Wise (and Otherwise) with Politicians, Statesmen and Real People (Posterity Press and New Academia Publishing), is a medley of vignettes many of them about key moments in history told from his perspectives as congressman, diplomat and right-hand man to one Ambassador, an Attorney General and the President of the United States. It is illustrated with photographs, some published for the first time when the book debuts August 17.

Last night, Bravo's 'Inside the Actors Studio,' hosted by James Lipton, saluted critically-acclaimed actor Jim Parsons, currently starring in the new Broadway play, AN ACT OF GOD.