Joan Didion News

Director Ron May doesn't hide the fact - although maybe he should - that he's a reality TV junkie, which makes him the perfect choice to direct Seminar, the first of Actor's Theatre's four Arizona premieres to be staged during the 2014-15 season.

THE 50 YEAR ARGUMENT, directed by Oscar® winner Martin Scorsese and longtime documentary collaborator David Tedeschi, will debut TONIGHT, SEPT. 29

The Laguna Playhouse Executive and Artistic Directors, Karen Wood and Ann E. Wareham are thrilled to present the second show of their 2014-2015 season, THE YEAR OF MAGICAL THINKING by Joan Didion and directed by Jenny Sullivan (Steel Magnolias). 'To have Linda Purl on our stage with one of the more powerful pieces of theatre I have come across is just a triumph that our audiences and subscribers are going to treasure,' offers Wood. 'Jenny Sullivan is quite simply one of our best theatre directors working today and to have her bring her magic touch to the powerful words of Joan Didion is simply a dream realized,' adds Wareham. THE YEAR OF MAGICAL THINKING will begin previews on Wednesday, October 8 and will open on Saturday, October 11 at 7:30pm and run through Sunday, November 2, 2014 at the Laguna Playhouse, 606 Laguna Canyon Road in Laguna Beach.

Miller opens its fall season with a captivating new production. Sparking a music dialogue across centuries, Heart & Breath deftly combines modern arrangements of music by Gesualdo and Monteverdi with contemporary works that blend music, dance, and theater, including composer Amy Beth Kirsten's 'wildly imaginative' (Washington Post)Colombine's Paradise Theatre. The six musicians of eighth blackbird play, speak, sing, whisper, growl, and mime, breathing theatrical life into the timeless characters of thecommedia dell'arte in this uniquely immersive concert experience.

Directed by Oscar® winner Martin Scorsese and longtime documentary collaborator David Tedeschi, THE 50 YEAR ARGUMENT profiles the provocative and influential publication The New York Review of Books

The Capitol Center for the Arts is pleased to welcome two MacDowell Colony Fellows to the historic Kimball House as part of the inaugural year of the Salon Series for a weekend of thought provoking discussion: Visual artist Anna Schuleit Haber will converse about her work on Friday, October 17, and bestselling author Jeff Sharlet will engage with audiences in the intimate Victorian-era Kimball House on Saturday, October 18.

Director Ron May doesn't hide the fact - although maybe he should - that he's a reality TV junkie, which makes him the perfect choice to direct Seminar, the first of Actor's Theatre's four Arizona premieres to be staged during the 2014-15 season.

Miller opens its fall season with a captivating new production. Sparking a music dialogue across centuries, Heart & Breath deftly combines modern arrangements of music by Gesualdo and Monteverdi with contemporary works that blend music, dance, and theater, including composer Amy Beth Kirsten's "wildly imaginative" (Washington Post)Colombine's Paradise Theatre. The six musicians of eighth blackbird play, speak, sing, whisper, growl, and mime, breathing theatrical life into the timeless characters of thecommedia dell'arte in this uniquely immersive concert experience.

THE 50 YEAR ARGUMENT, directed by Oscar® winner Martin Scorsese and longtime documentary collaborator David Tedeschi, will debut MONDAY, SEPT. 29

Perhaps the power of American Players Theatre can be determined by an audience's silence when exiting the Touchstone Theater after a Sunday evening performance, the haunting quiet almost reverent appreciation for what had transpired minutes before. In Spring Green, Sarah Day illuminates the stage in an approximately one hour forty five minute no intermission performance. APT's one woman play retells award winning author's Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking, a play she adapted in 2007 and based on her memoir from the year after her husband John Gregory Dunne died in 2003 A time when Didion simultaneously coped when her daughter Quintana suffered from septic shock, often lying n the hospital's ICU hovering between life and death.

Wisconsin theater moves to the magnificent outdoors this summer with diverse venues presenting great classical and original productions throughout the state. In Spring Green, Wisconsin, American Players Theatre (APT) has been performing legendary playwrights under the stars for more than 30 years. At the Up the Hill Theatre, Shakespeare's comedy that spars witty conversations between the sexes Much Ado About Nothing features acclaimed actors Colleen Madden and David Daniel in the beloved roles of Beatrice and Benedict. In the company's new indoor Touchstone Theatre, Brenda DeVita directs her first production as APT's new Artistic Director. Sarah Day plays Joan Didion in the adaptation from Didion's award winning memory in her play The Year of Magical Thinking. APT extended their season in 2014 with five Up the Hill Play and now four productions instead of three in the Touchstone that runs through November.

THE LAGUNA PLAYHOUSE invites you to enjoy music, memories, midnight, mystery & murder in its 2014-2015 season of shows! The season starts out rockin' with BUDDY: THE BUDDY HOLLY STORY; followed by Linda Purl starring in Joan Didion's play about the triumph of the human spirit in THE YEAR OF MAGICAL THINKING; then the holiday season will ring in the musical STRIKING TWELVE; followed by the songs of one the greatest musical writers of all time - HERSHEY FELDER AS IRVING BERLIN; plus enjoy the smash-hit, Off-Broadway musical whodunit MURDER FOR TWO; and a 'To Be Announced' production; add in two bonus options for our audiences and subscribers including the MAGIC OF MOTOWN and Emmy Award-winner Ed Asner starring as FDR for a year of engaging music, memories and more!

Continuing to ramp up its international co-production partnerships, WOWOW, Japan's leading premium pay TV broadcaster, announced today that it is partnering on Martin Scorsese and David Tedeschi's documentary “The New York Review of Books: A 50 Year Argument.”

American Players Theatre (APT) announces its 35th Season, June 7 to November 9, 2014, a diverse lineup spanning from Shakespeare to Mamet and helmed by recently appointed Artistic Director Brenda DeVita-the company's first new artistic director in over 20 years. DeVita's season includes the first David Mamet production of the company's history, American Buffalo, and her staging of Joan Didion's memoir The Year of Magical Thinking in APT's intimate 200-seat Touchstone Theatre, alongside such classics as Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing and Romeo and Juliet in APT's flagship 1148-seat outdoor amphitheater Up the Hill.

Zola Books, an ebook social network and retailer, has acquired Bookish, a site where readers get great book recommendations, to expand the ways readers can discover and discuss great books.

To celebrate the 25th anniversary of the original publication of FALLEN ANGELS, the multi-million-copy bestselling novel by current National Ambassador for Young People's Literature Walter Dean Myers, Zola Books is releasing it as an e-book for the very first time. FALLEN ANGELS, lauded as one of the best of the post-Vietnam novels, has continued to sell in paperback year after year, and today, Zola is bringing the powerfully moving story of a young man's first experience of war to an even wider audience.

Slouching Towards Bethlehem, the legendary essay collection by author and journalist Joan Didion, has been a literary benchmark for years but unavailable to digital readers. Startup Zola Books will release this title plus four more by Didion and five by Didion's late husband, author John Gregory Dunne, as e-books for the first time on November 12.

American Stage Theatre Company is excited to announce their 2013-2014 season opening production, THE BIRDS by the acclaimed Irish Playwright Conor McPherson (The Seafarer). Previews are tonight and tomorrow, October 2 & 3. Opening Night is October 4 and the production runs through October 27.

American Stage Theatre Company is excited to announce their 2013-2014 season opening production, THE BIRDS by the acclaimed Irish Playwright Conor McPherson (The Seafarer). Previews are October 2 & 3. Opening Night is October 4 and the production runs through October 27.

Variety reports that Allison Janney has joined Christina Hendricks in Campbell Scott's film adaptation of Joan Didion's A BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER.