Joan Holden News

The national tour of THE BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY, winner of the 2014 Tony Award for Best Original Score and Best Orchestrations, will launch in Des Moines, IA at the Des Moines Performing Arts Civic Center with performances beginning Saturday, November 28th and an official opening on Tuesday, December 1st.

?The city of San Francisco will honor the legendary disco singer Sylvester, along with the opening of MIGHTY REAL: A FABULOUS SYLVESTER MUSICAL -- the acclaimed celebration of the life and music of the original 1970s "Queen of Disco" -- with San Francisco Supervisor, Scott Weiner, set to present a proclamation for "Mighty Real Day: Honoring Sylvester & His Music" on Friday, February 13, 2015 at 2:00 p.m. (Pacific) at Sylvester's star on the Castro Rainbow Honor Walk. MIGHTY REAL: A FABULOUS SYLVESTER MUSICAL began performances at the Brava Theater Center (2781 24th Street) on Wednesday, February 11th and will open on Saturday, February 14th, 2015. The limited San Francisco engagement is scheduled through Sunday, March 1st.

AnthonyKen LLC and Sheryl Lee Ralph/The Diva Foundation are pleased to announce that the critically acclaimed MIGHTY REAL: A FABULOUS SYLVESTER MUSICAL, the musical celebration of the life of the original 1970s "Queen of Disco" Sylvester, will return for a special one-night-only event in New York City at The Gramercy Theater (127 East 23rd Street) on Sunday, January 18th, 2015 at 8 PM. The musical will then take off for a limited engagement in Sylvester's beloved city, San Francisco, where it will play the Brava Theater Center (2781 24th Street) from Wednesday, February 11th - Sunday, March 1at, 2015 (Opening Night: February 14th, 2015). Plans for other engagements in cities across the country - and a return to New York City - will be announced in the New Year.

Producers Jeffrey Richards, Jerry Frankel, and Jam Theatricals just announced that five-time Tony Award-nominee and Drama Desk & Outer Critics Circle Award winner Danny Burstein (Cabaret, Golden Boy, Follies, South Pacific) will step into the iconic role of Tevye when Fiddler on the Roofbegins performances on Broadway on November 17, 2015. Rehearsals are set to begin September 28, 2015.

When a middle-aged scientist goes undercover to experience low paying jobs she learns about 'Not Getting by in America'. Working as a maid, a waitress, and an 'associate' at Mall Mart led Barbara Ehrenreich to her best-selling book Nickel and Dimed and then to the play of that name by Joan Holden. Starting tonight, September 12th, The Adobe Theater will present this dramatic work, directed by Brian Hansen. A number of actors will portray a wide variety of characters as Colleen McLure (most recently seen in Lend Me A Tenor at The Adobe and in Juno And The Paycock at The Vortex) playing 'Barbara' attempts to make ends meet while phoning her boyfriend to assure him she is managing okay (even when she isn't).

When a middle-aged scientist goes undercover to experience low paying jobs she learns about 'Not Getting by in America'. Working as a maid, a waitress, and an 'associate' at Mall Mart led Barbara Ehrenreich to her best-selling book Nickel and Dimed and then to the play of that name by Joan Holden. Starting September 12th, The Adobe Theater will present this dramatic work, directed by Brian Hansen. A number of actors will portray a wide variety of characters as Colleen McLure (most recently seen in Lend Me A Tenor at The Adobe and in Juno And The Paycock at The Vortex) playing 'Barbara' attempts to make ends meet while phoning her boyfriend to assure him she is managing okay (even when she isn't).

The Playwrights Foundation's 37th Annual Bay Area Playwrights Festival (BAPF) will take place today, July 18-27, 2014 at the Thick House Theater in San Francisco.

The Playwrights Foundation's 37th Annual Bay Area Playwrights Festival (BAPF) will take place July 18-27, 2014 at the Thick House Theater in San Francisco.

The Theater Project is no stranger to hot potato topics, having presented productions and readings of plays tackling marriage and income inequality, not to mention war and peace. TWO ROOMS by Lee Blessing examines a husband and wife separated by an act of political violence. The two rooms of the title are a windowless cubicle in Beirut where an American hostage is being held by Arab terrorists and a room in his home in the United States, which his wife has stripped of furniture so that, at least symbolically, she can share his ordeal. While he languishes in confinement, she does all she can to pressure the government to take action. The play will be presented as a script in hand performance at the Maplewood Memorial Library, 51 Baker Street, at 2 PM, Saturday, May 3. Admission is free.

NICKEL AND DIMED is a play about a middle class woman researching a book by trying to survive on minimum wage jobs. To make sure that no one is kept from live professional theater by rising ticket prices, The Theater Project at the Burgdorff Center in Maplewood is offering a special discounted performance at 8 PM, Thursday, March 27, when patrons without reservations will pay much less at the door for admission. The discount does not apply to reserved tickets.

The Theater Project, the professional company at the Burgdorff Center in Maplewood will present the comedy NICKEL AND DIMED by Joan Holden. The play is based on Barbara Ehrenreich's book of the same name, which was subtitled ON (NOT) GETTING BY IN AMERICA.

Today, The Ground Floor: Berkeley Rep's Center for the Creation and Development of New Work announces that it has selected 18 projects from more than 30 innovative artists for its third Summer Residency Lab. This June, as part of an extraordinary laboratory for collaboration, some of the nation's most prominent and promising writers, directors, and composers will unite at the Theatre's campus in West Berkeley for an intense four-week period to live, dine, and create new plays together. Dozens more local and out-of-town actors and directors will join The Ground Floor process, bringing the number of artists involved close to 100.

The Theater Project, the professional company at the Burgdorff Center in Maplewood will present the comedy NICKEL AND DIMED by Joan Holden. The play is based on Barbara Ehrenreich's book of the same name, which was subtitled ON (NOT) GETTING BY IN AMERICA.

Like Barbara Ehrenreich's book, Joan Holden's adaptation for the stage examines whether a middle-aged, middle-class woman named 'Barbara' can survive when she suddenly has to make beds all day in a hotel and live on $7 an hour.

The Playwrights Foundation's 36th Annual Bay Area Playwrights Festival (BAPF) will take place today, July 19-28, 2013 at the Thick House Theater in San Francisco. BAPF 2013 is a diverse and eclectic cycle of work that builds on the past three plus decades of new plays at BAPF, highlighting a range of voices that span cultures and generations, from emerging playwrights to honored veterans. The six selected plays are by playwrights Laura Schellhardt, Prince Gomolvilas, Jiehae Park, Erin Bregman, Kimber Lee, and Joan Holden. The plays range from the mysterious to the metaphysical; from wittily deconstructing the current political crisis on the Korean Peninsula to a play celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the Free Speech Movement.

Juilliard's Drama Division announces the 2013-2014 season of fully-staged productions featuring Juilliard's 43rd group of acting students in their fourth and final year in the drama program at Juilliard. This season's plays include Jeffrey Hatcher's Smash, directed by Victor Pappas; Amy Herzog's The Great God Pan, directed by Maria Mileaf; and Sam Shepard's Buried Child, directed by Daniel Fish. All performances take place in the Stephanie P. McClelland Drama Theater at Juilliard.

The Playwrights Foundation's 36th Annual Bay Area Playwrights Festival (BAPF) will take place July 19-28, 2013 at the Thick House Theater in San Francisco. BAPF 2013 is a diverse and eclectic cycle of work that builds on the past three plus decades of new plays at BAPF, highlighting a range of voices that span cultures and generations, from emerging playwrights to honored veterans. The six selected plays are by playwrights Laura Schellhardt, Prince Gomolvilas, Jiehae Park, Erin Bregman, Kimber Lee, and Joan Holden. The plays range from the mysterious to the metaphysical; from wittily deconstructing the current political crisis on the Korean Peninsula to a play celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the Free Speech Movement.

Playwrights Foundation is happy to announce that two productions that were part of the Foundation's Bay Area Playwrights Festival (BAPF) 2012 have received awards and multiple productions in the 2013-14 season. Christopher Chen received the Glickman Award for the The Hundred Flowers Project, a co-production of Crowded Fire Theater and the Playwrights Foundation. The Hundred Flowers Project will be mounted by Chicago's Silk Road Rising in the 2013-14 season. George Brant's Grounded will receive three productions through the The NATIONAL NEW PLAY NETWORK (NNPN) Continued Life of New Plays Fund in the 2013/14 season, as well as productions in 5 other cities including two in the UK.* see list below