John F Kennedy News

The University Musical Society (UMS), under the leadership of President Matthew VanBesien, today announces its 140th season in 2018-19 with an initial slate of 40 performances and events. One of the country's most acclaimed performing arts presenters, UMS honors its past by showcasing respected ensembles and performers with whom it has enjoyed rich relationships, and fully embraces the future as initiator, incubator, and accelerator for innovative new works and projects. This potent combination infuses the anniversary season with dynamic and diverse voices and perspectives featuring artists at the top of their game - celebrating the canon, taking risks, moving genres in new directions, disrupting stereotypes, and surprising audiences.

The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts today announced programming for its 2018-2019 season of Performances for Young Audiences, featuring trailblazing journeys in theater, music, and dance that will inspire and resonate with audiences of all ages. The Kennedy Center has commissioned and co-commissioned six world premiere works that will bring audiences on expeditions through time and place to Birmingham in the 1960s, through a young man's imagination in present day New York City, and even to the stars and beyond.

The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and Artistic Advisor at Large Renee Fleming today announce the schedule of performances for the 2018-2019 Renee Fleming VOICES series, marking its third season celebrating the power of the voice across a wide range of genres.

The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts today announced programming for its 2018-2019 theater season. The upcoming season not only exemplifies the Kennedy Center as a home for the best theater productions from Broadway and around the world, but also reinvigorates the Center's commitment to self-producing world-class theatrical work at the nation's performing arts center.

Cygnet Theatre closes its 15th season with the World Premiere of The Wind and The Breeze by New York based playwright Nathan Alan Davis. This poetic, slice-of-life drama was the winner of the 2013 Lorraine Hansberry Award and part of The Bill and Judy Garrett Finish Line Commission in 2016, where it moved audiences with its humanity and humor. Cygnet's production is directed by Rob Lutfy and runs May 16 through June 10. Opening night for media is May 19.

There is something profound about the simple. Such is the driving force behind the Nederlands Dans Theater's (NDT) program currently playing at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Three shockingly different dances fill this two hour program and, while the dancers wrap themselves about in complex positions regularly, the emotions portrayed are always simple and translate brilliantly. Artistic Directors Paul Lightfoot and Sol Leon are to be commended for their diverse and cutting-edge selections.

Led by Artistic Director Robert Battle, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater returns to Seattle's Paramount Theatre with three performances April 27-29, 2018. The Company will perform two Seattle premieres and a total of five works by a wide range of choreographers. Alvin Ailey's timeless and inspiring American masterpiece Revelations will provide the finale for all three programs, which will take place at 8pm on April 27-28 and at 2pm on April 29.

LCT3/Lincoln Center Theater has announced that Gabriel Ebert, Jon Michael Hill, and Namir Smallwood will be featured in its upcoming production of PASS OVER, a new play by Antoinette Nwandu, directed by Danya Taymor, at the Claire Tow Theater (150 West 65 Street). This New York premiere of PASS OVER will begin performances Saturday evening, June 2 and run for six weeks only throughSunday, July 15. Opening night is Monday, June 18.

The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts hosts more than 120 outstanding theater students from colleges and universities across the nation as part of the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival (KCACTF), which runs April 9-14, 2018 in multiple locations throughout the Center. The Center also announced the national awardees for the KCACTF.

The New Jersey Repertory Company (NJ Rep) will present the world premiere of Chloe Hung's Issei, He Say (Or the Myth of the First) from April 19 to May 20. The winner of of an Edgerton New Play Award, it is directed by Lisa James and stars Stan Egi, Kathleen Kwan, Fenton Li, and Christina Liang. Broadwayworld.com had the pleasure of interviewing playwright, Chloe Hung about her career and the upcoming show.

The University of Montana Dance Program bolstered its standing as one of the nation's most decorated institutions with another stellar showing at the recent American College Dance Association (ACDA) Northwest Regional Conference.

Theater J, the nation's pre-eminent professional Jewish theater, announces its 2018-2019 season, which will be presented "around town" in top cultural venues throughout the city as the historic Edlavitch DCJCC building undergoes major renovation.  Artistic Director Adam Immerwahr has selected a diverse group of plays including an acclaimed one-woman show with music at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, a new contemporary drama by Anna Ziegler at Arena Stage, a period love story by Lanford Wilson at GALA Hispanic Theatre, and a new adaptation of a Yiddish theater classic at Georgetown University. 

The centennial of renowned American composer Leonard Bernstein is celebrated throughout the National Philharmonic's 2018-2019 concert series at The Music Center at Strathmore. Performing compositions that influenced Bernstein, as well as some of his very own famous works, the National Philharmonic will be the only symphony orchestra dedicating most of its 2018-2019 season to the works surrounding the legendary composer. 

The Second City announced today that SNL vet Julia Sweeney's one-woman show Julia Sweeney: Older and Wider will move to the theater's e.t.c. stage for a six-week run beginning April 24, 2018. Sweeney has been honing her first-ever stand-up show in front of live audiences since she began a January workshop run in one of Second City's studio theater spaces. Julia Sweeney: Old and Wider will run on the e.t.c. stage at The Second City April 24 - May 30, 2018.

San Francisco Ballet has announced its 2018-19 Season program and schedule. This summer, SF Ballet will return to Festival Napa Valley for one performance only on Friday, July 27, 2018, accompanied by members of the SF Ballet Orchestra. In addition, the Company will also return to the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., from October 23-28, 2018, where they will perform two mixed-bill programs of selected works from Unbound: A Festival of New Works.

Former Maryland lieutenant governor Kathleen Kennedy Townsend speaks at Elizabethtown College at 11 a.m. Tuesday, April 24, as the keynote for the College's Scholarship and Creative Arts Days.

The Kennedy Center's production of IN THE HEIGHTS concluded its run yesterday. Anthony Ramos, who originated the roles of John Laurens and Philip Hamilton in the Original Broadway Cast of Hamilton, starred as Usnavi in the Broadway Center Stage production of In the Heights at The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Presented as a part of the inaugural season of Broadway Center Stage, a Kennedy Center-produced series of musicals in semi-staged concerts, In the Heights ran March 21-25, 2018 in the Eisenhower Theater.

On April 17, 2018, WYPR Baltimore will air the first in a series of new podcasts by The National Edgar Allan Poe Theatre On the Air, with its production of The Tell-Tale Heart. The series features fresh, 20- to 30-minute podcast adaptations of the best-known works of Edgar Allan Poe, America's renowned master of horror and suspense. Each episode guides listeners through a mental hospital where each cell houses Poe protagonists, each waiting to thrill audiences with dramatic re-tellings of familiar stories including The Tell-Tale Heart, The Black Cat, Berenice and The Cask of Antillado. Musical underscore and sound effects add even more suspense to the stirring character accounts, brought to life by a creative team of performing artists and talent from the Baltimore metro area.

The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts announces additional programming for Artes de Cuba: From the Island to the World, a two-week festival celebrating the artistic richness that has emerged from this "island archipelago in the sun." Artes de Cuba represents the breadth and vibrancy of Cuba with more than 400 Cuban and Cuban American artists across more than 50 events, May 8 through 20, 2018. A complete calendar of events begins on page three, please see attached for festival brochure. 

Don't be fooled by all of the bright colors. The Mark Morris Dance Group's (MMDG) newly commissioned Layla and Majnun, which opened last night at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, lacks the necessary energy to elevate this tragic yet formulaic love story. It's evident from the start that all of the performers on stage are immensely talented, which is why the lack of cohesion throughout the evening becomes frustrating.