John Guare News

This spring, Pull Together Productions will present the world premiere of Virus Attacks Heart by Yale Drama Series Award winning playwright, Shannon Murdoch, directed by Brian Gillespie, as part of the 6th Annual Planet Connections Theatre Festivity. The Festivity will take place May 12 through June 8 at the Paradise Factory.

The Hermitage Artist Retreat and the Philadelphia-based Greenfield Foundation have presented Nilo Cruz with the 2014 Greenfield Prize in drama at a celebration dinner in Sarasota, FL.

A Noise Within, led by Producing Artistic Directors Geoff Elliott and Julia Rodriguez-Elliott, announces its 23rd season of classic theater in Southern California. Informed by the climate of social and economic upheaval in which we live, the season's theme-reflected in a kaleidoscopic palette of plays-is REVOLUTION.

Rubicon Theatre continues the company's 16th Not Your Typical Season with a special run of Love, Loss, and What I Wore -- a witty and wise celebration of womanhood adapted by Nora and Delia Ephron, creators of such hits as 'When Harry Met Sally,' 'Sleepless in Seattle,' 'You've Got Mail,' 'The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants' and 'Silkwood.'

Guthrie Director Joe Dowling today announced ten mainstage productions in his final season at the helm of the world renowned theater, culminating 20 years of remarkable leadership. The 2014-2015 lineup includes first-time Guthrie productions of plays by A.R. Gurney, Anne Washburn and Sarah Ruhl, three productions directed by Dowling, including a beloved Shakespeare comedy and iconic masterpieces by Arthur Miller and Sean O'Casey, the Guthrie debut of visionary writer and director Mary Zimmerman, as well as an all-American musical slated for summer.

To celebrate the O'Neill's 50th anniversary and influence, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts will present Launchpad of the American Theater: The O'Neill Since 1964, a new free multimedia exhibition on display in the Vincent Astor Gallery May 17 through September 16, 2014. The exhibition will chart the journey of American theater at the O'Neill from its past to present and future, and explore the creative development of its playwrights, composers, students, puppeteers and performers.

Signature Theatre just held its Annual Gala celebration last night, April 7, 2014 honoring 108th New York City mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and actor/playwright/director Ruben Santiago-Hudson. BroadwayWorld brings you photos from inside the gala below!

Rubicon Theatre continues the company's 16th Not Your Typical Season with a special run of Love, Loss, and What I Wore -- a witty and wise celebration of womanhood adapted by Nora and Delia Ephron, creators of such hits as 'When Harry Met Sally,' 'Sleepless in Seattle,' 'You've Got Mail,' 'The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants' and 'Silkwood.'

As a featured event of its Tenth Anniversary Spring Rep season, Phoenix Theatre Ensemble (www.PhoenixTheatreEnsemble.org) will present 'Dogg's Hamlet, Cahoot's Macbeth' by Tom Stoppard from May 2 to 23, 2014 at The Wild Project 195 E. 3rd Street (at Ave. B). It's an evening of two short plays in which Stoppard radically shortens 'Hamlet' and 'Macbeth' to craft a witty Shakespearean two-step on serious themes of artistic dissent. Kevin Confoy directs.

Pulitzer Prize winner Marsha Norman has selected playwright Janine Nabers as the winner of the 2014 Yale Drama Series for her play Serial Black Face, chosen from 1638 entries from 41 countries. As winner of the competition, Serial Black Face will be published by Yale University Press, receive a staged reading at Lincoln Center Theater's Claire Tow Theater, and Ms. Nabers will be presented with the David Charles Horn Prize, a cash award of $10,000.

A special new Lovestream concert is now available online to celebrate the release of Sherie Rene Scott, All Will Be Well - The Piece of Meat Studio Sessions. The new Sh-K-Boom Records album is now available as a digital exclusive on iTunes, Amazon and wherever digital music is sold.

The Miami Herald reported last week that 'Sotto Voce' by Nilo Cruz, which Theater for the New City commissioned and produced for its world premiere February 15 to March 9, will be staged by legendary director Peter Brook in a French version in the future, with other versions to follow. Mr. Brook, Director of Theatre du Nord in Paris, was quoted as calling the play 'beautiful.'

Sh-K-Boom Records will present the new album from Tony Award-nominee Sherie Rene Scott, All Will Be Well - The Piece of Meat Studio Sessions, as a digital exclusive today, March 25.

New dramatic works by Tony-winning playwright John Guare (House of Blue Leaves, Six Degrees of Separation) and dramatist, screenwriter and film director Neil LaBute (In the Company of Men, The Shape of Things and Reasons to be Pretty) highlight a three-night festival of new short plays and monologues at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe (236 East 3rd Street). Proceeds from the festival will benefit the Cafe's literacy and afterschool programs, which serve thousands of students from disadvantaged communities.

Today in 2002, Sweet Smell of Success opened at the Martin Beck Theatre (now the Al Hirschfeld Theatre), where it ran for 109 performances. Created by Marvin Hamlisch (music), Craig Carnelia (lyrics), and John Guare (book), the show is based on the 1957 movie of the same name. It tells the story of a powerful newspaper columnist named J. J. Hunsecker (based on famed New York columnist Walter Winchell) who uses his connections to ruin his sister's relationship with a man he deems inappropriate. The show starred John Lithgow as J.J. Hunsecker, and Brian d'Arcy James as Sidney Falcone.

For DIRECTOR'S CHOICE, the fourth program of Pacific Northwest Ballet's 2013-2014 season, Artistic Director Peter Boal selects from his roster of acquisitions and increases them by one: The captivating mixed-bill program will feature a much-anticipated world premiere by Alejandro Cerrudo, resident choreographer of Hubbard Street Dance Chicago. The program also reprises audience favorites TAKE FIVE...More or Less, Broadway-darling Susan Stroman's sunny slice of jazz-infused Dave Brubeck fun; and Susan Marshall's distinctive aerial duet, Kiss. Rounding out the lineup is Molissa Fenley's State of Darkness, a tour-de-force solo performance set to Stravinsky's riot-inducing The Rite of Spring. DIRECTOR'S CHOICE runs for seven performances only, today, March 14 through 23 at Seattle Center's Marion Oliver McCaw Hall.

On Monday, March 24, 2014, The Negro Ensemble Company, Inc. (Charles Weldon, Artistic Director; Karen Brown, Executive Director) and Signature Theatre (James Houghton, Founding Artistic Director; Erika Mallin, Executive Director) will unite in a day-long celebration of the life and works of Tony Award-nominated playwright Leslie Lee. Lee passed away in New York City on January 20, 2014.

Atlantic Theater Company's highly anticipated revival of Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill's musical The Threepenny Opera, directed and choreographed by Martha Clarke, begins previews tonight, March 12, 2014.

Matt Okin, Artistic Director of Black Box Studios and its Ensemble, and Alex Diaz, Director of Education at The Performing Arts School at bergenPAC, announced the next fully-produced theatrical production to hit downtown Englewood this season, John Guare's House of Blue Leaves. House will run from March 27 through April 6, with performances Thursdays at 8pm, Saturdays at 9:30pm, and Sundays at 8pm, at the Van Brunt Studios of The Performing Arts School at bergenPAC, 30 North Van Brunt, just two doors away from the bergenPAC Mainstage. Tickets, $20.00 (with group rates available), go on sale on March 5th, at www.blackboxnynj.com/house.

STELLA ADLER LAB THEATRE has announced its opening production for the 2014 Season. John Guare's Six Degrees of Separation to be directed by Academy Award winner Milton Justice. Justice directed the critically acclaimed production of Waiting for Godot, which opened the Lab Theatre last fall.