John Langs News

Voting is NOW OPEN and the first votes are in for the 2019 BroadwayWorld Seattle Awards, brought to you by TodayTix! The nominees are set, and now you can vote to make sure your favorite local theatres and performers are recognized!

A Contemporary Theatre opens its 55th Season with Lynn Nottage's 2017 Pulitzer Prize-winning drama, Sweat. Hailed by The New Yorker Magazine as 'The first theatrical landmark of the Trump Era,' Sweat is the gritty, heartbreaking story of factory workers who have spent their lives sharing drinks, secrets, and laughs while working together on the factory floor. But when layoffs and picket lines begin to chip away at their trust, and union jobs and factory machinery can disappear overnight, the friends find themselves pitted against each other in a gut-wrenching fight to stay afloat. Nottage poignantly captures the roots of our current national economic insecurity; and the political fury and racial tensions in our political climate today.

The Granddaddy of horror icons has descended upon Seattle and he's just as romantically malevolent as you might want him to be. ACT has brought us Steven Dietz's retooled adaptation of Bram Stoker's a?oeDraculaa?? and this classic tale of the original bloodlust is just what you need for your Spooky Halloween season.

If you're an aficionado of theater here in Seattle, then you've probably heard of Yussef El Guindi or at least seen one of his plays. An ACT 2018 core member, this prolific writer has had numerous plays around Seattle and beyond. And when reading the synopsis of his current piece making its World Premiere at ACT, a?oePeople of the Booka??, you may think you know what to expect and what hot button topics he'll hit upon. And he does. But he also manages some literary acrobatics bringing in surprise after surprise making this a deliciously complicated show with an ending that may leave you with more questions than when you came in.

ACT a?' A Contemporary Theatre, under the direction of Artistic Director John Langs, officially announces its 55th seasona?'a celebration of five contemporary plays including ACT's 50th Mainstage world premiere. The 2020 mainstage season will open with the Pulitzer Prize-winning Sweat by Lynn Nottage, followed by The Effect, a scintillating, pill-popping love story by Lucy Prebble. Summer 2020 will feature a co-production with the Denver Center for the Performing Arts with the soaring coming-of-age musical-drama Choir Boy by the Academy Award-winning screenwriter of Moonlight, Tarell Alvin McCraney. Fall at ACT will feature the world premiere of The Laugh Track by Wendy MacLeod, inspired by the true story of the first female Hollywood writer on the I Love Lucy Show. Closing the season, will be the weirdly wonderful and witty Witch by Jen Silverman, an updated version of The Witch of Edmonton, where the Devil comes to bargain for souls and things go awry when he meets up with the town outcast.

ACT a?" A Contemporary Theatre Dracula marks the return of award-winning playwright Steven Dietz to ACT. Dietz's bold adaptation of Bram Stoker's classic tale of terror and seduction will mark his twelfth production at ACT. An all-star cast of Seattle actors will join director John Langs, including five of ACT's Core Company Members with Brandon O' Neil in the title role.

ACT Theatre ACT Theatre and One Coast Collaboration announce the second year of their partnership on a new play festival. The ACT|One New Play Festival, scheduled at the end of August, includes a playwright-driven new works process, centering creative collaboration and conversation between local and national artists.

A Contemporary Theatre People of the Book, a world premiere play by award-winning playwright and ACT 2018 Core Member, Yussef El Guindi,takes its audience on an emotional thrill ride of secrets, hidden truths, jealousy, and the lies we tella?"to ourselves, to the ones closest to us, and about our country.

A Contemporary Theatre announces its summer production of The Year of Magical Thinking written by acclaimed reporter, essayist, and literary icon, Joan Didion.

Coming this summer to Catskill's adventurous Bridge Street Theatre - its first attempt at producing a full-scale summer musical! But, true to form, it's a pretty off-beat one: Joy Gregory and Gunnar Madsen's acclaimed Off-Broadway hit "The Shaggs: Philosophy of the World". It is based on the true story of three sisters from rural New Hampshire whose father forced them to form a rock band, and who recorded an album back in 1969 which has since become a cult classic. "The Shaggs" will play for eight performances only, Thursdays through Sundays July 11-21, in BST's intimate 84-seat Mainstage.

Characters at the crossroads of love, power, war, or forgiveness populate Seattle Shakespeare Company's upcoming season just announced by Artistic Director George Mount. Plans for the company's 2019-2020 season include The Tempest, The Rivals, Troilus and Cressida, and Macbeth. "Each of these plays in their own way has a moment when it comes down to a singular choice," said Mount. "The course of the action is set by that defining decision out of which things will never be the same."

Over the years, Dear Readers, I've seen many productions of Shakespeare's oft-produced tragedy 'Romeo + Juliet'. So many productions from so many levels of professionalism with so many different takes on how to tell the story. And to be honest, only one of them even came close to bringing the story of the star-crossed lovers to life. That is until now. ACT's current production with its vibrant staging and top-notch cast incorporating Deaf and hearing actors using American Sign Language in conjunction with the Shakespearean text has created a new standard by which all other R+J's must be judged from here on.

OK, so putting up a dark and moody production of Anton Chekhov's 'Uncle Vanya' may sound redundant but remember, this is The Seagull Project. They've spent the last eight years killing it with all things Chekhov and now with the completion of the main plays, the dark and moody tone isn't so much the story but the way it's presented that thrilled.

It's the last week to vote for the 2018 BroadwayWorld Seattle Awards, brought to you by BroadwayHD! Readers are already setting records as they vote for their favorites. Regional productions, touring shows, and more are all included in the awards, honoring productions which opened between October 1, 2017 through September 30, 2018. Our local editors set the categories, our readers submitted their nominees, and now you get to vote for your favorites! Voting will continue through December 31st, 2018.

There's just two weeks left to vote for the 2018 BroadwayWorld Seattle Awards, brought to you by BroadwayHD! Readers are already setting records as they vote for their favorites. Regional productions, touring shows, and more are all included in the awards, honoring productions which opened between October 1, 2017 through September 30, 2018. Our local editors set the categories, our readers submitted their nominees, and now you get to vote for your favorites! Voting will continue through December 31st, 2018.

There's just two weeks left to vote for the 2018 BroadwayWorld Seattle Awards, brought to you by BroadwayHD! Readers are already setting records as they vote for their favorites. Regional productions, touring shows, and more are all included in the awards, honoring productions which opened between October 1, 2017 through September 30, 2018. Our local editors set the categories, our readers submitted their nominees, and now you get to vote for your favorites! Voting will continue through December 31st, 2018.

There's just one month left to vote for the 2018 BroadwayWorld Seattle Awards, brought to you by BroadwayHD! Readers are already setting records as they vote for their favorites. Regional productions, touring shows, and more are all included in the awards, honoring productions which opened between October 1, 2017 through September 30, 2018. Our local editors set the categories, our readers submitted their nominees, and now you get to vote for your favorites! Voting will continue through December 31st, 2018.

There's just one month left to vote for the 2018 BroadwayWorld Seattle Awards, brought to you by BroadwayHD! Nominations were reader-submitted and now our readers are already setting records as they vote for their favorites. Regional productions, touring shows, and more are all included in the awards, honoring productions which opened between October 1, 2017 through September 30, 2018. Our local editors set the categories, our readers submitted their nominees, and now you get to vote for your favorites! Voting will continue through December 31st, 2018.

In 1993 a few Norwegian politicians managed the impossible, to get the Israelis and Palestinians to negotiate a peace. What sounds even more impossible is that they all kept it secret. Now this may not sound like the riveting topic for a three-hour play but what J.T. Rogers' 'Oslo', currently playing at ACT, does it to go beyond the facts of the accords and examines the humanity that made the accords possible and that kind of conflict makes for a tense and often times funny piece presented with a stunning ensemble from ACT.

David Hare's "Skylight", currently playing at ACT, is a play teaming with recriminations over infidelities and the struggles of class at the heart of the demise of two people's relationship. It's packed with wonderful moments for both actors to make equally compelling arguments over who's at fault. Who's right and who's wrong. Who's got the moral high ground and who's grounded in reality. To the point that by the end you can see the good and bad in each and walk away with something to think and talk about. And then Hare adds a second ending that I can only describe as the Hollywood RomCom ending to drive his own point home, a point we already got, in a way that is at best superfluous and at worst just plain confusing.