John Simon News

The Joe Goode Performance Group presents the world premiere of Still Standing, an immersive performance experience through San Francisco's historic Haas-Lilienthal house, July 12 - August 5, 2018.   Still Standing is Joe Goode's latest dance theater work incorporating his signature combustion of movement, word, song, and audience interaction. Using real, written, and imagined stories from the dancers and musicians, Joe Goode explores how we find resilience, persist, and reinvent. The work transports audiences through San Francisco's historic Haas-Lilienthal House, a mansion built in 1886 that recently completed a $4.3 million restoration. Designed by Peter R. Schmidt for William and Bertha Haas, it survived the 1906 earthquake and fire, and remained in the Haas family until 1973, after which it was entrusted to the San Francisco Heritage to serve as the organization's headquarters.   

Queer|Art|Mentorship was launched in 2011 to develop an intergenerational and interdisciplinary network of support and shared knowledge for LGBTQ artists. Now beginning its eighth year, the program brings together early-career and advanced-career artists for a year-long exchange across five different fields: Film, Literature, Performance, Visual Art, and Curatorial Practice.

The 29th Street Playwrights Collective NEW WORKS SERIES 2018 presents a staged reading of THE DIAMOND EATER, by award-winning designer/playwright Carrie Robbins, for one night only on Monday, May 14, at 7:30pm at the Bernie Wohl Center.

The New York Drama Critics' Circle today named Mary Jane by Amy Herzog best play of the 2017-18 season.  Hangmen by Martin McDonagh was named best foreign play. No award was given for best musical. The selections were made at the organization's 83rd annual voting meeting.

The winners of the 2018 New York Drama Critics' Circle Awards will be announced Thursday, May 3, 2018 at approximately 5:30pm. The selections will be made at the organization's 83rd annual voting meeting.

Theatre for a New Audience (TFANA; Jeffrey Horowitz, Founding Artistic Director) announces four TFANA Talks in connection with its new, critically lauded production of William Shakespeare's tragicomedy The Winter's Tale, directed by OBIE Award-winner Arin Arbus. These free post-performance discussions take placeat Polonsky Shakespeare Center (262 Ashland Place), TFANA's home in the Brooklyn Cultural District, where The Winter's Tale runs through April 15

The Eli and Edythe Broad Stage and Sotheby's Institute of Art a partnership with Claremont Graduate University, will present internationally acclaimed, Los Angeles-based artists Njideka Akunyili Crosby and Charles Gaines in conversation with Anne Ellegood, Senior Curator, Hammer Museum on Monday, May 21 at The Broad Stage at the Santa Monica College Performing Arts Center. ARTISTS TALK: A Conversation with L.A. Artists is the second program in a series of talks with influential California-based artists, established to explore the living legacy of Los Angeles' vibrant contemporary art scene.

Time Out - It was a pivotal year for Dunn. He was thirty-one. He had left the Cunningham Company in the spring of 1973. Grand Union was sporadically continuing. He had danced duet concerts with Sara Rudner, David Gordon, and Pat Catterson, here and there had also presented short solos on mixed programs. What now? He wrote: 'I'm in turmoil. It's a question of confidence. These theatrical scenes running around in my head, for years. If I can bring them to life as an evening-length solo, my dance-heart will strengthen, I will persevere.

The Visual Arts Center of New Jersey's current exhibition, Radiant Energy, showcases the work of Gabriele Evertz, Robert Swain, and Sanford Wurmfeld, artists who all create work that challenges viewers to see color differently. On Sunday, March 25, from 3-5 PM these artists will be joined by artist, curator, and gallery director Matthew Deleget for a conversation on their work and their relationship to color.

Asia Society New York will host an illuminating evening with acclaimed choreographer Shen Wei on March 27. Wei will discuss his artistic inspirations and working processes in a far-reaching dialogue on Buddhism, childhood memories, explorations of dreamscapes, and his journeys to Tibet with YiLing Mao, Executive Director of Art Collectives LLC. His dance company, Shen Wei Dance Arts, will perform some of his most iconic pieces including Folding, Re-Part II, and Neither. Selections of his paintings will be discussed in depth alongside a world premiere screening of his recent short film, Innerspace, a poetic exploration of how we navigate space, untethered from nature in our vast modern constructs-set in and around one of China's striking new works of architecture. The event is hosted in conjunction with Unknown Tibet: The Tucci Expeditions and Buddhist Painting, on view at Asia Society Museum through May 20, 2018.

NEW YORK, Feb. 7, 2018 /PRNewswire/ The Trustees of The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation have elected Elizabeth Alexander to be the Foundation's next President, effective March 2018. Alexander will succeed Earl Lewis, who has served as President since 2013.

Refuge Theatre Project, the three-year-old company that staged HIGH FIDELITY: THE MUSICAL twice in makeshift record stores, BARE: A POP OPERA in a church sanctuary and LYSISTRATA JONES in a gymnasium; will continue its practice of performing in found spaces with THE SPITFIRE GRILL, opening on March 25.

Refuge Theatre Project, the three-year-old company that staged HIGH FIDELITY: THE MUSICAL twice in makeshift record stores, BARE: A POP OPERA in a church sanctuary and LYSISTRATA JONES in a gymnasium; will continue its practice of performing in found spaces with THE SPITFIRE GRILL, opening on March 25.

Elizabeth Birnkrant, known for her roles in JESUS HOPPED THE A TRAIN for Eclipse Theatre, 1984 at Steppenwolf, VICES AND VIRTUES: THE GREAT WAR at Profiles Theatre and other roles with Sideshow, First Floor and Roadworks theatre companies, has been cast in the leading role of L'il Bit in The Artistic Home's production of Paula Vogel's Pulitzer Prize winning HOW I LEARNED TO DRIVE. The Artistic Home co-founder John Mossman will play Uncle Peck, the family member who has a sexual relationship with his niece Li'l Bit during her pre-teen and teenage years. Mossman, who directed The Artistic Home's BY THE BOG OF CATS last year, as an actor has most recently appeared as Leontes in THE WINTERS TALE and O'Trigger in THE RIVALS at Lakeside Shakespeare Theatre.  He has also appeared with The Artistic Home as MACBETH and as Shannon in NIGHT OF THE IGUANA. He played Atticus Finch in Oak Park Festival Theatre's TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD and performed in the Steppenwolf production of THE MARCH.

BroadwayWorld is sad to share the news today that legendary filmmaker Rick McKay has passed away earlier this week. A longtime friend of the web site, and constant presence in the theatre world, McKay has long been at work on two sequels to his 2004 hit film, Broadway: The Golden Age.

LUMBERYARD Contemporary Performing Arts today kicks off the third edition of the organization's acclaimed LUMBERYARD In The City Winter Festival, which takes place from January 25 - February 10 at New York Live Arts in New York City.

The Artistic Home will continue its 2017-18 season with Paula Vogel's Pulitzer Prize winning HOW I LEARNED TO DRIVE, to be directed by The Artistic Home's Associate Artistic Director Kayla Adams. It will open to the press Sunday, March 25 at 7:00 pm, following previews from March 21-24. HOW I LEARNED TO DRIVE, which premiered in 1997, was a Pulitzer Prize winner and a pioneering drama for its examination of pedophilia and sexual abuse of women. It follows a young woman, named L'il Bit, from age 11 to age 18 and her friendship and sexual affair with her uncle. Director Adams says, this courageous and surprising script reminds me again and again of the healing power of storytelling. In reviewing the 2017 production by the Cleveland Playhouse, the Cleveland PLAIN DEALER said, We can rejoice that 'How I Learned to Drive' feels as fresh and fearless as it did two decades ago - and mourn for the same reason.

In 2015, Stephen Petronio Company culminated its 30th anniversary 2014-15 season with a transformation: the launch of Bloodlines. This five-year autobiographical project not only honors the lineage of American postmodern dance, but also traces the influences and impulses that have shaped choreographer Stephen Petronio, an artist uniquely positioned to preserve this postmodern tradition.

LUMBERYARD Contemporary Performing Arts and the upcoming third edition of their acclaimed LUMBERYARD In The City Winter Festival taking place at New York Live Arts in New York City.

New Light Theater Project (Producing Director, Michael Aguirre; Artistic Director, Sarah Norris) is thrilled to present a revival of Donald Margulies' Tony Award-nominated play TIME STANDS STILL, directed by Jerry Heymann. TIME STANDS STILL begins performances Thursday, February 8 for a limited engagement through Saturday, February 24.