John Smith News

Second Street Players announces its 2020 season and is calling for potential Directors to submit applications by September 1, 2019.

Amazon Prime has released the first few minutes of Man in the High Castle Season 4 before the epic final season drops November 15, 2019.

Winner of the SDSU New Musicals Initiative, 'TIL DEATH DO US PART tells the story of Gracie Jean, a spitfire from hardscrabble Tennessee, who is called to preach God's grace, and Matthew, heir apparent to small town Evangelical royalty, who struggles to rebel against his father while maintaining the privilege of his birth. When they meet, it's love at first sight. But what happens when a fairytale marriage becomes a battle of the sexes?

Jamestown, the first successful English settlement in the Americas, is best known for the legend of John Smith and Pocahontas, but now archaeologists are on the hunt for a pioneering and controversial forgotten founding father. On July 30, 1619, Sir George Yeardley presided over the first democratic assembly in English-speaking America. Just a few weeks later, he purchased the first captive Africans for an English colony – opening America to the horrors of slavery. Smithsonian Channel's probing series AMERICA'S HIDDEN STORIES has pulled back the curtain on history we thought we knew, such as the groundbreaking revelation that Revolutionary War hero General Casimir Pulaski was intersex. Now, a special episode of the series reveals how Sir George Yeardley and a single year, 1619, set the course for the nation's future. AMERICA'S HIDDEN STORIES: MYSTERY AT JAMESTOWN premieres 400 years after the assembly's anniversary on Monday, July 29 at 8 PM ETPT.

Second Street Players will present "Run for Your Wife" as the fourth show of its 2019 season.  This fast-paced, hilarious show replaces "The Odd Couple," which was recently announced as a mid-season replacement.

Lucky Bird Media — comprised of Daniel Cooper, Susan Hubbard, Jake Lanier, and Maddie Corbin — is elated to announce Tom Avis of Hive Mind PR as the newest member of their growing team. Avis brings over half a decade of experience as well as critically acclaimed artists including Pile, Weaves, Jesca Hoop, Ellis, JEFF The Brotherhood and Homeshake, to the roster. Avis will maintain Hive Mind as Lucky Bird's Toronto branch, expanding the US company into Canada.

UK-based critically-acclaimed folk maestro John Smith, whose brilliant new album Hummingbird was released on March 22nd via Commoner Records/Thirty Tigers, has announced new tour dates which begin June 6th. Smith, who recently concluded a successful tour with Peter Mulvey, will provide support for Patty Griffin on the West Coast, making stops in San Francisco, Seattle, and Portland, amongst others. See below for a list of dates.

UK-based critically-acclaimed folk maestro John Smith, whose brilliant new album Hummingbird was released on March 22nd via Commoner Records/Thirty Tigers, has unveiled a new video for the album's title track via Billboard. The video, directed by Simon Whitehead, depicts Smith traversing the beautiful countryside of Somerset, England with his guitar as he heads to a performance in a local pub, interspersed with scenes of a young woman, Adelie Lavail, dancing. 'I just took a walk around the countryside where I live, and we found this fantastic dancer to flit in and out of sight, like the titular hummingbird,' Smith told Billboard. 'We decided to put as much of her in the video as possible. What she's doing is so visual and so satisfying to watch, just beautiful -- better than staring at me, right?' Getting the 'right' video for 'Hummingbird' was very important to Smith. 'The song itself is really the catalyst for the whole album,' he said of the song, one of three oringials on the album amidst traditional folk songs. “I didn't want to give it a title that belonged to something someone else wrote 100 years ago. So when I sat down to write, 'Hummingbird' came out of me really quickly, within an hour. It's the rare song that tumbled out, and I was lucky to capture all the pieces. As soon as it arrived I thought, 'This is the glue that's gonna hold the whole thing together.''

The British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) has today announced the nominations for the 2019 Virgin Media British Academy Television Awards and British Academy Television Craft Awards. These awards reward the very best in television craft and television programmes broadcast in the UK in 2018. The Virgin Media British Academy Television Awards ceremony will be held at the Royal Festival Hall on Sunday 12 May with the British Academy Television Craft Awards taking place two weeks earlier on Sunday 28 April at The Brewery, London.

Hummingbird, the new album from UK-based critically-acclaimed folk maestro John Smith, is out today via Commoner Records/Thirty Tigers. Hummingbird, Smith's purest, most elegant set of recordings to date, is a moving mix of modern-day folk tunes and other traditional songs that reach as far back as the 15th century. 'Some artists are a bit precious, when approaching old folk songs, not trusting the sturdiness with which they've survived hundreds of years of interpretation. Smith doesn't do that,' said Folk Alley in its premiere of the album yesterday. 'He wraps himself around them and them around him, tugging here and stretching there to make them fit his own needs, while never abandoning the heart of their matters. Two things hit the listener right away: Smith's singing and playing. He's exceedingly gifted at both,' they remarked. 'His honey voice is the raw, unfiltered sort — sweet, smooth, and healing, but with a hint of grit when you want it most.' 'Folklore must maintain an ongoing conversation between the past and present,' says PopMatters, 'and that is what we hear in the beauty and mastery of Smith's playing.'

The Butterfly Guild - formerly Pleasure Guild of Nationwide Children's Hospital presented Disney's The Little Mermaid February 22-24th, 2019. This is their annual broadway-style production at the historic Palace Theatre in downtown Columbus. All of the proceeds raised goes to support Nationwide Children's Hospital Hospice and Palliative Care Program.

Amazon Prime Video today announced that the fourth and final season of the Emmy Award-winning series The Man in the High Castle will premiere this fall. The final season is currently being filmed in Vancouver and will wrap next month.

UK-based critically-acclaimed folk/Americana maestro John Smith, who has released five albums and toured the world for almost fifteen years playing as a session guitarist and singer for the likes of Joan Baez, Lisa Hannigan, and David Gray, will release his latest album Hummingbird in the US on March 22 via Commoner Records/Thirty Tigers. Smith became a folk devotee as a teenager after hearing artists like John Renbourn for the first time; Renbourn, a major inspiration and influence on Smith's art, has since dubbed the artist 'the future of folk music.' 'The six strings of my guitar have granted me access to a sacred space between things, the unconscious interweaving sensations that allow us that gentle buzz on hearing a good folk song,' Smith explains. 'I've been immeasurably fortunate to open for and even play with some of my heroes and influences in the folk world. Their work and their generosity of spirit have been a constant reminder that I must keep playing, recording and touring, no matter the cost. There is always work to be done in the service of good music.'

With a proliferation of pimps, drug dealers and muggers saturating Times Square, business on Broadway was struggling during much of the 1970s, with theatres frequently left empty for long stretches and shows that didn't receive enthusiastic praise from the critics usually shutting down quickly.

The York Theatre Company (James Morgan, Producing Artistic Director; Evans Haile, Executive Director), dedicated to the development of new musicals and rediscovery of musical gems from the past, will present a return engagement of the hit Off-Broadway musical, Enter Laughing: The Musical with book by Joseph Stein, music and lyrics by Stan Daniels, based on the play Enter Laughing by Joseph Stein from the novel by Carl Reiner, produced in association with Riki Kane Larimer and Alene Daniels. Enter Laughing: The Musical returns to kick off The York's year-long 50th Anniversary Celebration at The York Theatre Company at Saint Peter's (entrance on East 54th Street, just east of Lexington Avenue).

Opening the 2019 winter series is Carmelina, with music by Burton Lane, lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner, additional lyrics by Barry Harman, and book by Joseph Stein and Alan Jay Lerner. Performances began Saturday afternoon, January 26, 2019 and continue for 11 performances only through February 3, 2019. The show officially opened last night and BroadwayWorld was there. Check out the photos below!

Celebrating the centennial of Alan Jay Lerner! The York Theatre Company (James Morgan, Producing Artistic Director; Evans Haile, Executive Director), dedicated to the development of new musicals and rediscovery of musical gems from the past, enters the new year with the 25th Anniversary of its acclaimed Musicals in Mufti series celebrating the work of the legendary librettist and lyricist Alan Jay Lerner,

Make It Write theatre producer Sharon Colpman, director Meg McFarlane and writer Helen Jones are treating Liverpool audiences to a unique Western drama, The Barn Swallows, premiering at The Hope Street Theatre from Wed 6 - Sat 9 March 2019.

Celebrating the centennial of Alan Jay Lerner! The York Theatre Company enters the new year with the 25th Anniversary of its acclaimed Musicals in Mufti series celebrating the work of the legendary librettist and lyricist Alan Jay Lerner,

With ethical dilemmas crowding the headlines, the time is right for Stories on Stage to present 'Intro to Ethics 101' on Sunday, February 10 at 1:30 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. at the Su Teatro Cultural and Performing Arts Center, 721 Santa Fe Drive, Denver, CO 80204. Single tickets are $15-$28 and available online at www.storiesonstage.org or by calling 303-494-0523.