John Updike News

What's a high school prom without the undead? As part of its seventh season, Unexpected Stage Company presents the campy, rollicking musical Zombie Prom, celebrating 20 years since its off-Broadway debut. The production will run October 6 through 30, 2016, at Randolph Road Theater, 4010 Randolph Road, Wheaton, MD (the former Round House space).

TheaterWorks presents RELATIVITY, a new play by Mark St. Germain directed by Rob Ruggiero. RELATIVITY is the first show of TheaterWorks 31st Season and will run tonight, October 7, through November 13, 2016.

What's a high school prom without the undead? As part of its seventh season, Unexpected Stage Company presents the campy, rollicking musical Zombie Prom, celebrating 20 years since its off-Broadway debut.

TheaterWorks announced today the full cast and creative team for RELATIVITY, a new play by Mark St. Germain directed by Rob Ruggiero.

What's a high school prom without the undead? As part of its seventh season, Unexpected Stage Company presents the campy, rollicking musical Zombie Prom, celebrating 20 years since its off-Broadway debut.

Occasionally in cabaret, one encounters a performer with 'star power.' Other times, one sees a legitimate star in a cabaret setting---say, Patti LuPone or Ben Vereen---and knows instantly why the person is a star. But in his Feinstein's/54 Below solo debut show, Tony Danza: Standards & Stories, Tony Danza reminds audiences what it means to be a star, onstage as well as off.

Stage musical Witches of Eastwick was adapted from John Updike's novel of the same name thirteen years after the film was released in 1987- starring Jack Nicholson, Cher, Susan Sarandon and Michelle Pfeiffer. The show opened in London to mixed reviews but since then has been performed internationally. The last time it was seen professionally in this country was on the 2008 UK tour, starring Marti Pellow - a production I was fortunate enough to see.

?At the 20th annual Pell Awards, Trinity Repertory Company will honor local artists Len Cabral and Charlene Carpenzano with Rhode Island Pell Awards for Excellence in the Arts alongside previously announced honorees The Public Theater artistic director Oskar Eustis, Laurie Eustis and Elizabeth Chace. The awards ceremony and celebration will be held at Ochre Court on the Salve Regina University Campus in Newport, RI on May 23, 2016. Tickets and sponsorships are now available at www.trinityrep.com.

At the 20th annual Pell Awards, Trinity Repertory Company will award Oskar Eustis and Laurie Eustis with the Pell Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Arts. Oskar currently serves as the artistic director of The Public Theater. Elizabeth Z. Chace, local businesswoman and philanthropist will be honored with the Charles Sullivan Award for Distinguished Service in the Arts. Nominations are now being accepted for additional local honorees. Information is available at www.trinityrep.com. The ceremony will be held Monday, May 23, 2016.

Boston, MA — Two of Boston's leading musical ensembles—the Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP) and Odyssey Opera—unite onstage for a special concert honoring the great Pulitzer­winning composer Gunther Schuller (1925-­ 2015). Between them, these two organizations have a repertoire spanning a wide array of genres, and this program will offer the distinctive sound of Schuller's fusion of jazz vernacular with the symphonic and operatic world. Gil Rose will lead BMOP in two enjoyable narratives for all ages, Schuller's Journey Into Jazz and The Fisherman and His Wife, joined by Gunther's sons Ed Schuller (bass) and George Schuller (drums) as special guest artists, and Odyssey Opera, featuring Met Opera regular, mezzo-­soprano Sondra Kelly. Rounding out the program will be Schuller's sinfonietta work Games.

Boston, MA — Two of Boston's leading musical ensembles—the Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP) and Odyssey Opera—unite onstage for a special concert honoring the great Pulitzer­winning composer Gunther Schuller (1925-­ 2015). Between them, these two organizations have a repertoire spanning a wide array of genres, and this program will offer the distinctive sound of Schuller's fusion of jazz vernacular with the symphonic and operatic world. Gil Rose will lead BMOP in two enjoyable narratives for all ages, Schuller's Journey Into Jazz and The Fisherman and His Wife, joined by Gunther's sons Ed Schuller (bass) and George Schuller (drums) as special guest artists, and Odyssey Opera, featuring Met Opera regular, mezzo-­soprano Sondra Kelly. Rounding out the program will be Schuller's sinfonietta work Games. Continuing its 20th anniversary season, BMOP is thrilled and humbled to be presenting works by Schuller, the orchestra's longtime collaborator and friend. “There was no more prodigious and passionate master of the musical 20th century in America than Gunther Schuller,” says Gil Rose, Artistic Director, Founder, and Conductor of BMOP and Odyssey Opera. “He was American music making at its best.” Ranking among the most eclectic of his generation or any other, Schuller combined jazz and classical music in new ways. In the 1950s, Schuller's revolutionary, hybrid style became know as “Third Stream,” and entered the classical music mainstream. Schuller served as President of the New England Conservatory, where he established a successful degree-­granting jazz program, from 1967-­1977. He made his home in Newton, MA, and passed away on June 21, 2015 in Boston at the age of 89. Opening the program is Schuller's Games (2013)—written at age 90—for wind quintet and strings, offering a lighthearted, rapid-­??fire amalgam of ideas, rhythms, and tongue-­in-­cheek quotations that is a classic display of the composer's trademark nimbleness and wit. The organic fusion of contemporary classical music and modern jazz that characterizes the Third Stream is front and center in Journey Into Jazz (1962), a strong aesthetic statement about the porous nature of musical boundaries and the shared fundamentals of good musicianship. In the manner of Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf, Journey Into Jazz features a narration by famed jazz critic and author Nat Hentoff that tells the story of a young classically-­trained trumpeter who evolves into a jazz improviser and, ultimately, an artist with his own, individual sound. BMOP is thrilled to welcome Gunther's sons Ed Schuller (bass) and George Schuller (drums) as guest artists for this special tribute performance. Audiences can listen to BMOP perform Journey Into Jazz on BMOP/sound's eponymous recording of 2008. Of that disc, Gramophone wrote “Under Gil Rose's caring direction, the Boston Modern Orchestra Project and stellar instrumental soloists give performances that are not likely to be surpassed for some time.” Also on the program is another work of Schuller's that centers on narrative, the one-­act opera The Fisherman and His Wife (1970), which received its first performance by the Boston Opera Company under the direction of Sarah Caldwell. With a libretto by John Updike, the work is derived from the German fairy tale popularized by the Brothers Grimm and is appealing for all ages. A simple fisherman (performed here by tenor Steven Goldstein) is convinced by his wife (performed here by mezzo-­soprano Sondra Kelly) to ask for more and more favors from a great fish he has captured and thrown back into the sea. When the wife asks to play God, she and her husband are reduced to their original poor state, having learned some lessons along the way. About BMOP The Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP) is the premier orchestra in the United States dedicated exclusively to commissioning, performing, and recording music of the twentieth and twenty-­first centuries. A unique institution of crucial artistic importance to today's musical world, BMOP exists to disseminate exceptional orchestral music of the present and recent past via performances and recordings of the highest caliber. Founded by Artistic Director Gil Rose in 1996, BMOP has championed composers whose careers span nine decades. Each season, Rose brings BMOP's award-­??winning orchestra, renowned soloists, and influential composers to the stage of New England Conservatory's historic Jordan Hall in a series that offers orchestral programming of unmatched diversity. The musicians of BMOP are consistently lauded for the energy, imagination, and passion with which they infuse the music of the present era. For more information, please visit BMOP.org. About Odyssey Opera Founded in 2013 by Artistic Director/Conductor Gil Rose, Odyssey Opera presents adventurous and eclectic works that affirm opera as a powerful expression of the human experience. Its world-­??class artists perform the operatic repertoire from its historic beginnings throughlesser-­??known masterpieces to contemporary new works and commissions in a variety of formats and venues. Odyssey Opera sets standards of high musical and theatrical excellence and innovative programming to advance the operatic genre beyond the familiar and into undiscovered territory. Odyssey Opera takes its audience on a journey to places they've never been before. For more information, please visit odysseyopera.org.

The Music Hall's Writers on a New England Stage series will present bestselling author of The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series, Alexander McCall Smith, on Wednesday, November 11, 2015. A self-confessed serial novelist, he is the author of several other series and has written more than 100 books. He comes to town with his with his new installment in the beloved bestselling No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, THE WOMAN WHO WALKED IN SUNSHINE.

With his new novel, 'Lasting Impressions', author and playwright John Schlarbaum is attempting to make a great first impression with readers for the second time.

The Chicago Public Library Foundation and the Chicago Public Library have announced that the 16th annual Carl Sandburg Literary Award will be presented to legendary composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim. Universally heralded for his immense contributions to musical theater in a career spanning more than 50 years, Sondheim will be honored at the Carl Sandburg Literary Awards Dinner Wednesday, October 21, 2015 at The Forum (725 W. Roosevelt Road) on the campus of the University of Illinois at Chicago.

After four critically acclaimed seasons, Nashville's Blackbird Theater will produce what company founders call their 'magnum opus,' the new musical Myth, set for a world premiere run tonight, July 16, through July 26.

After four critically acclaimed seasons, Nashville's Blackbird Theater (winner of the 2013 First Night Award for outstanding theater company) opens what company founders Greg Greene and Wes Driver call their “magnum opus,” the new musical Myth, opening this Friday night, July 17, running through July 26 at the Hillsboro High School Theatre in Green Hills.

Canongate is to become the digital publisher of Muriel Spark's seminal novel The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, as part of a nine book deal agreed by Louisa Joyner, Editorial Director of Fiction, with Georgia Glover at David Higham Associates on behalf of Muriel Spark's Estate.

Variety reports that the off-Broadway musical ZOMBIE PROM could be lurching toward the big screen soon.

The Boston Globe Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, presented by the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (SMFA) recently announced the winners of its 2015 program distinguishing Massachusetts's top student artists and writers. These nearly 2,000 young writers and artists, whose work was selected from over 15,000 other submissions, will be recognized in The Boston Globe and the Gold Key winning works will be featured as part of a special exhibition hosted by the 808 Gallery at Boston University.

?After four critically acclaimed seasons, Nashville's Blackbird Theater will produce what company founders call their 'magnum opus,' the new musical Myth, set for a world premiere run July 16-26.