Joseph Haj News

The Guthrie Theater today announced the 11 productions of its 2020-2021 mainstage season: Noël Coward's hot-blooded comedy Private Lives; Red Hot Patriot, a whip-smart one-woman show starring Kathleen Turner

Hear more from artistic director Joseph Haj on welcoming director Anne Bogart and this famed ensemble to the Guthrie below!

The Guthrie Theater (Joseph Haj, artistic director) announced that it is the recipient of two funding awards: a Minnesota State Arts Board Arts Access grant to advance ongoing community collaboration and art-making with the local Native community and an award from The Joyce Foundation, which will allow the Guthrie to commission nationally recognized artists Larissa FastHorse and Ty Defoe of Indigenous Direction to create a new theater production that centers around Twin Cities Native stories, specifically that of the Dakota and Anishinaabe-Ojibwe people. Collectively, these two awards allow the Guthrie and the Twin Cities Native community to continue a journey of intentional partnership and collaboration that began three years ago.

The Oregon Shakespeare Festival (OSF) will officially launch its 85th year and Nataki Garrett's first full season as artistic director on March 6. Preview performances of five plays begin on February 28, and the 2020 season will continue through Nov. 1, with six more plays opening in the spring and summer.

The Guthrie Theater (Joseph Haj, artistic director) will present CENTERPLAY, a one-woman show created and performed by Vie Boheme in the Dowling Studio. In this immersive, multimodal, 360-degree performance, Twin Cities-based artist Vie Boheme uses a fusion of dance and theater to embody the stories of black women. Vivid juxtapositions of live music, movement, spoken word and monologues take center stage as she expresses the complex and interwoven emotions of each woman, defying stereotypes and giving gravity to their experiences with her body, voice and soul.

The Guthrie Theater (Joseph Haj, artistic director) announced today its partnership with American Repertory Theater at Harvard University (Diane Paulus, Terrie and Bradley Bloom artistic director; Diane Borger, executive producer) to co-commission and co-develop a new play cycle by Mark Rylance and Peter Reder.

The Guthrie Theater (Joseph Haj, artistic director) announced it will host the 21st Shakespeare Classic on Sunday, March 15 at 1 p.m., providing young people, with the recommended age range of 10 to 17, and their loved ones an opportunity to experience Twelfth Night, William Shakespeare's music-filled comedy with equal parts mayhem and revelry.

The Guthrie Theater (Joseph Haj, artistic director) today announced SITI Company's cast and creative team for the riveting ancient tale The Bacchae, written by Euripides, translated by Aaron Poochigian and directed by celebrated SITI Company co-founder Anne Bogart. The globally renowned acting company's debut on the Guthrie's mainstage offers a rare opportunity for local theatergoers to experience this influential Greek tragedy through a contemporary lens.

Heather Raffo's NOURA, a variation on themes from Ibsen's A DOLL'S HOUSE set within an immigrant Iraqi family, serves as the mainstage anchor for an ambitious, multi-month series of four shows plus a distinguished panel talk at the Guthrie Theater. Collectively, these comprise the theater's Celebration of Arab Artistry. It's been a vital, eye-opening, boundary-crossing initiative. Artistic Director Joseph Haj says, a?oeExpanding the idea of what the classical canon is and should look like is very much in the Guthrie's charge.a??

The Guthrie Theater (Joseph Haj, artistic director) announced today a return of rotating repertory with Shakespeare's History Cycle (Richard II, Henry IV [Parts I and II as one play] and Henry V), which will play on the Wurtele Thrust Stage during the 2020-2021 Season.

The Oregon Shakespeare Festival, which is entering its 85th year, today announced the casts for the 2020 season, featuring some of the most beloved performers from OSF's history alongside newcomers from around the country. OSF is one of the most prominent theatre companies across the nation that have joined the Jubilee, a yearlong nationwide commitment by theatres to feature work generated by those who have traditionally been excluded from or marginalized by the theatre industry. Five Shakespeare plays staged as four productions, alongside two new plays inspired by him, take the Festival's stages in 2020. Two more commissions from OSF's multi-decade commissioning program American Revolutions: the United States History Cycle will also premiere.

Memories are explored in THE GLASS MENAGERIE and this interview with actor Remy Auberjonois, starring in the Guthrie's production through Oct. 27.

The Guthrie's current production of THE GLASS MENAGERIE (the fifth in its history) is delicate and heartbreaking as well as absolutely faithful to the non-naturalistic spirit of the play, which was so ground-breaking in its day. And while theater nowadays often bounds over all the strictures of realism, making us accustomed to imagistic writing, non-linear structure, and conceptual design, in no way does GLASS MENAGERIE as staged here seem clunky or old-fashioned. It's a true classic and a masterpiece and perhaps, as the young woman sitting next to me said, may remain so for all time.

The Glass Menagerie recently began performances at Guthrie Theater and we've got a first look! Watch the video below!

Day is a busy actor who's in and out of town on her days off from FLOYD'S so this time we get six questions and no plug but I recommend checking this quick interview out, and then call the box office and get over to see her on stage at the Guthrie before Aug. 31.

Grammy-winning folk singersongwriter Loudon Wainwright III reflects upon his unique relationship with his father in an evening of original songs and heartfelt stories in Surviving Twin. He will perform one show at Bristol Riverside Theatre on Saturday, November 30 at 8pm. Tickets are on sale now.

Stage Directors and Choreographers Foundation (SDCF), the not-for-profit foundation of Stage Directors and Choreographers Society (SDC), announced today that nominations for the Zelda Fichandler Award, for a director or choreographer who is transforming theatre in the Central Region, are now being accepted through July 2, 2019.

Oregon Shakespeare Festival (OSF) Incoming Artistic Director Nataki Garrett and Artistic Director Bill Rauch announced the Festival's 2020 playbill today. The season celebrates OSF's ongoing commitment to the work of Shakespeare, imaginative adaptations of beloved classics and illuminating new plays in a Jubilee year that includes two world-premiere American Revolutions commissions for only the second time in the Festival's history.

On stage, Jay O. Sanders' Cyrano spends a lot of time speaking through Christian. This time, Sanders speaks for himself.

Theatre Forward and Chairman John Thomopoulos last night held its celebration to support American theatre at the annual Chairman's Awards Gala at The Pierre (2 East 61st Street). The Chairman's Awards Gala supports the work of Theatre Forward, which recently celebrated its 40th Anniversary season, and is dedicated to advancing American theatres and its communities through its Educating Through Theatre and Advancing Strong Theatre initiatives.