Keith Josef Adkins News

A Call for Revolutionary Theatre 2020 articles will be released every weekday for 10 days, October 19-30, 2020, on BTC's website at www.blacktheatrecommons.org. Writers include Andy Jean, Awoye Timpo, Camille A. Brown, Candace L. Feldman, Charlique C. Rolle, Claudia Alick, Harold Steward, Jamil Jude, Kamilah Forbes, and more.

For the past century, stories written by University of Iowa students, faculty, and alumni have captivated audiences around the world. Playwrights such as Tennessee Williams, Lee Blessing, Kirsten Greenidge, Samuel D. Hunter, and Jen Silverman have re-imagined what theatre, television, and film can be, experimenting and bringing ideas together in new and unexpected ways.

Tomorrow, Harlem9, the Obie Award-Winning producing collective, begins the stream of their 10th Annual and 1st Digital Festival.  The Harlem based collective is no stranger to Black Playwrights, Actors and Directors who also make their living within the Theatre, TV and Film industry. 

Harlem9 recently announced that their 10th Anniversary would be Digital. Last year, 2019, was the first year that the Obie Award-Winning collective went National.

Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, Cincinnati Shakespeare Company and Ensemble Theatre Cincinnati today issued a joint announcement that they will delay the start of their 2020-21 seasons due to the complex challenges around continuing live performances. All three theatres plan to kick off their revised seasons this winter with a smaller slate of rearranged, rescheduled or new shows.

The Broadway Podcast network will celebrate Pride month with a special section of the website highlighting a variety of programming to mark the occasion.

Dr. Barbara Ann Teer's National Black Theatre (NBT) will go live with its latest initiative, NBT@Home: Uplifting Communal Resilience, on Wednesday, April 22.

Artistic Director Blake Robison announced Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park's 2020-21 season today, which includes world premieres by Keith Josef Adkins, Deborah Zoe Laufer and Ken Ludwig, along with the U.S. Premiere of David Haig's Pressure.

The Apollo Theater announced today its first multi-work commissioning initiative dedicated to the creation of a diverse, 21st century American performing arts canon, Apollo New Works. Made possible with the support of a $2 million grant from the Ford Foundation for the creation of new work by artists of color, the initiative is also funded by a $1 million grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for the Apollo's Master Artist in Residency, a central component of the program.

Samuel French, a Concord Theatricals Company, announced today that Neil Simon (posthumously), TDF Accessibility Program, and Aleshea Harris are the 2019 recipients of the 4th Annual Samuel French Awards. The Awards, which are accompanied by a donation from Concord Theatricals of $15,000, were created by Samuel French to acknowledge the great work and unparalleled passion of theatre artists, as well as applaud significant contributions to the industry.

Stage Directors and Choreographers Foundation (SDCF), the not-for-profit foundation affiliated with Stage Directors and Choreographers Society (SDC), has announced the winner and three finalists for the annual Zelda Fichandler Award. The award will be presented at an invitation-only event on Tuesday, November 12, 2019 in New York City. The Fichandler Award recognizes directors and choreographers who have demonstrated great accomplishment to-date with singular creativity and deep investment in a particular community or region, and is named for Zelda Fichandler, the founding artistic director of Arena Stage in Washington, D.C. This year's Fichandler Award focused on directors and choreographers from the central region of the United States.

Classic Stage Company kicks off its 2019-20 season on Thursday, October 10, when previews begin for artistic director John Doyle's new staging of William Shakespeare's Macbeth, opening October 27 and running through December 15 at the Lynn F. Angelson Theater at CSC (136 E. 13th St, New York). Today CSC announces that Timothy Douglas will direct Tristan Bernays' retelling of Frankenstein (beginning January 30), which the company will pair with Kate Hamill's reimagining of Dracula (starting January 14), directed by Sarna Lapine, to form a thrilling repertory cycle of adaptations of two legendary Gothic nightmares by emerging playwrights.

New York Theatre Workshop (NYTW) announces the full cast and creative team for the New York Premiere of NYTW Usual Suspect Mfoniso Udofia's runboyrun, directed by Loretta Greco (The Story), and In Old Age, directed by Awoye Timpo (Good Grief). The two plays will be performed together as one evening of work.

Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park Artistic Director Blake Robison announced today the appointment of Karen Zacarias and Nicole A. Watson as new Associate Artists for the theatre. They will join Wendy C. Goldberg on the Playhouse artistic team, working closely with Robison on season planning, new play development and community engagement.

Playwrights Ty Defoe (Musical Theatre Factory Makers Cohort, Clouds Are Pillows for the Moon), Monet Hurst-Mendoza (Veil'd, The Kilroys), Mona Mansour (Urge for Going, The Way West), and Sanaz Toossi (Page 73 Playwriting Fellow, EST's Youngblood), and directors Misha Chowdhury (The Wolves, An Ordinary Muslim), Estefania Fadul (Scissoring, O'Neill/NNPN National Directors Fellowship), Seonjae Kim (Riot Antigone), Taylor Reynolds (Plano), and Megan Sandberg-Zakian (Nat Turner in Jerusalem) join Noor Theatre's 5th Annual 48 Hour Forum, a 48-hour play festival inspired by news events of the day.

Celebrating its 50th anniversary with a series of performances throughout the city, around the country and around the world, Dr. Barbara Ann Teer's National Black Theatre (NBT) is partnering with the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture for "In Perpetual Flight: The Migration of the Black Body" at the Schomburg Center. The 6:30 p.m. event on Tuesday, April 16, is part of Carnegie Hall's Migrations: The Making of America, a citywide festival featuring events about the journeys of people who have shaped and influenced American culture.

The New Black Fest and The Lark, two theater organizations dedicated to celebrating and advocating for stories that uplift the wide range of experiences in our complex world, are proud to announce the sixth annual The New Black Fest at The Lark.

The world's leading theatrical publishing and licensing company, Samuel French, announced today that The Secret Garden (writing team Lucy Simon & Marsha Norman), Doug Wright, and Antoinette Nwandu will be honored at the third annual Samuel French Awards. A special acknowledgement will also go to Heidi Ettinger, originating producer and Tony Award-winning set designer of The Secret Garden. Created to recognize the great work and unparalleled passion of theatre artists, as well as applaud their significant contributions to the industry, the Samuel French Awards will be presented in a private ceremony on Monday, October 29, 2018.

Berkeley Rep announced today that Obie Award-winning performer Nilaja Sun (No Child…) will return with her tour-de-force solo show Pike St., directed by Ron Russell. Hailed as "Full of vivid life" by the New York Times, this limited engagement will run Saturday, November 17, 2018 through Sunday, December 16, 2018.

Keith Josef Adkins and Devin Haqq have assembled a spectacular cast for the private industry reading of their socially-charged horror screenplay The Night Man at United Talent Agency (UTA) in NYC on Monday, September 10th.