Can personal bonds bridge political chasms? John Henry Davis directs Tony Abatemarco and David Nevell in a brilliant and funny play of ideas by Lee Blessing. A Walk in the Woods opens April 29 at International City Theatre, with two low-priced previews set for April 27 and April 28.
New Jersey Repertory Company, 179 Broadway in Long Branch, has announced the cast of the World Premiere of VILLAINOUS COMPANY by Victor L. Cahn.
Phoebe Productions will produce a limited-run revival of Lee Blessing's Two Rooms as its inaugural offering, starting April 13 at Theatre 54 at Shetler Studios. Two Rooms tells the story of the wife of an American hostage held in Beirut facing the difficult decision of cooperating with cautious hostage negotiators from the State Department or taking a riskier path by speaking candidly and publicly with a journalist. Although written in response to the hostage abductions of the 1980s, the play continues to resonate as we face similar hostage situations throughout the world today. Two Rooms examines the conflict between the needs of the state and the costs of those needs to individual victims and those who love them.
Penguin Rep Theatre, under the leadership of founding artistic director Joe Brancato and executive director Andrew M. Horn, announces its 2016 season, the professional Equity company's 39th at its home in Stony Point (Rockland County), New York, a season filled with current and controversial subject matter.
The Directors Company, in association with Pascal Productions, will present A BETTER PLACE, a new work by playwright Wendy Beckett (Anais Nin: One Of Her Lives, A Charity Case) and directed by Evan Bergman (Love Therapy), will play a limited six-week engagement this spring at The Duke on 42nd Street, a NEW 42ND STREET project (229 West 42nd Street, between 7th and 8th Avenues).
Closing this weekend is Out of Box Theatre's stunning production of Lee Blessing's Two Rooms, a potent political drama that its audiences have called 'intense,' 'tremendous,' and 'passionate.' Atlanta actors Candace Mabry and Olubajo Sonubi star as husband and wife, embroiled in an international hostage crisis. Professor Michael Wells (Sonubi) is taken captive by political terrorists in Beirut, leaving his wife Lainie (Mabry) behind to deal with the emotional trauma and political maneuverings of the government and the media. Also featuring Aretta Baumgartner and Aaron Goodson, and directed by Joel Coady, this production has garnered much success with audiences.
The title of Lee Blessing's play, ELEEMOSYNARY, refers to the word one of the characters successfully spells, winning a spelling bee in the process, but also to the very definition of it; charitable. It's an intriguing story of three generations of women, all of whom are extraordinarily gifted in one way or another. These individual gifts are both a blessing and a curse to each character, and ultimately greatly affect the way they interact with one another. This is a moving and fascinating story driven by the relationships between these three women, and Mustard Seed Theatre's production is challenging theatre that provides a must-see experience.
International City Theatre has announced a season of five critically acclaimed plays by six multiple award-winning writers for 2016. The company's 31st season launches on Feb. 12 at the Long Beach Performing Arts Center.
?Lee Blessing's Two Rooms focuses on the relationship of Michael, an American professor kidnapped by political terrorists in Beirut, and his wife Lainie, who has imprisoned herself in a bare room to share in his captivity. Blindfolded Michael (Olubajo Sonubi) dictates love letters to his wife (Candace Mabry) as she struggles to deal with her loneliness and fear in the wake of his uncertain return. Government policy prevents negotiation for his life, and this inaction is what crusading reporter Walker Harris (Aaron Goodson) tries to leverage to get Lainie to speak out against government policy, despite the attempts of her State Department handler Ellen VanOss (Aretta Baumgartner) to keep her in check. Lainie is caught in the push and pull of her own emotions and outside forces, yet fettered by her own grief.
Theatre Nova, an Ann Arbor company that focuses exclusively on new and recent plays, will launch its second season with Lee Blessing's CHESAPEAKE, a one-man show that reunites the dynamic team from last year's smash 'Buyer & Cellar' - actor Sebastian Gerstner ('The Wizard of Oz' and 'Into the Woods' at Encore Musical Theatre, 'Venus in Fur' and 'The Glass Menagerie' at Performance Network) and director Daniel C. Walker ('Bright Half Life' and 'Buyer & Cellar' at Theatre Nova).
Orlando Shakespeare Theater in Partnership with UCF is seeking new full-length plays that speak to the human condition in a fascinating and complicated contemporary world.
Theatre Nova, an Ann Arbor company that focuses exclusively on new and recent plays, will launch its second season with Lee Blessing's CHESAPEAKE, a one-man show that reunites the dynamic team from last year's smash 'Buyer & Cellar' - actor Sebastian Gerstner ('The Wizard of Oz' and 'Into the Woods' at Encore Musical Theatre, 'Venus in Fur' and 'The Glass Menagerie' at Performance Network) and director Daniel C. Walker ('Bright Half Life' and 'Buyer & Cellar' at Theatre Nova).
Signature Theatre has just announced Supplemental Programming for the upcoming productions of OLD HATS and ANGEL REAPERS. Scroll down for information about talkbacks, book club and more!
Theatre Nova, Ann Arbor's professional playwrights' theater, is thrilled to announce its 2016 Season of Michigan and World Premieres in The Yellow Barn performance space at 416 West Huron, in downtown Ann Arbor. The season is made up of four World Premieres and three Michigan Premieres, and features another season of fun, funny, thought-provoking, and innovative new plays sourced both from around the country and right here in Michigan.
Theatre Project is thrilled to present New York solo performer JEFFREY SOLOMON in his Off?Broadway comedy, THE SANTA CLOSET, about a little boy seeking validation and the closeted holiday icon too scared to give it.
TWO ROOMS is more topically urgent than Lee Blessing's more familiar works, dealing with terrorism and hostage situations that still plague us 25 years after it was written, questioning the roles that our government and our press corps should play when terrorists use their captives as political pawns and bargaining chips.
The Play Company's (PlayCo) 2015-16 Idea Lab features three curated events, November 18 & 28 and December 4, following performances of award-winning, German playwright Maria Milisavljevic's Abyss. The critically acclaimed U.S. premiere, directed by Maria Mileaf, runs through December 6 at Theaterlab, 357 West 36th Street. Writing about Abyss for The New York Times, Ben Brantley praised the 'poetic drama,' as 'genuinely artful...And it will take you places you didn't expect to go.' Speaking about the play's painfully current themes, he said it considers, 'some very topical questions of European national identities in a time of permeable and shifting borders.'
A former military man has a poignant message about the limits of human compassion.
Signature Theatre just announced a second one-week extension for INCIDENT AT VICHY, by Arthur Miller and directed by Michael Wilson, due to its sold-out run. INCIDENT AT VICHY will now play through Sunday, December 20, 2015. The production opens Sunday, November 15 in The Irene Diamond Stage at The Pershing Square Signature Center (480 West 42nd Street between 9th and 10th Avenues).
Theatre luminaries will gather on Monday, November 16, 2015, to honor Branden Jacobs-Jenkins and Dominique Morisseau at the 2015 Steinberg Playwright Awards, presented by The Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust. Scenes highlighting their previous and new work will be presented at the 8th Annual 'Mimi' Awards, which will take place at Lincoln Center Theater's Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater.
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