Leigh Silverman News

David Henry Hwang won three Obies and the Tony Award for Best Play with popular scripts like M. Butterfly and FOB. Now he's back with a canny comedy of cross-cultural errors, CHINGLISH, which makes its West Coast premiere at Berkeley Rep beginning August 29th and heads to Hong Kong in March 2013. Get a first look at the cast onstage below!

Today, as Berkeley Repertory Theatre holds its final rehearsal for the West Coast premiere of Chinglishand prepares this production for a trip to Hong Kong, the show's celebrated author has earned another honor. The Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust announced this morning that David Henry Hwang will receive the Steinberg Distinguished Playwright Award, a biennial prize that recognizes and encourages the artistic excellence and achievement of an American playwright whose body of work has made significant contributions to the American theatre.

In just a couple of weeks, Berkeley Rep will get the Bay Area speaking CHINGLISH when this Broadway comedy makes its West Coast premiere. Following the California engagement, this hilarious new play from Tony Award-winner David Henry Hwang heads to Hong Kong, the first time that Berkeley Rep will ever take a show to Asia. Chinglish begins previews on August 24, opens on August 29, and runs through July 15. Check out photos of Tony Award-winning playwright David Henry Hwang and Obie Award-winning director Leigh Silverman in rehearsal with the cast below!

Manhattan Theatre Club has just announced Tony Award nominee Jessica Hecht (Harvey, A View From The Bridge, Brighton Beach Memoirs) and Tony and Emmy Award winner Judith Light (Other Desert Cities, Lombardi, "Ugly Betty") will star on Broadway in the world premiere of THE ASSEMBLED PARTIES, a new play by Tony Award winner Richard Greenberg (Take Me Out, The American Plan, Three Days of Rain) directed by MTC's award-winning Artistic Director Lynne Meadow (Wit, Collected Stories, The Tale of the Allergist's Wife).

Two River Theater Company, under the leadership of Artistic Director John Dias and Managing Director Michael Hurst, announces new information about its fall schedule for the 2012-13 Season. The eight-play season will begin in September with Suzan-Lori Parks directing her own play Topdog/Underdog on the 10th anniversary of its winning the Pulitzer Prize.

Today, even as American Idiot prepares to sail for Europe, Berkeley Repertory Theatre announced that its upcoming production of Chinglish is headed for Hong Kong. It plays from March 1 through March 6 in the 1,200-seat Lyric Theatre at the Hong Kong Academy for the Performing Arts.

Page 73 Productions will sponsor two separate Playwriting Residencies during the summer of 2012.

New York City Center's 2012-13 season will open on September 27 with the ninth annual Fall for Dance Festival, featuring 20 acclaimed international and U.S. dance companies and choreographers in five programs for only $15 a ticket. City Center will celebrate the 20th season of its acclaimed Tony Award-winning Encores! series on November 12 with a Gala benefit starring Raul Esparza and Kelli O'Hara. The Encores! Anniversary Season will open on January 30, 2013, with Fiorello!, the show that launched the series in 1994, and will continue with It's a Bird...It's a Plane...It's Superman, followed by On Your Toes.

Today Berkeley Repertory Theatre announced that 16 college graduates - including six California natives - have been awarded fellowships for the upcoming season. Each year, young leaders from across America are selected for this prestigious training program and proceed to learn their craft alongside accomplished professionals. In addition to being mentored by the experienced staff of a Tony Award-winning nonprofit, this new class of fellows will collaborate on productions with an incredible array of artists who have collectively earned five Tony Awards, 11 Obie Awards, and a Pulitzer Prize.

Playwrights Horizons has announced additional casting for its 2012/2013 Season.

The Tony Award-winning Berkeley Repertory Theatre kicks off its new season in August with the West Coast premiere of Chinglish. David Henry Hwang won three Obies and the Tony Award for Best Play with popular scripts like M. Butterfly and FOB. Now he's back with a canny comedy of cross-cultural errors. Two-time Obie-winner Leigh Silverman returns to the Roda Theatre to stage the play.

This July, 40 of the nation's most prominent and promising writers, directors, and composers will be in residence at Berkeley Repertory Theatre in a new laboratory for collaboration. Today, the renowned nonprofit announced 13 selections for the inaugural summer lab at The Ground Floor, Berkeley Rep's Center for the Creation and Development of New Work. During an intense four-week period, dozens of artists will live, dine, create, and collaborate at the Theatre's new campus in West Berkeley.

Presentations of Page 73 Productions' developmental workshop of A THICK DESCRIPTION OF HARRY SMITH (Volume I) by Chicago-based playwright Carlos Murillo (DARK PLAY OR STORIES FOR BOYS) and directed by Kip Fagan (Page 73's JACK'S PRECIOUS MOMENT) will begin Thursday, June 28 at 2pm and continue Friday, June 29 at 2pm; Sunday, July 1 at 7pm and Monday, July 2 at 3pm (please note the altered performance time for the July 2nd performance) at Culture Project (45 Bleecker Street). Tickets are $10 and can be purchased online at page73.org/harrysmith.

Leigh Silverman, Carolyn Cantor, Jean-Michele Gregory and Cape Cod Theatre Project's Artistic Director Hal Brooks will be developing new plays this summer with The Cape Cod Theatre Project.

Lynne Meadow (Artistic Director) and Barry Grove (Executive Producer) have just announced two additional productions for Manhattan Theatre Club's upcoming 2012-2013 theatrical season. Meadow and Mandy Greenfield, MTC's Artistic Producer who is the lead in programming and execution at MTC's Off-Broadway home, are finalizing plans for the rest of the 2012-2013 season.

Off-Broadway's Page 73 Productions will present its first "Page 2" presentation of 2012 - a developmental workshop of A THICK DESCRIPTION OF HARRY SMITH (Volume I) by Chicago-based playwright Carlos Murillo (DARK PLAY OR STORIES FOR BOYS) and directed by Kip Fagan (Page 73's JACK'S PRECIOUS MOMENT), with performances June 28 through July 2 at Culture Project (45 Bleecker Street), it has been announced by Page 73's Executive Directors Liz Jones and Asher Richelli.

Playwrights Horizons, under the leadership of Artistic Director Tim Sanford and Managing Director Leslie Marcus, has announced additional casting for its 2012/2013 Season. Four-time Tony Award nominee Kelli O'Hara and two-time Tony Award winner Judith Ivey join previously-announced Oscar and two-time Tony Award nominee Amy Ryan and Emmy Award nominee David Schwimmer for the Playwrights Horizons 2012/2013 Season at the theater company's home at 416 West 42nd Street.

Manhattan Theatre Club has announced two Off-Broadway productions for the upcoming 2012-2013 theatrical season.

Lisa D'Amour's play Detroit premiered at Steppenwolf Theatre in 2010, directed by Austin Pendleton, and was scheduled to open on Broadway in the 2011/12 season.