Leo Tolstoy News

Rubicon Theatre Company just announced stage and screen veterans Linda Purl, Brett Rickaby and Peter Van Norden will star in the company's mainstage production of the Tony-Award winning play COPENHAGEN, directed by international artist Judy Hegarty Lovett.

Arizona Theatre Company, in a special collaboration with Stray Cat Theatre, will present Laura Eason's new comedy about the calculations people are making to find love or fame in an age of social media, brightly-lit phone screens and blogging. SEX WITH STRANGERS plays Sept. 24-Oct. 11 in Stage West at the Herberger Theater Center, 222 E. Monroe.

Plan-B Theatre Company opens its 25th season with THE KREUTZER SONATA, a co-production with the Nova Chamber Music Series.

Quintessential American songwriter Irving Berlin left an indelible mark on the classic American songbook with hits like 'White Christmas,' 'Puttin' on the Ritz,' 'There's No Business Like Show Business' and, of course, 'God Bless America.' Arizona Theatre Company brings Berlin's story to vibrant, toe-tapping life in the 2015-16 season-opening production of Hershey Felder as Irving Berlin, Sept. 16-Oct. 4 at the Temple of Music and Art, 333 S. Scott Ave. in Tucson.

Arizona Theatre Company (ATC) heads into its 49th season with a bold new look. ATC has launched a redesigned website highlighted by a striking new logo that underscores the company's energy, strength and rich history. The effort was funded by a grant from Virginia G. Piper Charitable Trust.

Geffen Playhouse has exciting news to announce. The critically acclaimed and popular production Bad Jews by Joshua Harmon and directed by Matt Shakman extends by one week through July 26.

Chester Theatre Company presents its 26th season from today, June 24th - August 23rd at the Chester Town Hall in Chester, MA. It will be the final season for Byam Stevens, who has been the theatre company's artistic director since 1998.

Single tickets for Arizona Theatre Company's 49th season go on sale in Phoenix beginning June 15.  All shows will be performed at the Herberger Theater Center, 222 E. Monroe.

Chester Theatre Company will open its 26th season at the Town Hall in Chester, MA with the East Coast premiere of THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO THOMAS JEFFERSON, CHARLES DICKENS AND COUNT LEO TOLSTOY: DISCORD. This comedy of ideas, from Scott Carter, the Executive Producer of Real Time with Bill Maher, will run from June 24 through July 5.

Northlight Theatre, under the direction of Artistic Director BJ Jones and Executive Director Timothy J. Evans, announces the cast for the World Premiere of Bruce Graham's Funnyman, kicking off Northlight's 41st Season. The cast includes George Wendt, Tim Kazurinsky, Amanda Drinkall, Steve Haggard, Rob Lindley and an additional role to be announced. Funnyman, directed by BJ Jones and developed through Northlight's Interplay series, runs September 11-October 18, 2015 at Northlight Theatre, 9501 Skokie Blvd in Skokie.

Continuing our unique legacy of producing new plays by Utah playwrights, Plan-B Theatre Company announces its 25th season with a slate of world premieres. The season offers a peek into the mind of a madman and the music that created it, a spooky radio play, a humorous look at the dreariness of holiday retail, a journey through relationships past and future, and Plan-B's first-ever new musical that features a housewife who dreams of something more.

Joanna Murray-Smith's Switzerland -- already extended one week -- will extend yet another eight performances by popular demand with a final closing date of April 26, 2015. A world premiere with the Sydney Theatre Company, Switzerland is a Los Angeles Times Arts Editors' "Essential Arts and Culture" Pick and features Laura Linney (Broadway World said she is "pure gold") and Seth Numrich (called "outstanding" by the Los Angeles Times).

Chester Theatre Company will present its 26th season from June 24th - August 23rd at the Chester Town Hall in Chester, MA. It will be the final season for Byam Stevens, who has been the theatre company's artistic director since 1998.

Northlight Theatre, under the direction of Artistic Director BJ Jones and Executive Director Timothy J. Evans, announces its 41st Season.

Arizona Theatre Company's 2015-16 season brings the return of master entertainer Hershey Felder, a mind-bending new comedy from the producer of HBO's Real Time With Bill Maher, the provocative 2013 Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway play, an August Wilson masterpiece, John Steinbeck's classic American tale Of Mice and Men and a new musical from Stephen Schwartz of Wicked and Godspell fame.

'Forgive me,' asks the bearded, finely dressed older man appearing on stage. He rests on a red velvet seat in a train compartment during the late 1800's and empties his pockets one by one and mentions, 'A white silk handkerchief brushed with red lips has not been washed in over a year...' Thus begins the one man performance by iconic Milwaukee actor James Pickering in Renaissance Theaterwork's adaptation of Leo Tolstoy's The Kruetzer Sonata on stage in the Studio Theater. Written by Tolstoy as a novella in 1889 when the story was often banned and unpublished, Nancy Harris reinterpreted Tolstoy's text from the original Russian. She focuses on the philosophical and psychological drama the main character, Pozdynyshev agonizes over when he has recently been acquitted for murder after a year in prison.

Theatre Communications Group (TCG) has announced the publication of the revelatory new translation of Ivan Turgenev's A Month in the Country, by renowned playwright Richard Nelson and foremost Russian translators Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky. The play marks the second of TCG's Classic Russian Drama Series, which will publish classics over the next ten years.

Skinny Lee Productions & Filament Theatre Company in association with CalArts Alumni announce an apocalyptic, completely immersive, multi-media & cinematic adaptation of William Shakespeare's ROMEO & JULIET, starring Tom Payne (HBO's "Luck") as Romeo and Ana Khamis (James Franco's upcoming film "Unknown Identities," "Hacker's Game," Mr. Paradise) as Juliet and directed by Derek Magyar ("Flying Lessons," "Boy Culture"). ROMEO & JULIET will preview on Tuesday, January 22 & Wednesday, January 21 at 8:00pm & will open on Thursday, January 22 at 8pm with a Gala Opening on Friday, January 23 at 8:00pm and will perform through Sunday, February 7 at the Riverside Studios, 3352 N. San Fernando Rd. in Atwater Village.

Independent Shakespeare Co. (ISC), producers of the Griffith Park Free Shakespeare Festival, presents A CHRISTMAS CAROL WITH CHARLES DICKENS.

The Geffen Playhouse production of The Gospel According to Thomas Jefferson, Charles Dickens and Count Leo Tolstoy: Discord, is extending for a third time, now through December 21, 2014. The production, in the Audrey Skirball Kenis Theater at the Geffen Playhouse, is written by Scott Carter, executive producer and writer for Bill Maher's Politically Incorrect and Real Time.