Lillian Hellman News

The Martin E. Segal Theatre Center at the CUNY Graduate Center has announced its Fall 2013 season of public programs. Following the 10th anniversary of the Center's wildly successful PRELUDE Festival (attended by over 2,500 audience members), the season continues with 14 free public programs throughout the Fall, featuring contemporary theatre and performing artists from around the world.

Jackie Clune is to play the Old Lady and James Dreyfus is to play Dr Pangloss in the Menier Chocolate Factory's upcoming production of Candide.

Tony Award winner and Broadway star Patti LuPone returns to Carnegie Hall on Thursday, November 7 at 7:30 p.m. in Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage, presenting her solo show, Far Away Places-a travelogue of styles and stories that traces the actress's wanderlust with songs from the likes of Kurt Weill, Cole Porter, and Edith Piaf, conceived and directed by Scott Wittman, and with music direction and arrangements by Joseph Thalken.

Stage legend Patti LuPone will have a guest starring role on the third season of HBO's GIRLS. The news was confirmed to BWW by LuPone's press rep this afternoon.

Obie- Award winning and Tony nominated director Austin Pendleton directs Tennessee Williams' Cat on A Hot Tin Roof in a new Indie theatre production with the Mississippi Mud. This is the play that Ben Brantley described as Williams' 'most impassioned and articulate statement on human isolation, the wrenching problems of communication between people and the ways in which death defines life.' It is brought to life in a new intimate bold raw space production that unfolds in 'real time' and places center stage the lush language of this modern classic fable.

Fra Fee, Cassidy Janson, Ben Lewis, Scarlett Strallen and David Thaxton have been cast in the Menier Chocolate Factory's Christmas musical Candide with music by Leonard Bernstein, book adapted from Voltaire by Hugh Wheeler, lyrics by Richard Wilbur and additional lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, John Latouche, Lillian Hellman, Dorothy Parker and Leonard Bernstein.

Long Wharf Theatre, in association with Hartford Stage, presents The Underpants by Steve Martin, adapted from the play by Carl Sternheim, directed by Artistic Director Gordon Edelstein.

Ian Rickson will direct Brendan Coyle, Rupert Grint, Daniel Mays, Colin Morgan, Ben Whishaw and Tom Rhys Harries in a major West End revival of Jez Butterworth's award-winning Mojo, reuniting director and writer who previously collaborated on the play's world premiere at the Royal Court in 1995. Mojo will preview at the Harold Pinter Theatre from 26 October 2013 with press night on 13 November and is booking to 25 January 2014. Tickets for Mojo go on public sale today.

Ian Rickson will direct Brendan Coyle, Rupert Grint, Daniel Mays, Colin Morgan, Ben Whishaw and Tom Rhys Harries in a major West End revival of Jez Butterworth's award-winning Mojo, reuniting director and writer who previously collaborated on the play's world premiere at the Royal Court in 1995. Mojo will preview at the Harold Pinter Theatre from 26 October 2013 with press night on 13 November and is booking to 25 January 2014. Tickets for Mojo go on public sale today. Designs are by Ultz with lighting by Charles Balfour, music by Stephen Warbeck and sound by Simon Baker. Mojo is produced in the West End by Sonia Friedman Productions who also produced Butterworth and Rickson's internationally-acclaimed Jerusalem.

THE CHILDREN'S HOUR by Lillian Hellman addresses the insidious power of a lie in a riveting drama opening at Street Theatre Company today, September 6th. When a student at an all-girl's boarding school perceives she is being treated unfairly by the women who run the school, she fabricates a malicious lie about them that pushes relationships to the brink, tests assumptions, and challenges preconceived notions of the truth.

Following on from Sunday in the Park with George, Little Shop of Horrors, La Cage aux Folles, A Little Night Music, Sweet Charity, Pippinand Merrily We Roll Along, the Menier Chocolate Factory is delighted to announce that its Christmas musical will be Candide with music by Leonard Bernstein, book adapted from Voltaire by Hugh Wheeler, lyrics by Richard Wilbur and additional lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, John Latouche, Lillian Hellman, Dorothy Park and Leonard Bernstein.

Artists Rep's 2013/14 season kicks off with The Big Meal by Dan LeFranc in its West Coast premiere, directed by new Artistic Director Damaso Rodriguez. Set in a quintessential American restaurant, entire lives whiz by for a modern family whose stage and age are short-order fare. From birth to that inevitable last course - and every corndog, calamari and Cadillac margarita in between - a multi-generational potluck of characters live life's major and minor moments around the dinner table.

Aurora Theatre Company opens its 22nd season with the Bay Area Premiere of Obie-winning playwright Amy Herzog's (4000 Miles, Belleville, The Great God Pan) family drama AFTER THE REVOLUTION. Joy Carlin (Body Awareness, Jack Goes Boating,Awake and Sing!) directs this drama about what we do with history and how we appropriate it for our own personal needs. Featuring Adrian Anchondo, Jessica Bates, Peter Kybart, Sarah Mitchell, Ellen Ratner, Rolf Saxon, Victor Talmadge, and Pamela Gaye Walker, AFTER THE REVOLUTION plays tonight, August 30 through September 29 at the Aurora Theatre in Berkeley.

The Broadway community mourns the loss of celebrated stage, screen and television actress Julie Harris, who passed away on Saturday at age 87. The marquees of Broadway theatres in New York will be dimmed in her memory tomorrow night, Wednesday, August 28th, at exactly 7:45 p.m. for one minute.

According to her official website, Patti LuPone, who will soon star in the upcoming season of FX's American Horror Story, will make a series of concert appearances from September through April 2014. Check out the full itinerary below:

Megan Mullally is a two-time Emmy-winning star of TV's Will & Grace, and recent star of Broadway's Young Frankenstein. On August 28 & 29 she returns to Provincetown by popular demand - for two shows only - after her sold-out Art House debut last summer. Patti LuPone won her second Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical, as well Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Awards, for her performance as Rose in the most recent Broadway production of Gypsy, and created the title role in Evita on Broadway with her now legendary performance, for which she won her first Tony and Drama Desk Awards. On August 31 and September 1 she makes a triumphant Provincetown return for 4 shows only, after debuting at The Art House last summer. Chita Rivera is a living Broadway legend and a two-time Tony winner as Aurora in Kiss of the Spider Woman and Anna in The Rink. She originated the Broadway roles of Anita in West Side Story, Rosie in Bye Bye Birdie, Velma in Chicago, and appeared in the original casts of Guys and Dolls, Can Can, Seventh Heaven, Mr. Wonderful, Jerry's Girls, and many others. She makes her Provincetown debut on Sept. 7 & 8 with two shows only. Series host and SiriusXM radio star Seth Rudetsky joins each of these three leading ladies at the piano. For tickets please visit www.ptownarthouse.com, or call 1-800-838-3006.

Artists Rep's 2013/14 season kicks off with The Big Meal by Dan LeFranc in its West Coast premiere, directed by new Artistic Director Damaso Rodriguez. Set in a quintessential American restaurant, entire lives whiz by for a modern family whose stage and age are short-order fare. From birth to that inevitable last course - and every corndog, calamari and Cadillac margarita in between - a multi-generational potluck of characters live life's major and minor moments around the dinner table.

Opening the season is Lillian Hellman's brilliant 1934 play, The Children's Hour. Bullying, sexual confusion and suicide provide the basis to this dark piece. A show written 79 years ago, yet so poignant to our current state.

THE CHILDREN'S HOUR by Lillian Hellman addresses the insidious power of a lie in a riveting drama opening at Street Theatre Company on September 6th. When a student at an all-girl's boarding school perceives she is being treated unfairly by the women who run the school, she fabricates a malicious lie about them that pushes relationships to the brink, tests assumptions, and challenges preconceived notions of the truth.

Abingdon Theatre Company present a reading of Hellman V. McCarthy by Brian Richard Mori, featuring Dick Cavett with Peter Brouwer, Susanne Marley, Carole Monferdini, Ricky Oliver, and Jeff Woodman and directed by Jan Buttram, tonight, July 15 at 7pm.