Lisa Gay Hamilton News

Jeffrey Horowitz, Founder of Theatre for a New Audience, having led and grown the not-for-profit organization since 1979, will retire on August 31, 2025, at the end of TFANA's just-announced season of Shakespeare alongside plays by classical and contemporary playwrights.

On Her Shoulders willpresent a staged reading of One is a Crowd by Beah Richards on Tuesday, June 18th.

The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks, based on the bestselling biography by Jeanne Theoharis and executive produced by award-winning journalist Soledad O’Brien, takes a deeper dive into Rosa Parks’ often overlooked breadth of accomplishments and the impact of her fight to overcome racial injustice. Watch the new video trailer ow!

Just yesterday, a capacity crowd of 18,000 New York City public school students made history, along side the Broadway cast of To Kill a Mockingbird. Aaron Sorkin's new play, directed by Bartlett Sher, and based on Harper Lee's classic novel, became the first-ever Broadway play to perform at The World's Most Famous Arena, New York's Madison Square Garden. With the extraordinary support of James L. Dolan, executive chairman and CEO of The Madison Square Garden Company, this unprecedented, single-performance event was entirely free to students of New York City Department of Education public middle and high schools from all five boroughs.

The record-breaking production Broadway production of Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird welcomes a slew of new cast members in its second year on Broadway!

Theatre for a New Audience (TFANA; Jeffrey Horowitz, Founding Artistic Director) has added a performance (February 8 at 9pm) to its critically lauded world premiere production of Adrienne Kennedy's He Brought Her Heart Back in a Box, directed by Evan Yionoulis. The run will conclude, as a scheduled, on February 11.

Theatre for a New Audience (TFANA; Jeffrey Horowitz, Founding Artistic Director) announces the cast and creative team for He Brought Her Heart Back in a Box, the first new work in a decade from Adrienne Kennedy, whom The New York Times called one of the finest living American playwrights. Set in Georgia and New York City in 1941, He Brought Her Heart Back in a Box is a heartbreaking, nail-biting memory tale of segregation, theatrical yearning, and doomed love.

The talented Heidi Blickenstaff took the stage at the renowned Usdan Summer Camp for the Arts.

Producers Al Corley ('Dynasty') and Marty Kaplan have announced the world premiere of PHALARIS'S BULL: SOLVING THE RIDDLE OF THE GREAT BIG WORLD, conceived and performed by Steven Friedman and directed by David Schweizer, will play a strictly limited 5 week engagement from tonight, December 12, 2015 to January 16, 2016 at The Beckett Theater at Theatre Row, 410 West 42nd Street.

Producers Al Corley ("Dynasty") and Marty Kaplan have announced the world premiere of PHALARIS'S BULL: SOLVING THE RIDDLE OF THE GREAT BIG WORLD, conceived and performed by Steven Friedman and directed by David Schweizer, will play a strictly limited 5 week engagement from December 12, 2015 to January 16, 2016 at The Beckett Theater at Theatre Row, 410 West 42nd Street.

Signature Theatre presents the New York Premiere of The Liquid Plain by Naomi Wallace, directed by Kwame Kwei-Armah. The production runs now through March 29, 2015 in The Alice Griffin Jewel Box Theatre at The Pershing Square Signature Center (480 West 42nd Street between 9th and 10th Avenues).

Five Long Island musicians have received the opportunity to both study and perform at the Usdan Center for the Creative and Performing Arts, as part a program that was developed by the Usdan Center.

Tony Award-winner Nikki M. James, currently in the new Les Miserables, joined three other Broadway performers - Benjamin Howes of Scandalous and Mary Poppins, Brian Gonzales of Aladdin and Natalie Joy Johnson of Kinky Boots, accompanied by musical director Nate Buccieri - in a special musical revue, titled 'Putting It Together,' featuring Stephen Sondheim songs, at Usdan Center for the Creative and Performing Arts. Scroll down for photos!

The Old Globe today announced that two-time Golden Globe Award nominee Blair Underwood-who most recently made his acclaimed Broadway debut in the iconic role of Stanley in Tennessee Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire and garnered rave reviews opposite Cicely Tyson in Lifetime's The Trip to Bountiful-will make his Globe debut in the title role of Shakespeare's classic tragedy Othello, the first show of the Globe's 2014 Summer Shakespeare Festival. Underwood's films include Something New, Deep Impact, Gattaca, and Rules of Engagement, and his television credits include 'Ironside,' 'In Treatment,' 'The New Adventures of Old Christine,' and 'Sex and the City.' Joining him and also making their Globe debuts are the previously announced Emmy Award winner Richard Thomas ('The Americans,' 'The Waltons') as Iago and Kristen Connolly ('House of Cards,' The Cabin in the Woods) as Desdemona.

Bethpage Federal Credit Union announces the recipients of its first 'micro' grant program to assist music students from the North Babylon school district who will be attending Usdan Center for the Creative and Performing Arts (www.usdan.com), the renowned summer arts day camp. The Bethpage 'micro' grants will pay for the students' many additional expenses normally associated with year-round music study that can become a stumbling block for underserved families. As part of the grant program, Bethpage will also provide full 2014 summer program scholarships for Usdan Center's 47th season, which begins June 30. More than 70 North Babylon High School students are beneficiaries of the grant.

The World Premiere of Stories From the Night Before, a new evening of dance theater created by Maurice Brandon Curry, Chair of the Dance Department of Usdan Center for the Creative and Performing Arts, will be presented on Sunday and Monday March 16 and 17 at 7 PM at New York University's Skirball Center, 566 LaGuardia Place (just off Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village), New York, NY 10012.

The World Premiere of Stories From the Night Before, a new evening of dance theater created by Maurice Brandon Curry, Chair of the Dance Department of Usdan Center for the Creative and Performing Arts, will be presented on Sunday and Monday March 16 and 17 at 7 PM at New York University's Skirball Center, 566 LaGuardia Place (just off Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village), New York, NY 10012. (Tickets: www.nyuskirball.org, or call 212.352.3101 (Theatermania) or 866.811.4111?(Ovation Tix).

For the third year, five talented Long Island music students will receive a unique opportunity to study and perform this summer at Usdan Center for the Creative and Performing Arts. The program was developed by Usdan Center in 2011 and supported with a charitable grant from Bethpage Federal Credit Union. The Usdan Center/Bethpage Scholars in the Arts program gives accomplished students who otherwise couldn't attend Usdan, the opportunity to study at the country's largest not-for-profit summer arts day camp. The students were chosen for their fine musicianship and for their achievements as outstanding representatives of their communities.

Robert Nederlander, Jr., a third generation member of the Nederlander theater dynasty, and Richard Eisenberg, a prominent Long Island attorney and arts philanthropist, have joined the Board of Trustees of Usdan Center for the Creative and Performing Arts, the renowned Long Island not-for-profit summer arts day camp. Usdan Center (www.usdan.com), now in its 46th season, has introduced the arts to more than 60,000 children ages 6 to 18, and counts among its alumni Natalie Portman, Jane Monheit, Mariah Carey, Olivia Thirlby, Seth Rudetsky, Jackie Hoffman, Lisa Gay Hamiltonand members of major music and dance ensembles.

Usdan Center for the Creative and Performing Arts, the nationally renowned not-for-profit day camp, whose alumni include such artists as Natalie Portman, Mariah Carey, Jane Monheit and members of major music and dance ensembles, announces its 2013 Festival Concerts. These are private educational performances staged in Usdan's on-site, 1,000-seat McKinley Ampitheater, giving students unique exposure to the arts.