Lois Smith News

Pulitzer Prize-Finalist play, Marjorie Prime, directed by The Naples Players Executive Artistic Director Bryce Alexander, opens in The Naples Players Tobye Studio Theatre on February 6, 2019 and runs through March 3, 2019.

The Naples Players (TNP) present the Pulitzer Prize-finalist play Marjorie Prime, written by Jordan Harrison, which runs February 6 - March 3, 2019 in the Tobye Studio Theatre at The Naples Players Sugden Theatre.

Award-winning actor Carrie Coon to the world-renowned Steppenwolf ensemble.

The Signature Theatre production of Fabulation, or The Re-Education of Undine, by two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner and Residency 1 playwright Lynn Nottage and directed by Obie Award-winner Lileana Blain-Cruz, opened just last night, December 10.

La MaMa is proud to present the Remote Theater Project production of Grey Rock, written and directed by Palestinian artist Amir Nizar Zuabi. This world premiere, which runs January 3-7, 2019, was commissioned by Remote Theater Project and marks the first time a U.S. theater company has commissioned a Palestinian artist to create an original work for American audiences. Grey Rock tells the story of a young Palestinian so enamored with the 1969 American moon landing that he muses, "shouldn't Palestine, the land of prophets, also have a presence on the moon?" Without money or technology, but with the help of his bemused West Bank neighbors, he sets out to build a space shuttle. Knowing full well that he can't succeed with this impossible, but necessary, task, the young man is visited by American heroes who guide him on his mission. Humorous and fantastical, Grey Rock explores the influence that America has had over Palestinian culture.

Thom Pain (based on nothing) is now in performances and runs through December 2, 2018 on The Irene Diamond Stage at The Pershing Square Signature Center. The show, starring Michael C. Hall, officially opened last night, November 11, and BroadwayWorld was there! Check out all the photos below!

On Monday, October 22nd, award-winning theatre performer Lois Smith was interviewed by drama critic Linda Winer, recent recipient of the 2018 LPTW Special Award, in the latest installment of the League of Professional Theatre Women's Oral History Series at The New York Public Library for The Performing Arts at Lincoln Center.

Yesterday, October 15th at The Lotos Club (5 East 66th Street, New York City), the 2018 recipients of the biennial Horton Foote Prize, were celebrated for excellence in American theater. The 2018 Prize for Outstanding New American Play, presented to a work produced in the 2016-17 or 2017-18 seasons, was awarded to Cambodian Rock Band by Lauren Yee. The 2018 Prize for Promising New American Play, presented to a previously unproduced work, was awarded to India Pale Ale by Jaclyn Backhaus.

Playing On Air announced today the three winners of the inaugural James Stevenson Prize for comedic short plays. First Prize ($7,500, plus a Playing On Air recording for radio and podcast distribution) has been awarded to Hate Baby by Gracie Gardner. (Gardner is also the winner of the 2017 Relentless Award and author of the New York Times Critic's Pick Athena.) Second Prize ($2,000) has been awarded to Hedgehog Years by Lily Akerman. Third Prize ($1,000) has been awarded to Horse Latitudes (Who Wants to be an Equine Extra?) by Elizabeth Logun.

The League of Professional Theatre Women (Kelli Lynn Harrison & Catherine Porter, Co-Presidents), an organization which has been leading the gender parity conversation and championing women in the professional theatre for over 35 years, will present its first Oral History Project of the 2018-19 season with Tony-nominated actress Lois Smith on Monday, October 22 starting at 6pm in the Bruno Walter Auditorium at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts (111 Amsterdam Avenue at 65th Street). Admission to the event is FREE and seats are available on a first-come-first-seated basis. Doors will open at 5:30pm. 

The press script provided to critics reviewing Craig Lucas' somber and overstuffed drama, I WAS MOST ALIVE WITH YOU, specifies that the play 'was created to be performed by Deaf and hearing actors for Deaf and hearing audiences' and that all productions 'must provide full access for hearing and Deaf audiences at all performances.'

Playwrights Horizons (Artistic Director Tim Sanford, Managing Director Leslie Marcus)kicks off its 2018-2019 season of "topicality and risk" (The New York Times) with the New York premiere of three-time Tony Award nominee Craig Lucas' I Was Most Alive with You, August 31 - October 14in the Mainstage Theater at Playwrights Horizons (416 West 42nd Street). Inspired by the Book of Job,Lucas' play begins at an often-humorously fraught Thanksgiving dinner and explodes onto emotionally and philosophically expansive terrain, as one character attempts to grasp the narratives of his and his loved ones' lives while they slip far beyond anyone's control. Director Tyne Rafaeli (The Rape of the Sabine Women by Grace B. Matthias, Actually) and Director of Artistic Sign Language Sabrina Dennison (Santa Sangre, the world premiere of I Was Most Alive with You) stage this production that features two casts simultaneously speaking and signing. Subtitles and intermittent spoken interpretation are included, making I Was Most Alive with You a rare example of a work that is equally accessible to Deaf and hearing audiences.

Steppenwolf Theatre Company Artistic Director Anna D. Shapiro announced today the addition of Rajiv Joseph and Karen Rodriguez to the world-renowned Steppenwolf ensemble. An Obie Award-wining and Pulitzer Prize finalist playwright, Rajiv Joseph's Guards at the Taj was produced at Steppenwolf this past May to great acclaim. Karen Rodriguez, a celebrated Chicago-based actor, recently performed at Steppenwolf in The Doppelganger (an international farce) and The Rembrandt, and will be featured in this season's world premiere of Isaac Gomez's La Ruta, in a role written specifically for her.

Playwrights Horizons will, from today, August 20, through August 22, accept entries for the Live for Five online lottery, giving out $5 tickets to the New York premiere production of Craig Lucas' I Was Most Alive with You. Directed by Tyne Rafaeli with Director of Artistic Sign Language Sabrina Dennison, the production begins performances September 1, and runs through October 14.

Playwrights Horizons (Artistic Director Tim Sanford, Managing Director Leslie Marcus)kicks off its 2018-2019 season of "topicality and risk" (The New York Times) with the New York premiere of three-time Tony Award nominee Craig Lucas' I Was Most Alive with You, August 31 - October 14in the Mainstage Theater at Playwrights Horizons (416 West 42nd Street). Inspired by the Book of Job,Lucas' play begins at an often-humorously fraught Thanksgiving dinner and explodes onto emotionally and philosophically expansive terrain, as one character attempts to grasp the narratives of his and his loved ones' lives while they slip far beyond anyone's control. Director Tyne Rafaeli (The Rape of the Sabine Women by Grace B. Matthias, Actually) and Director of Artistic Sign Language Sabrina Dennison (Santa Sangre, the world premiere of I Was Most Alive with You) stage this production that features two casts simultaneously speaking and signing. Subtitles and intermittent spoken interpretation are included, making I Was Most Alive with You a rare example of a work that is equally accessible to Deaf and hearing audiences.

Playwrights Horizons announces additional details of its 2018-19 season, which comprises new works from a broad cross-section of the contemporary American theatre's most exciting writers and artists.

Playwrights Horizons begins accepting entries today for the Live for Five online lottery for $5 tickets to the world premiere of LOG CABIN

Previews begin this Friday, June 1 for the Playwrights Horizons (Tim Sanford, Artistic Director; Leslie Marcus, Managing Director) world premiere production of LOG CABIN, a new play by Pulitzer Prize finalist Jordan Harrison (Marjorie Prime, Maple and Vine, Doris to Darlene at Playwrights; "Orange Is the New Black").  Directed by Tony Award and Obie Award winner Pam MacKinnon (Clybourne Park, The Qualms at Playwrights; Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, The Parisian Woman), LOG CABIN is the sixth and final production of the theater company's current 2017/2018 Season.  

The fact that Broadway hasn't seen fit to provide a role for Lois Smith in over twenty years can be regarded as one of the top arguments denouncing the popular assumption that Times Square is where you go to take in the best of New York theatre.

The New Group celebrated Opening Night of Lily Thorne's Peace for Mary Frances last night, with Heather Burns, Johanna Day, Natalie Gold, Mia Katigbak, Paul Lazar, Brian Miskell, Melle Powers, Lois Smith and J. Smith-Cameron, in a world premiere production directed by Lila Neugebauer. A limited Off-Broadway engagement is slated through June 17 at The Pershing Square Signature Center (The Alice Griffin Jewel Box Theatre, 480 West 42nd Street).