Luciana Stecconi News

Theater J, the nation's largest and most prominent Jewish theater, announces full casting for the 2016-2017 season, the first season chosen by new Theater J Artistic Director Adam Immerwahr.

This week, we go around our Broadway World to feature stories in Washington, DC, Rhode Island, Sacramento and more. Check out our top 10 stories around our Broadway World below, which include JUMANJI in DC, WEST SIDE STORY in Rhode Island, and HELLO, DOLLY! at Sacramento Music Circus, just to name a few.

'Wow! This is amazing!'

Over the past season or two, we've seen our fair share of professional productions of OLIVER in the DC area. Adventure Theatre MTC took a stab at it over the summer and Arena Stage offered up a steampunk version of the classic musical a few months ago. While the Kennedy Center's current TYA production of OLIVERio: A BRAZILIAN TWIST shares the same Charles Dickens-penned source material, those looking for the familiar Lionel Bart musical will find that what's being offered up onstage at the Kennedy Center is quite different - and not just the setting. A Kennedy Center commission featuring a book and lyrics by Karen Zacarias and music by Deborah Wicks La Puma, OLIVERio: A BRAZILIAN TWIST explores what would happen if a theatre company intended to stage a standard production of OLIVER set in 19th century London, but suddenly realized the available scenic design (Luciana Stecconi) and costumes (Ivania Stack) wouldn't quite work for that purpose.

Epic in scope and poetic in language, this beautiful, haunting play crosses continents and challenges the boundaries of time to tell the story of one family and the events that bring them together and drive them apart. Encompassing four generations of fathers and sons and their mothers, lovers, and wives, the story is sweeping yet extraordinarily intimate. A crucial message of hope weaves its way through this tale as the expanding family learns from the past and approaches the future with tenacious spirit. A riveting mystery, the play is a 'metaphor for the impossibility of escaping the past, for the way we are all shaped by what came before-and are living in the shadow of what comes next.' -TIME Magazine.

The Kennedy Center presents the world premiere production of OLIVERio: A Brazilian Twist in the Kennedy Center Family Theater from January 30-February 21, 2016. Part of the Kennedy Center's Theater for Young Audiences 2015-2016 season, the production is inspired by the literary classic, Charles Dickens's Oliver Twist, directed by Juliette Carillo, with book and lyrics by Karen Zacarias and music by Deborah Wicks La Puma. The press opening performance is Saturday, January 30, 2016 at 4:00 p.m. OLIVERio is most appropriate for patrons ages 9 and up and their families. 

It's not easy to maintain a balance in dark comedy.

Part history lesson, part argument for female empowerment, and part enticing family drama, the compelling and beautifully staged and acted production goes above and beyond your standard theatre for young audiences offering.

Today is no ordinary day for Garfield, the lasagna loving tabby cat. After all, it is his birthday! Garfield is looking forward to celebrating his big day by eating a large plate of lasagna, taking a long nap, and watching endless hours of his favorite television shows.

It didn't have a ten-ton set, a fake diva flying from a parapet, or a star-studded cast, but Opera Lafayette's L'EPREUVE VILLAGEOISE (THE VILLAGE TRIAL) had one thing noticeably absent from the opera stage in New York this season: charm aplenty, charm galore.

Overall, there's much to like about this production. The acting alone is worth the ticket price.

Olney Theatre Center, a Mid-Atlantic destination for extraordinary theater performance and education, continues its 77th Anniversary season with George Brant's Grounded, directed by Derek Goldman, running tonight, February 25-March 22 in the Mulitz-Gudelsky Theatre Lab.

Olney Theatre Center, a Mid-Atlantic destination for extraordinary theater performance and education, continues its 77th Anniversary season with George Brant's Grounded, directed by Derek Goldman, running February 25- March 22 in the Mulitz-Gudelsky Theatre Lab. Grounded is a co-production with Baltimore's Everyman Theatre, where it was seen last October. Grounded is the story of an ace fighter pilot who becomes pregnant and gets reassigned to operating drones from a windowless trailer on an Air Force base in the desert outside Las Vegas. Hunting terrorists by day and coming home to her family at night, the boundaries between reality and the screen - between the desert where she lives and the desert where she fights - blur until the pressure becomes impossible to bear.

Sign up for a trip in the 'Chair Force'.

The sold-out, award-winning London hit Grounded lands in Baltimore for the first time in a new production at Everyman Theatre starring City Paper's 2014 Best Actress and Everyman Resident Company Member, Megan Anderson. She's a hot-rod F16 fighter pilot. Her unexpected pregnancy ends her high-flying career over the Middle Eastern skies. She finds herself instead flying remote-controlled drones half a world away while in a comfortable trailer just outside of Vegas.

The sold-out, award-winning London hit Grounded lands in Baltimore for the first time in a new production at Everyman Theatre starring City Paper's 2014 Best Actress and Everyman Resident Company Member, Megan Anderson. She's a hot-rod F16 fighter pilot. Her unexpected pregnancy ends her high-flying career over the Middle Eastern skies. She finds herself instead flying remote-controlled drones half a world away while in a comfortable trailer just outside of Vegas.

Studio 2ndStage's final production of the 2013-2014 season is the edgy and strangely charming Carrie: The Musical, co-directed by Studio 2ndStage Artistic Director Keith Alan Baker and Jacob Janssen. From Lawrence D. Cohen,Michael Gore and Dean Pitchford, 2ndStage's CARRIE stars Tony Award nominee Barbara Walsh as Carrie's mother, Margaret White, with Emily Zickler making her Studio Theatre debut playing the titular role. Scroll down for a first look at the cast in action!

Studio 2ndStage's final production of the 2013-2014 season is the edgy and strangely charming Carrie: The Musical, co-directed by Studio 2ndStage Artistic Director Keith Alan Baker and Jacob Janssen. From Lawrence D. Cohen, Michael Gore and Dean Pitchford, 2ndStage's CARRIE stars Tony Award nominee Barbara Walsh as Carrie's mother, Margaret White, with Emily Zickler making her Studio Theatre debut playing the titular role. Scroll down for a look at the mother-daughter duo!

Studio 2ndStage's final production of the 2013-2014 season is the edgy and strangely charming Carrie: The Musical, co-directed by Studio 2ndStage Artistic Director Keith Alan Baker and Jacob Janssen. From Lawrence D. Cohen, Michael Gore and Dean Pitchford, 2ndStage's CARRIE stars Tony Award nominee Barbara Walsh as Carrie's mother, Margaret White, with Emily Zickler making her Studio Theatre debut playing the titular role. Scroll down for a first look at the mother-daughter duo!