Lydia Diamond News

New York City Center just kicked off the 2022 Encores! Season with The Tap Dance Kid, featuring music by Henry Krieger, lyrics by Robert Lorick, and a book by Charles Blackwell.

New York City Center will soon kick off the 2022 Encores! Season on February 2 - 6 with The Tap Dance Kid, featuring music by Henry Krieger, lyrics by Robert Lorick, and a book by Charles Blackwell. Directed by Tony Award-winner Kenny Leon (A Raisin in the Sun), the production also includes new tap sequences by choreographer Jared Grimes (After Midnight) and a concert adaptation by Lydia Diamond (Stick Fly). Broadway's Joseph Joubert (Caroline or Change) will guest music direct The Tap Dance Kid.

Congo Square Theatre Company has rescheduled two of its signature programs, the Festival on the Square and Vision Benefit, to now take place on Sunday, June 19, 2022, commemorating the Juneteenth holiday. Both events were originally scheduled for February 5, 2022.

The DuSable Museum of African American History is partnering with the 4th Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival to present a remarkable production of The Bluest Eye, based on Toni Morrison's 1970 groundbreaking coming-of-age novel.

New York City Center today announced additional casting for the 2022 Encores! Season as part of the full calendar of events for City Center’s 2021 – 2022 Season. The productions launch Lear deBessonet’s first season as Encores! Artistic Director, alongside Encores! Music Director Rob Berman and Encores! Producing Creative Director Clint Ramos.

Warm, poignant, witty, whip-smart, and heartfelt – all words that describe the works included in Kansas City Actors Theatre lineup of plays selected for 2022-2023. This is KCAT’s 18th Season of productions, showcasing the leading professional theater talent in Kansas City.

Warm, poignant, witty, whip-smart, and heartfelt – all words that describe the works included in Kansas City Actors Theatre lineup of plays selected for 2022-2023. This is KCAT’s 18th Season of productions, showcasing the leading professional theater talent in Kansas City.

Encores! continues this season with The Tap Dance Kid and the show is looking for... a tap dancing kid. Virtual auditions are being accepted through November 10 for Willie, a black 10 year-old. The actor must be 12 years old or older, fully vaccinated, with an 'unchanged voice.'

Congo Square Theatre Company, one of the nation’s premier African American theatres, today announced that longtime Company member Ericka Ratcliff will serve as its new Artistic Director, effective immediately.

New York City Center today announced the first set of casting for the 2022 Encores! season and the Spring Gala | Encores! Into the Woods on the opening night of the production, May 4. The next chapter of the Tony-honored series opens February 2 – 6, 2022 with the 1983 Tony-nominated musical The Tap Dance Kid.

Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater announces the company for Toni Stone, written by Arena alumna resident playwright Lydia R. Diamond. Set in the 1950s, Toni Stone was the first woman to play baseball in the Negro Leagues, also making her the first woman to play in a professional men's league.

New York City Center President & CEO Arlene Shuler today announced a full calendar of programming for the 2021 - 2022 season, reopening the landmark theater to the public in October 2021. This momentous return to in‐person live performances includes the popular dance and musical theater series audiences have loved throughout the years and new programs featuring iconic artists of today. Manhattan's first performing arts center, New York City Center has presented the best in music, theater, and dance to generations of New Yorkers for over seventy‐five years.

The Dramatists Guild of America has announced they will present the 2021 Horton Foote Playwriting Award to five amazing playwrights – Carla Ching, Kia Corthron, Aleshea Harris, Donja R. Love, and Mfoniso Udofia - at the Dramatists Guild’s awards presentations later this summer. 

Sydney Chatman and Congo Square Theatre Company were announced this week as recipients of the Joyce Foundation's 2021 Joyce Awards. Since 2003, the Joyce Awards have supported the creation of new work by emerging and mid-career artists of color to foster more culturally vibrant, equitable, and sustainable communities in six Great Lakes cities.

Today's top stories: Haley Swindal's concert as part of Radio Free Birdland premieres today, Kelli O'Hara chats about her upcoming concert with Seth Rudetsky, and more!

New York City Center today premieres the second installment of the video series Encores! Inside the Revival, featuring a look inside the creative process behind the future Encores! revival of The Tap Dance Kid directed by Tony Award-winning director Kenny Leon. 

Today (January 13) in live streaming: Myths & Hymns on Stars in the House, Kelli O'Hara visits Backstage Live, and so much more!

Aurora Theatre Company will continue its 29th season with Toni Morrison’s THE BLUEST EYE, adapted by Lydia R. Diamond. Associate Artistic Director Dawn Monique Williams (Bull In A China Shop) directs this poignant drama about Black girlhood, the poisonous effects of racism, and the heartbreak of shame.

Today (December 16) in live streaming: the cast of Estella Scrooge on Stars in the House, Norm Lewis visits Backstage Live, and so much more!

New York City Center today announced an additional musical in development as part of the longstanding Encores! series. Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine's Into the Woods will be the first production of this third tenet and usher in a new tradition at City Center celebrating iconic American musicals.