Manhattan Theatre Club News

The Brand Signature Series at Aurora Theatre continues with The Unauthorized Autobiography of Samantha Brown by New York's best young composers, Kait Kerrigan and Brain Lowdermilk. The show runs tonight, March 13 through April 6, 2014.

Lynne Meadow (Artistic Director) and Barry Grove (Executive Producer) have announced three world premiere productions for Manhattan Theatre Club's upcoming 2014-2015 theatrical season.

The world premiere of 17 Orchard Point, a new play starring Tony Award-winner Michele Pawk, will begin performances on Friday, April 25 for a limited four-week Off-Broadway run at The Beckett Theatre at Theatre Row (410 West 42nd Street, between 9th and 10th Avenues) through May 24. Written by Anton Dudley (Substitution, Getting Home) & Stephanie DiMaggio, and directed by Stella Powell-Jones, 17 Orchard Point will have its official opening night on Sunday, May 4 at 7pm. Tickets for 17 Orchard Point are $45 and can be arranged online at www.telecharge.com or 212.239.6200 or at the Theatre Row Box Office located at 410 West 42nd Street. For more information, please visit www.17OrchardPoint.com.

Theatre Exile closes its 17th season with the Philadelphia premiere of Annapurna, a moving and explosive new play by critically acclaimed, emerging Broadway playwright Sharr White. Driven by the emotionally charged relationship between a husband and wife, Exile's production stars Barrymore Award-winning actors Pearce Bunting (Exile's A Behanding in Spokane, HBO's Boardwalk Empire) and Catharine Slusar (Iron, Any Given Monday) as Ulysses and Emma. Performances run April 17 - May 11 in Theatre Exile's South Philadelphia Studio X.

This just in! New York City Center's acclaimed Encores! Off-Center series, under the artistic direction of Jeanine Tesori, will return this summer for a second season of landmark Off-Broadway musicals. The season opens with Jonathan Larson's tick, tick… BOOM!, June 25 - 28, starring Lin-Manuel Miranda and Karen Olivo, directed by Oliver Butler, and continues with a one-night only performance of Randy Newman'sFaust: The Concert, with Randy Newman as the Devil, directed by Thomas Kail, on July 1. Pump Boys and Dinettes, withbook, music and lyrics by John Foley, Mark Hardwick, Debra Monk, Cass Morgan, John Schimmel and Jim Wann , directed by Lear deBessonet and choreographed by Danny Mefford, wraps up the season, running July 16 - 19. Chris Fenwick is the Encores! Off-Center music director.

Alley Theatre Artistic Director Gregory Boyd announces the cast and creative team for Alan Ayckbourn's science fiction comedy Communicating Doors. Eleven plays penned by Alan Ayckbourn have been produced by the Alley, including the American premiere of Henceforward, directed by Ayckbourn, in 1987 and House & Garden in 2002. Alan Ayckbourn has been inducted into the American Theatre's Hall of Fame, received the 2010 Critics' Circle Award for Services to the Arts, became the first British playwright to receive both Olivier and Tony Special Lifetime Achievement Awards and was knighted in 1997 for services to the theatre.

Kicking off Horizon's 30th Anniversary season, blue collar collides with blue blood in the haves and have-nots comedy Elemeno Pea (pronounced L-M-N-O-P) by Molly Smith Metzler. A siblings' weekend on Martha's Vineyard goes awry when the younger sister's boss crashes the party. This three-ring circus send-up of the rich and their wannabe "help" finds both flying without a net.

SPACE on Ryder Farm is now accepting submissions for artistic residencies for its 2014 nonprofit season, which will take place June through September in Brewster, NY.

Previews begin tomorrow night, Saturday, March 8, for the return to Broadway of Tony Award-winner and two-time Academy Award-winner Denzel Washington, starring as Walter Lee Younger in Lorraine Hansberry's A RAISIN IN THE SUN. This new production begins previews nearly 55 years to the day that A RAISIN IN THE SUN had its Broadway premiere (March 11, 1959) at the same theatre, the Ethel Barrymore Theatre (243 West 47th Street). Scroll down to learn more about the cast!

Catherine Trieschmann is back in New York at Women's Project Theater with a tart, satirical skewing of small town cultural wars entitled The Most Deserving. This New York premiere by the acclaimed playwright of crooked and How The World Began (also produced by Women's Project Theater) who is a resident of a small town in western Kansas is directed by Shelley Butler and begins previews Sunday, March 30, at 2:30pm for an opening Tuesday, April 8, at 7:30pm (runs through May 4) at New York City Center Stage II, 131 West 55th Street. Rehearsals begin today, Friday, March 7.

Writers Theatre presents The Dance of Death by August Strindberg, in a new version by Conor McPherson and directed by Henry Wishcamper. The production runs April 1 - July 20, 2014 at 664 Vernon Avenue, Glencoe. The press openings are April 9 and 10, 2014 at 7:30pm.

Curious Theatre Company presents David Lindsay-Abaire's Good People, directed by Artistic Company Member Christy Montour-Larson. The production runs March 6 - April 19, 2014 at 1080 Acoma Street, Denver. The opening night is March 8, 2014, at 8 p.m.

Produced, created and hosted by Bobby Cronin, INSPIRED is a benefit concert series for animal rescue organizations across the country that will play every other month, with a rotating line-up of some of today's exciting musical theatre writers in a casual and intimate setting as they sit behind the piano and, unlike traditional concerts of their material, perform songs by other writers that have inspired their work. The INSPIRED series hopes to spread the word about the 2.7 million adoptable animals that are euthanized each year in America. Jessica Kahkoska serves as associate producer.

Casting is complete for the New York City Center Encores! production of Frank Loesser's The Most Happy Fella, running for seven performances, April 2 - 6, 2014.

All the Way, the new play by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Robert Schenkkan, starring BREAKING BAD's Bryan Cranston, is currently in previews on Broadway at the Neil Simon Theatre. The production officially opens on Thursday, March 6, 2014 for a strictly limited engagement. The play is directed by Bill Rauch, Artistic Director of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, where All the Way began its theatrical life. Scroll down to learn more about the full cast of ALL THE WAY, plus watch interviews with the company below!

Broadway stars might boast the biggest fan-bases, but without their directors, the vehicle driving their talents could easily swerve off the tracks. Keeping the runaway train at bay are season's bold Broadway 'conductors'. Scroll down to learn more about this season's intrepid and imaginative leaders!

La Jolla Playhouse is the recipient of three prestigious and highly-competitive grants to support its world-premiere production of The Who & The What, by 2013 Pulitzer Prize winner Ayad Akhtar, directed by Kimberly Senior, running February 11 - March 9 in the Sheila and Hughes Potiker Theatre. The grants include the Edgerton Foundation New American Plays Award, as well awards from The Laurents/Hatcher Foundation and The Blanche and Irving Laurie Foundation Theatre Visions Fund.

Cameron Mackintosh's acclaimed new production of Alain Boublil & Claude-Michel Schonberg's Tony Award-winning musical masterpiece LES MISERABLES begins previews on Broadway tomorrow, Saturday, March 1 at the Imperial Theatre. The official opening night for LES MISERABLES is Sunday, March 23. Scroll down to learn more about the full cast, plus watch a video of the company in rehearsal!

The readings kick off Monday, March 24 and will be held on consecutive Mondays through April 7. The readings will take place at New York City Center - Stage I (131 West 55th Street). All readings are free and open to the public, but space is limited and RSVPs are required. To RSVP, visit https://www.formstack.com/forms/?1685583-1KMR9JvsKh or call (212) 399-3000 x 4163.

Last night at Opening Night of Carson Kreitzer's Lasso of Truth, Marin Theatre Company's artistic director Jasson Minadakis and managing director Michael Barker announced the company's 2014-15 season programming today. Featuring six new plays by living contemporary playwrights in MTC's intimate 231-seat mainstage Boyer Theatre, the season includes: