Marcus Gardley News

Playwrights Foundation announces that Artistic Director Amy Mueller has decided to step down, after nearly two decades of leadership, following the annual Bay Area Playwrights Festival, July 19-28, 2019. A national search for her successor will begin in May.

Oregon Shakespeare Festival (OSF) Incoming Artistic Director Nataki Garrett and Artistic Director Bill Rauch announced the Festival's 2020 playbill today. The season celebrates OSF's ongoing commitment to the work of Shakespeare, imaginative adaptations of beloved classics and illuminating new plays in a Jubilee year that includes two world-premiere American Revolutions commissions for only the second time in the Festival's history.

Playwrights Ty Defoe (Musical Theatre Factory Makers Cohort, Clouds Are Pillows for the Moon), Monet Hurst-Mendoza (Veil'd, The Kilroys), Mona Mansour (Urge for Going, The Way West), and Sanaz Toossi (Page 73 Playwriting Fellow, EST's Youngblood), and directors Misha Chowdhury (The Wolves, An Ordinary Muslim), Estefania Fadul (Scissoring, O'Neill/NNPN National Directors Fellowship), Seonjae Kim (Riot Antigone), Taylor Reynolds (Plano), and Megan Sandberg-Zakian (Nat Turner in Jerusalem) join Noor Theatre's 5th Annual 48 Hour Forum, a 48-hour play festival inspired by news events of the day.

The Drama League (Gabriel Stelian-Shanks, Executive Artistic Director) today announced the 2019 Drama League Awards Nominees for Outstanding Production of a Play, Outstanding Revival of a Play, Outstanding Production of a Musical, Outstanding Revival of a Musical, and the much-coveted Distinguished Performance Award. The nominations were announced this morning by the current stars of Waitress, Shoshana Bean and Jeremy Jordan, at the official announcement event at Sardi's Restaurant, which was streamed live online here at BroadwayWorld.

Trinity Rep will conclude its dynamic 2018-19 Season with the primal and poetic Marisol by Obie award-winning playwright Jos Rivera. This production focuses on the sensational search for hope among the ruins.

Play On Shakespeare in association with Classic Stage Company (CSC) and Oregon Shakespeare Festival (OSF) presents the Play on! festival-featuring 39 readings of new, work-in-progress translations of Shakespeare's plays into contemporary modern English by some of today's most exciting playwrights-May 29-June 30 at the Lynn F. Angelson Theater at CSC (136 E. 13th Street).In 2015, Oregon Shakespeare Festival launched an ambitious 39-play, three-year commissioning project, Play on!, tasking 36 playwrights-more than half of whom were women and playwrights of color, each paired with a dramaturg-to translate Shakespeare's canon in celebration of the enduring impact of the Bard's work. Supported by a generous grant from the Hitz Foundation and inspired by long-time patron Dave Hitz's passion for Shakespeare, the project was and continues to be led by Lue Morgan Douthit. For more information, visit playonfestival.org.

Victory Gardens Theater, under the leadership of Artistic Director Chay Yew and Executive Director Erica Daniels, announces the lineup for its 2019-2020 Season. Victory Gardens' 45th Season will include the Chicago premiere of Tiny Beautiful Things by Nia Vardalos; the world premiere of The First Deep Breath by Lee Edward Colston II; the co-world premiere of How to Defend Yourself by Lily Padilla; and the world premiere of Dhaba on Devon Avenue by Madhuri Shekar; and the Chicago premiere of Right to Be Forgotten by Sharyn Rothstein.

Trinity Rep will continue its 2018-19 Season with the perennially-popular Little Shop of Horrors an award-winning musical that blends doo-wop, rock, and Motown in a totally twisted production about what lengths we are willing to go to when we are down on our luck.

The Acting Company (Founded by John Houseman and Margot Harley; Ian Belknap, Artistic Director; Elisa Spencer-Kaplan, Executive Director) announced today complete casting for the first reading in the 23rd John McDonald Salon Reading Series, Lillian Hellman's acclaimed drama Watch on the Rhine. The reading will take place on Monday, March 18 at 7 PM at the Mainstage Theater at Playwrights Horizons (416 W. 42nd Street, New York, NY). Tickets are available now online at www.theactingcompany.org.

The Acting Company announced today initial casting for the first reading in the 23rd John McDonald Salon Reading Series, Lillian Hellman's acclaimed drama Watch on the Rhine.

Trinity Rep continues its dedication to bringing new works to the stage with this world premiere from one of the most popular up-and-coming playwrights in the country, Lauren Yee.

From the Motor City to the Valley of the Sun: My conversation with Director Ralph Remington and Executive Director David Hemphill and their conjoined forces bringing Dominique Morisseau's Detroit '67 to Phoenix.

Trinity Rep's eighth annual playwriting competition for New England High School students, Write Here! Write Now!, is now accepting entries. Students are asked to compose an original ten-minute play and submit it via the online application form.

Following an overwhelmingly positive response from audiences and critics alike, Berkeley Rep has announced that the world premiere of Paradise Square: A New Musical will extend for an additional week. The popular show will now run through Sunday, March 3.

Trinity Rep will continue its 2018-19 Season with the electrifying tale of Macbeth a Shakespearean thriller that bursts at breakneck speed with more suspense, murder, and madness than a blockbuster film. Directed by Curt Columbus, who was most recently at the helm of last spring's Ragtime, this contemporary telling of the famously-cursed play will include a live DJ and elements of magic.

PARADISE SQUARE is a glorious if frustrating addition to the musical theatre canon, blessed with an exceptional cast, a stirring score, and the unbelievably exquisite choreography of Bill T. Jones. Yet, despite these riches, the opulent production trips self-consciously on its own ambition, with the whole adding up to something less satisfying than the sum of its exceptional parts.

Check out all new video from Paradise Square: An American Musical. The world premiere is helmed by acclaimed director Moises Kaufman, with choreography by the legendary Bill T. Jones and a book by Marcus Gardley, Craig Lucas, and Larry Kirwan. Music by Jason Howland and Larry Kirwan, with lyrics by Nathan Tysen, and based on the songs of Stephen Foster.

Paradise Square: An American Musical at Berkeley Rep opened this week. The world premiere is helmed by acclaimed director Moises Kaufman, with choreography by the legendary Bill T. Jones and a book by Marcus Gardley, Craig Lucas, and Larry Kirwan. Music by Jason Howland and Larry Kirwan, with lyrics by Nathan Tysen, and based on the songs of Stephen Foster.

Trinity Repertory Company broke its all-time box office sales and attendance records with its 2018 production of A Christmas Carol, surpassing the record set last year by the same show. This season's incarnation of the holiday tradition, which ran November 9-December 30, 2018, was the 41st consecutive mounting of the Dickens classic. Completely re-invented each season with a new director, cast, and designers, the 2018 production was directed by Mark Valdez, who also directed Fuente Ovejuna, or Like Sheep to Water at Trinity Rep in 2017. Beloved acting company member, Stephen Thorne, played the role of Ebenezer Scrooge

Trinity Repertory Company invites the public to nominate outstanding local artists for the 2019 Rhode Island Pell Awards for Excellence in the Arts. The Pell Awards' criteria include distinction in the artist's chosen field, work that significantly advances the art form and contribution to the betterment of the community, and the world at large through artistic presence and community service. Awards will be presented at the theater's gala event on Monday, June 3, 2019 at the WaterFire Arts Center in Providence.