Marsha Norman News

Today's top stories: Sutton Foster will perform a virtual concert from City Center, new musical Breathe from Jodi Picoult will star Kelli O'Hara, Denée Benton, Patti Murin, Colin Donnell, Brian Stokes Mitchell, and more!

The 2021 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize has been awarded to U.S. playwright Erika Dickerson-Despenza for her play about the Flint, Michigan water crisis, cullud wattah. Awarded annually since 1977, The Susan Smith Blackburn Prize is the largest and oldest international prize honoring Women+ playwrights.

The Susan Smith Blackburn Prize will present a virtual presentation to announce the 2021 winner of one of the most prestigious playwriting awards, and the oldest and largest prize awarded to women+ playwrights, today, April 7, 2021 at 3pm EST/ 8pm BST. Tune in right here at BroadwayWorld to watch the presentation, hosted by Pulitzer Prize-winning Playwright and Susan Smith Blackburn Prize winner (1983) Marsha Norman.

TheatreZone, a professional Equity theatre specializing in Broadway musicals, announces its Season 17 productions.

TheatreWorks Silicon Valley will stream an advance look at tomorrow's hits in New Works Festival Online.

Lyric Opera of Chicago has announced The New Classics: Songs from the New Golden Age of Musical Theater, a virtual cabaret starring Broadway’s Gavin Creel, Nikki Renée Daniels, and Norm Lewis, plus Amanda Castro, Jenn Gambatese, Jo Lampert, and Heath Saunders, with David Chase as music director and featuring members of the Lyric Opera Orchestra.

Hampstead Theatre has announced its first live productions for 2021.  Alfred Fagon's darkly compelling, The Death of a Black Man will run from 28 May until 10 July having originally premiered at the theatre in 1975.  46 years on, this rare revival from the Black British playwriting canon, raises many of the same questions we face today surrounding identity, capitalism and sexual politics. 

Need something new to read, watch, or listen to? Check out this week's list of new and upcoming releases! This week's list includes new music from Andy Karl and Orfeh with Andrew Logan, a debut album from Joshua Henry, a new Randy Rainbow parody, and more!

Leicester's Curve theatre has announced plans to extend its streamed run of The Color Purple – at Home due to audience demand. Produced in association with Birmingham Hippodrome, the musical will now stream online until Tuesday 16 March.

New Musicals Inc. has announced that three writing teams have been selected to participate in the 2021 New Voices Project, a musical theatre development program hosted by New Musicals Inc. in Los Angeles (with support from Walt Disney Imagineering Creative Entertainment), now in its ninth year.

“The Jesse Walker Show” is celebrating the shows 20th season with a special event reuniting some of the cast and creative team from 2014 Broadway musical The Bridges of Madison County, including Tony Award winner Kelli O’Hara, Steven Pasquale, Hunter Foster, Caitlin Kinnunen, Derek Klena, and creative team Jason Robert Brown & more.

Reviewing the Curve Theatre’s gorgeous concert revival of The Color Purple feels timely in more ways than one: not only is it an apt choice of programming during Black History Month, but tonight’s press night is the same day as the conclusion of a long and drawn-out employment tribunal linked to a previous member of the cast, dismissed for their homophobic views.

Leicester Curve has released an official statement, revealing that Seyi Omooba's claims of religious discrimination were rejected by an employment tribunal. Omooba took legal action against Curve after being dismissed from a production of The Color Purple for posts on social media that were deemed homophobic.

The history of show business is loaded with couples who work as well offstage as they do on. These twosomes have brought their offstage magic to the stages of the cabaret and concert world.

TheatreWorks Silicon Valley has been approved for a $20,000 Grants for Arts Projects award to support its New Works Festival and the upcoming World Premiere of Nan and the Lower Body. Developed in the 2019 TheatreWorks New Works Festival, Jessica Dickey's play Nan and the Lower Body is scheduled to make its World Premiere in July 2022 in the company's 51st season, directed by TheatreWorks Artistic Associate and Director of New Works Giovanna Sardelli.

In celebration of the 5-year anniversary of the recording’s original release, Broadway Records has released the Grammy Award-winning recording of THE COLOR PURPLE as a double record set printed on purple vinyl today,  February 5, 2021.

The Susan Smith Blackburn Prize has announced 10 Finalists for 2021 for its prestigious playwriting award, the oldest and largest prize awarded to women+ playwrights.

Cape Fear Regional Theatre will present The Color Purple in Spring 2021.

Be An #ArtsHero & The Dramatists Guild of America released brand new “Dear Mr. President and Madam Vice President” letters as part of ARTS WORKERS UNITE: 100 Days of Art and Activism, to make Arts & Culture Workers a legislative and economic priority.  Additional playwrights include John Leguizamo, Martyna Majok, Jeanne Sakata and Stephen Flaherty.

After nearly a year without a full production due to COVID-19, CenterPoint Legacy Theatre in Centerville welcomes back theater goers for a beautiful rendition of THE SECRET GARDEN, spring version, by Marsha Norman and Lucy Simon, directed by Jansen Davis.