Martin Luther King, Jr. News

Sometimes it seems there is so much theater happening that it's difficult to keep track of it all. From personal experience, despite all the datebooks, smart phones, tablets, desktop computers and laptops...it's hard to keep everything straight in this wacky business of the show.

 Returning after last year's sold-out concert, singer/songwriter Noel Paul Stookey (Paul of Peter, Paul and Mary), brings his intimate musicality to the Rubicon Theatre Company stage once again for a one-night-only, two-hour event of story and melody spanning 50 years. The concert, entitled "At Home: Ventura," takes place on Sunday, May 15, 2016 at 7:00 p.m. at Rubicon's home in Ventura's Downtown Cultural District. For tickets, call (805) 667-2900 or go to www.rubicontheatre.org.

Nearly 50 years after the groundbreaking film inspired the world, Asolo Rep is thrilled to present Todd Kreidler's electric stage adaptation of the iconic Academy Award-winning film GUESS WHO'S COMING TO DINNER.  

Just in time for previews, which start tonight 11 February in the West End, MOTOWN THE MUSICAL has announced an extension through 18 February 2017. The Daily Mail revealed this evening that 200,000 new tickets are now on sale.

Charl Brown (Smokey Robinson) and Sifiso Mazibuko (Marvin Gaye) join Cedric Neal (Berry Gordy) and Lucy St. Louis (Diana Ross) in the West End production of MOTOWN THE MUSICAL, beginning tonight 11 February 2016 with press night on 8 March 2016.

For Black History Month, introducing a new dramatic and musical telling of the African-American experience narrated by Allan Harris and accompanied by a trio of the country's finest musicians. The Bridge 'Bringing America Together' is set for 8:30 PM at (Le) Poisson Rouge, New York, 158 Bleeker St.

Asolo Rep presents Inside Asolo Rep: ALL THE WAY and GUESS WHO'S COMING TO DINNER on February 24, 2016.

Dallas Theater Center announced today complete details for the Texas-sized production of the Tony Award-winning play, ALL THE WAY. A co-production with the Alley Theatre and directed by DTC Artistic Director Kevin Moriarty, the Houston Chronicle calls ALL THE WAY "a fascinating portrait of one of the most colorful and complex figures in U.S. history." ALL THE WAY features company members from both DTC and the Alley Theatre.

Sometimes it seems there is so much theater happening that it's difficult to keep track of it all. From personal experience, despite all the datebooks, smart phones, tablets, desktop computers and laptops...it's hard to keep everything straight in this wacky business of the show.

How often have you wondered what it would be like to go back in time and talk to an historical icon? Katori Hall's THE MOUNTAINTOP is a gripping and often humorous re-imagining of events the night before the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. that won London's 2010 Olivier Award for best new play. It's one of the best ways imaginable to honor Dr. King, Black History Month and the Black Lives Matter movement by experiencing its Los Angeles premiere at the Matrix Theatre, directed by Obie Award-winner Roger Guenveur Smith and starring Larry Bates and Danielle Truitt. I cannot imagine any two actors more suited to step into the shoes of these two characters, having worked together in a previous production of the play at San Diego Rep, also directed by Smith.

SHUFFLE ALONG was an unlikely hit in 1921. It was one of the first hit Broadway shows starring, written, and directed by African Americans, but it has been overwhelming ignored in theatre history. Ninety-five years later, George C. Wolfe is preparing to bring the show back to Broadway, with a new and updated book by Wolfe. The revival will not only bring the original show' music and lyrics back to the stage, but will also tell the backstage story of its creation, and the impact it had on the theatre scene. SHUFFLE ALONG, OR, THE MAKING OF THE MUSICAL SENSATION OF 1921 AND ALL THAT FOLLOWED, is set to shuffle onto Broadway in the spring, so we're taking a look at the inspiration driving the revival, and a look back on the show's remarkable history.

ACT is collaborating with Shiloh Community Development, Inc to celebrate Black History Month this February. One of the many events happening is a co-production of The Dream - an original play by ACT Outreach Coordinator Matt Fernandez.

Rebecca 'Becky' Foster is listless. At 45+, the middle-class, middle-aged mother and wife resignedly trudges through life.

Playhouse on the Square presents the regional premiere of Robert Schenkkan's political drama All The Way. The winner of the 2014 Tony Award for Best Play, All The Way takes us to November 1963. An assassin's bullet has just catapulted Lyndon Baines Johnson into the presidency. A man with a towering ambition and appetite, LBJ finds himself embroiled in passing the Civil Rights Act as he campaigns for re-election, and searches for the recognition he so desperately wants.

Kim Fields, her husband, Christopher Morgan, and their two sons were honored by Congresswoman Frederica Wilson's 5,000 Role Models Foundation its annual Dr. Martin Luther King Unity Scholarship Breakfast at Jungle Island in Miami, Florida. Though this was the 22nd annual event hosted by Congresswoman Wilson, it is the first time that she honored a family unit for the positive image that it reflects in the African American community.

Robert Schenkkan's Tony Award-winning drama All the Way, about President Lyndon Baines Johnson's impassioned struggle to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964, makes its Washington, D.C. debut at Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater. Kyle Donnelly, who has directed more than 20 productions at Arena Stage, returns to helm this "sure-fire, action packed hit" (Huffington Post) about a country still reeling from the assassination of John F. Kennedy and the man tasked with calming the storm. Hailed as a "sensational night of theater" (NPR), All the Way runs April 1-May 8, 2016 in the Fichandler Stage.

On the evening of April 3, 1968, after delivering one of his most memorable speeches, an exhausted Dr. King retired to his room at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis.  In this gripping re-imagination of events occurring in the hours before his assassination, playwright Katori Hall picks up with a fictional depiction of a mysterious stranger who arrives at the motel room with some surprising news, forcing Dr. King to confront his destiny and his legacy to his people.

Alley Theatre presents the Texas-sized, Tony Award-winning new play, ALL THE WAY, a unique co-production with Dallas Theater Center (DTC). Directed by DTC Artistic Director Kevin Moriarty, ALL THE WAY brings company members from two of the largest Texas resident theaters to collaborate and perform on stage, beginning with the Houston premiere in the Alley's newly renovated Hubbard Theatre now through February 21, 2016. The show opens tonight, February 3, 2016.

Thus, we are happy to present one of our most popular features: The Nashville Theater Calendar, a comprehensive - maybe even exhaustive (lord knows we're exhausted from putting it together, gathering all the info from all over the interwebs!) - listing of theatrical openings for the 2015/16 season. We'll update the calendar every Monday, clearing out the shows that have closed and adding additional information on the shows still to come

Katori Hall, who wrote the award winning play THE MOUNTAINTOP, which is in production at Cleveland Play House, in her script attempts to answer such questions as: What was Martin Luther King, Jr. like as a person? With all the death threats that King received, what was his last night alive like? What did he believe was going to be his ultimate role in the Black rights movement?