McCarter Theatre Center News

Playwrights Theatre's Creative Arts Academy fall classes for kids, teens and adults will begin in October. All classes are held at Playwrights Theatre, 33 Green Village Road, Madison, NJ. For more information and to register visit www.ptnj.org or call 973-514-1787 X21.

Yale Repertory Theatre (James Bundy, Artistic Director; Victoria Nolan, Managing Director) opens its 2009-2010 season with THE MASTER BUILDER by Henrik Ibsen, translated by Paul Walsh, directed by Evan Yionoulis at the University Theatre (222 York Street), September 18-October 10. Opening night is Thursday, September 24.

Yale Repertory Theatre (James Bundy, Artistic Director; Victoria Nolan, Managing Director) opens its 2009-2010 season with THE MASTER BUILDER by Henrik Ibsen, translated by Paul Walsh, directed by Evan Yionoulis at the University Theatre (222 York Street), September 18-October 10. Opening night is Thursday, September 24. Tickets go on sale today, August 31.

Yale Repertory Theatre (James Bundy, Artistic Director; Victoria Nolan, Managing Director) opens its 2009-2010 season with THE MASTER BUILDER by Henrik Ibsen, translated by Paul Walsh, directed by Evan Yionoulis at the University Theatre (222 York Street), September 18-October 10. Opening night is Thursday, September 24.

To mark two decades at the creative helm of McCarter Theatre Center, Artistic Director Emily Mann has announced the 2009-2010 Theater Season, which will include the revival of an audience favorite, an eighteenth-century comic masterpiece, a knockout world premiere drama, a contemporary American classic, and a soaring new musical.

A CHRISTMAS CAROL in August? Beat the holi-daze ticket rush and get 50% off while it's hot!

McCarter Theatre Center has announced that George C. Wolfe, one of the most acclaimed directors in the American theater, has been awarded the inaugural Sallie Goodman Prize.

Playwrights Theatre announces its 24th season. The 2009-2010 programming includes three mainstage productions, the popular Forum reading series and classes for children, teens and adults at the Creative Arts Academy.

Writers' Theatre Artistic Director Michael Halberstam and Executive Director Kathryn M. Lipuma announce the World Premiere of A Minister's Wife, a new musical adapted from George Bernard Shaw's Candida, conceived and directed by Michael Halberstam with musical direction by Richard Casey. A Minister's Wife was adapted by Austin Pendleton with music by Joshua Schmidt and lyrics by Jan Tranen.

Tarell Alvin McCraney and Will Power, two award-winning playwrights with longstanding relationships with McCarter Theatre Center, have both received national attention for their contributions to the American theatrical culture. The Advocate has selected McCraney for its special 'Forty Under 40' issue, while Power is featured in American Theatre magazine's 25th Anniversary issue.

American Conservatory Theater (A.C.T.) announces the final show of its 2008-09 season: Edward Albee's At Home at the Zoo, staged by acclaimed director Rebecca Bayla Taichman (world premieres of Theresa Rebeck's The Scene and Mauritius and Sarah Ruhl's Dead Man's Cell Phone). This new spellbinder by the master playwright who also penned Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and A.C.T.'s The Goat, or Who is Sylvia?, is a meticulously calibrated and dangerously brutal look at relationships intimate and unexpected. The story opens with Peter, a tweedy book editor, and his wife, Ann, whose everyday conversation takes an unexpected turn into dangerously personal territory. It's the kind of conversation that can drive a husband out for a walk-to Central Park, where Jerry, a desperate outcast, awaits. An unforgettable pairing of Albee's original The Zoo Story with a freshly penned prequel, At Home at the Zoo (formerly titled Peter and Jerry) bares its teeth to threaten the delicately balanced world its characters inhabit. Artistic Director Carey Perloff has put together an all-star artistic team on this production, featuring Tony Award-nominated actor Manoel Felciano (Ragtime at The Kennedy Center, A.C.T.'s Rock 'n' Roll, and Sweeney Todd on Broadway) as Jerry and scenic designer Robert Brill, who received a Tony Award nomination last week for his work on Guys and Dolls on Broadway. Hailed by critics as 'a thoroughly satisfying package of jagged-edged provocation' (Newsday) and 'an essential and heartening experience' (The New York Times), Edward Albee's At Home at the Zoo plays at A.C.T. June 5-July 5, 2009. Opening night is Wednesday, June 10, 2009, at 8 p.m. Tickets-starting at $14-are available by calling A.C.T. Ticket Services at 415.749.2228, or at www.act-sf.org.

The second half of Tarell Alvin McCraney's groundbreaking trilogy The Brother/Sister Plays will begin preview performances at McCarter Theatre Center (91 University Place, Princeton, NJ) on Thursday, May 14 (press opening: May 22). Comprised of the second and third plays in the trilogy-The Brothers Size and Marcus; or The Secret of Sweet (world premiere)-Part 2 is directed by Robert O'Hara.

Writers' Theatre Artistic Director Michael Halberstam and Executive Director Kathryn M. Lipuma announce the World Premiere of A Minister's Wife, a new musical adapted from George Bernard Shaw's Candida, conceived and directed by Michael Halberstam with musical direction by Richard Casey. A Minister's Wife was adapted by Austin Pendleton with music by Joshua Schmidt and lyrics by Jan Tranen.

To mark two decades at the creative helm of McCarter Theatre Center, Artistic Director Emily Mann has announced the 2009-2010 Theater Season, which will include the revival of an audience favorite, an eighteenth-century comic masterpiece, a knockout world premiere drama, a contemporary American classic, and a soaring new musical.

McCarter Theatre Center announces the complete cast of William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, directed by Rebecca Taichman. A co-production with Washington, D.C.'s Shakespeare Theatre Company, Twelfth Night begins performances in the Matthews Theatre on Tuesday, March 10 and runs until March 29. (Press opening Friday, March 13). Shipwrecked in a foreign land without family, friends or possessions-what's a girl to do? Identity is under siege in the labyrinth of misconceptions that is Twelfth Night, Shakespeare's bewitching comedy of unquenchable desire, self-deception and misdirected love. This fantastical, timeless production-helmed by rising-star director Rebecca Taichman-is a real sensualist's delight: full of longing 'all as hungry as the sea' and awash in ethereal charm.

Daring feats of athletic discipline: McCarter Theatre Center presents the Golden Dragon Acrobats on Saturday, February 21 at 7:30 pm. Direct from the People's Republic of China, this dazzling troupe of 20 elite gymnasts, jugglers, cyclists, and tumblers continues to leave family audiences spellbound with its daring demonstrations of strength, balance, agility and grace. The Associated Press raves, 'The impossible can be achieved, and once achieved surpassed, then surpassed again.' And don't forget to bring the kids-but warn them in advance not to try these tricks at home! Tickets to Golden Dragon Acrobats run $32-$43, with $12 student tickets.

Move over, Ellington, Evans and Marsalis! Here comes my jazz discovery of 2007 and Canada's entry into the orchestral jazz continuum. The Canadian composer/pianist Maria Schneider formed her Grammy Award-winning Orchestra in 1993, and most of its members have been with her ever since - because she writes for them.

Reduced Shakespeare Company in Completely Hollywood (Abridged) These guys have been keeping McCarter audiences in stitches since their first production, The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, back in the stone age. Since then, these ?bad boys of abridgment' have applied their fast and funny approach to the History of America, the Bible, Western Civilization, and All the Great Books.

Daring feats of athletic discipline: McCarter Theatre Center presents the Golden Dragon Acrobats on Saturday, February 21 at 7:30 pm. Direct from the People's Republic of China, this dazzling troupe of 20 elite gymnasts, jugglers, cyclists, and tumblers continues to leave family audiences spellbound with its daring demonstrations of strength, balance, agility and grace. The Associated Press raves, 'The impossible can be achieved, and once achieved surpassed, then surpassed again.' And don't forget to bring the kids-but warn them in advance not to try these tricks at home! Tickets to Golden Dragon Acrobats run $32-$43, with $12 student tickets.

The Maria Schneider Orchestra, heralded as 'the foremost big-band composer of her generation (The Washington Post) will bring her 19-piece ensemble to McCarter Theatre Center on Friday, February 20 at 8 p.m. Maria Schneider's music has been described as evocative, majestic, magical, heart-stoppingly gorgeous, and beyond categorization. The Minnesota-born composer and arranger moved to New York in 1985 and worked with the legendary jazz arranger Gil Evans during he last couple of years of his life. Evan's influence can be clearly heard in the Maria Schneider Jazz Orchestra, which she formed in 1993 and which has gone on to be one of the most acclaimed and exciting large groups in jazz today.