Melly Still News

Cape Town Opera's 2017 season launches with an explosive meeting of South Africa's foremost young singers directed by a veteran theatrical innovator. It includes a major new international musical and brings acclaimed international singers to the stage for the third in the Naspers Grand Masters series.

Over the next six years, the RSC aims to produce every single Shakespeare play. Its 2016 season features Cymbeline, one of the lesser known but not lesser performed plays; this production is a transfer from Stratford-Upon-Avon, and there have been two productions at Shakespeare's Globe this year alone. Why the sudden revival? A fool boasts 'Britain is a world by itself' (and no, I don't mean Nigel Farage). In a post-Brexit Britain, these words ring truer than ever before in this bold production, which ironically seems to be lacking a sense of unity and cohesion too.

Gillian Bevan has done everything from Holby City and Teachers on TV to RSC productions and extensive musical theatre, including Into the Woods, Billy Elliot and Grand Hotel. She's currently starring in the RSC's Cymbeline - the first woman to play the title role for the company. The production comes to the Barbican next week.

With John Malkovich's acclaimed production of Good Canary entering its final week, Rose Theatre Kingston today announces its new season for 2017.  Headlining the season is the world premiere of My Brilliant Friend, a two-part adaptation of Elena Ferrante's Neapolitan quartet of novels which have become a global literary sensation.  The true identity of the author is a mystery, with Elena Ferrante a pseudonym used by the writer, but speculation over the weekend suggested that the author had been unmasked.  

The Globe is breaking bad. Cymbeline comes to us as Imogen - subtitled Renamed and Reclaimed, properly recognising that Imogen has far more to say than her royal father - but that's just the start of Matthew Dunster's bold, urban revamp. The king runs a coke empire. The exiles have a weed greenhouse. The court dresses in Adidas tracksuits, Cloten is a football hooligan, while Skepta and Sicario soundtrack each strip lighting-illuminated tableau, revealed by the parting of slaughterhouse plastic curtains.

Beginning October 17, 2016, the Royal Shakespeare Company's acclaimed production of Shakespeare's Cymbeline will play in select movie houses across North America.

The Royal Shakespeare Company has announced new details of its 2016 London season. The Alchemist and Doctor Faustus will transfer directly from the Swan Theatre to the Barbican, playing in rep for a four-week run from August, with the same cast directed by Polly Findlay and Maria Aberg respectively. They will be followed by Cymbeline and King Lear, transferring from the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, playing an eight-week run in rep from late October, directed by Melly Still and Gregory Doran respectively. In addition, following their Chichester Festival Theatre run, Love's Labours Lost and Much Ado About Nothing will travel to the West End's Theatre Royal Haymarket in December.

Arena Stage announces casting for the final production of the 2015/16 season, Ayad Akhtar's Pulitzer Prize-winning drama Disgraced. Director Timothy Douglas (Arena's King Hedley II) tackles this emotionally-charged play by Akhtar, author of the novel 'American Dervish' and currently the most produced playwright in the United States. Hailed as 'emotionally shattering, a smart and provocative work of unusual daring that should be seen by anyone who cares about serious theater' by Newsday, Disgraced runs April 22-May 29, 2016 in the Kreeger Theater.

The visually appetizing lyrical opera RUSALKA hits the Houston Grand Opera stage as part of the Glyndebourne Tour. Composed by Antonin Dvorak and written by poet Jaroslav Kvapil in 1900, RUSALKA is a rather tragic fairytale about an ill-fated love affair between a water sprite (or rusalka) and a prince.

Houston Grand Opera (HGO) opens its 2016 winter repertory on January 22with an inventive staging by multiple-award-winning theater director Michael Grandage of Mozart's genial farce, The Marriage of Figaro. Performances continue through February 7. Co-produced by HGO and the Glyndebourne Festival and premiered at Glyndebourne in 2012, this production, set in 1970s Spain with sets and costumes by award-winning designer Christopher Oram, was hailed for its beauty and for affirming “Mozart's comic masterpiece as both of its time and perennially modern” (Sunday Times). HGO is delighted to bring this elegant staging to Houston under the direction of Ian Rutherford, who worked with Grandage and toured the production following its Glyndebourne run.   

The RSC brings Shakespeare's 400th anniversary year in Stratford to a close with a powerful programme, matching two major Shakespeare titles with two irreverent Jacobean comedies and a new play from Anders Lustgarten, which plays out across 400 years between Caravaggio's Naples and the housing estates of Bootle.

Houston, January 6, 2016— Houston Grand Opera (HGO) opens its 2016 winter repertory on January 22with an inventive staging by multiple-award-winning theater director Michael Grandage of Mozart's genial farce, The Marriage of Figaro. Performances continue through February 7. Co-produced by HGO and the Glyndebourne Festival and premiered at Glyndebourne in 2012, this production, set in 1970s Spain with sets and costumes by award-winning designer Christopher Oram, was hailed for its beauty and for affirming “Mozart's comic masterpiece as both of its time and perennially modern” (Sunday Times). HGO is delighted to bring this elegant staging to Houston under the direction of Ian Rutherford, who worked with Grandage and toured the production following its Glyndebourne run.   

LOSERVILLE, with book, music & lyrics by Elliot Davis & James Bourne, presented by arrangement with Josef Weinberger Ltd, is directed by Michael Burgen, with choreography by Matt Krzan, musical direction by Dan Jarvis and lighting design by Tim Deiling. Produced by Sasha Regan, the show will return to the Union Theatre this winter.

Full casting has been announced for THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE at Liverpool Playhouse. Emily Bevan plays Eleanor and will be joined by Chipo Chung, Jane Guernier, Joseph May and Martin Turner as Dr Montague.

LOSERVILLE, with book, music & lyrics by Elliot Davis & James Bourne, presented by arrangement with Josef Weinberger Ltd, is directed by Michael Burgen, with choreography by Matt Krzan, musical direction by Dan Jarvis and lighting design by Tim Deiling. Produced by Sasha Regan, the show will return to the Union Theatre this winter.

This Christmas at the Playhouse, following the international and West End success of Ghost Stories, the horror genre makes a return with The Haunting of Hill House. The production is a collaboration with Sonia Friedman Productions and HAMMER to create the first major UK stage adaptation of Shirley Jackson's novel, which became the legendary horror movie The Haunting in 1963. The production will play at the Williamson Square venue from Monday 7 December to Saturday 16 January.

The Royal Shakespeare Company have announced their plans for the 2016 season at Stratford-Upon-Avon. Priority booking opens next week.

Houston, August 17, 2015—Houston Grand Opera's (HGO) 2015–16 season showcases the vibrant and diverse artistic mix that marks HGO as a leading 21st-century American opera company: Wagner's Siegfried, the third installment of La Fura dels Baus's imaginative Ring cycle featuring a new generation of Wagnerians; the world premiere of Prince of Players by eminent American composer Carlisle Floyd, the Lynn Wyatt Great Artist for 2015–16; Dvoák's fairy tale rarity Rusalka; a holiday revival of family favorite The Little Prince from the award-winning composer Rachel Portman and librettist Nicholas Wright; a new production of The Marriage of Figaro; a new-to-Houston Eugene Onegin; a beloved core production, Tosca; and the Houston debut of Broadway sensation Rob Ashford's take on the classic musical Carousel. Through its community collaboration program HGOco, the company will present two additional world premieres: O Columbia, a chamber opera by composer Gregory Spears and librettist Royce Vavrek that examines the past, present, and future of the American spirit of exploration; and The Root of the Wind is Water, a chamber opera by composer David Hanlon and librettist Stephanie Fleischmann about the impact of hurricanes on the Texas Gulf coast.

Autumn 2015 will see the Everyman & Playhouse collaborating with some of the greatest theatre makers in the country. The season begins with Simon Armitage's The Odyssey: Missing Presumed Dead, directed by Associate Director Nick Bagnall, a co-production with English Touring Theatre.

Houston, January 29, 2015-Houston Grand Opera's (HGO) 2015-16 season showcases the vibrant and diverse artistic mix that marks HGO as a leading 21st-century American opera company: Wagner's Siegfried, the third installment of La Fura dels Baus's imaginative Ring cycle featuring a new generation of Wagnerians; the world premiere of Carlisle Floyd's Prince of Players; Dvo?ak's fairy tale rarity Rusalka; a holiday revival of family favorite The Little Prince from the award-winning composer Rachel Portman and librettist Nicholas Wright; a new production of The Marriage of Figaro and a new-to-Houston Eugene Onegin; a beloved core production, Tosca; and the Houston debut of Broadway sensation Rob Ashford's take on the classic musical Carousel. Through its community collaboration program HGOco, the company will present two additional world premieres: O Columbia, a chamber opera by composer Gregory Spears and librettist Royce Vavrek that examines the past, present, and future of the American spirit of exploration; and another chamber opera, by composer David Hanlon and librettist Stephanie Fleischmann, about the impact of hurricanes on the Texas Gulf coast.