Michael Barnett News

The Marlene Meyerson JCC Manhattan announces the launch of a brand-new film festival next month: Cinematters: NY Social Justice Film Festival, which will present impactful films to engage the community toward a more democratic, inclusive, and just society. The festival, which will run January 16-20, 2020, explores various themes of inequality, injustice, advocacy and social responsibility, and sheds a light on timely social issues, including racial discrimination, LGTBQIA rights, environmental and water justice, immigrant rights and religious intolerance.

Aspen Film is proud to announce the program for its 40th Anniversary Filmfest, which will showcase top filmmaking from across the globe at Aspen's Wheeler Opera House and Metropolitan's Isis Theatre from September 23-29, 2019, and a weighty lineup of documentaries at the Crystal Theater in Carbondale from September 27-29, 2019. In addition to screenings of highly anticipated fall previews and award-winning features and documentaries, panel discussions with special guests punctuate the week-long festival, which celebrates 40 years of Independent by Nature.

From CIRCUS OF BOOKS, director Rachel Mason , parents Karen and Barry Mason, brother Mike Mason, as well as composer Ian Colletti attended the Opening Night Gala.

Celebrating its 37th anniversary, Outfest - the Los Angeles-based nonprofit organization promoting equality by creating, sharing, and protecting LGBTQ stories on the screen - today announced the complete programming lineup for the 2019 Outfest Los Angeles LGBTQ Film Festival, presented by HBO. The nation's leading LGBTQ festival will be held July 18-28, 2019.

Utah Film Center announced today the feature films selected for the 16th annual Damn These Heels Film Festival and new elements to the Festival for film lovers, filmmakers, and all storytellers. Damn These Heels will run July 12 - 14, 2019 at the Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center and is a festival for all that explores LGBTQ issues, ideas, and art through independent, documentary, and foreign films from around the world. Passes and tickets are now on sale on the Utah Film Center's website. Additional titles will be announced on the website leading up to the Festival.

Outfest – the Los Angeles based non-profit organization promoting equality by creating, sharing, and protecting LGBTQ stories on the screen – today announced its 2019 Achievement Award recipient, Nisha Ganatra, and its galas, including Opening and Closing Night, for the 2019 Outfest Los Angeles LGBTQ Film Festival, presented by HBO. The nation's premiere LGBTQ festival will be held July 18-28, 2019.

''All's well,' Sounds throughout the camp. Alas! all is not well.' One of the most notorious stories to come out of the early history of our country, almost everyone knows the name Benedict Arnold. His offer to surrender West Point to the British posed a serious threat to the burgeoning United States in its earliest years. Far fewer people, however, probably know the name John Andre.

The 2019 Tribeca Film Festival, presented by AT&T, today unveiled its feature film lineup. Continuing its tradition of elevating exceptional storytelling rooted in today's global film communities, the 18th annual Festival will showcase debut works from emerging talent and new works from notable filmmakers. The program includes discoveries, comedies, music-centered, political and social films. The 2019 Tribeca Film Festival takes place April 24 - May 5.  

Nora's back - and she's pissed! Some 15 years after Henrik Ibsen's proto-feminist Nora Helmer came to the momentous decision to leave her controlling husband at the end of A Doll's House - and some 140 years after she first stepped in front of the footlights at Copenhagen's Royal Theatre in 1879 - she finally returns to her Norwegian home to confront her estranged husband and to reveal just what she's been up to since she left her utterly conventional life behind in search of something more.

With the immortal songs of the BeeGees, mesmerizing disco dancing, and a cast of unforgettable characters, the musical version of Saturday Night Fever offers an inherently compelling theatrical experience. Maine State Music Theatre's new production does all that and more: it brings freshness, originality, and strong dramatic narrative to the work, all the while that it envelops the audience in its pulse and passion. This production is white-hot, warm, funny, and genuine.

Design categories, road shows, theatrical events and the 12 people whose achievements in 2017 are particularly noteworthy were revealed tonight as part two of First Night's Top Ten of 2018 - critic Jeffrey Ellis' annual review of the best in Tennessee theater was presented during a live Facebook broadcast with two of the hosts of Midwinter's First Night (Ashley Wolfe and J. Robert Lindsay) announcing the work recognized among the best of 2017.

Nashville audiences love their traditions whether they be of a theatrical bent or of a more personal nature so it should be noted that the holiday season in Music City is now upon us with the arrival of one of the most beloved theater traditions: Nashville Repertory Theatre's annual staging of A Christmas Story (the tale of young Ralphie, his long-suffering mother, his old man and his younger brother Randy), which offers up a timeless tale of Christmas in the heartland that is overflowing with nostalgia and a whole lot of heart.

In 'Mary V,' a Pirandellian, feminist appropriation of Shakespeare's historical play, an all-female cast battles for control of a production of 'Henry V,' led by their king, an actress named Mary.

In 'Mary V,' a Pirandellian, feminist appropriation of Shakespeare's historical play, an all-female cast battles for control of a production of 'Henry V,' led by their king, an actress named Mary. The play explores ways in which actors' commitment can break down the relationship between illusion and reality and how the division between femininity and masculinity can yield destruction for both sexes. Theater for the New City (TNC), 155 First Ave., presented the play last summer in its 2016 Dream Up Festival and will now present it for a full production June 1 to 18. 

Broadcast Music, Inc.® (BMI®) and Sundance Institute have announced the line-up for the 19th annual Composer/Director Roundtable and 15th annual Snowball during the 2017 Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah.

Netflix unveiled its expanded slate of diverse originals making their world premiere at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival, which will include four original features, one original documentary feature, and episodes of two hotly-anticipated doc series. With a roster of talent including Academy Award®-winning filmmaker Morgan Neville, Jason Segel, Rooney Mara, Robert Redford, Elijah Wood, Rashida Jones, Melanie Lynskey, Riley Keough, Jesse Plemons, and Alfre Woodard, the titles selected for Sundance Film Festival highlight the diversity and breadth of creativity found at Netflix.

Some grand holiday traditions are exactly what is needed in these turbulent times and nothing is more pleasing than the 2016 version of Nashville Repertory Theatre's live stage version of A Christmas Story, the theatrical treatment of the movie of the same name that somehow captures all the memories and nostalgia, all the laughter and mayhem of the holiday season.

Nashville audiences can look forward to the warm-hearted and comedic holiday treat when Nashville Repertory Theatre produces A Christmas Story for an eighth consecutive season. This familiar story of young Ralphie's wintertime woes has become a tradition that many Middle Tennessee families eagerly attend year after year.

Nashville audiences can look forward to the warm-hearted and comedic holiday treat when Nashville Repertory Theatre produces A Christmas Story for an eighth consecutive season. This familiar story of young Ralphie's wintertime woes has become a tradition that many Middle Tennessee families eagerly attend year after year.

There comes a moment in Act Two (or maybe it's Act One - on second thought, maybe it's the second Act One, although it could be the third…) of Michael Frayn's Noises Off, now onstage at TPAC's Andrew Johnson Theatre, in which Martha Wilkinson comes onstage, hits her mark, cuts her eyes at another actor and with perfect timing reaches out to touch his arm, her expressive face showing every word the audience needs to hear, eliciting guffaws and applause as her reward.