Michael Cristofer News

Champion by Terence Blanchard, with libretto by Michael Cristofer, comes to Greenbrier Valley Theatre this month. The performance is on April 29 at 12:55pm.

Terence Blanchard's opera Champion, based on the true story of the troubled former middleweight boxing champion Emile Griffith, will have its highly anticipated Metropolitan Opera premiere on April 10, with nine performances running through May 13.

Lyric Opera of Chicago has announced the company’s 2023/24 Season, which takes audiences on a global tour of opera featuring a richly curated slate of musical events in six different languages.

Terence Blanchard’s opera Champion, based on the true story of the troubled former middleweight boxing champion Emile Griffith, will have its highly anticipated Metropolitan Opera premiere on April 10, with nine performances running through May 13.

Works & Process at the Guggenheim presents Champion-an opera by Terence Blanchard, with a libretto by Michael Cristofer-featuring performances by members of the cast and a moderated discussion about the work's forthcoming company premiere at the Metropolitan Opera.

The Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust has announced the names of the two outstanding early-to-mid-career playwrights who will be celebrated with 2022 Steinberg Playwright Awards in the amount of $100,000 each.  This year’s recipients of the “Mimi” Awards are James Ijames and Lloyd Suh. 

For spring 2023 Works & Process will present a robust series at the Guggenheim Museum, Lincoln Center, and The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. Programs provide audiences with unprecedented access to creative process blending artist discussions and performance highlights.

What did our critic think of THE SHADOW BOX at BACCA Arts Center? With his 1977 Pulitzer Prize Winning play, The Shadow Box, Michael Cristofer creates his own display case, a shadow box if you will, showcasing life's unfortunate one sure thing, death. In the play's program, a quote is provided from renowned psychiatrist Elisabeth Kubler-Ross. She stated, 'There are five different stages that a person will go through when he faces the fact of his own death: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. These stages will last for different periods of time; they will replace each other, or exist at times side by side...But the one thing that usually persists through all these signs is hope.' Cristofer allows the audience to see these varying stages of grief through his characters. The play takes place at three hospice cottages where we see how death affects three terminally ill patients and their loved ones. Shadow boxes are usually created to display memories and keepsakes. Cristofer uses the cottages metaphorically to showcase the grieving process.

The Metropolitan Opera has announced the launch of The Met: Live at Home, a streaming platform that allows audiences to watch the Met’s acclaimed series of live simulcasts from any device in the comfort of their homes—the latest effort by the company to reach as broad a public as possible.

The Pulitzer Prize Board has just announced that Fat Ham has won the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Other finalists included: Selling Kabul, and Kristina Wong, Sweatshop Overlord.

The Pulitzer Prize Board today will present the 2022 award winners for Prizes in Journalism, Books, Drama and Music. Who will win this year? Tune in right here at 3pm to watch the announcement live!

Playwright Chiara Atik has won the 2022 Harold and Mimi Steinberg / American Theatre Critics Association New Play Award for their play “Poor Clare.”

The true story of six-time world champion prizefighter Emile Griffith is told in Boston Lyric Opera’s (BLO) new production of Champion: An Opera in Jazz by Grammy Award-winning composer Terence Blanchard (Fire Shut Up in My Bones), with a libretto by Pulitzer Prize winner Michael Cristofer.

The Metropolitan Opera today announced its 2022–23 season, which features seven new productions, the most in ten seasons. Opening Night is September 27 with the company premiere of Cherubini’s Medea, starring soprano Sondra Radvanovsky in the title role alongside tenor Matthew Polenzani in David McVicar’s new staging, conducted by Carlo Rizzi.

Following the success of Terence Blanchard’s Fire Shut Up in My Bones, which reopened the Metropolitan Opera and played to sold out houses, the company announced today that it will present Blanchard’s first opera, Champion, with libretto by Michael Cristofer, in April 2023.

Playwright J. Nicole Brooks has won the 2021 Harold and Mimi Steinberg / American Theatre Critics Association New Play Award for their play “Her Honor, Jane Byrne.”

It was just announced by the Pulitzer Prize organization that Katori Hall's The Hot Wing King has officially won the 2021 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. This year's finalists included Circle Jerk by Michael Breslin and Patrick Foley and Stew by Zora Howard.

Lake Worth Playhouse has announced its 2021/22 Black Box Season. Tickets go on sale this summer.

Streep plays Lillian Hall, an actress who is synonymous with Broadway. Throughout her long, illustrious career, she has never missed a performance—not for her daughter, not for illness, not for any reason. Yet in the rehearsals leading to her next Broadway production, her confidence is challenged.

The Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust today announced the names of the 20 outstanding early-to-mid-career playwrights who will be celebrated with 2020 Steinberg Playwright Awards in the amount of $10,000 each. As previously announced, these awards are being given in response to this extremely difficult year, and in an effort to better meet the immediate and pressing needs of playwrights.