Michael Williams News

Founding Artistic Director Richard Kuranda and Williams Street Repertory have announced that John Michael Coppola of Chicago's Jersey Boys will star as Bobby in their upcoming production of Company opening on February 1, 2013 at Raue Center For The Arts.

Trinity Repertory Company's Education Department has announced the second annual Write Here! Write Now! student playwriting competition. Students in grades 9-12 from the six New England states are invited to submit an original short play (6-10 pages) between now and February 1, 2013. The winning playwrights will work with Trinity Rep staff members to further develop the work, and then see their play read by professional actors in front of an invited audience of friends and family.

BroadwayWorld.com, the premier theater news website in the United States, in the United Kingdom, and in more than 20 other countries, has expanded, updated, and is now ready for this year's BWW Awards that are conducted simultaneously across all local and international markets, including the Philippines.

Two River Theater Company, under the leadership of Artistic Director John Dias and Managing Director Michael Hurst, continues its 2012-2013 Season with Shakespeare's Henry V, directed by Michael Sexton. Performances will begin in Two River's Rechnitz Theater, 21 Bridge Avenue, tonight, October 20 and continue through Sunday, November 11.

NBC 6 South Florida will televise the only confirmed Florida Senatorial Debate during the 2012 election season, pitting Florida's incumbent U.S. Senator Bill Nelson (D) against Republican challenger U.S. Representative Connie Mack.

Two River Theater Company, under the leadership of Artistic Director John Dias and Managing Director Michael Hurst, continues its 2012-2013 Season with Shakespeare's Henry V, directed by Michael Sexton. Performances will begin in Two River's Rechnitz Theater, 21 Bridge Avenue, on Saturday, October 20 and continue through Sunday, November 11.

Live performances from Philippine Educational Theater Association's WILLIAM, CARE DIVAS, Tanghalang Pilipino's NOLI ME TANGERE, and Repertory Philippines' PETER PAN beefed up the 2011 Philstage Gawad Buhay!, line produced by theater advocates Audie Gemora and Alvin Trono's Stages Production Specialists Inc., at the Cultural Center of the Philippines' main lobby on Sunday.

How does a neophyte at Repertory Philippines, one of the country's pioneering theater companies, which is known to have molded world-class talents such as Lea Salonga, Monique Wilson, Menchu Lauchengco-Yulo, Michael Williams, and Audie Gemora, among others, under the infamously stringent rehearsal and performance policies of the late stage director Zenaida Amador, fit in?

The 5th Avenue Awards Honoring High School Musical Theatre celebrates its tenth anniversary by bringing previous recipients back to the stage to present the next generation of musical theater stars with awards and accolades. The acclaimed program, sponsored by Wells Fargo, is a high school version of the Tony Awards, and allows theater students from across Washington to meet, celebrate, and honor the exceptional musical Theater Productions presented during the 2011-12 school year. The 5th Avenue Awards will be held at 7:00 PM, tonight, June 4, at The 5th Avenue Theatre.

The 5th Avenue Awards Honoring High School Musical Theatre will celebrates its tenth anniversary by bringing previous recipients back to the stage to present the next generation of musical theater stars with awards and accolades. The acclaimed program, sponsored by Wells Fargo, is a high school version of the Tony Awards, and allows theater students from across Washington to meet, celebrate, and honor the exceptional musical theater productions presented during the 2011-12 school year. The 5th Avenue Awards will be held at 7:00 PM, Monday, June 4, at The 5th Avenue Theatre.

Cape Town Opera returns to the UK this June & July for a tour of their acclaimed Porgy and Bess, culminating in a two week run at the London Coliseum. Tsakane Maswanganyi, who previously thrilled audiences in the title role of Carmen Jones at the Royal Festival Hall will play Bess, while Xolela Sixaba will reprise the role of Porgy having won great acclaim for his performance in 2009.

The Kennedy Center presents Come Fly Away in the Eisenhower Theater from April 18-29, 2012. Conceived, choreographed, and directed by Tony Award® winner and Kennedy Center Honoree Twyla Tharp (Movin' Out) and by special arrangement with the Frank Sinatra Family and Frank Sinatra Enterprises, Come Fly Away blends the legendary vocals of Frank Sinatra with a live on-stage big band and 14 of the world's finest dancers. The show's score combines classic and newly discovered vocal performances from the Sinatra archives, along with Sinatra's signature arrangements by Nelson Riddle, Billy May and Quincy Jones, among others, and brand new charts, for this fresh innovative musical. Press night will take place on Wednesday, April 18 at 7:30 p.m.

Repertory Philippines' current 45th theater season reaches fever pitch with the premiere of composer Frank Wildhorn and book writer and lyricist Leslie Bricusse's overtly melodramatic, pop rock-laden Broadway musical JEKYLL AND HYDE. However, Menchu Lauchengco-Yulo, director for JEKYLL AND HYDE, along with her team, seems to have been rising above the original Broadway production's bad reputation since the local production opened last weekend. Whereas American critics find Wildhorn's body of work as "gallumphing, dunderheaded musicals that make everything by Andrew Lloyd Webber seems like great art," says Linda Winer of 'Newsday'; Filipino critics find Repertory Philippines' stripped-down incarnation of Wildhorn's most popular undertaking as nothing short of a miracle. "By doing away with the stage spectacle [without the high-tech gimmickry that marked its Broadway run], the focus was redirected to the actors - and rightly so," says Vladimir Bunoan of ABS-CBNNews.com.

Parts & Labor's Lars Knudsen and Jay Van Hoy - the producing duo behind Mike Mills' Oscar-winning film Beginners which won Christopher Plummer his first Academy Award last month - announced today that they are partnering with Todd Hagopian at Ocean Size Pictures, to produce DIRTY WHITE BOY.

The Kennedy Center presents Come Fly Away in the Eisenhower Theater from April 18-29, 2012. Conceived, choreographed, and directed by Tony Award® winner and Kennedy Center Honoree Twyla Tharp (Movin' Out) and by special arrangement with the Frank Sinatra Family and Frank Sinatra Enterprises, Come Fly Away blends the legendary vocals of Frank Sinatra with a live on-stage big band and 14 of the world's finest dancers. The show's score combines classic and newly discovered vocal performances from the Sinatra archives, along with Sinatra's signature arrangements by Nelson Riddle, Billy May and Quincy Jones, among others, and brand new charts, for this fresh innovative musical. Press night will take place on Wednesday, April 18 at 7:30 p.m.

For its first offering this year, 9 Works Theatrical presents the musical comedy YOU'RE A GOOD MAN, CHARLIE BROWN - based on the comic strip 'Peanuts' by Charles Schulz; featuring book by John Gordon; and music and lyrics by Clark Gesner. The show runs at Carlos P. Romulo Auditorium, RCBC Plaza, Makati City until Saturday, March 3.