Michele Shay News

London's Rose Bruford College of Theatre and Performance has launched a range of online summer masterclasses and workshops run by internationally renowned practitioners.

The AUDELCO and Obie Award-winning Billie Holiday Theatre announced today cast details for a special edition of its breakout 50in50 monologue showcase series - 50in50: Love in the Time of Corona - with title inspiration from the classic novel Love in the Time of Cholera by Nobel prize winning Colombian author Gabriel García Márquez.

London's Rose Bruford College of Theatre and Performance has assembled world-renowned Master Teachers to deliver Online Summer Master-Classes and Workshops in July 2020.

Adding to the starry line-up of master teachers on Erik Liberman's Bridge to Broadway online training platform are Tony winning actors Andrea Martin, Ben Vereen, and Christine Ebersole.

The Billie Holiday Theatre will present the third reading under its new #StayAtHome Reading Series with a special reading of James's Sheldon's Reparations, the critically acclaimed play which had its world premiere at The Billie last November.

F*It Club, the New York Innovative Award-winning film and theatre company, will complete ten years of its annual series of short, commissioned world-premiere plays at the IRT Theater as part of their 3B Development Series in Manhattan's West Village with The Spring Fling: Happily Ever After, ten new short plays by Bekah Brunstetter (NBC's This Is Us, The Cake), Matthew Lee Erlbach (Showtime's Masters of Sex, The Doppelganger), Monet Hurst-Mendoza (NBC's Law and Order: SVU ), Daniel K. Isaac (Fullerton), Chelsea Marcantel (Airness), Gregory S. Moss (Indian Summer, punkplay), Leah Nanako Winkler (NBC's New Amsterdam, Kentucky, God Says This), Larry Powell (Lost Dog), Daniel Talbott (ABC's The Conners), & Pia Wilson (National Geographic's Genius).

ULISES OTERO of MIAMI, FL from NEW WORLD SCHOOL OF THE ARTS and UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA, has been named a 2020 National YoungArts Foundation (YoungArts) Finalist in Theatre, the organization's highest honor. Otero has been recognized for his artistic achievement and joins 686 of the nation's most accomplished artists in the visual, literary, and performing arts.

Catarina de Luca Figueiredo of Miami, Florida from New World School of the Arts has been named a 2020 National YoungArts Foundation (YoungArts) Finalist in Theater, the organization's highest honor. De Luca Figueiredo has been recognized for her artistic achievement and was selected by an esteemed discipline-specific panel of artists through a rigorous blind adjudication process. YoungArts award winners gain access to one of the most prestigious programs for emerging artists in the United States in which they will have opportunities for creative and professional development throughout their entire careers. A complete list of the 2020 winners, all 15-18 years old or in grades 10-12, is available online at youngarts.org/winners.

JORDAN RICE of ATLANTA, GA , has been named a 2020 National YoungArts Foundation (YoungArts) Finalist in DISCIPLINE, the organization's highest honor. RICE is a homeschooler and has been recognized for her artistic achievement and joins 686 of the nation's most accomplished artists in the visual, literary, and performing arts. RICE was selected by an esteemed discipline-specific panel of artists through a rigorous blind adjudication process. This year's award winners represent the top 9.5% of applications across ten artistic disciplines. YoungArts award winners gain access to one of the most prestigious programs for emerging artists in the United States in which they will have opportunities for creative and professional development throughout their entire careers. A complete list of the 2020 winners, all 15-18 years old or in grades 10-12, is available online at youngarts.org/winners.

National YoungArts Foundation (YoungArts) has announced the 2020 YoungArts award winners-686 of the nation's most accomplished young artists from 40 States in the visual, literary and performing arts. Selected for their caliber of artistic achievement, award winners are chosen by esteemed discipline-specific panels of artists through a rigorous blind adjudication process.

The Mayor's Office of Media and Entertainment, in partnership with SHOW- SCORE.COM, recently launched ALL NEW YORK'S A STAGE, the first-ever campaign dedicated to raising the visibility of our vibrant local theater industry, which is made up of small venues, companies and related organizations throughout the five boroughs.

Stage Directors and Choreographers Society (SDC), the theatrical union that represents over 4,000 professional stage directors and choreographers announced that due to an overwhelming number of a?oeStandout Momentsa?? nominations for the 2018-2019 season, SDC will add an eleventh a?oeStandout Moments,a?? to the traditional list of ten.

The world premiere of Reparations marks the sixth production of Sheldon's plays, which include Shiverman, nominated as Best Play of 2012 by London's Off-West End Awards.  Directed by Tony Award-nominee Michele Shay (August Wilson's Seven Guitars and Raisin in the Sun on Broadway, The Old Settler at The Billie, 2018 AUDELCO-winning Best Revival of the Year) Reparations stars Lisa Arrindell (Cat on a Hot Tin Roof on Broadway, A Lesson Before Dying, Madea's Family Reunion), Kamal Bolden (The Resident, Chicago Fire, Rosewood), Alexandra Neil (Madoff, and Rock 'n' Roll and Match on Broadway), and Gys de Villiers (Mandela Long Walk to Freedom, Vehicle 19, It Gets Better).

Today, AUDELCO (Audience Development Committee) President Jackie Jeffries , Project1Voice Founder and CEO Erich McMillan-McCall , Marcia Pendelton , President of Walk Tall Girl Productions/Black Theater Online, and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture (Kevin Young, Director, Schomburg Center) announced THE THEATERMAKERS - A Black Theater Preview: Fall Edition.

The Billie Holiday Theatre Artistic and Executive Director Dr. Indira Etwaroo announced the line-up today for The Billie Holiday Theatre's Fall 2019 Season and 2019 a?" 2020 Season Highlights at their newly-renovated home at Restoration Plaza on 1368 Fulton Street, Brooklyn, NY 11216. This historic landmark theater a?" theater home to the largest community of African Americans in the nation: Central Brooklyn a?" encompassing a 199-seat theater, state-of-the-art studio spaces, a gallery space, and outdoor plazas, has been home to world-class storytelling for 47 years. Forged in the sociocultural and aesthetic kiln of the Civil Rights and Black Arts Movements, The Billie Holiday Theatre continues to celebrate the diversity, intersectionality, and complexity of the African diaspora from around the corner and around the world with an almost-five decade, keenly honed consciousness for social justice through narrative.

2019 Tony winner Andre De Shields has been attending The National Black Theatre Festival® (NBTF) in Winston-Salem, N. C. since 1995. Dubbed the 'Black Theatre Holy Ground,' NBTF is the international outreach program of the North Carolina Black Repertory Company, founded by the late Larry Leon Hamlin in 1979. The Festival, also founded by Hamlin, has been held biennially since 1989. The NCBRC celebrated its 40th anniversary this year, while the NBTF celebrated its 30th.

2019 Tony Award winner André De Shields spent his day off from HADESTOWN at The National Black Theatre Festival® (NBTF) in Winston-Salem, NC.

Digital arts journal Stage Raw announces the nominees for its fifth annual Stage Raw Theater Awards, to be held Monday night September 9, 2019, at Los Angeles Theatre Center, 514 S. Spring Street. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. The show starts at 7:30 p.m. Tickets will go on sale Wednesday August 7, 2019. The Stage Raw Theater Awards honor the finest work performed on Los Angeles area stages of 99-seats or fewer, and are selected by a jury of Stage Raw critics. This year's awards celebrate work performed between June 1, 2018 and May 31, 2019.

Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater will kick off the company's season-long August Wilson Festival on Friday, September 13, 2019 with performances beginning for Jitney.

On March 9 in Brooklyn and March 16 in Los Angeles, The Billie Holiday Theatre, in collaboration with Frank Silvera Writers' Workshop, presented its third annual monologue showcase, 50IN50: LETTERS TO OUR DAUGHTERS, to honor Women's History Month.