The American Playwriting Foundation (Executive Director David Bar Katz), established to make annual grants to new American plays, has selected Aleshea Harris for The 2016 Relentless Award, the largest annual cash prize in American theater awarded to a play.
Olivier Award-winning director, Robert Icke's (Mary Stuart, The Red Barn, Uncle Vanya, Oresteia, Mr Burns and 1984), ground-breaking and electrifying production of William Shakespeare's Hamlet, starring BAFTA award-winner Andrew Scott (Moriarty in BBC's Sherlock, Denial, Spectre, Design For Living and Cock) in the title role, will transfer to the Harold Pinter Theatre, following a critically acclaimed and sell out run at the Almeida Theatre.
Ensemble Theatre Cincinnati (ETC) closes its 31st season with a trip to Ireland in the regional premiere of Bloomsday by award-winning playwright Steven Dietz. Set against the backdrop of James Joyce's groundbreaking modernist novel Ulysses, an American man searches for the Irish woman who first captured his heart 35 years earlier during a Bloomsday walking tour in Dublin. This lyrical, intriguing drama transports audiences into a world of history, humor, and heartache to explore a love affair that might have been. Playing April 4-23, 2017. Directed by Michael Evan Haney.
Pidgin Culture presents the debut of Four Oceans, a trio exploring ritualistic forms of interplay in an improvised context on Thursday, March 30th at 7pm at National Sawdust. A new group, it combines the talents of Old Time Relijun frontman Arrington De Dionyso, Rupert Huber of the famous Viennese trip-hop duo Tosca, and globetrotting drummer/composer Lukas Ligeti. De Dionyso, who is also a painter, performs on bass clarinet and various Indonesian traditional instruments; Huber, on piano and electronics, and Ligeti, on drums. Together, they explore new sonic spaces, evoking distant or nonexistent traditions, references to forgotten or freely invented cultures, and sounds that transport the listener to fantastic worlds the rest of us will never see. It is a music of sparse determination and internal revolution.
Sweat, the new Broadway play opens today at Studio 54.
The critically acclaimed new play from Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Lynn Nottage, comes to Broadway following its sold-out run at The Public Theater. Filled with warm humor and tremendous heart, SWEAT tells the story of a group of friends who have spent their lives sharing drinks, secrets and laughs while working together on the factory floor. But when layoffs and picket lines begin to chip away at their trust, the friends find themselves pitted against each other in a heart-wrenching fight to stay afloat.
Get to know the company before they take their opening bows!
TimeLine Theatre Company announces the final production of its 20th Anniversary 2016-17 season-the Midwest premiere of PARADISE BLUE by Dominique Morisseau, directed by TimeLine Company Member Ron OJ Parson and featuring original music composed by Orbert Davis, the co-founder, conductor and Artistic Director of Chicago Jazz Philharmonic, May 4 - July 23, 2017 (previews April 26 - May 3) at TimeLine Theatre, 615 W. Wellington Ave., Chicago. Press Night is Wednesday, May 3 at 7:30 p.m.
Tonight, Thursday, March 23rd, Keen Company will present KEEN CONVERSATIONS, following the evening performance. This week's KEEN CONVERSATION is How Gun Violence Affects the Loved Ones of Victims and Survivors.
Honor! Madness! Blood! Obie Award-winner Jo Bonney directs the world premiere of an edgy, intense and darkly comic new play by John Pollono (Small Engine Repair, Lost Girls) in a Latino Theater Company production presented in association with The Temblors, a unique new collective of seven Los Angeles-based playwrights. Rules of Seconds opens March 23 at The Los Angeles Theater Center, with low-priced previews beginning March 16.
Rivendell Theatre Ensemble (RTE), Chicago's only Equity theatre dedicated to producing new work with women at the core, announces the world premiere of The Firebirds Take the Field by Lynn Rosen and directed by Jessica Fisch. The Firebirds Take the Fieldruns April 15 - May 20, 2017, at Rivendell Theatre Ensemble, 5779 N. Ridge Avenue in Chicago.The Firebirds Take the Field is produced with support from the Alfred P. Sloane Foundation and Ensemble Studio Theater and is the second production of RTE's 2017 Season 'Exploring the Mind/Body Connection.'
Periapsis Music and Dance presents Imminence, a new work by choreographer Erin Dillon and composer Jonathan Howard Katz, on April 1 at 8:00 pm and April 2 and 3:00 pm and 7:00 pm at GK ArtsCenter (aka Gelsey Kirkland Academy), 29 Jay Street, Brooklyn. Tickets are $24 advance, $30 at the door, with special pricing for students and artists of $15 advance and $20 at the door, available at http://periapsismusicanddance.org/calendar/.
The New York Post took a look at the ladies leading Broadway from behind the scenes, among which was widow of Cy Coleman, who now holds rights to SWEET CHARITY. When interviewed, Coleman was quoted referencing a Broadway transfer of The New Group's production, starring Sutton Foster, in the works for next season. She says they're 'going to have a lot more brass.'
Independent Shakespeare Co. (ISC), presenters of the Griffith Park Free Shakespeare Festival announce the west coast premiere of THE SNOW GEESE by Sharr White (The Other Place), directed by Independent Shakespeare Co.'s Managing Director David Melville. THE SNOW GEESE will begin previews on Saturday, March 11, will open on Friday, March 17 at 7:30pm and performs through Sunday, April 9 at Independent Studio in the Atwater Crossing Arts + Innovation Complex, 3191 Casitas Ave., #168 in Atwater Village.
FRIGID New York @ Horse Trade in association with Cave Theatre Co. will present the World Premiere of Lauren Wimmer's DIVORCE PARTY, directed by James Masciovecchio, April 21-May 7 at UNDER St. Marks.
Working Theater, under the direction of Artistic Producing Director MarkPlesent, has announced that it will present BAMBOO IN BUSHWICK - a new play that explores the varying and complex reactions to gentrification in the suddenly trendy Bushwick section of Brooklyn, as the second fully staged production in the company's FIVE BOROUGHS / ONE CITY project, which is deepening its relationships with communities of working people in their very own neighborhoods.
The New Colony continues its 2017 Season with the world premiere of Connor McNamara's political thriller SCAPEGOAT; OR (WHY THE DEVIL ALWAYS LOVED US), directed by Kristina Valada-Viars, playing April 13 - May 7, 2017 at The New Colony's resident home, The Den Theatre's Upstairs Main Stage, 1333 N. Milwaukee Ave. in Chicago's Wicker Park neighborhood. Tickets are currently available at www.thenewcolony.org.