The Drama League (Executive Artistic Director Gabriel Stelian-Shanks) has announced casting for DirectorFest 2019: The 35th Annual Directors Festival, the only festival in the United States exploring the art of contemporary stage directing. DirectorFest takes place at various locations around NYC: New Ohio Theatre (154 Christopher Street), The Drama League Theater Center (32 Avenue of the Americas), LaGuardia Performing Arts Center (31-10 Thompson Avenue, Long Island City), and Joe's Pub (425 Lafayette Street). Festival programming, tickets and additional details are available at www.directorfest.org, or by calling (212) 244-9494.
North/South Consonance, Inc. kicks off the New Year with a free-admission concerts on Sunday afternoon January 13 when the North/South Chamber Orchestra will perform four compositions by composers from the US and Venezuela. Featured will be music by Christopher James, Max Lifchitz, Alex Rodriguez and John Winsor.
Theater for the New City's annual LOVE N' COURAGE Gala - which benefits the company's ever-important program that supports emerging playwrights - will be held early next year on Monday, February 25 at 6 pm at the Players (16 Gramercy Park South) in New York City, it has been announced by TNC's Executive Director Crystal Field.
Start the new year off right - learn all that Hoff-Barthelson Music School's Early Childhood Program has to offer by attending an Open House on Friday, January 18, 2019, from 10:00 to 11:30 am! Children ages 9 months to 5 years and their adults are invited to join in the fun of a music and movement class at 10:30 am, followed by a brief Q & A with faculty, and a reception during which you can socialize with other families. In the event of snow, or inclement weather, the Open House will take place the following Friday, January 25, 2019, beginning at 10:00 am.
Roundabout Theatre Company (Todd Haimes, Artistic Director/CEO) is thrilled to announce the eighth annual Roundabout Underground Reading Series, a five-night event that includes nightly readings of new works written and directed by emerging artists, as well as post-show receptions. The Reading Series will feature new works by Aaron Carter, Emily Feldman, Dave Harris, Jonathan Spector and Sanaz Toossi.
Theater Resources Unlimited (TRU) presents the Producer Boot CampRaising Money for Theater 2019: Who, How and When to Ask at the Playroom Theater on Sunday, January 27, 2019 from 10am-6pm at Studio 353, 353 W. 48th Street, 2nd floor. $175 for non-members, $150 for TRU members ($25 off if you register by 1/11). To register, visit https://truonline.org/events/raising-money-2019/.
Theater Resources Unlimited (TRU) presents the Producer Boot CampRaising Money for Theater 2019: Who, How and When to Ask at the Playroom Theater on Sunday, January 27, 2019 from 10am-6pm at Studio 353, 353 W. 48th Street, 2nd floor. $175 for non-members, $150 for TRU members ($25 off if you register by 1/11). To register, visithttps://truonline.org/events/raising-money-2019/.
Theater Resources Unlimited (TRU) is accepting submissions for the TRU Voices New Plays Reading Series. For information, submission guidelines, and to apply, please visit https://truonline.org/2019-play-guidelines/.Submission fee is free for TRU members, $25 for non-members. Submission deadline is January 12, 2019 (with a one-week extension for TRU members and plays that are submitted with a producer attached).
Road Less Traveled Productions' (RLTP) 2019 Regional Playwright Residency has been awarded to Derek Roland for development of his work Waist Deep. The residency will begin January 1st and culminate in a staged reading of his work at the end of 2019. As Regional Playwright Resident, Mr. Roland will have opportunities to work with actors, directors, and designers to develop his work in progress in consultation with the RLTP Literary Department.
Road Less Traveled Productions (RLTP) continues to expand its commitment to the development of new works by local playwrights with the commission of a new adaptation of Herman Melville's Moby Dick by playwright Neil Wechsler. RLTP previously produced the world-premiere of Mr. Wechsler's play, Grenadine, winner of the 2008 Yale Drama Award as selected by Edward Albee. Other adaptations by Wechsler include Ibsen's Emperor and Galilean and The Faust Project (an adaptation of both parts of Goethe's Faust, in collaboration with composer Nathan Heidelberger).
New York Live Arts, under the artistic leadership of world renowned choreographer, National Medal of Arts, MacArthur "Genius" Award and Kennedy Center Honors recipient Bill T. Jones and Associate Artistic Director Janet Wong, announced Raja Feather Kelly as the 2019-20 Randjelovi/Stryker Resident Commissioned Artist (RCA). The award is one of the most substantial awards for a choreographer in the United States and a significant vehicle for midcareer artists.
As part of its ongoing Reparations365 series exploring the topic of distributive justice for Black Americans, JACK offers a conversation around the theme of repair and the arts, inviting participants to share ideas around shifting power and transforming relationships in the field of the arts.
Theater Resources Unlimited (TRU) announced the winners of the 2019 TRU Voices New Musicals Reading Series: Miracolo by Jarlath Barsanti-Jacobs and Emilio Solla; and Seeing Red by Joey Mazzarino and Aron Accurso.The two musicals will be performed on Monday evening January 14th and Monday evening February 4th respectively. Both performances will be at 7pm at the Actors Temple, 339 West 47th Street, New York, NY. Readings are free but reservations are required - please email name and number of tickets requested to TRUVoicesSeries@gmail.com, or use the bright red ticketing box at the show websites below.
The Canticum Novum Singers, Harold Rosenbaum, Conductor and Artistic Director, will present its Canticum Novum Christmas concert today, December 15 at 8:00 PM, with James Adams, organ and The Canticum Novum Youth Choir, Edie Rosenbaum, Director at Advent Lutheran Church, 93rd St. and Broadway in Manhattan.
The nonprofit community school of the arts, Bloomingdale School of Music (BSM) is pleased to announce that registration for its spring semester opens on January 4th with classes beginning on February 6th. The spring semester features exciting new classes for children and teens.
Bay Street Theater is pleased to announce two of the three productions planned for the 2019 Mainstage Summer Season. The first will be the World Premiere of SAFE SPACE, which will run from May 28 - June 16. This new play is by Alan Fox and will be directed by three-time Tony Award Winner Jack O'Brien (The Hard Place, Hairspray, The Coast of Utopia).
The Play Company (PlayCo; Founding Producer Kate Loewald, Managing Director Robert Bradshaw) presents the New York premiere of Jorge Ignacio Cortiñas' Recent Alien Abductions (February 21-March 24), an acclaimed highlight of the 2017 Humana Festival for New American Plays, where it was hailed as a "dark and unsettling…shape-shifter, a mystery to be unfurled, and ultimately a very human story about what happens when you can no longer recognize your family as fellow humans" (WFPL News Louisville). In Cortiñas' play, small gestures and off-handed comments slowly reveal the colonial, racist, misogynist, and homophobic dynamics that constrain possibility in the lives of the characters. These power imbalances have been left to fester for so long that they create the alienating nightmare at the story's core. Rendered through magnetic characterization and playful yet shattering storytelling, Recent Alien Abductions explores how families-and societies-are haunted by their pasts. Performances take place February 21-March 24 at Walkerspace, 46 Walker Street, New York.
Award-winning Pakistani American playwright, actress and director Bina Sharif is back at Theater for the New City with a new work about immigrants, politics and theater.
The Jewish Museum and the Film Society of Lincoln Center will present the 28th annual New York Jewish Film Festival (NYJFF), January 9-22, 2019. Among the oldest and most influential Jewish film festivals worldwide, the NYJFF each year presents the finest documentary, narrative, and short films from around the world that explore the diverse Jewish experience. Featuring new work by fresh voices in international cinema as well as restored classics, the festival's 2019 lineup includes 32 wide-ranging and exciting features and shorts from the iconic to the iconoclastic, many of which will be screening in their world, U.S., and New York premieres. Screenings are held at the Walter Reade Theater, 165 West 65th Street, NYC.
Funeral services for James Jordan, the retired, former Director of Music Programs for the New York State Council on the Arts, will be held on Tuesday, December 18th at 11 a.m. EST at Benta's Funeral Home in Harlem. Benta's is located at 630 St. Nicholas Avenue. Visitation begins at 10:30 a.m.