Nisi Sturgis News

Brooklyn performance and civic space JACK announced an extension of Hoi Polloi's White on White

OBIE-winning theater company Hoi Polloi (Three Pianos; All Hands) returns to JACK with a peek inside the meeting of a white anti-racist group. As the members reckon with sacrifices they must make to live up to their principles, other forces begin to disrupt and unsettle their efforts. An uncanny ode to honesty, forgiveness, and accountability, this ensemble tour de force pulls the audience on a descent from the too-real to the sub-real.  

Th MFA Acting Class of 2021 at University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana premieres their digital showcase on May 5th!

Broadway's lights went out three hundred and ninety-six days ago. But through lockdown, quarantine, political turmoil, and social justice movements, the senior acting majors at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) kept on training. Now, they are ready to share their talent with the industry.

The Tennessee Williams Festival St. Louis (TWSTL) will increase its reach this summer with a new radio show. 'Something Spoken: Tennessee Williams On the Air' launched on July 11.

As the lights come up on the Tony Winning Cleveland Play House's opening production of its 104thseason, it's 1942 and the Oberon Play House (a stand-in name for CPH), is about to open its season. There is a major problem, however. The plays scheduled are all Shakespeare, the company's males are all off fighting in World War II, and the director is in the service of his country.

Cleveland Play House opens its 2019-2020 season with the celebratory, heart-felt comedy Into The Breeches! written by George Brant. Directed by CPH Artistic Director Laura Kepley, the uplifting, laugh-out-loud comedy runs from September 14th through October 6th in the Allen Theatre at Playhouse Square.

Tennessee Williams Festival St. Louis produced its 2019 festival in the Grand Center Arts District to much critical acclaim and record-breaking attendance. Running May 9 through May 19, with multiple offerings across various venues, the Festival breathed new life into the work and legacy of St. Louis' own, Tennessee Williams.

If you know Tennessee Williams, and I hope you do/will, you know there's a lot to unpack in his work. His characters are tormented and textured, plotlines layered with the riddles and aches of the human heart. There's no mercy when Tennessee Williams shines a flashlight into the darkest corners of a soul, and you will likely come away from the work exhausted and amazed for both the damage and any bit of renewal you've witnessed. Such is the case in The Night of the Iguana, playing at The Grandel Theatre now, as the main stage production of the 2019 Tennessee Williams Festival St. Louis.

The Tennessee Williams Festival St. Louis will present Tennessee Williams' steamy and startling 'The Night of the Iguana' as its main stage production at the Grandel Theatre on May 9-19.

The Tennessee Williams Festival St. Louis - named the "Arts Startup of the Year" for 2019 by the Arts & Education Council - will present Tennessee Williams' steamy and startling "The Night of the Iguana" as its main stage production at the Grandel Theatre on May 9-19.  Jim Butz, Lavonne Byers, Nisi Sturgis, Elizabeth Townsend, and Harry Weber headline as Americans who are hiding-or seeking-or both-at a seedy Mexican hotel during the run-up to World War II. Tim Ocel will once again direct, having guided last year's "A Streetcar Named Desire" to a record 11 award nominations by the St. Louis Theater Circle. 

Revisiting the past changes the future when a high school reunion unexpectedly turns an old classmate into a new love. Don't miss the Maine premiere of this charming and thought-provoking romantic comedy that reminds us it's never too late to find the love we've only imagined.

Ken Ludwig is the crown king of writing modern farcical plays. He and the Cleveland Play House seem to have a 'thing' for each other. Ludwig has had world premiere productions of his scripts A Comedy of Tenors (2015), The Games Afoot (2011) and Leading Ladies (2004) on CPH stages.

It's not a mystery why Cleveland audiences scramble to the theatre when a Ken Ludwig piece is set to take the stage. Ludwig's witty works are always guaranteed to leave audiences howling with laughter, and this master of madcap's latest work to come to Cleveland Play House is no exception.

In theater, as with any art form, playwrights can walk a fine line between telling a riveting and honest story and saying things simply for shock value. Ayad Akhtar's Pulitzer Prize winning play "Disgraced", currently playing at the Seattle Rep, walks that line. And while on the whole this extremely powerful piece opens its audiences up to an examination of who we are at our core, in retrospect I'll admit to feeling a bit manipulated as I recall harsh one-liners piled on top of each other culminating in a crescendo of shock. Effective shock but at times dipping its toe over the line into shock for shock sake and feeling a bit contrived.

Due to an overwhelming positive response from critics and audiences alike, Berkeley Rep has announced that the west coast premiere of the Pulitzer Prize- winning play, Disgraced will extend for an additional week. Originally scheduled to close on December 20, the critically acclaimed play will run through Sunday, December 27.

Berkeley Repertory Theatre is proud to present the West Coast premiere of Disgraced by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Ayad Akhtar.

Berkeley Repertory Theatre is proud to present the West Coast premiere of Disgraced by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Ayad Akhtar.

William Shakespeare's magical comedy A Midsummer Night's Dream opens at Theater at Monmouth tonight, July 23 at 7:30 p.m. One of Shakespeare's most popular plays, A Midsummer Night's Dream follows the journey of four young lovers as they find their way through the forest and to each other. But as Lysander says 'the course of true love never did run smooth.' Full of madcap chases and mistaken identities, A Midsummer Night's Dream is an exploration of the mystery and madness of love.

Season 46 continues at TAM with Tom Stoppard's whodunit satire, The Real Inspector Hound opening at Theater at Monmouth Friday, July 30 at 7:30 p.m. A parody of the Agatha Christie-style parlor mystery, The Real Inspector Hound explores the thin line between the audience and the stage, as Stoppard fractures reality and life imitates art. Of the 1968 production The Guardian wrote, "Stoppard's The Real Inspector Hound is a witty and delicious parody of the fog bound whodunit.'