Westport Country Playhouse will open its 2018 Season with an uplifting tale of bravery, pride, and sisterhood, "Flyin' West," written by Pearl Cleage and directed by Seret Scott, playing May 29 through June 16. This year marks the historic theater's 88th season.
Shakespeare & Company presents the New England Premiere of Morning After Grace written by Cary Crim, and directed by Regge Life who helmed last season's hit comedy God of Carnage. Morning After Grace is an unconventional new comedy tackling love, loss, and second chances. Performances run from May 24th - July 15th in the Elayne P. Bernstein Theatre.
The Broadway at Birdland concert series is proud to present the return of The Bombshells to the club on Sunday and Monday, May 6 and 7. Sunday night's show was completely sold out, and there are a handful of bar seats available for Monday (tonight) at 7pm. Please contact the club at 212-581-3080 for sales.
The UC San Diego Department of Theatre and Dance presents 53% Of, written by Steph Del Rosso and directed by Jennifer Chang, as part of the 2018 Wagner New Play Festival.
The full cast for The 5th Avenue Theatre's spectacular new production of The Hunchback of Notre Dame, which stars Deaf actorJoshua Castille as Quasimodo, has been announced. Castille will use American Sign Language (ASL) throughout his performance, bringing new life and perspective to Quasimodo, who is deaf in the novel by Victor Hugo.
Eugene O'Neill's tour de force, Long Day's Journey Into Night, directed by Miles Potter, and starring Seana McKenna and Scott Wentworth, is now on stage at the Studio Theatre.
Atlanta's Synchronicity Theatre will close out its 20th Anniversary Season with Lauren Gunderson's "crackling modern political farce," The Taming. Performances run from June 1 to June 24, 2018. For tickets or more information, please visit synchrotheatre.com or call 404-484-8636.
PlayGround's Festival of New Works features the premiere of the full-length play BRIGHT SHINING SEA by Julianne Jigour opening with a press night on Wednesday May 16, running through June 16, (previews May 14 & 15). BRIGHT SHINING SEA is a co-production with Planet Earth Arts and one of two PlayGround commissioned full-length plays featured this season. In Julianne Jigour's Bright Shining Sea, six characters find their lives intertwined as they face the personal challenges caused by environmental degradation. Bright Shining Sea confronts destruction-personal and environmental-but presents connection and compassion as the means by which hope is possible. Julianne remarks "It asks us to view the Earth holistically, to recognize our interconnectedness, and to do what the current administration won't-to take responsibility for our planet, for each other, and for future generations.
A secret wedding ceremony between the daughter of an American missionary and a local teenage girl is disrupted by violence when a child soldier fleeing the atrocities of war stumbles into their remote Ugandan church.caryn desai [sic] directs the Los Angeles premiere of Cardboard Piano by Whiting Award-winning playwright Hansol Jung. Cardboard Piano opens May 4 atInternational City Theatre in the Long Beach Performing Arts Center, with two low-priced previews set for May 2 and May 3.
Rivendell Theatre Ensemble (RTE), Chicago's only Equity theatre dedicated to producing new work with women at the core will add four performances to the run The Cake by Bekah Brunstetter, directed by Lauren Shouse, and featuring RTE Founders Tara Mallen and Keith Kupferer, RTE Member Krystel McNeil, with Tuckie White. Eight performances have been added to the run, which must close June 2, 2018 at Rivendell Theatre Ensemble, 5779 N. Ridge Avenue in Chicago.
Picture if you will, the classic American family. A son in the military, a tomboyish daughter, a typical housewife mom, a Joe-the-Plumber father. But in Taylor Mac's subversive and outrageous comedy, HIR, this archetypal group gets completely turned inside-out in a 5-week regional premiere run at Stage West beginning Thursday, May 17.
Goodman Theatre announces the cast and creative team for the Chicago premiere of Father Comes Home From the Wars (Parts 1, 2 & 3) by Pulitzer Prize winner Suzan-Lori Parks, directed by Niegel Smith. Parks, in her "finest work yet" (New York Times), serves up "an American story as much about our present as it is about our past" (Los Angeles Times). Filled with wit, poetry and original music composed by Grammy Award winner Justin Ellington and performed on stage nightly by Chicago native blues musician Melody Angel, the production follows Hero (Kamal Angelo Bolden), a Texas slave, who faces a simple yet monumental choice: join his master in the Confederate army to win his freedom-or remain enslaved at the plantation. Father Comes Home From the Wars (Parts 1, 2 & 3) appears May 25 - June 24, 2018 (opening night is June 4 at 7pm) in Goodman Theatre's 350-seat flexible Owen Theatre. The estimated run time is 2 hours and 30 minutes. Tickets ($10 - $40; subject to change) are available at GoodmanTheatre.org/Father , by phone at 312.443.3800 or at the box office (170 N. Dearborn). The Elizabeth F. Cheney Foundation is the Major Production Sponsor and American Airlines is the Contributing Sponsor.
The UC San Diego Department of Theatre and Dance presents How to Defend Yourself, written by Lily Padilla and directed by Kim Rubinstein, as part of the 2018 Wagner New Play Festival.
The UC San Diego Department of Theatre and Dance presents the MFA One-Acts as part of the 2018 Wagner New Play Festival. The MFA One-Acts include The Clitorish, written by Mara Nelson-Greenberg and directed by Nicholas Rapp; Joshua, written by Ali Viterbi and directed by Vanessa Stalling; and Tambo and Bones, written by Dave Harris and directed by Joseph Hendel.
Artists Repertory Theatre presents I and You by Lauren Gunderson as the final production of their 2017/18 season. Gunderson is the most-produced playwright in America for the second year in a row. She is a recipient of a Dramatist Guild Award, the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, won the 2018 Steinberg for The Book of Will, and won the Steinberg American Theatre Critics Association New Play Award in 2014 for this revelatory drama. I and You runs from May 20 through June 17 on the Morrison Stage.
Classic Stage Company, under the leadership of Artistic Director John Doyle, and Transport Group, under the leadership of Jack Cummings III (Artistic Director), announced today that their new co-production of Tennessee Williams' SUMMER AND SMOKE, directed by Cummings, will extend its run through Friday, May 25 at CSC (136 East 13th Street). The cast of SUMMER AND SMOKE features Glenna Brucken (Rosemary), Phillip Clark (Dr. Buchanan), Nathan Darrow (John Buchanan), Hannah Elless (Nellie Ewell), Elena Hurst (Rosa Gonzales), Marin Ireland (Alma Winemiller), Tina Johnson (Mrs. Bassett), Gerardo Rodriguez(Papa Gonzales), T. Ryder Smith (Reverend Winemiller), Ryan Spahn (Archie Kramer), Jonathan Spivey (Roger Doremus), and Barbara Walsh (Mrs. Winemiller).
InProximity Theatre Company (Jolie Curtsinger, Laurie Schaefer Fenton, Co-Artistic Directors) is proud to announce this year's selections for the second annual PROJECT W Theatre Festival include Darcy Parker Bruce, Mathilde Dratwa, Christina Gorman, Donna Hoke and Kara Emily Krantz. PROJECT W Theatre Festival will take place at Town Stages (221 West Broadway Street), June 5-9, 2018 with readings starting June 5th nightly at 8 PM. Tickets are FREE to attend but reservations are strongly recommended. More information can be found at www.inproximitytheatre.org.
What good is sitting alone in your room this week? If you don't already have plans to see a Broadway show, come out to see your favorite Broadway stars in a cabaret act instead. Highlights this week include:
Mara Isaacs, Director of Project Springboard: Developing Dance Musicals, today announced the recipients of the second annual residency awards: Bhangin' It, led by Rehana Mirza (co-book writer), Mike Lew (co-book writer), Sam Wilmott (composer/lyricist), Rujuta Vaidya (choreographer), and Amy Anders Corcoran (director); and The Night Falls, led by Troy Schumacher (director/choreographer, New York City Ballet soloist), Ellis Ludwig-Leone (composer/co-lyricist), and Karen Russell (book writer/co-lyricist, MacArthur Award winner and Pulitzer finalist). Both projects will be in residence June 4-22, 2018 in New York City.