Paul Sills News

The Blue Ribbon Children's Festival will celebrate its 50th anniversary in 2021 with a 30-minute online program designed to share the love of the arts through dance with young people of all ages. This year's Blue Ribbon Children's Festival will premiere on The Music Center Offstage virtual platform on March 2, 2021, at 10:00 a.m. PT, and will expand its traditional invitation to fifth graders to include students in grades 3–12 throughout Los Angeles County and their families to reflect the current distance learning environment; 

Share the Love with ANDTheatre Company! ANDTheatre celebrate its 36th season with a benefit show Thursday November 5th. All proceeds from the show go to AND's continuing classes, ongoing development of new and exciting work, as well as deeply needed artist salaries. Yes, it's online and with improv, music, magic and sketch!

Today's top stories: Nathan Lane and Laurie Metcalf will lead a revival of Death of a Salesman in 2021, and more!

BroadwayWorld is saddened to report that Paula Kelly, actress of stage and screen, has died. She was 76. Kelly made her Broadway debut as Mrs. Veloz in the 1964 musical Something More!, alongside Barbara Cook. Her other Broadway credits include The Dozens (1969), Paul Sills' Story Theatre (1971), Ovid's Metamorphoses (1971), and Duke Ellington's Sophisticated Ladies (1981).

Join the American Writers Museum as they honor the work of Viola Spolin, author and a?oemothera?? of improvisational theater. Ms. Spolin's groundbreaking work and codification of her theater games into a training method and philosophy eventually led to the creation of The Second City.

Theater Resources Unlimited (TRU) will present the workshop How to Write a Musical That Works Part Two: Conflicts & Obstacles on Sunday February 23, 2020 from 10am to 6pm at Studios 150, 150 W. 46th Street, 7th floor, NYC. Submission deadline is Wednesday 2/12. E-mail TRUStaff1@gmail.com or register online at https://truonline.org/events/feedback-workshop2-2020/.

The Second City returns to the McAninch Arts Center (MAC) Valentine's Day Weekend for a?oeThe Best of the Second Citya?? at 5 and 8 p.m., Saturday, Dec. 15. Some of the company's rising stars of today will perform a sampling of the best sketches, songs, and improvisations from The Second City's 60-year history. Perfect for date night, attendees will have the chance to enjoy drink specials and free chocolates and, to make the evening extra special, add-on VIP Suite Service, including a private, pre-show cocktail and hors d'oeuvres reception, with coffee and dessert at intermission.  

After 12 years of performing its holiday show at the Gibraltar Town Hall, Northern Sky Theater announces the very first 'Home for the Holidays' to be held at their new Gould Theater. This year's concert will feature three talented performers: Eric Lewis, Katie Dahl, and Rich Higdon. The all-new concert for 2019 will play for six performances from December 27th through December 31st.

NANCY REDMAN RETURNS - AGAIN - TO THE UNITED SOLO FESTIVAL as The Best Of The Festival's First Decade with a repeat performance of 'AT WIT'S END: A HOME FOR RETIRED COMICS'.

It's Putting on the Ritz for ANDTheatre Company! Come as you are or in your best dress jeans and help ANDTheatre celebrate its 35th season with a benefit show at the Triad Theatre (158 West 72nd Street, NYC), Tuesday November 19th. All proceeds from the show go to AND's continuing classes, performances, and ongoing development of new and exciting work. It's Putting on the Ritz for ANDTheatre Company!

There's a reason the biggest names in laughter all catapulted their careers at The Second City...it's been the funniest place on the planet since '59! Witness the next generation of comedy superstars put their spin on the legendary comedy company's greatest hits, re-booted and re-imagined for today. From sketch comedy to original songs to world-famous improv, The Second City is fresh, fast, and always spectacularly funny

Actress/playwright/stand-up comedian Nancy Redman returns to the United Solo Theatre Festival with her new one-woman show At Wit's End: A Home for Retired Comics, directed by Bill Cosgriff, Saturday October 19 at 2 PM at Theatre Row, 410 West 42nd Street. Nancy is delighted to have as director of her new show the multi-talented Bill Cosgriff, an award winning playwright, actor, and director. Nancy's past three appearances on the United Solo Theatre Festival - the world's largest solo theatre festival currently in its 10th anniversary season - earned her three special awards. For her one-woman shows: The Doctor Is Not In and CLUTTER: I'm Saving My Life and It's Killing Me, she was honored with the Best Comedian Award. For her EMERGENCY A La Carte, she was named Best Stand-Up.

The classic Second City comedy sketches and original songs that launched generations of comedy legends have been re-booted and re-imagined for the company's current cast of future superstars in The Second City Tour: Greatest Hits (Vol. 59). The tour comes to Musco Center for the Arts for one night only, Wednesday, October 16, at 7:30pm.

Actress/playwright/stand-up comedian Nancy Redman returns to the United Solo Theatre Festival with her new one-woman show At Wit's End: A Home for Retired Comics, directed by Bill Cosgriff, Saturday October 19 at 2 PM at Theatre Row, 410 West 42nd Street.

PIE Story Theatre debuted in Central Park in the summer of 1991. Now after a multitude of successful companies in New York, New Jersey, Chicago and Los Angeles, it makes its Massachusetts premiere at Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater and the Outer Cape beginning on July 7th at 3PM at the Larry Phillips Performance Pavilion. The program then tours the entire Outer Cape community with performances from Dennis to Provincetown at a variety of venues. All of the performances are free of charge. The current PIE Company is: Colby Bell, Alyssa Freeman, Terrence Rex Moos, Paige O'Connor and Aisling Sheahan.

This summer, Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater expands its family programming to include free performances of P.I.E. (Projects In Education) Story Theatre. PIE can be seen at venues including the Orleans Elementary School, Salt Pond Amphitheater in Eastham, Wellfleet & Truro Libraries, Wellfleet Preservation Hall, Wellfleet Farmer's Market, Provincetown Family Week, and Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater.

Theater Resources Unlimited (TRU) presents How to Write a Musical That Works, part 1: The World and The Want, the first workshop in a 3-part series. One of the programs in TRU Beginnings: Opportunities for Early Development of New Work, it will take placeon Sunday, December 9, 2018.

Aretha Sills, daughter of The Second City's founding director Paul Sills, and granddaughter of Viola Spolin, known as the mother of improvisational theater, is launching a youth theater program in Studio City on September 15.

The Second City's latest sketch comedy and improv revue, Look Both Ways Before Talking, is an evening of wildly original, ever-daring, and truly hilarious scripted scenes, music, and improvisation chock full of social and political satire. Edgy, thought-provoking, and always spectacularly funny, The Second City is celebrating nearly six decades of producing cutting-edge, satirical revues and launching the careers of generation after generation of comedy's best and brightest.

Theater Resources Unlimited (TRU) presents the second workshop in the series How to Wrote a Musical That Works, Conflict & Obstacles, onSunday, February 25, 2018 from 10am - 6pm at NOLA Rehearsal Studio, 244 W 54th St., 5th floor, Studio 5. Submission fee is $10 for members, $20 for non-members. If accepted, it will be applied to a participation fee of $100 ($80 for TRU members). Those not selected will be invited and encouraged to attend the workshop as observers. The price is $55 ($35 for TRU members). Go to https://truonline.org/events/feedback-workshop-2-2018, click the link to download the application, fill it out, and email toTRUPlaySubmissions@gmail.com to sign up. If accepted, the workshop includes 2 seats for the entire day workshop as well as your presentation slot. Space is limited. Any additional attendees from the musical team (including music director, additional collaborators and cast members) who wish to observe the entire workshop must reserve in advance and will be charged $25 per person.