Paula Vogel News

Malibu Stage Company presents its final offering in the 2009-2010 season with the Paula Vogel's Pulitzer Prize-winning play HOW I LEARNED TO DRIVE, directed by Emmy Award winner Veronica Brady. HOW I LEARNED TO DRIVE opens Friday, April 30 and continues through Sunday, May 23 at the Malibu Repertory Theatre, 29243 Pacific Coast Hwy, in Malibu.

Next Theatre Company and Artistic Director Jason Southerland are thrilled to announce the 30th anniversary season, a year dedicated to plays that explore the myths that men and women create about their lives. The season opens in the fall with a world premiere presented at the National New Play Network's annual showcase. It continues with the regional premiere of a play Southerland first read when he met with Israeli playwright Motti Lerner (Pangs of the Messiah) in Tel Aviv earlier this year. The season comes to its climactic end with a pair of plays by Phyllis Nagy (pronounced 'Naij') who has captured wide acclaim in the United Kingdom but has been rarely produced in the U.S.

The Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning Vineyard Theatre (108 E. 15 St.) will opens its 2010-11 season with the world premiere of MIDDLETOWN, a play written by Will Eno (THOM PAIN), and directed by Ken Rus Schmoll, it has been announced by Douglas Aibel, Artistic Director for the Vineyard Theatre. Previews are to begin October 6, with an official opening night and casting TBA.

The ghosts who have taken up residence with The Production Company are a restless lot, filled with a crackling, questing vitality rarely found even among the living. As embodied with disquieting fierceness by Sara Lilly, David Ross Paterson, and Skip Pipo in COPENHAGEN, this endlessly fascinating play by Michael Frayn is directed with surgical exactitude by August Viveirto to a fever pitch. These spectral presences just won't stop haunting one another with their questions and revisions and caveats. Give them the courtesy of your full attention, and you'll find them taking possession of your own imagination as well, probably raising your blood pressure in the process. They prove themselves electrifying companions.

The multi-talented Anika Noni Rose-Grammy nominated singer, Tony Award-winning actress- is on stage at the William Inge Theatre Festival to undertake one of the most anticipated new roles of theater today.

The ghosts who have taken up residence with The Production Company are a restless lot, filled with a crackling, questing vitality rarely found even among the living. As embodied with disquieting fierceness by Sara Lilly, David Ross Paterson, and Skip Pipo in COPENHAGEN, this endlessly fascinating play by Michael Frayn is directed with surgical exactitude by August Viveirto to a fever pitch. These spectral presences just won't stop haunting one another with their questions and revisions and caveats. Give them the courtesy of your full attention, and you'll find them taking possession of your own imagination as well, probably raising your blood pressure in the process. They prove themselves electrifying companions.

Long Wharf Theatre, under the leadership of Artistic Director Gordon Edelstein and Managing Director Ray Cullom, announces four plays of its 2010-2011 season - a celebration of one of history's greatest jazz singers, a one-woman tour-de-force comedy, an exciting verbal duel and the newest from Athol Fugard.

The Steppenwolf Theatre Company Ensemble is pleased to announce its newest member, playwright Tarell Alvin McCraney. Among his many accomplishments, McCraney is the author of the critically-acclaimed The Brother/Sister Plays, currently playing at Steppenwolf through May 23, 2010. As a playwright, he has collaborated with Steppenwolf ensemble member Tina Landau on seven productions and readings nationally. He also appeared on stage at Steppenwolf in Landau's 2004 production of Theatrical Essays. Additionally, McCraney was recently commissioned by Steppenwolf, through support from the Joyce Foundation Awards, to write a new play for the Steppenwolf ensemble based on the biblical book of Job. The Steppenwolf ensemble, the longest-existing theater ensemble in the U.S., now totals 43 members.

YALE REPERTORY THEATRE (James Bundy, Artistic Director; Victoria Nolan, Managing Director) presents BATTLE OF BLACK AND DOGS by Bernard-Marie Koltès, translated by Michaël Attias, and directed by Robert Woodruff, at Yale Repertory Theatre (1120 Chapel Street, at York), April 16-May 8. Opening Night is Thursday, April 22.

Five-time Emmy Award-winner John Larroquette will make a stage appearance this spring, joining Johanna Day, Monica Raymund, and Michael Zegen in the cast of Elizabeth Meriwether's new play OLIVER PARKER!, in its world-premiere by the Off-Broadway theatre company the stageFARM, with previews starting May 9 prior to its official opening night May 17 at the Cherry Lane Theatre (38 Commerce St.) in Manhattan.

Reprise Records will release The Original Broadway Cast Recording of American Idiot on April 20, 2010, the same day the show will open at the St. James Theatre in New York City. The official album features the 24-member cast accompanied by Green Day, marking another incredible collaboration between the band and the musical. Based on Green Day's chart-topping 2004 album American Idiot, the musical and the cast recording include every song from American Idiot, as well as several songs from the band's GRAMMY® Award-winning current album 21st Century Breakdown.

Long Wharf Theatre mourns the death of M. Edgar Rosenblum, the organization's executive director from 1970 to 1996, serving alongside Artistic Director Arvin Brown during an era of unprecedented commercial and artistic success.

Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company continues its 30 th Season (2009/10) with a four-week run of Gruesome Playground Injuries, created by the 2010 Pulitzer Prize-nominated Rajiv Joseph (playwright of Animals Out of Paper and Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo ) and directed by John Vreeke. Gruesome Playground Injuries stars Gabriela Fernandez-Coffey and Tim Getman.

Malibu Stage Company presents its final offering in the 2009-2010 season with the Paula Vogel's Pulitzer Prize-winning play HOW I LEARNED TO DRIVE, directed by Emmy Award winner Veronica Brady. HOW I LEARNED TO DRIVE opens Friday, April 30 and continues through Sunday, May 23 at the Malibu Repertory Theatre, 29243 Pacific Coast Hwy, in Malibu.

Auditions for Carmel Community Players' production of How I Learned to Drive are scheduled for 6:00 p.m., Sunday, April 18th at the Carmel Community Playhouse at Clay Terrace. Roles are available for two men and three women.

Long Wharf Theatre will close the curtain on No Child..., written and performed by Nilaja Sun, directed by Hal Brooks, April 18, 2010 on Stage II.

The Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning Vineyard Theatre (108 East 15 Street) will end its run of the world-premiere of THE SCOTTSBORO BOYS on April 18. THE SCOTTSBORO BOYS was previously scheduled to run through April 4.

Libby Appel, the Oregon Shakespeare Festival's Artistic Director Emerita, will receive the Stephen and Christine Schwarzman Legacy Award for Excellence in Theater as part of the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival.

YALE REPERTORY THEATRE (James Bundy, Artistic Director; Victoria Nolan, Managing Director) presents BATTLE OF BLACK AND DOGS by Bernard-Marie Koltès, translated by Michaël Attias, and directed by Robert Woodruff, at Yale Repertory Theatre (1120 Chapel Street, at York), April 16-May 8. Opening Night is Thursday, April 22.

Tickets to the Vineyard Theatre's world-premiere production of THE METAL CHILDREN, written and directed by Adam Rapp, will go on sale on Thursday, April 15 prior to the beginning of previews on May 5 and the official opening on May 19 of the play at the Vineyard (108 E. 15 St.) in Manhattan.