Peter Foley News

The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey's 2014 Season will conclude with the Bard's beloved battle of wits, Much Ado About Nothing. Renowned Stratford Festival artist Scott Wentworth will perform 'double duty,' directing the production and playing the staunch bachelor Benedick, opposite his real-life wife Marion Adler as the feisty Beatrice. This production will celebrate the winter holiday season, filled with music and dance that evokes the end of World War II, White Christmas era. Performances begin tonight, December 3rd at the F.M. Kirby Shakespeare Theatre, 36 Madison Ave. (at Lancaster Road) in Madison.

The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey's 2014 Season will conclude with the Bard's beloved battle of wits, Much Ado About Nothing. Renowned Stratford Festival artist Scott Wentworth will perform "double duty," directing the production and playing the staunch bachelor Benedick, opposite his real-life wife Marion Adler as the feisty Beatrice. This production will celebrate the winter holiday season, filled with music and dance that evokes the end of World War II, White Christmas era. Performances begin December 3rd at the F.M. Kirby Shakespeare Theatre, 36 Madison Ave. (at Lancaster Road) in Madison.

Continuing its ongoing efforts of supporting new musical theatre, Signature Theatre in Arlington, VA held invitation only readings of two world premiere musicals, Midwestern Gothic by composer Josh Schmidt (Adding Machine, A Minister's Wife) and librettist Royce Vavrek (Dog Days, Twenty-Seven) and Silver Belles by composer/lyricist Matt Conner (Nevermore, Crossing) and book writer Ally Currin (Caesar and Dada, Benched), on November 6 and November 8, 2014.

Kathy Evans, Founding Executive Director, announced the nine musicals and twenty-six writers selected for the 2014 Rhinebeck Writers Retreat, its fourth year of providing working retreats for musical theatre writers. For nine consecutive weeks beginning June 29th, each writing team will have an individual weeklong residency in Rhinebeck, New York to write their musical. They are provided with a private home, transportation, food, and a stipend. All costs are fully funded by donors including The ASCAP Foundation, The Dramatists Guild Fund, and The Noel Coward Foundation. Writers participating this year include Broadway's Mindi Dickstein (Little Women), this year's Kleban Prize winner Nathan Tysen (Burnt Part Boys), and Peter Mills, past winner of the Kleban, Fred Ebb Award, and Richard Rodgers prize. The musicals' subjects cover 19th century nautical mysteries, 20th century fairy tales, a 1970's gay bar, and modern-day meth addicts. Every score is original and styles include 16th century Renaissance, big band, folk, rock, and electronic music.

Pride Films and Plays has announced that an extra performance of the hit musical Songs From An Unmade Bed has been added for Sunday, April 27 at 3:00. The final performance is still scheduled for that same day at 7:30.

Pride Films & Plays' next mainstage show is the Chicago premiere of Mark Campbell's musical revue Songs from an Unmade Bed, a love letter to gay men living in the city. Songs From An Unmade Bed is performed by Kevin Webb* and Jordan Phelps*, joined by understudies Jonas Davidow and Tommy Thurston on percussion, and is directed by Derek Van Barham*, under the music direction of Robert Ollis*. Scroll down for a look at the cast!

Pace University's Pace New Musicals (PNM) program (est. 2007 by Program Head Amy Rogers), dedicated to the discovery of new theater works, and Ryan Scott Oliver, composer- lyricist and producer, will present a staged reading of Little Miss Fix-It (book and lyrics by Kirsten A. Guenther and music by Joy Son) today, January 23-27, 2014.

Pace University's Pace New Musicals (PNM) program (est. 2007 by Program Head Amy Rogers), dedicated to the discovery of new theater works, and Ryan Scott Oliver, composer- lyricist and producer, will present a staged reading of Little Miss Fix-It (book and lyrics by Kirsten A. Guenther and music by Joy Son) on January 23-27, 2014.

The New Voices Collective will present NEW VOICES, NEW BLUE: A Celebration of Songs by Yale Musical Theatre Writers, Past and Present on Monday, April 15, at 8:00 p.m. The concert will explore work by some of Yale's most exciting and famous alumni, as well as current composers in the Shen Musical Theatre writing program at Yale University. An amazing cast of Broadway's finest voices will include Drew Gehling (Jersey Boys, On a Clear Day..., The Minister's Wife), Jenny Powers (Its A Bird...Its a Plane...Its Superman, Donnybrook, Grease, Little Women), Sally Wilfert (Assassins, Make Me A Song, See Rock City), and Michael Winther (Laramie Project Cycle, 33 Variations, Mamma Mia, Songs From An Unmade Bed) and J. Michael Zygo (Once, Rock of Ages), and will also feature emerging talent from Yale's musical theatre performance program.

Actor Matthew Modine has joined the cast of Ralph Bakshi's first film in over 15 years. Best known as 'Pvt. Joker' in Stanley Kubrick's FULL METAL JACKET, Modine recently played 'Deputy Commissioner Peter Foley' in Christopher Nolan's THE DARK KNIGHT RISES and can next be seen as John Sculley in jOBS, the Steve Jobs biopic starring Ashton Kutcher (out April 19th).

Pace University's Pace New Musicals program, dedicated to the discovery of new theater works, and Ryan Scott Oliver, composer-lyricist and producer, will present a staged reading of I Capture the Castle by Marion Adler, Peter Foley and Cara Reichel January 23-27, and its inaugural New Musical Lab, a concert reading of Make Me Bad, by Drew Gasparini and Alex Brightman, which will be presented January 26-27.

Pace University's Pace New Musicals program, dedicated to the discovery of new theater works, and Ryan Scott Oliver, composer-lyricist and producer, have selected I Capture the Castle by Marion Adler, Peter Foley and Cara Reichel, as its official 2013 selection. In addition, Pace New Musicals has instated a New Musical Lab beginning with Make Me Bad, by Drew Gasparini and Alex Brightman.

Continuing in its ongoing efforts of supporting new musical theater works, Eric Schaeffer, Artistic Director of Signature Theatre, announced today that the Tony Award®-winning theatre is commissioning two new musicals under Signature's American Musical Voices Project (AMVP): The Next Generation. Composers Joshua Rosenblum (Einstein's Dreams, Fermat's Last Tango) and Josh Schmidt (Adding Machine, A Minister's Wife) will be creating new musicals for future seasons at Signature. In December of 2011, Mr. Rosenblum and Mr. Schmidt were awarded "honoree grants" and shared selections from projects in development at a special performance held at Signature Theatre.

On Tuesday, November 8 at 7:00pm, the New York Festival of Song (NYFOS) presents the first of this season's two-part contemporary music mini-series NYFOS Next with JOSEPH THALKEN & FRIENDS at Mary Flagler Cary Hall in the DiMenna Center for Classical Music. Thalken hosts the evening and curates an hour of new theater music showcasing the songs of two gifted composers Sam Davis and Peter Foley, as well as his own. All three composers will play their own songs from the piano.

Signature Theatre's 22nd season kicks off by making musical theatre history with its American Musical Voices Project: Next Generation 'World Premiere Repertory Series' - the first time in the history of the American theatre that two world premiere musicals will be presented in rotating repertory, in full production. The eight-week series, beginning previews on August 23rd, will produce The Hollow (book by Hunter Foster; music and lyrics by Matt Conner), to be directed by Signature Theatre's Associate Artistic Director Matthew Gardiner; and The Boy Detective Fails (book by Joe Meno; music and lyrics by Adam Gwon), directed by Signature Theatre Artistic Associate Joe Calarco. Both musicals have been commissioned by Signature Theatre as part of its groundbreaking American Musical Voices Project: The Next Generation.

Virginia's Signature Theatre heats up during the dog days of summer with their annual Sizzlin' Summer Cabaret, a 3-week series featuring thirteen individual acts sure to keep things red hot.

Citilites Theatre presents a late night show, making a sort of double bill for theatre patrons after they take in THE CRUMPLE ZONE, with the short musical, SONGS FROM AN UNMADE BED. Fortunately, it's well worth staying over for (although I took in a Sunday matinee performance), featuring a terrific performance from Justin Ivan Brown. It's a collection of eighteen songs by various composers, but all featuring the pithy and amusing lyrics of Mark Campbell. The brevity of the show, which runs about an hour, is perfectly suited to the material, and easily outshines the production that plays before it.

Virginia's Signature Theatre heats up during the dog days of summer with their annual Sizzlin' Summer Cabaret, a 3-week series featuring thirteen individual acts sure to keep things red hot.