Playbill News

Theater For The New City has announced the complete cast for the upcoming world premiere of Andy Halliday's NOTHING BUT TRASH, a satire of 1950's teen-angst films and gay pulp fiction. G.R. Johnson (Bounce and Thunder, Seven11.2005) will direct.

Coming up this week, 54 BELOW, the performance venue located just below the legendary Studio 54 at 254 West 54th Street, presents some of the brightest stars from Broadway, cabaret, jazz and beyond:

The Tony Award-winning Oregon Shakespeare Festival's 2014 preview performances begin February 14, and the season will open Friday night, February 21 in the Angus Bowmer Theatre with Shakespeare's The Tempest (director, Tony Taccone). On Saturday, Lorraine Hansberry's The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window (Juliette Carrillo) takes the stage, as does the classic Marx Brothers musical The Cocoanuts (David Ivers), and Sunday afternoon Shakespeare's The Comedy of Errors (Kent Gash) opens in the Thomas Theatre.

Ocean State Theatre Company (OSTC), which recently launched its first full season in its new state-of-the-art theatre in Warwick will present Neil Simon's Broadway hit, Laughter on the 23rd Floor from January 29 - February 16.

The Off Broadway Alliance will again sponsor 20at20, the bi-annual celebration of Off Broadway. The popular promotion, which begins today, January 21st and continues through February 9th, makes $20 tickets available for 48 Off Broadway plays and musicals twenty minutes prior to curtain. Now in its 8th year, 20at20 has become one of New York's most eagerly-anticipated promotions for budget-conscious theatre-goers.

With 40 Broadway Theatres in New York City, keeping track of where they all lie can be a challenge even for the most seasoned theatregoer. Luckily for Broadway-bound tourists, Duffy Square's latest addition is a handy sidewalk map that outlines the locations of all of them! Check out a preview below, and head to Duffy Square now to see it in person!

Artistic Director Ken Gass has announced venues, casting and dates for three Canadian Rep Theatre productions that will comprise its 2013/14 inaugural season. The playbill features new works by three of Canada's leading playwrights: the English-language premiere of PACAMAMBO by Wajdi Mouawad (translated by Shelley Tepperman); the world premiere of WATCHING GLORY DIE by Judith Thompson; and the Canadian premiere of DEAD METAPHOR by George F. Walker.

Tony-nominated composers Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, Andy Jones (Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella), Heidi Blickenstaff (The Little Mermaid), Ashley Brown (the original Mary Poppins), Merle Dandridge (Tarzan, Aida), Josh Strickland (the original Tarzan), Andrew Keenan-Bolger (Newsies), and Alton Fitzgerald White (The Lion King), will join 4,500 students and teachers representing 93 groups from 26 states and the District of Columbia at the 2014 Junior Theater Festival, it was announced today by Timothy Allen McDonald, founding Chairman of iTheatrics and the Junior Theater Group. The Junior Theater Festival is being held January 17, 18 and 19 at the Cobb Galleria in Atlanta.

Producers Darren Bagert, Dan Shaheen and Ted Snowdon have announced that a new block of tickets now on sale for performances through August 31, 2014, for the smash hit comedy Buyer & Cellar at the Barrow Street Theatre (27 Barrow Street). Written by Jonathan Tolins and directed by Stephen Brackett, Buyer & Cellar continues to break box office records having recouped its initial investment faster than any Off-Broadway show in recent history.

GHETTO KLOWN, John Leguizamo's fifth HBO solo special, debuts SATURDAY, MARCH 22 at 10:00 p.m. (ET/PT). Adapting his Drama Desk Award-winning one-man stage show of the same name, the exclusive presentation was taped Nov. 16 at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark.

Chance Theater presents the first show of its 16th Anniversary Season - the hilarious modern musical adaptation of Aristophanes' classic comedy, Lysistrata Jones, with music by Tony Award nominee Douglas Carter Beane, music and lyrics by Lewis Flinn, and direction by Kari Hayter. Lysistrata Jones will preview from February 7 through 14, open February 15 and continue through March 9 at the new Chance Theater.

Jonathan Tolins, the author of Buyer & Cellar, will be a panelist on the Metropolitan Opera Quiz during the first intermission of this week's broadcast of Die Fledermaus. The new production of Strauss's operetta is performed in English with new dialogue by Broadway playwright Douglas Carter Beane, and features Tony Award winner Danny Burstein in the comic role of Frosch the jailer. This will be Tolins's second appearance on the Quiz after making his debut a year ago. Buyer & Cellar continues its record-breaking run at the Barrow Street Theatre off-Broadway and is currently selling tickets through April 13. The show will be produced later this year in Chicago, Los Angeles, and other cities to be announced.

The Off Broadway Alliance will again sponsor 20at20, the bi-annual celebration of Off Broadway. The popular promotion, which begins January 21st and continues through February 9th, makes $20 tickets available for 48 Off Broadway plays and musicals twenty minutes prior to curtain. Now in its 8th year, 20at20 has become one of New York's most eagerly-anticipated promotions for budget-conscious theatre-goers.

Historic adaptation of PORGY AND BESS returns to National Theater.

Yesterday's shots come from Broadway's BEAUTIFUL, sending former MOTOWN star Valisia LeKae well wishes after the news broke that she had been diagnosed with ovarian cancer, plus photos from CINDERELLA, MACBETH and more. Other SIPs come from the national tours of EVITA and Disney's BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, Two River Theater's A WIND IN THE WILLOWS, and more!

They say it's the most wonderful time of the year. I can't say I disagree! The holidays in New York City are magical... ice skating at Bryant Park, the huge trees lit up in Rockefeller Center and Lincoln Center, and snow falling softly on Times Square (let's just ignore the black post-snow slush). New shows opening on Broadway just in time for the holiday crowds, and of course... the chance to scour the BC/EFA Holiday Gift Guide to find the perfect items for everyone on your list.

Ted Sod: What can you tell us about Sophie Treadwell's life and career as a playwright? like Mary Chase, she began as a journalist-correct?

It is comedy, it is baudy and it is brilliantly directed by Alan Paul.

Tina Benko has received the annual St. Clair Bayfield Award presented by the Actors' Equity Foundation for her performance as Titania in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, directed by Julie Taymor as Theatre for a New Audience's inaugural production at its new home in Brooklyn. The announcement was made by Arne Gundersen, President of the Foundation.

The Broadway Across America national tour rolled into Salt Lake City for a three-performance run, and the cast created a highly entertaining, stirring production of this musical snapshot of a teenage wasteland.