Playwrights Horizons News

Lovers of new theatre will gather this August for an advance look at tomorrow's hits at TheatreWorks Silicon Valley's 2019 New Works Festival at Palo Alto's Lucie Stern Theatre. This unique festival offers audiences an extraordinary opportunity to experience new plays and musicals in their early stages of development, and hear about the creative process in a "Meet the Artists" panel discussion. With multiple performances of each work, playwrights and composers are able to revise and refine their shows during the festival, allowing audiences to view the exciting evolution of brand new pieces of theatre. The popular festival runs August 9 - 18, 2019 at the Lucie Stern Theatre, 1305 Middlefield Rd., Palo Alto. Festival passes ($65 general$49 season subscribers) and single event tickets ($20) can be purchased online at theatreworks.org or by calling (650) 463-1960.

Ucross, a prestigious artist residency program and creative laboratory for the arts in northeast Wyoming, premiered its "Ucross Spotlight" series on Wednesday, June 19, with a bold, intimate conversation between playwright alums Michael R. Jackson, Billy Porter, and Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, as well as choreographer Raja Feather Kelly on the themes present in Jackson's provocative new musical A Strange Loop. The panel took place at the world-famous Playwrights Horizons theater following a performance of the show, with major themes of the conversation including reconciling with religion as a member of the LGBTQ community and "watering down" queer art for straight audiences. It is the first of many planned Ucross Spotlight events, which will celebrate its alumni's art and offer a first-hand look at their creative process.

Theatre for a New Audience founding artistic director Jeffrey Horowitz, having just received the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2019 OBIEs, today announces TFANA's 40th anniversary season. The 2019-2020 programming exemplifies what makes TFANA, in the words of the OBIE committee, one of the city's most vital institutions championing adventurous and urgent productions of Shakespeare alongside other writers.

In response to critical acclaim and popular demand, Playwrights Horizons , in association with Page 73 is pleased to announce a three-week extension of the world premiere production of Michael R. Jackson's A Strange Loop, to July 28 (from the initially-announced closing date of July 7).

Theatre Row, the venerable five-theatre Off-Broadway complex at 410 West 42nd Street, has recently undergone an extensive six-month renovation as part of a larger re-imagining of Theatre Row's role in the non-profit theater community. The new Theatre Row was just unveiled with a dedication ceremony last night, June 17, featuring performances from resident companies Epic Theatre Ensemble and Keen Company.

Playwrights Horizons, in association with Page 73, present the world premiere production of A Strange Loop, with book, music, and lyrics by 2017 Jonathan Larson Award and 2017 Lincoln Center Emerging Artist Award-winner Michael R. Jackson, directed by Stephen Brackett (Be More Chill, Buyer and Cellar), and choreographed by Raja Feather Kelly (Playwrights: If Pretty Hurts Ugly Must Be a Muhf**ka; Ugly (Black Queer Zoo), Fairview). A Strange Loop explores the thoughts of Usher, a black, queer writer working a job he hates while writing his original musical: a piece about a black, queer writer, working a job he hates while writing his original musical. Michael R. Jackson's blistering, momentous new musical (and his professional debut) follows a young artist at war with a host of demons-not least of which are the punishing thoughts in his own head-in an attempt to capture and understand his own strange loop.

'Don't roll your eyes at me,' a person of influence instructs a promising young musical theatre writer. 'I'm the chair of the Second-Coming-Of-Sondheim Award so I know what the f... I'm talking about!'

The Eugene O'Neill Theater Center announces casting and creative teams for the summer season of new musicals and plays selected for development at the National Music Theater Conference and National Playwrights Conference.

Coming this summer to Catskill's adventurous Bridge Street Theatre - its first attempt at producing a full-scale summer musical! But, true to form, it's a pretty off-beat one: Joy Gregory and Gunnar Madsen's acclaimed Off-Broadway hit "The Shaggs: Philosophy of the World". It is based on the true story of three sisters from rural New Hampshire whose father forced them to form a rock band, and who recorded an album back in 1969 which has since become a cult classic. "The Shaggs" will play for eight performances only, Thursdays through Sundays July 11-21, in BST's intimate 84-seat Mainstage.

The Flea Theater is proud to announce the addition of six new Resident Directors to its intensive practicum for early-career directors. Rebecca Aparicio, Jake Beckhard, Daniella Caggiano, Lauren DeLeon, Will Steinberger, and Raz Golden will join the current group of Resident Directors. 

AstonRep Theatre Company, under the artistic leadership of Derek Bertelsen and Sara Pavlak McGuire, announces its 2019-20 season, to be presented at its new artistic home, The Edge Theater in Chicago's Edgewater neighborhood.

Red Bull Theater today announced the selections for their ninth annual festival of 10-minute plays of heightened language and classic themes, featuring two brand new commissions from Kia Corthron and Marcus Gardley, alongside six brand new plays that have been chosen from hundreds of submissions from playwrights across the country: Kate Abbruzzese, Terry Glaser, Eric Pfeffinger, BrIdgette Dutta Portman, David Lerner Schwartz, Sofya Levitsky Weitz, and Matthew Wells.

Kaleidoscope Creative Partners presents the Off-Broadway premiere of L.O.V.E.R., written and performed by Lois Robbins (TV Land's "Younger"; Cactus Flower) and directed by Karen Carpenter (Love, Loss, and What I Wore).

92Y announces a discussion of What the Constitution Means to Me with playwright/performer Heidi Schreck and Harvard Law professor Laurence Tribe, moderated by Slate senior editor and legal columnist Dahlia Litwick, on Sunday, July 28. 

The Acting Company (Founded by John Houseman and Margot Harley; Ian Belknap, Artistic Director; Elisa Spencer-Kaplan, Executive Director) announced casting today for the next reading in the 23rd John McDonald Salon Reading Series, Jessica Swale's Olivier Award-winning, music-filled comedy Nell Gwynn. The reading will take place on Monday, June 24 at 7 PM at the Mainstage Theater at Playwrights Horizons (416 W. 42nd Street, New York, NY). Tickets are available now online at www.theactingcompany.org.

The Gift Theatre continues its 2019 Season with the Chicago premiere of Hansol Jung's WOLF PLAY, a messy, funny and disturbing theatrical experience grappling with a wolf, a puppet, and a very prickly problem: What is a family? What do we need from them, today? Is it very different from the things humans have needed from families before?

The League of Professional Theatre Women (Kelli Lynn Harrison and Catherine Porter, Co-Presidents), an organization which has been leading the gender parity conversation and championing women in the professional theatre for over 35 years, is pleased to announce that 2019 Tony Award-winner Andre De Shields (Hadestown) will host their inaugural Rachel Crothers Leadership Award Luncheon to honor Donna Walker-Kuhne, on Thursday, June 27 from 12-3pm at Sardi's Restaurant (234 West 44th Street, New York, NY 10036). The event will also feature a special performance by LaChanze (2006 Tony Award winner for The Color Purple; Summer: The Donna Summer Musical). Tickets: Members $95; Non-Members $125.00; VIP tickets $175 (includes journal ad); VIP table $1,700 (with a journal ad). For more information and to purchase tickets please visit www.theatrewomen.org.

The Asian American Arts Alliance announces the launch of a new initiative to support Asian Americans pursuing careers in the arts. Table Dish, A4's new professional development series, will bring experts in specific disciplines together with aspiring professionals in a roundtable setting to answer questions, provide advice, and create networking and mentoring opportunities.

The Vancouver, BC based theater company Reality Curve & New York's Soho Playhouse today announced that they will co-produce a strictly limited engagement of Zayd Dohrn's REBORNING, an unsettling dark comedy that explores love, loss, trauma and the power of creation through the lens of the unusual art of reborning.