Playwrights Horizons News

F*It Club, the New York Innovative Award-winning film and theatre company, continues its annual series of short, commissioned world-premiere plays at the IRT Theater as part of their 3B Development Series in Manhattan's West Village with The Spring Fling: Chemistry, seven new short plays by Mario Correa (Tail! Spin!), Jahna Ferron-Smith (Ensemble Studio Theatre's Youngblood), Jon Kern (Modern Terrorism), Dan McCabe (Christina Martinez), Mara Nelson-Greenberg (Do You Feel Anger?), Erica Saleh (Channel Zero, Wisdom of the Crowd) and Amy Staats (Eddie and Dave).

Playwrights Horizons, under the leadership of Artistic Director Tim Sanford and Managing Director Leslie Marcus, is proud to announce the six productions of its 2018/2019 Season.  The six new works will be presented at the theater company's home at 416 West 42nd Street. 

Elevator Repair Service, "one of the city's few truly essential theater companies" (New York Times), is pleased to present the world premiere of Everyone's Fine With Virginia Woolf, a new play written by longtime company member Kate Scelsa and directed by Elevator Repair Service Artistic Director John Collins.

BAD DATES remount at Huntington Theatre Company reunites Director Jessica Stone and actor Haneefah Wood who worked together in HTC's VANYA AND SONIA AND MASHA AND SPIKE (2015). Put aside any qualms you may have about one-person plays because Theresa Rebeck has conjured up a character with a multitude of sparkly facets and Wood is luminous while bringing her to life. Performances have been extended to March 3rd.

At a middle school in this seaside town, the unthinkable has happened, placing a bewildered community in the national spotlight. Stuck at home in a state of shocked limbo, Julie (Ms. Davis) and Zander (Mr. Saint-Germain), two thirteen-year-olds, try to make sense of the chaos they witnessed, their awkward crushes and an infinitely more complicated future - but the grown-ups are no help at all. An urgent response to our times, THIS FLAT EARTH is a startling and deeply felt story of growing up in our confounding world.

WP Theater and The Bushwick Starr, in association with New Georges, are pleased to announce that due to popular demand, [PORTO], the upside-down romantic comedy written by Obie Award Winner Kate Benson (Super Magic Wild Forest, Desert) and directed by Obie Award winner Lee Sunday Evans (Bull in a China Shop, Caught), will extend. Previously scheduled through February 25,[PORTO] will now play its final performance on Sunday, March 4, 2018 at WP Theater (2162 Broadway).

Main Street Theater continues its 42nd Season with Men on Boats by Jaclyn Backhaus - and it's played by all women.  Men on Boats tells the story of Major John Wesley Powell's actual expedition of the Grand Canyon in 1869.  The play depicts the amazing journey of these 10 explorers with all its humor and wonder and danger and excitement.  It's an extraordinary adventure.

Award-winning Son of Semele Ensemble opens its 2018 season with Alexander Borinsky's Of Government. Presented as a DIY pageant illuminating the often unsung 'feminine' labor that binds our communities, this West Coast premiere runs March 10 to April 1, 2018 at the Son of Semele Theater, 3301 Beverly Boulevard.

Talking Band will present the world premiere of Fusiform Gyrus - A Septet for Two Scientists and Five Horns, written and composed by OBIE Award winner Ellen Maddow, and directed by Ellie Heyman, running from February 7 - 25, 2018 in a limited engagement at HERE, located at 145 6th Avenue (Enter on Dominick, 1 block south of Spring) in New York City. Previews began February 7 for a February 13 opening.

The Off-Broadway League today announced details for the 2018 Lucille Lortel Awards for Outstanding Achievement Off-Broadway. The 33rd Annual Lucille Lortel Awards will be handed out on Sunday, May 6, 2018 at NYU Skirball Center for Performing Arts, beginning at 7:00pm EST.

It's a powerful work and one of the strongest offerings to date in the ongoing Women's Voices Theater Festival. Under Adam Immerwahr's impeccable direction, a supremely talented cast brings out the best of the exceptional script.

ENSEMBLE THEATRE COMPANY is thrilled to announce the third show of its 2017-2018 Season, the 2014-2015 Outer Critics Circle & Drama Desk award nominee for Best Play, THE CITY OF CONVERSATION, written by Anthony Giardina and directed by Cameron Watson. Meredith Baxter and Sharon Lawrence star in this deeply moving and thought-provoking story about how the political divide tears apart an American family. THE CITY OF CONVERSATION begins previews on Thursday, February 8, opens on Saturday, February 10, and runs through Sunday, February 25, 2018 at The New Vic, 33 W. Victoria Street in Santa Barbara.

New York Theatre Barn has awarded the writers of the new musical Eastbound the annual IMPACT Award. Eastbound has book and music by Cheeyang Ng and book and lyrics by Khiyon Hursey.

Abrons Arts Center is pleased to present the world premiere of Aloha, Aloha, or When I Was a Queen (April 4-21), a solo play written and performed by Eliza Bent and directed by Knud Adams. In 1996, a young Eliza Bent, along with a friend, created, directed and starred in an amateur historical film for a school project. In it, Bent portrayed Hawaii's last reigning monarch, Queen Liliuokalani. 22 years later, Bent uses her home movie as a jumping off point to lead audiences on a journey that grapples with personal history, legacy, and cultural appropriation. In the tradition of Spaulding Gray, Fran Leibowitz, and David Sedaris, Bent's humorous cringe-inducing stories chart a young Bostonian's education in race and appropriation.

Theater Resources Unlimited (TRU) presents their popular Writer-Producer Speed Date on Sunday, March 4, 2018. In deference to Oscar night, the event will start one hour earlier than usual: from 4:30pm - 8:00pm at NOLA Rehearsal Studio, 244 W 54th St., 11th floor.

59E59 Theaters (Val Day, Artistic Director; Brian Beirne, Managing Director) welcomes the NYC premiere of HAL & BEE, written by Max Baker and directed by Sarah Norris. Produced by Stable Cable Lab Co. and New Light Theater Project, HAL & BEE begins performances on Saturday, March 10 for a limited engagement through Saturday, March 31. Press Opening is Wednesday, March 14 at 7:30 PM. The performance schedule is Tuesday - Friday at 7:30 PM; Saturday at 7:30 PM; and Sunday at 2:30 PM. There are added matinee performances on Saturday, March 10 and Saturday, March 31 at 2:30 PM. Performances are at 59E59 Theaters (59 East 59th Street, between Park and Madison). Single tickets are $25 ($20 for 59E59 Members). Tickets are available by calling Ticket Central at 212-279-4200 or online at www.59e59.org.

The title, HIR, (again, pronounced "here") refers to a genderqueer pronoun. "It's not simply a reference to the character of Max," says David M. Jenkins, "but a commentary on what it is all four of these characters (and Mac as a playwright) are trying to do with masculinity. Mac sets up a very traditional, very familiar-feeling kitchen-sink play - one that is positively hilarious -- and then spins it on its axis, or maybe better stated tries to burn it all down. The style is described as "absurd realism," but the emphasis here is on the real. Mac requires that any absurdity in the show be driven by the reality of the situation, only moving to an absurd level because of the extreme circumstances." In an interview with the Steppenwolf Theater in Chicago, where the show enjoyed a highly successful run after the New York engagement at Playwrights Horizons (and where Annie Baker's The Flick, produced earlier this year, also premiered), Taylor Mac says that he was highly inspired by Sam Shepard's groundbreaking Buried Child. "In addition to the Buried Child comparisons HIR has, in my estimation, taken its place alongside great American family dramas like Long Day's Journey into Night, The Little Foxes, A Raisin in the Sun, Death of a Salesman, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, and Fences. It truly represents our day and age in ways audiences will continue to look back to for decades, if not centuries."

Goodspeed Musicals is thrilled to announce three enticing productions planned for Chester, Conn. in 2018. First will be the inspiring You Are Here by Drama Desk Award nominees Bartram and Hill. This soaring musical will run May 18 - June 10. Next up will be a new musical adaptation of the enduring love story Cyrano. This exciting new take on the classic will be adapted by Erica Schmidt in collaboration with the indie band The National. Cyrano will run August 3 - September 2. Finally, A Connecticut Christmas Carol, a musical adaptation of the Dickens holiday classic spiced with the flavor of the Nutmeg State, returns to The Terris Theatre November 30 - December 30, 2018.

The Public Theater (Artistic Director, Oskar Eustis; Executive Director, Patrick Willingham) announced complete casting today for the world premiere of MLIMA'S TALE, written by two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Lynn Nottage. Directed by Obie Award winner Jo Bonney, MLIMA'S TALE continues The Public's Astor Anniversary Season at their landmark downtown home on Lafayette Street, celebrating 50 years of new work and the 50th Anniversary of HAIR. MLIMA'S TALE begins performances on Tuesday, March 27 and runs through Sunday, May 20 in The Public's Martinson Hall, with an official press opening on Sunday, April 15.

Ellen's Stardust Diner, in the heart of the Theatre District in Times Square, is home to the world famous singing waiters known as the Stardusters.  On February 20, downstairs from Ellen's at The Iridium, five Broadway-bound Stardusters will be celebrating the music of the Great White Way as part of The New Faces of 2018 Starduster Showcase, presented by Ellen's Stardust Diner.