Portia News

Austin Shakespeare will bring the romance, comedy and dramatic clashes of The Merchant of Venice to the Beverly S. Sheffield Zilker Hillside Theater in May.

As the countdown begins for the kickoff of A2IM's Indie Week, A2IM is announcing the list of nominees for the 2019 Libera Awards presented by SoundExchange. The Awards recognize a wide range of musicians and visionaries and offer the independent music community the opportunity to honor the hard work and accomplishments of their peers.

A 'musical': this canonical term within the world of theatre sets the foundation for-yes, a musical-Something Rotten! Extremely meta-theatrical, self-aware, and imbued with satire, Diamond Head Theatre's (DHT) latest production of the Broadway hit finds itself galvanizing its audience with uproarious laughter due to its talented cast and witty plot and dialogue, in addition to its other praise-worthy features including its choreography, hair and makeup design, costumes, and musical direction.

Producer Stephanie Wilson & Artistic Director/Producer Richard Mazda in association with LIC-Artists presents an immersive production of The Tempest.  We are performing our production in the 8000sq ft Plaxall Gallery in LIC.  

Soho Rep. presents the New York Premiere of Obie Award-winning playwright Christopher Chen's Passage (April 23-May 26), a fantasia on colonialism past and present that asks the question: if Country Y occupies Country X, can someone from Country X and someone from Country Y ever form a mutual relationship? Directed by Saheem Ali, Passage is a playful and gripping experiment that isolates power as the sole differentiator between people challenging the arbitrary binaries that define how we live.

The Farm Theater (Padraic Lillis, Founding Artistic Director) will launch season one of their new Bullpen Sessions Podcast on Thursday, March 28. This ten-episode series, hosted by Padraic Lillis and Lee J. Kaplan, will be available worldwide on all major podcast distributors.

Last night A2IM (The American Association of Independent Music) hosted their inaugural SXSW showcase, which resulted in a completely packed house to the Palm Door in Austin, TX (401 Sabine St). Kicking off at8:00pm and not stopping until after 2:00am, the event rocked, featuring incredible performances from some of the most talented indie artists, including: Y La Bamba (Tender Loving Empire), Oh Pep! (ATO Records), Madge (22Twenty), Sneaks (Merge Records), Ric Wilson (Innovative Leisure) and The Nude Party (New West Records).

Full casting is announced today for The Omission of the Family Coleman by Claudio Tolcachir, in a new version by Stella Feehily and directed by Laurence Boswell at Theatre Royal Bath's Ustinov Studio. Laoisha O'Callaghan, David Crowley, Anne Kent, Evanna Lynch, Rowan Polonski, Robert Mountford, Patrick Moy, Natalie Radmall-Quirke will appear in the UK Premiere which runs from Thursday 28 March to Saturday 27 April with opening night for press on Wednesday 3 April and completes the venue's Season of UK Premieres from the Americas

It's an increasing rarity among Broadway musicals: a completely original work not based on a movie, play, book or other source material. With 10 Tony nominations including Best Musical, Something Rotten! is a "fresh, irreverent and hysterical" musical (Associated Press) coming to the Harris Center for five performances.

Producer Stephanie Wilson & Artistic Director/Producer Richard Mazda in association with LIC-Artists is delighted to announce an immersive production of The Tempest. We are performing our production in the 8000sq ft Plaxall Gallery in LIC. The production features an Ariel on silks, a dance company, projections and a huge playing area where scenes will move around the space with the audience following the action. Directed by Owen Thompson our production has incorporated a dance company choreographed by the incredible Shoko Tamai of Ninja Ballet, projection design by Sadah Espii Proctor. The production also features a concurrent art exhibition, …Dream Again curated by The Plaxall Gallery's Norma Homberg.

A contemporary adaptation of Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice is sure to resonate with modern audiences, in light of today's far-right extremist groups and recent anti-Semitic attacks.

With 10 Tony nominations including Best Musical, SOMETHING ROTTEN! is a shamelessly silly parody of Broadway musicals - an outrageous spoof of all things Shakespeare. A Hawaii Premier.

After selling out tables early at the PlayStation Theater the A2IM Libera Awards 2019 are moving to the Ziegfeld Ballroom in NYC (141 West 54th ST.). The Awards will be held on June 20, 2019 at the culmination of the 10thanniversary of A2IM's Indie Week (June 17-20). Having grown dramatically over the past three years this year's award show will be the biggest ever.

Blumenthal Performing Arts is pleased to announce the appointment of four new members to its Board of Trustees. John Giannuzzi, Portia MacKinnon, Susanne McGuire and Courtney Rogers were confirmed to the board during Blumenthal's Annual Meeting at Knight Theater in January.

The play seems to be a retrospective of Shakespeare's career, with a strong note of self-parody. And with a playwright as fecund as Shakespeare, a 'greatest hits album' would have to be full to bursting. And so that's what Cymbeline is: a 'greatest hits' that refuses to take itself seriously, and invites us to participate in Shakespeare's gentle laugh at himself.

Theatre for a New Audience announces the seventeen-member cast and the creative team for its production of William Shakespeare's The Tragedy of Julius Caesar, directed by Shana Cooper in her Off-Broadway debut.

The completely original new musical Something Rotten!, originally directed and choreographed on Broadway by Tony Award-winner Casey Nicholaw (Mean Girls, The Book of Mormon, Aladdin), with music and lyrics by Grammy Award-winner and Tony Award nominee Wayne Kirkpatrick and Golden Globe Award and Tony Award nominee Karey Kirkpatrick and a book by Tony Award nominees Karey Kirkpatrick and best-selling author  John O'Farrell, plays The Playhouse on Rodney Square in Wilmington March 7-10, 2019. The show is part of the 2018-19 Broadway in Wilmington season, presented by Bank of America.

A contemporary adaptation of Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice is sure to resonate with modern audiences, in light of today's far-right extremist groups and recent anti-Semitic attacks.

The New Jewish Theatre has opened 'District Merchants', by Aaron Posner, and it is certainly among the finest productions I've ever seen there. Posner's script is most remarkably beautiful-it's masterful indeed.

It's tons of fun and enchanting, despite some weaknesses with the show's new book.