Reed Birney News

Voting continues for the 2018 BroadwayWorld UK Awards! Nominations were reader-submitted and now our readers get to vote for their favorites!

DANIEL'S HUSBAND - a new play by Michael McKeever, directed by Joe Brancato - is now open Off-Broadway at The Westside Theatre (407 West 43 St.). Check out photos from the evening below!

Abingdon Theatre Company held their special one-night-only gala event on Monday, October 22 at The Edison Ballroom. The evening, honoring two-time Tony Award winner Donna Murphy (Hello, Dolly!; Passion; Wonderful Town), was hosted by Randy Rainbow.

Today, the shortlist is announced for the 2018 BroadwayWorld UK Awards, celebrating the best long-running West End productions and best new productions from around the country. CLICK HERE TO VOTE!

Since 1923, EAG's Annual Memorial Service has brought together members of the performing arts community on an afternoon in November to celebrate the lives and work of our colleagues who have passed away in the previous year. This unique event features music, reflection, and a reading of the names of those being remembered, which is always followed by a heartfelt standing ovation.

Page 73 announces complete casting for the first production in its 20th Anniversary Season, Catch as Catch Can, written by Mia Chung (You For Me For You) and directed by Ken Rus Schmoll (Judy, Grounded).  Performances begin on Monday, October 22 at the New Ohio Theatre for a limited run through Saturday, November 17.

Stephen Karam's The Humans won numerous awards during its off-Broadway and 2016 Broadway run, picking up four wins out of six nominations at the Tony Awards. Now the New York cast and director, Joe Mantello, have transferred over to the Hampstead Theatre for its autumn term.

Prepare for an illuminating journey when The Psychedelic Film and Music Festival holds its inaugural event featuring a lineup of science fiction, horror, fantasy, surrealist and virtual reality films, music and stage performances and panel discussions set to explore the altered states of consciousness and truth behind the vibrant and enduring psychedelic culture. The week-long gathering will feature musical performances by Simon Boswell with The AND, Psychic Ills, Heaven, Michael Tapper, Roosevelt Island and Nosh alongside appearances by researchers Dr. Dennis McKenna, Robert Barnhart and other special guests notable for breakthroughs in the psychedelic community. Premiering at venues in Brooklyn, Manhattan and Queens, the festival will run October 1-7, 2018.

London is never short of temptations, whether splashy West End shows, epic dramas or bold fringe offerings. From a new hip-hop history lesson to Pinter and Shakespeare, here are some of this month's most eye-catching openings. Don't forget to check back for BroadwayWorld reviews, interviews and features!

Abingdon Theatre Company will launch their 26th season with a special one-night-only gala event on Monday, October 22 at The Edison Ballroom. The evening honors two-time Tony winner Donna Murphy (Hello, Dolly!; Passion; Wonderful Town).

Two lives steeped in sex, drugs, and grifting collide in "Pretty Babies," a new play written and directed by Antony Raymond, when two long lost siblings meet for the first time. Manipulation, abuse, and perversion cause the relationship and ones around it to quickly devolve into animalism, throwing the characters into a downward spiraling whirlwind that crashes in a fit of jealously. Theater for the New City's Dream Up Festival will present the play's world premiere September 2 to September 11.

This morning, Broadway's Kelli O'Hara received her first Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Actress In A Short Form Comedy Or Drama Series for her role as Katie Bonner in 'The Accidental Wolf'. 

The U.S. tour of the multi-Tony Award-winning THE HUMANS completes its coast-to-coast trek landing at the Ahmanson Theatre, with the reunion of five of its original Broadway actors, including Reed Birney and Jayne Houdyshell reprising their Tony Award-winning roles of the patriarch and matriarch of the Blake clan. We had the opportune chance to chat with Cassie Beck, who originated the role of Aimee, the older sister in this loving, but dysfunctional Blake family, as they gather for a Thanksgiving meal at the new apartment of younger sis Brigid and her boyfriend Richard.

Hampstead Theatre has announced the next productions for the Main Stage and Hampstead Downstairs.

We're Gonna Be Okay received its world premiere in the 2017 Humana Festival and was met with rave reviews for its unique way of telling a story many Americans are familiar with, The Cuban Missile Crisis. It later was produced at the American Theatre Company in Chicago and was listed as one of Time Out: Chicago's "24 Shows To See In January." The story follows two average American families during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Humans fear monsters, and monsters we are told are even more scared of humans. Monsters are not real but horror really does lie in the human experience. Ask the Blakes. Losing one's job, facing illness, the worst being dementia, is a part of their lives and many others in the decaying/disappearing American middle class. In Stephen Karam's riveting play, The Humans, the Blake family gather for Thanksgiving in daughter Brigid's latest dwelling, a Chinatown New York apartment, that she shares with boyfriend Richard, some year since the devastation of September 2001 The parents and grandmother have made the long trek from Scranton, Pennsylvania; they love their children that much and of course like to meddle in their lives. Currently onstage at the Ahmanson, the Tony winning play with the original Broadway cast and directed by Joe Mantello, engages our thought processes, and is simultaneously relatable and entertaining.

Reed Birney and Jayne Houdyshell reprise their Tony Award®-winning performances in 'The Humans' for the last stop of the national tour at the Center Theatre Group / Ahmanson Theatre. Performances began this week in Los Angeles, check out the opening night arrivals below!

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.

Center Theatre Group will present Stephen Karam's Tony Award-winning Best Play "The Humans" at the Ahmanson Theatre June 19 through July 29, 2018, with the official opening set for June 20.