Richard Wesley News

International Contemporary Ensemble presents “Composing While Black: Volume One,” featuring world premieres of new works by Courtney Bryan and Adegoke Steve Colson on Wednesday, November 1, 2023 at 7:30 p.m. at Merkin Hall, along with works by Wendell Logan and Brittany J. Green.

International Contemporary Ensemble will present 'Composing While Black: Volume One,' featuring world premieres of new works by Courtney Bryan and Adegoke Steve Colson. Learn how to purchase tickets.

​​​​​​​ALL ARTS, the streaming platform and channel dedicated to the arts, will debut the new film ALL ARTS Docs: Manhattan Theatre Club, a Home for Artists on Tuesday, November 21 at 9 p.m. ET. Learn more about the documentary and find out where you can watch it here!

Through interviews with stage and screen stars who honed their craft at Manhattan Theatre Club (MTC), including David Auburn, Christine Baranski, André De Shields, Laura Linney, John Patrick Shanley, Sarah Jessica Parker and Sam Waterston, the film chronicles the career-making momentsthat have come to define MTC. Watch a video trailer!

OPERA America has announced the 2023 Campbell Opera Librettist Prize recipient, Deborah Brevoort. Conceived and funded by acclaimed librettist and lyricist Mark Campbell, the Prize is the first award in the history of American opera created specifically to honor the work of opera librettists. The annual winner receives an award of $7,000 to support creative development and career advancement.

The Acting Company has announced the complete cast for the reading of Mustapha Matura's new play Three Sisters After Chekhov. This is a part of the Reading Series in honor of The Acting Company's 50th anniversary. 

Tim Sanford, former artistic director of Playwrights Horizons, and Aimée Hayes, former producing artistic director of Southern Rep, have launched The Tent Theater Company.

New Jersey Performing Arts Center announced the complete cast of its one-time dramatic reading of the late Philip Roth's bestselling novel The Plot Against America featuring some of the most esteemed actors working today in a monumental performance at the center of PHILIP ROTH UNBOUND: Illuminating a Literary Legacy, NJPAC's three-day celebration of the iconic writer.

The Billie Holiday Theatre - one of the nation’s preeminent arts and culture organizations and currently celebrating its milestone 50th anniversary - has announced that it will present the world premiere of  Black Genius in the American Theater: A Concert Reading on Friday, February 18th and Saturday, February 19th.

New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC), the anchor cultural institution for the city of Newark and the state of New Jersey, in collaboration with the Newark Public Library, will present PHILIP ROTH UNBOUND, a weekend-long festival that will celebrate, challenge and explore the life, legacy and work of novelist and Newark-native Philip Roth, on what would have been his 90th birthday weekend.  

Barry Grove will step down as the Executive Producer of Manhattan Theatre Club at the conclusion of the 2022-2023 season.

New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC), the anchor cultural institution for the city of Newark and the state of New Jersey, in collaboration with the Newark Public Library, will present PHILIP ROTH UNBOUND, a weekend-long festival that will celebrate, challenge and explore the life, legacy and work of novelist and Newark-native Philip Roth, on what would have been his 90th birthday weekend.

Premiere Stages at Kean University will present the premiere production of Certain Aspects of Conflict in the Negro Family by TyLie Shider, the recepient of the 2021/22 Liberty Live Commission, on October 13-23 under the tent at Kean University's Liberty Hall Museum (1003 Morris Avenue, Union, N.J.).

Funded by The Black Seed, the African-American Shakespeare Company & The CRAFT Institute have come together to form the African Diasporic Network that will debut Echoes of Us: Now and Always July 15-17 at the Marines Memorial Theatre. 

Long Beach Opera has programmed four upcoming performances and events – including two new productions as originally announced -- Giustino by G.F. Handel at the sculpture garden and within the galleries at Museum of Latin American Art (MOLAA) directed by Artistic Director James Darrah and conducted by Music Director Christopher Rountree, with new adaptations and arrangements by composer Shelley Washington on May 21, 22, and 28; followed by The Central Park Five by Anthony Davis & Richard Wesley conducted by Anthony Parnther at Jordan Auditorium in Long Beach on June 18, 19 and 25.

One of the ways The Negro Ensemble Company, Inc. (NEC) fulfills its mission to discover and nurture new, innovative works by skilled and creative artists is its NEC Cutting Edge Playhouse: Emerging Playwrights Competition, which will be mounted for the second time May 5 to 29, 2022.  

The Genesis Festival is returning to Crossroads Theatre with six new productions that stand true to the theatre’s history of telling stories that highlight issues and start conversations across ethnic, racial, and cultural spectrums.

Portland Opera continues the 2021/22 season with The Central Park Five, composed by Anthony Davis with a libretto by Richard Wesley. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 2020, The Central Park Five is set in New York City in the late 80s—when five Black and Latino teenagers were falsely accused of rape and assault and coerced into confession. Their high-profile case spiraled out of control, turning the accused, and their families, into victims of prejudice and grave injustice.  

Woodie King Jr.’s New Federal Theatre in association with The Peccadillo Theater Company will present the World Premiere of Gong Lum’s Legacy by Charles L. White.

OPERA America has announced the recipients of the 2022 Repertoire Development Grants: American Lyric Theater (New York, NY); Beth Morrison Projects (New York, NY); Houston Grand Opera (Houston, TX); Lyric Opera of Chicago (Chicago, IL); MassOpera (Salem, MA); Opera Theatre of Saint Louis (St. Louis, MO); Pensacola Opera (Pensacola, FL) and OperaDelaware (Wilmington, DE); and Virginia Opera (Norfolk, VA). A total of $225,000 was awarded to eight projects (see below) by these nine companies.