Richard Wesley News

The Billie Holiday Theatre will present the third reading under its new #StayAtHome Reading Series with a special reading of James's Sheldon's Reparations, the critically acclaimed play which had its world premiere at The Billie last November.

The AUDELCO and Obie-Award-winning Billie Holiday Theatre will present a special virtual edition of its popular 50in50 monologue showcase series with the highly anticipated 50in50:Letters to Our Sons as part of its new #StayAtHome Reading Series, an innovative online play reading series.

The Ensemble Theatre presents the regional premiere of Autumn, a political drama by award-winning playwright, screenwriter, and NYU Professor Richard Wesley, and directed by Ensemble Artistic Director Eileen J. Morris; Opening Night and Media Reception, Thursday, March 19, 2020, 6:30 p.m. 3535 Main Street, Houston, TX 77002.

The Ensemble Theatre will present political drama Autumn by award-winning playwright, screenwriter, and NYU professor Richard Wesley, and directed by Ensemble Theatre Artistic Director Eileen J. Morris.

OPERA America has awarded $220,000 in Repertoire Development Grants to The American Opera Project (New York, NY) in consortium with Seagle Music Colony (Schroon Lake, NY), Beth Morrison Projects (New York, NY), Houston Grand Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, San Diego Opera and The Dallas Opera. The grants provide technical and financial support to OPERA America Professional Company Members and their producing partners to enhance the quality, quantity and creativity of new American opera and music theater.

Forty-one years ago, two Rutgers University Theatre Arts students envisioned, embraced and captured the opportunity to create a space where the black experience would be shared through stories produced on stage for all to enjoy; and that was and is the story of Crossroads Theatre Company, a staple of the arts and cultural community in New Brunswick, NJ and across the region, state and nation.  

The Frank Silvera Writers Workshop kicks off its forty-seventh annual reading series this Monday September 9th at 7pm with David Davila's immigration drama, Aztec Pirates And The Insignificance Of Life On Mars. The reading, directed by Nilsa Reyna, features Ollie Corchado, Cory Alexander, Lillian Andrea De Leon, Julia Botero, Selina Michelle Fonseca, Gerard Lucero, Alexandra Castro, and Jatnna Marte.

Alicia Foxworth's period drama Ghost Writer will bring the curtain down on the 2018 -19 season of the Frank Silvera Writer's Workshop monthly play reading series in partnership with The Billie Holiday Theatre.

The Central Park Five by Anthony Davis, a world premiere commissioned and presented by Long Beach Opera on June 15th, 22nd and 23rd, explores the interrogation and coerced confessions of five teenagers wrongly convicted of a crime in New York City in the 1980's. The opera details their stories, including the profound effect their unjust prison sentences had on their young lives.

The Frank Silvera Writers' Workshop will present Douglas Lyons's new family comedy Chicken & Biscuits Monday May 13th at 7pm; at The Billie Holiday Theatre. Chicken & Biscuits, written in residence at The Directors Company, has previously been selected and performed in the Front Porch Reading Series and Queen Theatre's 2019 New American Voices Reading Series.

The Ensemble Theatre Artistic Director, Eileen J. Morris, announces the theatre's 2019-2020 season including a commissioned world premiere and five regional premieres packed with drama, comedy and musical performances; and a series of alternative programing, youth initiatives, and fundraising events.

This Spring marks the start of the 36th season of the Verdi Chorus, who will present their Spring Concert, L'Amore e la Vita (Love and Life) for two performances only at the First United Methodist Church in Santa Monica on April 6 and 7. Led by Founding Artistic Director Anne Marie Ketchum, the Verdi Chorus is the only choral group in Southern California that focuses primarily on the dramatic and diverse music for opera chorus. This program, which Ketchum humorously calls the Rom-Com of opera, will feature selections from two Verdi operas I vespri siciliani and Ernani, three Donizetti operas - Don Pasquale, La fille du r giment and L'elisir d'amore, as well as operatic sequences from Bizet's Les p cheurs de perles (The Pearl Fishers), Delibes' Lakm , and Puccini's La rondine.

This Spring marks the start of the 36th season of the Verdi Chorus, who will present their Spring Concert, L'Amore e la Vita (Love and Life) for two performances only at the First United Methodist Church in Santa Monica on April 6 and 7. Led by Founding Artistic Director Anne Marie Ketchum, the Verdi Chorus is the only choral group in Southern California that focuses primarily on the dramatic and diverse music for opera chorus. This program, which Ketchum humorously calls the Rom-Com of opera, will feature selections from two Verdi operas I vespri siciliani and Ernani, three Donizetti operas - Don Pasquale, La fille du r giment and L'elisir d'amore, as well as operatic sequences from Bizet's Les p cheurs de perles (The Pearl Fishers), Delibes' Lakm , and Puccini's La rondine.

Critically-acclaimed playwright Richard Wesley will be the special guest during the 16th Annual Black and Latino Playwrights Conference at Texas State University on September 3-9.

A staged reading of Rafael Moreno's family drama Fotos, which played to packed houses and critical acclaim last summer at The Producers Club, will close the 2017 -2018 season of the prestigious Frank Silvera Writers Workshop at the Billie Holiday Theatre in Brooklyn on Monday June 18.

According to The Hollywood Reporter,  Kevin Hart is in talks to star in a remake of Uptown Saturday Night. The film is being produced by Will Smith will produce the Warner Bros. feature via his Overbrook banner.

Long Beach Opera celebrates two milestones in the 2018-2019 season - its fortieth anniversary and the 20th anniversary of Andreas Mitisek leading the company as artistic director. 

The AUDELCO and Obie Award-winning Billie Holiday Theatre brings back the groundbreaking 50in50: Women's Voices Initiative with the Obie Award-winning Frank Silvera Writers' Workshop with a reading March 17, 2018 at 7pm in The Billie Holiday Theatre, 1368 Fulton Street, Brooklyn, NY. 

Mile Square Theatre, Hudson County's leading professional theatre, kicks off its 2018 season with Alfred Uhry's powerful masterpiece Driving Miss Daisy. Set in the South between the late 40's and early 70's, the play explores an unlikely friendship between an elderly white Southern Jewish woman, Daisy Werthan, and her African-American chauffer, Hoke Colburn.