Rob Urbinati News

Recently named one of Atlanta's Top 5 Theater Companies by CBS Local for the 2015­2016 Season, Stage Door Players, Dunwoody's own professional theatre company, is proud to announce its 43rd season of entertaining, exciting programming.

Discount subscription plans are now on sale for George Street Playhouse's 2016-17 season featuring two off-Broadway hits, two thought-provoking new plays and a fifth show to be announced at a later date.

Stage Door Players, Dunwoody's own professional professional theatre company, is proud to announce its 43rd season of entertaining, exciting programming. Stage Door Players is dedicated to bringing a professional, live theatre to the City of Dunwoody and the Greater Metropolitan Atlanta area. We emphasize quality and professionalism in our productions, while expanding the theatrical knowledge and experience of our audience, and our talent. We are committed to serving the entire community and to continually developing new theatre-going audiences.

Stage Door Players, Dunwoody's own professional professional theatre company, is proud to announce its 43rd season of entertaining, exciting programming. Stage Door Players is dedicated to bringing a professional, live theatre to the City of Dunwoody and the Greater Metropolitan Atlanta area. We emphasize quality and professionalism in our productions, while expanding the theatrical knowledge and experience of our audience, and our talent. We are committed to serving the entire community and to continually developing new theatre-going audiences.

George Street Playhouse Artistic Director David Saint has announced the slate of plays scheduled for the New Brunswick theatre's 2016-17 five-play season. George Street's 43rd season begins in October and will feature five extraordinary productions, including: Mama's Boy, a chilling glimpse into the home life of Lee Harvey Oswald; American Son, a Laurents/Hatcher Foundation Award-winner about the racial divide; Joshua Harmon's Bad Jews, a comedic take on family, faith and legacy; and Daddy Long Legs, a romantic musical based on a classic novel. A fifth production will be announced at a later date.

Bay Street Theater & Sag Harbor Center for the Arts are excited  to announce the lineup 3rd Annual New Works Festival, April 29 - May 1. This free event will include a show from Andrew Lippa and Jeffrey Seller called THE MAN IN THE CEILING. 

Good Theater the professional theater company in residence at the St. Lawrence Arts Center, 76 Congress Street, Portland will close its 14th season with the regional theater premiere of ACT ONE by James Lapine from the autobiography by Moss Hart.  Good Theater is the first company to do Act One since its Broadway debut in 2014.  The production opens April 6 and runs through May 1.  Tickets are available by calling the Good Theater box office at 207-885-5883 or going to the company's website www.goodtheater.com  where tickets may be purchased on line.

The theatrical scene continued to be lively in Maine this year, with the Portland-area theatres presenting a number of stunning world premieres and the musical theatre scene gloriously vibrant. These are my personal choices of the best in Maine, grouped by theatre company and show: Because their repertoires are so vastly different, and because both companies produced outstanding seasons, my vote for highest honors goes to both Maine State Music Theatre and the Good Theater.

Revisiting the traumas of the 1960s has been the subject of two recent plays which have debuted in Portland. After Rob Urbinati's monumental Mama's Boy at the Good, Portland stage is now presenting Katori Hall's poetic play about Martin Luther King, To the Mountaintop.

The Aviva Players, now in its 40th season, invites opera goers to travel into the past and future with its 'Double Feature of Chamber Opera Films' to be presented at Opera America, 330 Seventh Ave., Manhattan, tonight, November 4. The films are 'Villa Diodati' a screen version of Mira J. Spektor's opera about Mary Shelley and the origins of her Frankenstein story, and 'Libertaria: the Virtual Opera' by Sabrina Pena Young, a futuristic animated tale that may be the world's first original machinima opera and is certainly one of the few animated comic book operas.

Queens Theatre today announced the cast for this month's rarely seen New York City stage production of Harper Lee's classic To Kill A Mockingbird. Directed by Rob Urbinati, To Kill A Mockingbird is playing a two-week engagement with performances beginning on Friday, November 13th and extending through Sunday, November 22. c

In mounting the world premiere of Rob Urbinati's new play, Mama's Boy, Good Theater's Artistic Director Brian P. Allen has given Maine a great gift - one of the company's finest productions - some two hours of searing psychological drama, tautly directed and brought to life by a stellar cast. Urbinati's (Death by Design, Hazelwood) two-act play explores the complex, emotionally wrought family dynamics of Lee Harvey Oswald, his mother Marguerite, his wife Marina, and his brother Robert in the time just prior to and just after the Kennedy assassination. Though the play is rooted in history and evokes indelible memories in the communal consciousness, it is less about the tragic events of 1963 and more about the personal relationships of four damaged individuals desperately seeking some connection and meaning. At the epicenter of this dysfunctional family is Marguerite Oswald, thrice married single parent to three estranged sons, a fierce and tender woman who is sees herself as victim and survivor, a woman whose own emotional demands continue to cripple her children. Returning from his defection to Russia, Lee Harvey brings with him his bewildered young wife Marina and their first child, and Urbinati examines Lee Harvey's troubled year before November 22, 1963 as he struggles to support himself and his family, find an ideology, and take hold of his manhood by freeing himself from his mother. The playwright effectively probes Lee Harvey Oswald's increasing instability, as well as his conflicts with Marina and Marguerite. Though the play offers no answers to the many riddles of the JFK assassination, it does challenge the audience to view the characters as human beings and to realize that the dreadful events at Dealey Plaza claimed the Oswald family among its victims, as well as the beloved President, his family, and a grieving nation.

Good Theater will offer two talk-back sessions with the playwright, Rob Urbinati, of MAMA'S BOY on Friday evening November 6, and Saturday afternoon November 7. These talk-back sessions are open to all patrons.  The Friday night session will begin at 9:40 immediately following the conclusion of the 7:30 performance of MAMA'S BOY.  The Saturday afternoon session will begin at 5:10 following the 3:00 matinee.

Some images are seared into the communal consciousness forever. The tragic assassination of John F. Kennedy and its tumultuous aftermath are just such indelibly tragic events which haunt memory. Playwright Rob Urbinati, whose new work Mama's Boy will receive its world premiere at Portland's Good Theater on October 29, 2015, was six years old in November 1963 and recalls seeing Lee Harvey Oswald murdered on television. It was an image which would resurface in his writing decades later. Urbinati's new play focuses on Marguerite Oswald, her two sons Lee Harvey and Robert, and Lee's wife Marina in the year prior to the assassination and in the days after, offering an unusual prism on the events through the eyes of Marguerite. The play, however, is not really an historical drama, but rather a domestic drama in which Urbinati, Actress Betsy Aidem, and Good Artistic Director Brian P. Allen have tried to imagine the family context from which the Oswald phenomenon emerged.

Good Theater is proud to present the world premiere of MAMA'S BOY, an exciting new play from Rob Urbinati the author of Death by Design. Broadway veteran, Betsy Aidem, plays Marguerite Oswald with Graham (The Rainmaker) Emmons as Lee Harvey Oswald, Laurel (The Rainmaker) Casillo as Marina Oswald and Erik (4000 Miles) Moody as Robert Oswald in this fascinating look at the mother and the family behind an event that changed the course of history. The show will open October 28 for a run through November 22.

Good Theater is proud to present the world premiere of MAMA'S BOY, an exciting new play from Rob Urbinati the author of Death by Design.  Broadway veteran, Betsy Aidem, plays Marguerite Oswald with Graham (The Rainmaker) Emmons as Lee Harvey Oswald, Laurel (The Rainmaker) Casillo as Marina Oswald and Erik (4000 Miles) Moody as Robert Oswald in this fascinating look at the mother and the family behind an event that changed the course of history.  The show will open October 28 for a run through November 22.

Queens Theatre will present a rare New York City production of the stage adaptation of Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird in a limited engagement this November.

The Aviva Players, now in its 40th season, invites opera goers to travel into the past and future with its 'Double Feature of Chamber Opera Films' to be presented at Opera America, 330 Seventh Ave., Manhattan, on November 4. The films are 'Villa Diodati' a screen version of Mira J. Spektor's opera about Mary Shelley and the origins of her Frankenstein story, and 'Libertaria: the Virtual Opera' by Sabrina Pena Young, a futuristic animated tale that may be the world's first original machinima opera and is certainly one of the few animated comic book operas.

Good Theater, the professional theater company in residence at the St. Lawrence Arts Center, kicks off its 14th season tonight, September 23, with the original musical revue, NO BIZ LIKE SHOW BIZ. This show is a tribute to Mary Martin and Ethel Merman starring three singers: Marie Dittmer, Lynne McGhee and Jen Means.

Good Theater, the professional theater company in residence at the St. Lawrence Arts Center, kicks off its 14th season on September 23 with the original musical revue, NO BIZ LIKE SHOW BIZ.  This show is a tribute to Mary Martin and Ethel Merman starring three singers:  Marie Dittmer, Lynne McGhee and Jen Means.