Roy Cockrum News

The Oregon Shakespeare Festival announced today David Schmitz will become its fourth executive director in fall 2020. Schmitz succeeds Cynthia Rider, who held the position from 2013 through 2018, and Paul Christy, who became acting executive director in January 2019 and has been leading the Festival's transition throughout the executive search period. Schmitz has worked at Steppenwolf Theatre for the past 15 years, serving in the role of Director of Finance and Administration, General Manager, Managing Director, and currently as Executive Director. 

As shelter-in-place due to COVID-19 continues in Illinois, Goodman Theatre has announced its intention to postpone the four remaining 2019/2020 Season productions to the upcoming 2020/2021 Season.

Asolo Repertory Theatre and the FSU/Asolo Conservatory for Actor Training announced their 2020-21 seasons today in a virtual event broadcast via Facebook and YouTube Live.

Mosaic Theater Company has released the following statement regarding upcoming performances:

Asolo Repertory Theatre will present the world premiere of KNOXVILLE, a new musical by Frank Galati, Stephen Flaherty and Lynn Ahrens, opening April 10 (with previews starting April 3). The musical reunites the Tony Award®-winning creative team behind Broadway's Ragtime (1998). Frank Galati, an Asolo Rep associate artist, also directs the production, which will run through April 25. The world premiere of KNOXVILLE is made possible by a generous grant from The Roy Cockrum Foundation.

Mosaic Theater Company of DC launches its 5th season this month with the DC premiere of Lynn Nottage's Fabulation, Or The Re-Education of Undine, previewing August 21 (see our August 1 Fabulation press release for opening night information, and our March 29 a?oe#Wokeseason5a?? release for full season line-up), exactly one month after the close of the most successful show in Mosaic's history, the co-production of Kelvin Roston Jr.'s Twisted Melodies, which sold out its last week of performances, playing to record crowds and box office, providing the capstone to a season of transformative artistic and fundraising achievements. 

Due to demand, Berkeley Rep has announced that the world premiere musical of Kiss My Aztec! will extend for an additional week of performances. The high-energy show directed by Artistic Director Tony Taccone and co-written by Taccone and John Leguizamo was originally scheduled to close on July 14, but will now run through Sunday, July 21.

Full casting has been announced for the American premiere of INK, written by Olivier Award winner James Graham (Labour of Love, Privacy, Finding Neverland) and directed by two-time Olivier Award winner, Tony and BAFTA Award nominee Almeida Theatre Artistic Director Rupert Goold (King Charles III).

From Founding Artistic Director, Ari Roth: 'The eight amazing plays in Mosaic's 5th Anniversary Season offer up Stages of Awakening-urgent, exhilarating and humble-that hurtle our characters, and by extension, us, forward to new levels of awareness, puncturing bubbles of pretension along the way. To be 'woke' is to be no longer in the dark about what's happening around us; about the systems of oppression and persistence of racism that permeate daily life. But it can be tricky terrain, these states of 'wokeness,' leading to pats-on-the-back of self- congratulations and new forms of denial. Our extraordinary playwrights are hip to our follies and foibles, just as they're poised to wake us up to the realities of our moment and the relevance of history still knocking on our door.

Berkeley Repertory Theatre today announced the full cast for the world premiere of Kiss My Aztec! John Leguizamo teams up with Artistic Director Tony Taccone for this musical comedy, following their collaboration on the hit one-man show Latin History for Morons, which received its world premiere at Berkeley Rep before heading to Broadway. Leguizamo will serve as co-writer and co-lyricist only for Kiss My Aztec! - 11 other talented actors will perform in this production. Taccone will also direct.

Asolo Repertory Theatre and the FSU/Asolo Conservatory for Actor Training have announced their 2019-20 seasons on March 25.

MTC's INK will begin previews Tuesday, April 2 prior to a Wednesday, April 24 opening night at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre (261 West 47th Street).

In a fitting conclusion to his illustrious tenure at STC, Michael Kahn is bringing a dream project to the stage. 'I've always wanted to do all of The Oresteia,' he says. 'When I was in college, we read the whole Oresteia, and I was completely fascinated by the story, by the form, by the relationships, by the incredible depths of what it was about-violence, revenge, and the search for human justice.'

Full casting has been announced for the American premiere of INK, written by Olivier Award winner James Graham (Labour of Love, Privacy, Finding Neverland) and directed by two-time Olivier Award winner, Tony and BAFTA Award nominee Almeida Theatre Artistic Director Rupert Goold (King Charles III).

Asolo Repertory Theatre will proudly present the world premiere of KNOXVILLE in spring 2020. This moving and innovative musical will feature lyrics by Lynn Ahrens, music by Stephen Flaherty and will be adapted and directed by Frank Galati, reuniting the dynamic Tony Award-winning creative team behind Ragtime, one of the most beloved musicals of all time. KNOXVILLE is based on James Agee's Pulitzer Prize-winning autobiographical novel A Death in the Family and based, in part, on the play All The Way Home by Tad Mosel.  

Berkeley Repertory Theatre today announced that Kiss My Aztec!, a world premiere musical written by John Leguizamo and Tony Taccone, will fill the final slot of the previously announced 2018-19 subscription season. The musical, directed by Taccone, will be the final production of his tenure as Michael Leibert Artistic Director and cap his storied 33-year career at Berkeley Rep.

Lynne Meadow (Artistic Director) and Barry Grove (Executive Producer) have just announced the American premiere of the Almeida Theatre production of Ink, written by Olivier Award winner James Graham (Labour of Love, Privacy, Finding Neverland) and directed by two-time Olivier Award winner, Tony and BAFTA Award nominee, and Almeida Theatre Artistic Director Rupert Goold (King Charles III, Enron) on Broadway as part of Manhattan Theatre Club's upcoming 2018-2019 season.

From internationally-celebrated novel, to world-premiere stage adaptation, to groundbreaking online event. Late Chilean author/poet Roberto Bolaño's 2666, co-adapted and co-directed by Goodman Theatre Artistic Director Robert Falls and Chicago-based playwright Seth Bockley, is now streaming.

Steppenwolf Theatre Company Artistic Director Anna D. Shapiro and Executive Director David Schmitz proudly unveiled today the 2018/19 Season.

Michael Kahn today announces Shakespeare Theatre Company's 2018-2019 Season. With two world premieres from celebrated playwrights, a multiple Tony Award-winning presentation, a dynamic adaptation of a classic novel, two Shakespeare plays and a group of acclaimed directors and artists, it is an ambitious grand finale for STC Artistic Director Michael Kahn, who will retire from the company at the end of the Season.