Royal Shakespeare Company News

Joaquina Kalukango has just joined DUETS with thewriteteachers.com Volume 5.

Rehearsals began this week for the new West End cast of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child who will start their performances at the Palace Theatre in London's West End on 24 May 2017 following the final performance from the current cast on 21 May 2017. 

Theatre for a New Audience will present the Yale Repertory Theatre production of Samuel Beckett's masterpiece Happy Days. Two-time Academy Award-winner Dianne Wiest (Hannah and Her Sisters, Bullets over Broadway) plays Winnie, widely considered modern drama's pinnacle female role, alongside Jarlath Conroy, who plays Willie, directed by Yale Repertory Theatre Artistic Director James Bundy.

Hampstead Theatre today announces three Hampstead Downstairs Originals which will open this spring.

BATS Improv, located at Fort Mason Center in San Francisco has announced that long time company member, Ken Robertson, will take over as Artistic Director, effectively immediately. Robertson will assume the role previously held by Kasey Klemm who served as Artistic Director since 2011.  Kasey will continue with BATS as a Company member, coach with BATS School of Improv, and a trainer for the BATS' Improv at Work corporate program. www.improv.org

Theatre Royal Bath Productions has today released production photography of Mike Leigh's Abigail's Party starring Amanda Abbington and directed by Sarah Esdaile. Celebrating the 40th anniversary of the classic comedy, the production opened at Theatre Royal Bath and has its official opening night for press on Thursday 6 April at Oxford Playhouse before continuing on its UK Tour and to London's West End. Scroll down for a first look at the cast in action!

Aurora Theatre Company presents the U.S. Premiere of British playwright Steve Waters'(World Music, The Contingency Plan) hit play, TEMPLE. Aurora Artistic Director Tom Ross (Mud Blue Sky, A Bright New Boise, Edward Albee's A Delicate Balance) helms this thought-provoking new play, featuring Paul Whitworth, Sylvia Burboeck, J. Michael Flynn, Sharon Lockwood, Leontyne Mbele-Mbong, and Mike Ryan. TEMPLE plays April 14 through May 14 at the Aurora Theatre in Berkeley. For tickets and information the public can call (510) 843-4822 or visit auroratheatre.org.

With Travesties and David Baddiel: My Family Not the Sitcom taking up residence in the West End, Funny Girl on the road as part of a major national tour, the Menier Chocolate Factory today announces the West End transfer of their current critically acclaimed revival of Terence Rattigan's Love in Idleness.

The Belgrade Theatre is offering up a feast of activities to keep families entertained during the Easter holidays, including the dahl-icious stage production of Fantastic Mr Fox, Easter Bunny's Eggs-ellent Adventure and free cinema screenings.

One of Broadway's greatest stars will join forces with the ultimate authority on all such things for an extraordinary evening of music and merriment at Deconstructing Patti, AnEvening of Broadway Songs and Stories with Patti LuPone and Seth Rudetsky on Sunday, May 14, 2017. The evening benefits Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS.

The Epstein Theatre has announced the full casting for its first ever Shakespeare production.

Join us for an evening celebrating the groundbreaking work of Taylor Mac, American actor, playwright, performance artist, director, producer, and singer-songwriter. Mac's 24-hour, 246-song marathon performance, A 24-Decade History of Popular Music, was hailed by Wesley Morris in the New York Times as "one of the greatest experiences of my life" and was recently named the 2017 recipient of the Edward M. Kennedy Prize for Drama Inspired by American History.

On Monday, May 1, 2017, The New York Pops will celebrate its 34th birthday with a grand gala evening honoring Karen van Bergen, the CEO of Omnicom Public Relations Group, and Tony Award winners Kelli O'Hara and Bartlett Sher, whose collaborations over the last decade have won universal acclaim and whose individual careers represent pinnacles of achievement in the world of theatre. The concert will celebrate the multiyear partnership between the actress and stage director and will bring together artists from the stage and screen.

Gaurav Kripalani will be appointed the new Festival Director designate of the Singapore International Festival of Arts (SIFA) with effect from 1 May 2017. This will be for a tenure of three festivals from 2018 till 2020.  The appointment was announced by the Arts House Limited (AHL), a company of the National Arts Council (NAC) which commissions the annual SIFA. Gaurav will take the helm from outgoing Festival Director Ong Keng Sen, who will see through the 2017 edition which begins in June.

MCC Theater today announced complete casting for the American Premiere of the play The End of Longing, a new play written by and starring 'Friends' star Matthew Perry in his NYC playwriting and stage acting debuts.

Natalie Simpson (Royal Shakespeare Company's recent productions of King Lear, Hamlet and Cymbeline) joins an eleven-strong cast to play Duchess Rosaura alongside the previously announced Stephen Boxer in THE CARDINAL at Southwark Playhouse. James Shirley's tragic masterpiece, directed by Justin Audibert, plays from 26 April - 27 May with a press performance on 28 April.

Wales Millennium Centre and Omidaze Productions present the third and final part of their Shakespeare trilogy in a new 'Romeo and Juliet'. This co-production pairs the well-loved tragedy with aerial circus alongside a series of workshops to explore power and explain our parliamentary systems to schoolchildren.

Producer Jamie Hendry announced this morning that Denise Welch, Gary Wilmot, Craig Mather and Simon Lipkin will join Rufus Hound and Neil McDermott in the major new musical THE WIND IN THE WILLOWS, which will open at the world-famous London Palladium. Scroll down for photos of the cast!

Oregon Shakespeare Festival (OSF) Artistic Director Bill Rauch announced the Festival's 2018 playbill today.

Following the sold-out success of the previous relaxed performances of Matilda The Musical, the Royal Shakespeare Company will present its fourth at the Cambridge Theatre on Sunday 11 June 2017.