Royal Shakespeare Company News

Frank Kafka's terrifying but bizarrely comic story Metamorphosis bursts onto the stage in a theatrically explosive new version by renowned British playwright and director David Farr (Associate Director of Royal Shakespeare Company) and actor/director Gisli Örn Gardarsson, of the award-winning Icelandic theatre company Vesturport.

Turn to Flesh Productions presents the world premiere of Cupid & Psyche: A New Play in Blank Verse written and directed by Emily C. A. Snyder running at The Barrow Group Theatre beginningFebruary 13th. The cast features James Parenti, Erin Nelson, Laura Hill, Gwen Sisco, Parker Madison, Stanley Burturla, Laura Iris Hill, Kelly Zekas, Patrick Marran and Jon Adam Ross.

Actors From The London Stage, an international touring theater troupe based in London and the University of Notre Dame in the U.S., will be in residency at Rice University February 18-20.

Trustus Theatre is bringing Bruce Norris' Pulitzer Prize, Tony, and Olivier Award-winning comedy Clybourne Park to the Thigpen Main Stage. This show, a response to Lillian Hellman's A Raisin in the Sun, is a provocative and humorous look at racial relations and reactions in America. Clybourne Park is directed by award-winning guest director Jim O'Connor, and opens on the Thigpen Main Stage Friday January 24th at 8:00pm. The show runs through February 8th, 2014. Tickets may be purchased at www.trustus.org.

Anthony Freud, general director of Lyric Opera of Chicago, announced today that the company will present a new production of Richard Wagner's monumental four-opera masterpiece, Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung) starting in 2016-17.

Natascha McElhone will play Alex Forrest in the world stage premiere of Fatal Attraction. Written by James Dearden and directed by Trevor Nunn, Fatal Attraction will open at the Theatre Royal Haymarket on 25 March 2014, with previews on 8 March and is booking to 21 June 2014. Designs are by Rob Jones with lighting by Paul Pyant and sound by Paul Groothuis.

The Trap Door Theatre presents JUDITH, A PARTING FROM THE BODY, written by Howard Barker and directed by Zeljko Djukic. The cast features Kevin Cox, Stacie Beth Green, and Nicole Wiesner. The show will open on Thursday, January 23, 2014 at 8PM and is set to close on Saturday, March 1, 2014 at 8PM.

Following its critically acclaimed 2009 engagement in the Royal National Theatre in London, Martin Crimp's new translation of Ferdinand Bruckner's 'Pains of Youth' will finally have its New York premiere in a production of The Cake Shop Theater Company at the Access Theater, 380 Broadway, February 13 to March 2.

Jamie Wilson, Paul Elliott and Duncan C Weldon for Triumph Entertainment are delighted to present the World Premiere of 'Robin Cousins' ICE - The Skating Stage Experience', on national tour opening at Southampton Mayflower Theatre today, 15 January 2014.

Sir Ian McKellen, star of Broadway's No Man's Land & Waiting for Godot, co-published a letter to Vladimir Putin on the rights of Russia's gay citizens.

Rehearsal begins today at Chicago Shakespeare Theater CST) for an unprecedented pairing of productions that will illuminate the work of composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim: Gypsy (CST's Courtyard Theater, February 6-March 23) and Road Show (Upstairs at Chicago Shakespeare, March 13-May 4), both directed by CST Associate Artistic Director Gary Griffin.

The Ohio State University Department of Theatre presents As You Like It, by William Shakespeare, adapted for young audiences and directed by Maureen Ryan. The show plays on Friday, February 7 at 10 am and 7:30 pm; Saturday, February 8 at 3 pm and 7:30 pm; and Sunday, February 9 at 3 pm at Lincoln Theatre, 769 East Long St.

A Finborough Theatre commission, and another in its series premiering the work of Canada's most acclaimed playwrights, the UK debut of award-winning Canadian playwright Matthew Edison - The Domino Heart, starring Amanda Hale - nominated for two Evening Standard Awards for Outstanding Newcomer and Best Actress, plays a limited run of nine Sunday and Monday evening and Tuesday matinee performances from 2 February 2014 (Press Night: Monday, 3 February 2014 at 7.30pm ).

Trustus Theatre is bringing Bruce Norris' Pulitzer Prize, Tony, and Olivier Award-winning comedy Clybourne Park to the Thigpen Main Stage. This show, a response to Lillian Hellman's A Raisin in the Sun, is a provocative and humorous look at racial relations and reactions in America. Clybourne Park is directed by award-winning guest director Jim O'Connor, and opens on the Thigpen Main Stage Friday January 24th at 8:00pm. The show runs through February 8th, 2014. Tickets may be purchased at www.trustus.org.

Rehearsals begin Monday, January 13 in New York for Cameron Mackintosh's acclaimed new production of Alain Boublil & Claude-Michel Schonberg's Tony Award-winning musical masterpiece LES MISERABLES, which returns to Broadway beginning Saturday, March 1 at the Imperial Theatre. The official opening night for LES MISERABLES is Sunday, March 23. The cast of the new LES MIZ features Ramin Karimloo (West End and current acclaimed Toronto star of LES MISERABLES, and The Phantom of the Opera and Love Never Dies in London) as Jean Valjean; Will Swenson (Tony Award-nominated star of Broadway's Hair and Priscilla Queen of the Desert) as Javert; Caissie Levy (West End and Broadway star of Ghost and Hair and Elphaba in Broadway's Wicked) as Fantine; Nikki M. James (Tony Award winner for The Book of Mormon) as Eponine; Andy Mientus (who captured the hearts of TV viewers with his portrayal of Kyle Bishop on the NBC series 'Smash') as Marius; talented newcomer Charlotte Maltby as Cosette; acclaimed Canadian actor Cliff Saunders (The 39 Steps) as Thenardier; Tony Award-nominee Keala Settle (Hands on a Hardbody) as Madame Thenardier and Kyle Scatliffe, (the West End production of The Scottsboro Boys) as the revolutionary Enjolras.

Grammy Award-nominated singer and renowned interpreter of the Great American Songbook,Michael Feinstein, returns to Carnegie Hall with a special concert featuring a variety of love songs in celebration of Valentine's Day, on Friday, February 14 at 8:00 p.m. He is joined by special guests Laura Osnes (Broadway's Cinderella, and Maria in Carnegie Hall's The Sound of Music) andJulian Ovenden (Season Four of PBS's Downton Abbey, the West End's Finding Neverland, and as John F. Kennedy in the 'Bombshell' production on NBC's Smash).

Following a critically acclaimed and sell-out run at the Finborough Theatre, the first production in sixty years of R. C. Sherriff's supernatural drama, The White Carnation transfers for a limited three week run to Jermyn Street Theatre, opening on Tuesday, 4 February 2014 (Press Night: Thursday, 6 February 2014 at 7.30pm). The show stars Michael Praed (Design for Living - West End, Robin of Sherwood, Dynasty) who joins the existing superlative Finborough Theatre cast, which includes acclaimed newcomer Daisy Boulton and Benjamin Whitrow (Mr. Bennet in BBC's Pride and Prejudice).

In celebration of Pinter's long friendship with 92Y's Poetry Center and the centenary of Swann's Way, 92Y presents a staged reading of the play (Remembrance of Things Past), affording us "the pleasure of providing yet another angle of perception upon a work so elaborate and many-faceted it never fails to give back new light," wrote John Updike.

Single tickets are on sale now for the spring production of ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA at The Public Theater, beginning performances on Tuesday, February 18. Part of the international collaboration between The Public Theater, the Royal Shakespeare Company, and Miami's GableStage, ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA features Jonathan Cake as Antony and Joaquina Kalukango as Cleopatra and is directed and edited by Tarell Alvin McCraney. This Shakespearean tragedy, fresh from engagements in Stratford-upon-Avon and Miami's Colony Theatre, will run through March 23 in The Public's Anspacher Theater, with an official press opening on March 5. Single tickets can be purchased by calling (212) 967-7555, www.publictheater.org, or in person at the Taub Box Office at The Public Theater at 425 Lafayette Street.

American Repertory Theater (A.R.T.) has scheduled American Sign Language (ASL) interpreted performances and Audio Described performances for blind and low-visioned audience for its production of The Heart of Robin Hood during its run in January 2014.