Royal Shakespeare Company News

Falcon Theatre will present Troubadour Theater Company's Walkin' in a Winter One-Hit-Wonderland, directed by Matt Walker, the third production of the Falcon Theatre's 2013-2014 Subscription Season.

This holiday season, the American Repertory Theater (A.R.T.) at Harvard continues its partnership with the Greater Boston Food Bank by hosting a major food drive alongside its production of The Heart of Robin Hood.

Music Box Theatre expands its Stage-to-Screen programming this winter, importing even more captured live stage performances from the UK than ever before. Additional programming includes a new collaboration with the UK's Royal Shakespeare Company kicking off December 7 and 18 with Richard II, starring Doctor Who's David Tennant, beamed from the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon.

Rupert Goold, The Almeida Theatre's Artistic Director, directs the World Premiere ofAmerican Psycho, a new musical thriller with book by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa and music and lyrics by Duncan Sheik, based on the novel by Bret Easton Ellis. It will run beginning tonight, 3 December 2013 to 25 January 2014 with Press Night on 12 December.

I recently sat down to chat with Jane Lapotaire in her dressing room at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre as she prepared for a matinee performance of Richard II. As we talked, Lapotaire chortled over a greeting card (sent by a long time actor friend) that featured a spotted pig wearing a crown. Lapotaire explained the joke: the pig was a Gloucester Old Spot--a sly reference to Lapotaire's role as the Duchess of Gloucester in the production of Richard II currently playing to sell-out crowds.

The Royal Shakespeare Company's (RSC) production of William Shakespeare's RICHARD II with David Tennant in the title role opened last night to rave reviews. The production will be shown across the US and Canada from today, December 3, 2013 to January 2, 2014 as the premiere broadcast of 'Live from Stratford-upon Avon,' a program that will screen RSC productions from Shakespeare's home town around the world.

The unknown play written by Orson Welles and Cole Porter Around The World, based on Jules Verne's Around The World in 80 Days, is to play a series of benefit performances in London's Sadler's Wells and New York City's Mint Theater. The performances are fundraising events for The Lost Musicals Charitable Trust (UK). This production marks the first time it will be seen in NYC since the original production in 1946. Some 70 years after the original Broadway production, a new generation of New Yorkers will get the rare opportunity of seeing Around The World.

The award, which was set up for theatre professionals who do not describe themselves as playwrights to showcase their writing talent, was judged by David Lan, Mark Ravenhill, Mike Bradwell, Nina Steiger and Julia Tyrell.

According to the Chicago Tribune, Broadway veteran Louise Pitre will lead GYPSY when it plays Chicago Shakespeare Theatre next year. Directed by Gary Griffin, the production will run at Chicago Shakespeare's Courtyard Theater, February 6- March 23.

Additional casting was announced today 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 (249 West 45th Street). The official opening night for LES MISERABLES is Sunday, March 23.

Today the Donmar Warehouse announced the full cast of Versailles, Peter Gill's new play about the legacy of the decisions made at the end of WWI, and an accompanying series of talks entitled Impossible Conversations, which will bring together some of today's most important thinkers to discuss the Great War and its legacy. The full cast of Versailles will beFrancesca Annis, Helen Bradbury, Barbara Flynn, Christopher Godwin, Selina Griffiths, Tom Hughes, Tamla Kari, Edward Killingback, Gwilym Lee, Adrian Lukis, Josh O'Connor, Simon Williams and Eleanor Yates.

Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart star with Billy Crudup and Shuler Hensley in NO MAN'S LAND and Waiting for Godot directed by Sean Mathias. This limited engagement repertory season is now playing at the Cort Theatre (138 West 48th Street) where it will run through March 2 only. For performance schedule and more information, visitTwoPlaysInRep.com. Below you can check out photos of McKellen in the BroadwayWorld.com series 'In The Spotlight' by acclaimed photographer Walter McBride!

In an interview with The Huffington Post, Stephen Moyer, who portrays Bill Compton in HBO's True Blood spoke about the final season of the drama series.

Move over Grinch; Santa Claus is coming to town and taking up residence at Rubicon Theatre in Ventura! Rubicon's November/ December HOLIDAY CENTRAL calendar offers a sparkling array of more than 35 shows and events for all ages. The festivities begin with the return of a holiday revue with six Broadway singers and a local children's chorus; followed by a late-night adult comedy presented in a cabaret setting; a poetic reading of wartime love letters; and culminating with an enchanting new musical from the Tony and Olivier Award-winning director of Les Miserables and Nicholas Nickleby and the creators of Jane Eyre and Daddy Long Legs, who will have a five-week residency at Rubicon during the holidays.

The Library Theatre Company's reputation for the quality of its Christmas shows is second-to-none, and this year's production, Wanted! Robin Hood, a brand-new adaptation of the magical tale of the legendary hero of Sherwood Forest, suitable for everyone aged six upwards, promises to be one of its very best. The show will run tonight, 29 November 2013 - Saturday 11 January 2014.

Sheffield Theatres will welcome Tom Edden as Fagin in Artistic Director Daniel Evans' production of Lionel Bart's Oliver!. The production runs from today 29 November 2013 until Saturday 25 January 2014 at the Crucible Theatre.

The nation's most beloved spectacle, the Annual Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, returns for the 87th year of magic on Thursday, Nov. 28 (9 a.m.-noon) throughout the country on NBC. Check out the wonderful cast of MATILDA performing below!

Once again, Coventry's Belgrade Theatre is covering all bases this Christmas, with festive fun for the family on the Main Stage in its traditional pantomime Jack and the Beanstalk, and a yuletide treat for grown-ups in its brand new B2 Xmas Show, Oh No It Isn't!, starring RSC actress Katy Stephens.

Milly Shapiro, Bailey Ryon, Oona Laurence and Sophia Gennusa, the Tony-winning leading ladies from Broadway's Matilda The Musical, will depart the production within the next two months. The girls revealed in a recent interview with the Wall Street Journal that they will be leaving to make room for a new crop of girls- the 'Newtildas'.

Nigel Redden, director of the Lincoln Center Festival, and Rebecca Robertson, President and Executive Producer, Park Avenue Armory, today announced that the two organizations will co-present The Passenger, Mieczyslaw Weinberg's uncompromising 1968 opera about the Holocaust, performed by Houston Grand Opera and directed by David Pountney, in its New York premiere performances July 10, 12 and 13 at Lincoln Center Festival 2014. Pountney's production will have its U.S. premiere on January 18, 2014 at Houston Grand Opera.