Royal Shakespeare Company News

Jeanne Becquet is walking a tightrope without a net. She's trying to keep her family safe and provided for, which requires a certain level of 'cordiality' with the Nazi officer in command of a local occupying force. And she's been managing, however uncomfortably. But all that is about to change in Moira Buffini's Gabriel, beginning its run at Fort Worth's Stage West tonight, January 10. BroadwayWorld has a first look in the photos below!

Join the team behind Broadway's eagerly anticipated MATILDA THE MUSICAL as they take you through the show's journey from Statford-upon-Avon to London's West End to Broadway. Writers Tim Minchin and Dennis Kelly, director Matthew Warchus, designer Rob Howell, choreographer Peter Darling, and actor Lauren Ward, who reprises her role as Miss Honey from London, discuss the thrill of coming to Broadway in "MATILDA THE MUSICAL: Journey to Broadway." Check it out below!

Gay Soper will take over from Sheila Reid, playing Helena, for the latter part of the National Tour of Maurice's Jubilee. Gay will join previously announced Olivier Award winning cast members Nichola McAuliffe (Katie) and Julian Glover (Maurice) playing at Bromley Churchill Theatre (26-30 March), Cambridge Arts Theatre (2-6 April) Theatre Royal, Windsor (8-13 April) and Oxford Playhouse (15-20 April).

Gay Soper will take over from Sheila Reid, playing Helena, for the latter part of the National Tour of Maurice's Jubilee.

Belarus Free Theatre makes its way to the United States in January, despite several police raids last month at underground performance spaces in the capital of Minsk. The raids came on the eve of the company bringing its newest political piece, Minsk, 2011: A Reply to Kathy Acker, to Chicago Shakespeare Theater January 30-February 3, 2013. To foster dialogue and encourage participation, all tickets for this six-performance limited engagement are $20. The piece, which explores the sexual brutality and oppression by the totalitarian regime in Belarus, is one of many award-winning productions by the company, celebrated for creating art based upon the unjustly persecuted people of Belarus.

The Carol Tambor Theatrical Foundation has announced the NY premiere of the critically-acclaimed production of MIDSUMMER [A PLAY WITH SONGS], written and directed by David Greig, with songs by Gordon McIntyre, from the Traverse Theatre in Scotland. MIDSUMMER comes to NY as the 2012 co-winner of the Best of Edinburgh Award given annually by the Carol Tambor Theatrical Foundation.

The Old Globe today announced the complete cast and creative team for the Southern California premiere of The Brothers Size by award-winning playwright Tarell Alvin McCraney. Directed by Tea Alagi?, The Brothers Size will run Jan. 26 - Feb. 24, 2013 in the Sheryl and Harvey White Theatre, part of the Globe's Conrad Prebys Theatre Center. Preview performances run Jan. 26 - Jan. 30. Opening night is Thursday, Jan. 31 at 8:00 p.m. Tickets can be purchased online at www.TheOldGlobe.org, by phone at (619) 23-GLOBE or by visiting the Box Office at 1363 Old Globe Way in Balboa Park.

On the Verge will present Michael Milligan's new play, Mercy Killers, at the Van Fleet Feb. 20th thru March 9th. The Columbus run performed by the author is a part of the ‘Mercy Killers Tour'- a collaboration with Single Payer Action Network. SPAN is organizing performances around Ohio to help raise awareness about the growing dysfunction of the American health care system.

Lyric Opera of Chicago has announced that the respected stage, film and television actor Patrick Stewart will co-host The Second City Guide to the Opera today, January 5 with internationally renowned soprano and Lyric Opera creative consultant Renée Fleming. The opera-themed comedy-variety show will take place at 8 p.m. in the Ardis Krainik Theatre of the Civic Opera House, N. Wacker Drive and Madison Street.

The Stage Newspaper's annual list, The Stage 100, now in its 16th year, has once again listed the top 100 most influential people in UK theatre.

Since its founding in 1992, SITI Company has redefined contemporary theater in the United States through an innovative approach to actor training as well as collaboration and cultural exchange. Company members have taught at Harvard, Columbia, NYU, Juilliard, Bard, Emerson, Royal Shakespeare Company and UCLA, to name a few. As it begins its 20th anniversary season, SITI is proud to announce the establishment of the SITI Conservatory Program, a one-year program that will train the next generation of theater makers.

Jeanne Becquet is walking a tightrope without a net. She's trying to keep her family safe and provided for, which requires a certain level of 'cordiality' with the Nazi officer in command of a local occupying force. And she's been managing, however uncomfortably. But all that is about to change in Moira Buffini's Gabriel, beginning its run at Fort Worth's Stage West on Thursday, January 10. BroadwayWorld has a first look in the photos below!

Last spring, Josepha Penrose, Supervisor of Curriculum and Instruction for Wildwood Public Schools asked artistic director, Gayle Stahlhuth, if East Lynne Theater Company would be interested in being part of an after-school program for Wildwood students. She was applying for the federally funded 21st Century Learning Centers grant. Since the Wildwood School District decided its theme would be visual and performing arts, Penrose believed ELTC would be a good partner. In late August, Penrose received word that the district was awarded the grant and the program must start on October 1.

Simcha Weinstein's uncompromisingly sensible solutions fly in the face of traditional ideas. Showing how having more children can actually be a boon to your bottom line without necessarily increasing your carbon footprint.

Hottest Articles on BroadwayWorld.com from this weekend Sunday, December 23, 2012 - Sunday, December 23, 2012.

Christmas Day 2012 marks the biggest and best day of the year for many Broadway babies around the world, but the anticipatory fervor has little to do with the man with the beard in red and white from the North Pole - you see, the guy in question in this equation is more apt to be seen in red and black and his origins are decidedly a bit more Gallic than Jolly Old St. Nick. The man whom I speak of is, of course, Jean Valjean, the protagonist of Victor Hugo's spellbinding 1862 historical epic LES MISERABLES, a novel which was subsequently adapted into a 1980 concert spectacular and ultimately a 1985 full-fledged stage musical, painstakingly developed through the shepherding of uber producer Cameron Mackintosh, alongside the talents responsible for breathing song into the story - original French composer/lyricist team Claude-Michel Schonberg and Alain Boublil (along with Jean-Marc Natel), to whom Mackintosh added English lyricist Herbert Kretzmer (and also contributor James Fenton). Through a special partnership with the Royal Shakespeare Company, LES MISERABLES: THE MUSICAL premiered at the Barbican Theatre in the West End soon thereafter under the direction of Trevor Nunn and John Caird and opened to largely negative reviews, albeit ecstatic, ebullient audiences. Broadway was next, where it went on to win Tony Awards for Best Musical, Best Actor, Best Featured Actress & Actor and even more (eight total). LES MISERABLES onstage was a hit like few others from then on and the rest, ze say, is history - or, in this case, l'histoire. Yet, on Christmas Day, the next step in the evolution of the worldwide phenomenon commonly and colloquially known as LES MIZ will occur - just days after the Mayan-predicted end of days, no less - and the movie musical adaptation of the stage show will finally become a reality, featuring an all-star cast comprised of Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe, Anne Hathaway, Amanda Seyfried, Eddie Redmayne, Samantha Barks, Aaron Tveit, Sacha Baron Cohen and Helena Bonham Carter, among others. The time has come to hear the people sing onscreen at long, long last. But, first, how is the film?

While many MIZ-heads may have assumed the film adaptation of their beloved musical would never actually come to fruition, here it really is, all too soon available for all to see - lo, more than twenty years after it was first announced byway of an official promo ad in a tour souvenir going as far back as the late-1980s. I was lucky enough to catch an advance screening during the dawning days of December and many small moments, full musical sequences and my first impressions themselves have filled me with a certain kind of inexpressible enrapturing ecstasy heretofore inexperienced, coming as a direct result, no doubt, of the sheer force of power the film exacts in its relentless, barreling, blazingly bravado-bedecked style - a style, I can firmly say, is completely unique in movie history. LES MISERABLES is a lot of things, but, first and foremost, it is that which it is unlike that makes it most remarkable of all; that is: it is unlike any movie musical ever made. And, it is a masterpiece.