Shakespeare & Company News

The Atlanta Shakespeare Company at The Shakespeare Tavern Playhouse presents William Luce's Brontë: A Portrait of Charlotte.

On February 28th, Southern Connecticut State University Department of Theatre kicks off the spring half of its 2019-20 season with Red Velvet by Lolita Chakrabarti. This production of Red Velvet traverses Black History Month and Women's History Month.

Theatre for a New Audience (TFANA; Jeffrey Horowitz, Founding Artistic Director) will host a celebration of Andrew Weems (1961-2019). The celebration will take place at Polonsky Shakespeare Center (262 Ashland Place, Brooklyn), TFANA's home, on Monday, February 17 at 7pm.

The Second City's knockout show She the People is back at it again in 2020! The all-female, all-funny show directed by Carly Heffernan welcomes back returning ensemble members Carisa Barreca, Alex Bellisle, Katie Caussin, Sayjal Joshi, and Emma Pope with new cast member Lachrisa Grandberry joining. Other creative team members include Mary Mahoney (Music Director/Original Music/Sound Designer) and Abby Beggs (Lighting Designer/Stage Manager).

Shakespeare & Company is excited to announce its 2020 summer season, May 21 - October 18, 2020. Under the theme 'The Labyrinth of Love' the season includes Shakespeare titles: King Lear, Much Ado About Nothing, The Comedy of Errors, and, in a special workshop production, Measure for Measure. The contemporary plays this season are The Lifespan of a Fact by Jeremy Kareken, David Murrell, and Gordon Farrell; What Rhymes With America, by the Obie Award-winning playwright Melissa James Gibson; Row After Row by Jessica Dickey; Susan Smith Blackburn Award and Obie Award winner My Left Breast by Susan Miller; and Laurence Olivier Award winner Betrayal by Harold Pinter.

Dominic Cooke and Kate Horton launch their company Fictionhouse with a new West End production of C. P. Taylor's GOOD, starring David Tennant, Fenella Woolgar and Elliot Levey. Produced by Fictionhouse and Playful Productions, GOOD will play at the Playhouse Theatre for a strictly limited season from Tuesday 6 October (Press performance Wednesday 14 October).

World-renowned playwright and Tony Award® nominee Ken Ludwig (Murder on the Orient Express, Crazy for You, Lend Me a Tenor), will be in residence at Asolo Repertory Theatre February 19-21. On Wednesday, February 19, following the performance of his adaptation of Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express, Mr. Ludwig will take part in a post-show talk back with Asolo Rep Dramaturg and Literary Manager, James Monaghan. Actor James DeVita, who plays the role of Hercule Poirot, will also be part of the discussion. The talk back is open to all ticket holders for that performance; limited seating will be available to the public, based on availability. In addition, on Friday, February 21, Mr. Ludwig will be the guest speaker at Asolo Rep's Board of Directors Advance at the Embassy Suites in downtown Sarasota.

If we can climb beyond the foothills of the weird norms of the dramatic universe, we can take in how marvelously has Shakespeare anticipated some issues we must confront today. Showing us the Duke's deputy Angelo telling novice nun Isabella that he will save her brother Claudio from the executioner, but as a certain contemporary leader would put it, he a?oeneeds a favor from her, though,a?? or showing us Angelo defending himself from public accusations of sexual harassment by pleading a good reputation we know is maintained only by threats, conspiracy theories, and spurious claims about his accusers, or showing us Angelo getting his way (he thinks) by making promises he has no intention of keeping, Shakespeare conducts us to very familiar territory.

In October of 2019, Dr. Shirley Basfield Dunlap directed the Morgan State University (MSU) commemoration of 400 years of African presence in America. This commemoration continues at MSU this February 21st- 23rd and 27th-29th, 2020 as Dr. Dunlap directs August Wilson's The Piano Lesson from Wilson's Century Cycle, which documents the African-American experience, with each of the 10 plays set in a different decade of the 20th century.

THE 6th ACT presents a world premiere comedy, a heartfelt love letter to all things 99-seat theatre, THE $5 SHAKESPEARE COMPANY, written by Matthew Leavitt (The Boomerang Effect) and directed by Joel Zwick (“My Big Fat Greek Wedding,” Serrano The Musical). THE $5 SHAKESPEARE COMPANY will open on Friday, February 7 at 8pm and run through Sunday, March 8, 2020 at Theatre 68, 5112 Lankershim Blvd. in Hollywood.

Pasadena Playhouse, The State Theater of Californiaoffers a wide variety of educational and community events this winter and spring, beginning with a post- performance talk back with Alfred Molina and the cast of The Father, offering an inside-look at the cast's process preparing for this production.

Gamut Theatre Group is proud to present its upcoming production An Enemy of the People by Henrik Ibsen adapted by Arthur Miller. An Enemy of the People runs February 29th through March 15th with performances Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30 pm and Sundays at 2:30 pm.

The Lyric Stage Company of Boston announced today that Courtney O'Connor has been named as the third Artistic Director of the Lyric Stage Company of Boston. Matt Chapuran continues on as Executive Director, a position he attained in August, 2019.

Arizona Theatre Company will launch its 54th season with Artistic Director Sean Daniel's first fully chosen six-play Main Stage lineup complemented by additional co-productions, nine exciting and innovative local and national collaborations and partnerships and numerous new-work development programs.  

Casting details are announced for the Royal Shakespeare Company's (RSC) 2020 Summer production of The Comedy of Errors, which plays in the Royal Shakespeare Theatre from 25 April 2020. Joining the previously announced Miles Jupp, who will make his RSC debut as Antipholus of Syracuse, is Jonathan Broadbent (Dromio of Syracuse), Justin Edwards (Antipholus of Ephesus), Greg Haiste (Dromio of Ephesus), Georgia Landers (Luciana) and Annette McLaughlin (Adrianna). Directed by Phillip Breen, the production will be cross-cast with The Winter's Tale (from 28 March 2020) and Pericles (from 15 August 2020). All three plays are sponsored by Darwin Escapes.

Les Enfants Terribles and Historic Royal Palaces announce the cast and creative team for a?oeUnited Queendoma?? at Kensington Palace.

Prolific episodic director Joel Zwick's next theatrical foray on the Los Angeles theatre boards will be helming the world premiere of Matthew Leavitt's THE $5 SHAKESPEARE COMPANY, beginning February 7, 2020 at The 6th Act's Theatre 68. This homage to 99-seat theatre in Los Angeles features: Kenajuan Bentley, Emerson Collins, Carolina Espiro, Natalie Lander, Luke McClure, Cindy Nguyen, Andy Robinson, Liza Seneca, Adam J. Smith and Jamie Zwick. Joel managed to take some time out of his multi-tasking to answer a few of my queries.

The African-American Shakespeare Company segues into the second part of its 25thanniversary season with a satire that uses the framework of a trial to put black female stereotypes on the stand as a means of laying out the argument that if African-Americans do not explore their own history and instead allow film, television and advertising to define their reality, they risk losing the tools and resources that have enabled them to survive a hostile world; first staged in 1990, it is the work of playwright Karani Marcia Leslie who spent years as an editor and staff writer for CBS, NBC and FOX with credits that include The Cosby Show and Parenthood

BroadwayWorld is saddened to report that prolific British theatre director Terry Hands passed away today, February 4. He was 79 years old.

This March, one of the leading Shakespearean actors of his generation, Michael Pennington, is to play Prospero for the first time in Jermyn Street Theatre's staging of Shakespeare's final work The Tempest.