Signature Theatre News

The Old Globe today announced that its 2018-2019 Season will kick off with the world premiere of the new musical Heart of Rock and Roll, inspired by the songs of Huey Lewis and the News, featuring a book by Jonathan Abrams and story by Tyler Mitchell and Jonathan Abrams. It will be directed by Gordon Greenberg with choreography by Lorin Latarro and music supervision, arrangements, and orchestrations by Brian Usifer. Heart of Rock and Roll will bepresented by special arrangement with Tyler Mitchell, W. Leo Kiely, Bill Kiely, Whitney Kiely Moehle, and Tamar Climan. Mr. Lewis released a brief video to Rolling Stone about the show (with a surprise guest cameo)-click here to see for yourself!

Freelance Scenic Designer Paige Hathaway will receive USITT's 2018 Rising Star Award.

Magician's sick in bed?! Too bad! THE SHOW MUST GO ON! The Magician's Assistant  is a physical comedy about the transformative power of believing in yourself and asking for help. Everything seems under control until the Magician's lovely Assistant blunders onstage and has to entertain the crowd in the magician's absence.

The Public Theater (Artistic Director, Oskar Eustis; Executive Director, Patrick Willingham) announced complete casting today for the world premiere of MLIMA'S TALE, written by two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Lynn Nottage. Directed by Obie Award winner Jo Bonney, MLIMA'S TALE continues The Public's Astor Anniversary Season at their landmark downtown home on Lafayette Street, celebrating 50 years of new work and the 50th Anniversary of HAIR. MLIMA'S TALE begins performances on Tuesday, March 27 and runs through Sunday, May 20 in The Public's Martinson Hall, with an official press opening on Sunday, April 15.

Barrington Stage Company (BSC), under the leadership of Artistic Director Julianne Boyd, announces the 2018 Associate Artists - director Joe Calarco, costume designer Jennifer Caprio, music director Vadim Feichtner, and actress Elizabeth Stanley.

Good morning BroadwayWorld! Today's top stories: THE AMATEURS begins previews, check out photos of Kendra Kassebaum in MAMMA MIA!, first look at photos of HEY, LOOK ME OVER! and more!

The Horse in Motion announces their upcoming production, an immersive multi-room staging of Hamlet in the historic Stimson-Green Mansion.

Theatre for a New Audience (TFANA; Jeffrey Horowitz, Founding Artistic Director) has added a performance (February 8 at 9pm) to its critically lauded world premiere production of Adrienne Kennedy's He Brought Her Heart Back in a Box, directed by Evan Yionoulis. The run will conclude, as a scheduled, on February 11.

The little OPERA theatre of ny (LOTNY), in collaboration with New York based period ensemble New Vintage Baroque, presents the New York City Premiere of Piramo e Tisbe at Baruch Performing Arts Center, 55 Lexington Avenue, NYC, from March 22-25, 2018, with performances on Thursday through Saturday at 7:30pm and Sunday at 3pm.  Tickets are $35 and are available at https://web.ovationtix.com/trs/cal/35006.   Based upon the story of Pyramus and Thisbe from Ovid's Metamorphoses with a libretto by Marco Coltellini, Piramo e Tisbe is byJohann Adolph Hasse, a pivotal opera composer of the 18th Century celebrated for his sweet and tender melodies. Sung in Italian with English supertitles.

Seattle Repertory Theatre reveals a sneak peek at its 2018-2019 season, which will include the Tony and Grammy Award-winning musical from Lin-Manuel Miranda, In The Heights. Set to perform on the Bagley Wright Theatre stage in late 2018, In The Heights was conceived by Lin-Manuel Miranda who also wrote the music and lyrics, with book by Quiara Alegria Hudes.

The nominees for the 2018 Helen Hayes Awards were announced on February 5, 2018. One of the country's most prestigious cultural honors, The Helen Hayes Awards recognizes and celebrates excellence in professional theatre throughout the Washington metropolitan area. The National Theatre's Helen Hayes Gallery set the scene for the announcement of nominees in 47 categories for artistic excellence, and the theatre companies eligible for the 2017 John Aniello Award for Outstanding Emerging Theatre Company. The recipient of the 2018 Helen Hayes Tribute will be announced shortly.

In response to popular demand, Soho Rep. (Sarah Benson, Artistic Director; Cynthia Flowers, Executive Director) extends the world premiere of Aleshea Harris's Relentless Award-winning Is God Is, directed by Taibi Magar by two weeks, through March 25. In this play, which dauntlessly cracks jokes as it eviscerates, twin sisters Anaia (Alfie Fuller) and Racine (Dame-Jasmine Hughes) undertake a murderous journey from the Dirty South to the California desert, seeking payback for a horrendous act. Is God Is treats both morality and genre as notions to be exploded, drawing on the ancient, the modern, the tragic, the Spaghetti Western, hip-hop and Afropunk in its subversion of theatrical constructs.

The Barrow Group Theatre Company (Seth Barrish and Lee Brock, Co-Artistic Directors; Robert Serrell, Executive Director), recipient of a Drama Desk and Lucille Lortel Award, concludes their 2017-2018 season with the New York revival of A Walk in the Woods, a play by Lee Blessing. Directed by Donna Jean (DJ) Fogel, the two-member cast features K. Lorrel Manning as John Honeyman, an American negotiator and Martin Van Treuren as Andrey Botvinnik, a career Russian diplomat.

Signature Theatre has announced the world premiere production of the new musical August Rush. The musical, adapted from the Oscar and GRAMMY Award-nominated film, features music and lyrics by Mark Mancina, book and lyrics by Glen Berger, and orchestrations and additional music by David Metzger. This premiere production will be directed by John Doyle. August Rush will run from February 5, 2019 - March 3, 2019 in Signature Theatre's MAX Theatre. The production will then transfer to Paramount Theatre in Aurora, Illinois and will run from April 24, 2019 - June 2, 2019.

Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre, Nashville's iconic professional theater, opens its 2018 season - its 52nd! - with an entertaining, if somewhat overly long, production of Disney's Freaky Friday, the new musical with a starry musical theater pedigree.

Signature Theatre is proud to present the world premiere of 4,380 Nights by DC playwright Annalisa Dias. The production is directed by Kathleen Akerley (Artistic Director of Longacre Lea) and features Ahmad Kamal(Woolly Mammoth's KISS) as Malik Essaid/El Hadj El Kaim, Michael John Casey (Shakespeare Theatre's Othello, Folger Theatre's Henry V) as Bud Abramson/Man, Rex Daugherty (Signature's Shakespeare's R&J) as Luke/Colonel Pelissier, and Lynette Rathnam (Ford Theatre's Death of a Salesman) as Woman (complete cast and creative team bios are below). 4,380 Nights runs from January 16 through February 18 in Signature Theatre's ARK Theatre. 4,380 Nights is Signature's submission to the 2018 Women's Voices Theater Festival.

BroadwayWorld has a first look at Signature Theatre's memorial production of Edward Albee's At Home at the Zoo. Check out the photos below!

Signature Theatre (Paige Evans, Artistic Director; James Houghton, Founder) will host several special events at The Pershing Square Signature Center (480 West 42nd Street between 9th and 10th Avenues) this winter, the company announced today.

The Howard County Arts Council is pleased to announce the 21st Annual Celebration of the Arts in Howard County on Saturday, March 24, 2018 at the Peter and Elizabeth Horowitz Visual and Performing Arts Center, Howard Community College (HCC), Columbia, MD. Buddy and Sue Emerson, active supporters of community and charitable organizations in Howard County and statewide, will act as Honorary Chairs for the evening. Myron 'Mo' Dutterer, recipient of the 2003 Howie Award for Outstanding Arts Educator and a pillar of the Howard County theatre community, will serve as Event Emcee.

Berkeley Repertory Theatre announced that due to scheduling conflicts, Nilaja Sun's Pike St. will be replaced by What the Constitution Means to Me as the final production in its 2017-18 season. Written by and starring award-winning playwright and actress Heidi Schreck and directed by Oliver Butler, What the Constitution Means to Me will have its world premiere in the Peet's Theatre.