Sis News

The journey takes us to a small southern town, 1945. More precisely, to the kitchen and adjacent back yard of the Addams family on the eve of a wedding. The action plays out over a few days in late August and tells the story of 12-year-old tomboy Frankie. Frankie's mother died when she was born, and her father is distant. Her closest companions are the family's African American maid, Berenice Sadie Brown, and her six-year-old cousin, John Henry West. She is awkward, has no friends, and dreams of going away with her brother and his bride-to-be.

Thirty years after composer Mark-Anthony Turnage and director Jonathan Moore's trailblazing opera Greek premiered at the ENO, it's apparent from this new production, part of Arcola Theatre's Grimeborn Opera Festival 2018, that it's lost none of the punchy, punk attitude that made it such an innovative tour-de-force.

Nashville's iconic Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre is back and better than ever! After some six months - and 50 or more years since its debut - the newly renovated and gorgeously appointed Chaffin's Barn has reopened with a rousing production of Sister Act, the habit-forming musical that played to sold-out audiences last summer.

'Gabby Duran & the Unsittables' has received a straight-to-series order, and production is currently underway in Vancouver for a 2019 premiere on Disney Channel. Showrunners and writers Mike Alber and Gabe Snyder ('Kirby Buckets') serve as executive producers alongside Joe Nussbaum ('Just Add Magic'). Nzingha Stewart ('Grey's Anatomy,' 'Good Girls') will direct the first episode. Based upon the novel written by Elise Allen and Daryle Conners, this single-cam live-action comedy series stars 12-year-old newcomer Kylie Cantrall as the titular character. 

George M. Cohan has been attributed to being the father of the American Musical, whose works are the very roots of Broadway and musical theater that we know today. Without his numerous contributions to the American theater, Broadway as we all know it probably wouldn't even exist. This is the idea that's drummed rather loudly and patriotically by the ending of YANKEE DOODLE DANDY, the 2004 stage musical now in the midst of its Southern California regional premiere via Musical Theatre West. A fairly entertaining, if inescapably old-fashioned jukebox musical that paints rather broad strokes rather than giving a deep dive into Cohan's life story, this new production continues performances at the Carpenter Center for the Performing Arts in Long Beach through July 22, 2018.

The U.S. tour of the multi-Tony Award-winning THE HUMANS completes its coast-to-coast trek landing at the Ahmanson Theatre, with the reunion of five of its original Broadway actors, including Reed Birney and Jayne Houdyshell reprising their Tony Award-winning roles of the patriarch and matriarch of the Blake clan. We had the opportune chance to chat with Cassie Beck, who originated the role of Aimee, the older sister in this loving, but dysfunctional Blake family, as they gather for a Thanksgiving meal at the new apartment of younger sis Brigid and her boyfriend Richard.

World of Wonder, the creative minds behind Emmy® award-winning RuPaul's Drag Race, MILLION DOLLAR LISTING franchise, and Mapplethorpe: Look at the Pictures, announces today its summer programming slate for its owned and operated subscription service WOW Presents Plus. The nine shows, ranging from animated and documentary series to scripted dramas, join the service's robust content offerings.

American Public Television (APT), the original home to public television's culinary experts and sponsor of the Create Cooking Challenge 2018, announced today that two new video stars have joined its ranks. Selected from a nationwide pool of entries by judges who are among public television's best known chefs, Kiya Schnorr from New York City, claims the Grand Prize, receiving $4,000 and production equipment valued at approximately $1,000 to finance and produce a web series of 10 two-minute videos to appear on CreateTV.com. Second Prize Winner, Kristina Vanni, also from New York City, was awarded $1,000 and production equipment valued at approximately $1,000 to finance and produce a web series of three, two-minute videos for CreateTV.com. Distributed and produced by APT, WNET New York and WGBH Boston, Create is a national channel carried by 238 local public television stations and features lifestyle content: cooking, travel, home improvement, gardening and arts & crafts.

HERE (Kristin Marting, Founding Artistic Director, and Kim Whitener, Executive Director) is proud to close their 25th anniversary season with the commissioned world premiere of American Weather, a new work by director and designer Chris Green, a member of the HERE Artist Residency Program since 2016. With a bittersweet verve, American Weather is a visceral work of material performance inspired by daily life in America.

The Seattle Art Fair, presented by AIG, is proud to announce the exhibitor list for its fourth edition. This year's Seattle Art Fair will take place August 2 - 5 2018 at the CenturyLink Field Event Center.

For three years, I have obsessed over the Original Broadway Cast Album of Lin-Manuel Miranda's ingeniously constructed, powerfully-rendered musical masterpiece HAMILTON, mostly because it just wasn't possible for me to see the show at its home at the Richard Rodgers Theatre in New York. Fast forward to Fall of 2017 and the show finally makes its long stop in Los Angeles. I snagged a ticket and it was transcendent. Fast forward again to now May 2018, and the show's second national tour has finally arrived in my back yard at OC's Segerstrom Center for the Arts in Costa Mesa for a three-week run through May 27. This production not only successfully reignited my love for this show, but it has also promptly solidified it as, in my humble opinion, one of the best musicals of all time. Apart from being one of the most undeniably creative stage shows ever produced for the American theater, HAMILTON is also one of the most deeply moving and shrewdly intelligent stage musicals I have ever experienced---made even better thanks to an insanely talented ensemble cast that raps, sings, and acts their way into this gripping, very American story. All that hype? Completely justified.

Totem Pole Playhouse, America's beloved summer theatre, located in Caledonia State Park between Gettysburg and Chambersburg, PA, will open its 68th summer season with the Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice musical Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat starring Broadway veteran, Matt Rosell from Les Miserables, as 'Joseph' and Marie Eife as the 'Narrator.'

RiceGum and Alissa Violet just received platinum digital song certification by the RIAA for their viral single 'It's EveryNight Sis.' The diss track, directed at Jake Paul's 'It's Everyday Bro,' charted on Billboard's Hot 100 chart and the music video has amassed over 135 million views to date. 2018 is shaping up to be the year of Rice, the megastar just starred in Monster's Super Bowl LII commercial with Iggy Azalea.

Never Before Available on Digital Platforms, THE CAROL BURNETT SHOW: THE LOST EPISODES, Premieres on iTunes and Amazon on 3/9

The combined creative genius of director Michael Michetti and dramaturg Fanshen Cox DiGiovanni have re-imagined the Tennessee Williams' classic A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE into a stunning, relevant update to present time. With a very talented cast of many racial backgrounds, Williams' words of insult and prejudice take on new significance to our present culture.

JAZZLAND: in Concert, a new musical inspired by Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, and set in Harlem, circa the 1930s at the height of the Harlem Renaissance, will begin rehearsals in March, and is scheduled for a limited run at the HSA Theatre, 649 Saint Nicholas Avenue, in New York City.  Performances are scheduled for two consecutive weekends, beginning on Friday, May 11 through Sunday, May 20.

About once a year, something unique happens in Tacoma theatre. A situation-comedy for the stage about three life-long friends who meet every day at a Tacoma coffee house, will tickle our collective funny bone for a seventh time.

Lloyd Sun's play, "American Hwangap", currently playing at West of Lenin in association with SIS Productions, by its very nature should be about connection and reconnection. Unfortunately, the play itself lacks the depth needed to form those connections and the pacing of the production doesn't help.