Sophocles News

State of the nation stuff at the National Theatre.

The new season opens on Friday, 27 August when favourite funnyman Alan Carr comes to Chester to try out new material on the city's comedy fans. The evening will also include a support act. 

The 2021 BorderLight International Theatre + Fringe Festival announces the lineup for the 2021 BorderLight VIRTUAL Fringe Festival, which includes 33 distinct live streamed and on-demand virtual works, interactive and genre-bending online experiences, as well as self-guided audio adventures.

On the Los Angeles Opera website, Igor Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex is available to stream now thru July 18th. Stravinsky based his opera Oedipus Rex on the ancient Greek tragedy by Sophocles. Oedipus Rex, is staged with minimal movement, which works well with COVID restrictions. A narrator describes the action in English.

Ever creative, theatre artists have made their way through these trying times, whether exploring and sharing digital performance, researching and writing new works, or teaching a variety of online classes. Nevertheless, the excitement of returning to the stage is palpable.

Gary Beck has spent most of his adult life as a theater director and worked as an art dealer when he couldn't earn a living in the theater. He has also been a tennis pro, a ditch digger and a salvage diver. His original plays and translations of Moliere, Aristophanes and Sophocles have been produced Off Broadway.

It was another beautiful day up The Hill. Today’s picnic menu included canned cocktails (they’re better than you’d think), fried chicken and cholate mousse tort from an area café. It did not, unfortunately, include any Cognac.

Storyhouse’s hotly anticipated new adaptation of Sophocles’ Antigone will receive its premiere on the main stage this autumn. Award-winning poet Hollie McNish has created the modern retelling of the Greek masterpiece which will be staged from October 13-23. 

Productions planned for the 2021/22 season include Haus of Glitter’s activist dance party Historical Fantasy of Esek Hopkins, the East Coast premiere of Charlie Thurston’s modern meditation on the Icarus tale Lifted, the world premiere of Shey Rivera Ríos’ AntigonX – a queer/Latinx interpretation of Sophocles’ Antigone, and more!

Oregon Shakespeare Festival has announced the month-long, five-play O! Reading Series. For this new initiative, five directors who are part of OSF’s artistic staff have each chosen a play to be performed as a live digital staged reading by some of OSF’s favorite actors.

Cleveland Play House Artistic Director Laura Kepley has announced the 2021-2022 mainstage season lineup of plays for the Tony Award recipient’s 106th consecutive season. Launching in October 2021, the productions for CPH’s dynamic five-play in-person season will start small and grow in size and scale as the season progresses.

Amas Musical Theatre is accepting a limited number of applicants for its Rosetta LeNoire Musical Theatre Academy “Summer Teen Academy 2021 Musical Theatre Intensive” for students ages 12-18 to be held this summer from July 27-August 12.

Learn about the theatre's upcoming performances, including concerts from Broadway talent, a Carole King tribute concert, and much more!

On June 18, 2021, I watched Los Angeles Opera’s film of Stravinsky’s 1927 opera-oratorio Oedipus Rex. Jean Cocteau, who wrote the libretto, based it on the ancient Greek tragedy Sophocles wrote ca. 429 BCE. Right now LAO is featuring it online for free.

On Saturday, we see Los Angeles Opera’s online stream of Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex. Stravinsky based Oedipus on Sophocles’ Greek tragedy and his 1927 opera is a highly stylized, ritualistic work. A narrator describes the action throughout the course of the opera. Although the opera is in Latin, narration is spoken in the language of the audience.

Tonight’s festivities are especially exciting, James DeVita’s “An Improbable Fiction”! Six improbable Shakespearean characters hang out at The Boar’s Head Tavern during the plague

Los Angeles Opera’s presentation of Oedipus Rex by Igor Stravinsky is available online from June 17 to July 18, 2021. The libretto is by Jean Cocteau. The cast includes: Oedipus, Russell Thomas; Jocasta, J’nai Bridges; Creon, John Relyea; Tiresias, Morris Robinson; Narrator, Stephen Fry; Conductor, James Conlon.

In Antíkoni, Beth Piatote's retelling of the Greek tragedy, Antigone, a Native American family is torn apart over the fate of ancestral remains held by a museum. As Kreon, the museum director, and Antíkoni, his fierce opponent, argue over the terms of repatriation, a chorus of Aunties comments on the conflict through mythic storytelling and gossip

The National Theatre has today announced its programming until the start of next year with productions on all three South Bank stages as well as three major UK tours, two productions on Broadway, a return to cinemas, and a new feature film to be broadcast on television this autumn. In the week the theatre reopened for audiences again, six new productions were announced, and five productions halted by the pandemic were confirmed to return to the South Bank.  

Broadway might be dark, but that doesn't mean that theatre isn't happening everywhere! Below, check out where you can get your daily fix of Broadway this weekend, May 29-30, 2021.