Stage West News

TheatreWorks, the nationally acclaimed theatre of Silicon Valley, presents the ferociously funny, utterly unreliable memoir, Yellow Face, from the Tony Award-winning author of M. Butterfly, David Henry Hwang. Part fact, part fiction, this revealing backstage comedy chronicles the playwright?s struggle to define racial identity in the mixed-up melting pot of contemporary America. Broadway and Off-Broadway star Francis Jue will reprise his Obie-Award winning role as the playwright?s father alongside New York-based actor Pun Bandhu and Bay Area theatre veterans Robert Ernst, Amy Resnick, and Howard Swain. Thomas Azar and Tina Chilip make their TheatreWorks debuts. Founding Artistic Director Robert Kelley will direct. Yellow Face plays August 26 through September 20 (press opening August 29), at TheatreWorks at the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts. For tickets and information, the public may call 650-463-1960, or visit www.theatreworks.org.

TheatreWorks, the nationally acclaimed theatre of Silicon Valley, launches its 40th Anniversary season with a vibrant world premiere musical, TINYARD HILL, by Tommy Newman and 2009 Jonathan Larsen Award-winning composer Mark Allen.

Theatre at Lime Kiln today announced two changes to the summer schedule. On Thursday, July 29th the Traveling Players Ensemble will perform Shakespeare's MacBeth in the Bowl, starting at 7:30pm. On Friday, August 21st, Eddie from Ohio returns after a five year gap to perform in the Bowl.

Welcome to Gilead, a picturesque (and fictional) small town in western Wisconsin, where everyone knows your name, and the fall colors along Copper Creek are dazzling. At least, that's how it seemed to Percy Talbott in the picture she found in a travel book. Reality turns out to be somewhat different, of course, as Stage West presents its first musical since moving back to its Vickery playhouse, James Valcq and Fred Alley's engaging and warm-hearted The Spitfire Grill, based on the film by Lee David Zlotoff, beginning Thursday, July 9.

Ripped apart when they were teenagers, ten years later, Elle & Jeremy are thrust into each other's lives again and forced to discover if maybe they're meant to be together after all. THE CONSEQUENCES is a bittersweet rock and roll love story about the road not taken, dreams not followed, and whether you can start over again.

Welcome to Gilead, a picturesque (and fictional) small town in western Wisconsin, where everyone knows your name, and the fall colors along Copper Creek are dazzling. At least, that's how it seemed to Percy Talbott in the picture she found in a travel book. Reality turns out to be somewhat different, of course, as Stage West presents its first musical since moving back to its Vickery playhouse, James Valcq and Fred Alley's engaging and warm-hearted The Spitfire Grill, based on the film by Lee David Zlotoff, beginning Thursday, July 9.

Playwrights 6 is pleased to announce John Ireland's 'Broken Ink' - an abstract drama dealing with the confrontation of pain and absurdities in life and death - will be presented as a staged reading Sunday, June 28.

Award winning Steppenwolf playwright Lisa Dillman has chosen ROGUE MACHINE to present the West Coast premiere of her play HALF OF PLENTY, for their season opener of 2009. This hilarious and chilling take on lean times and family values in America uncovers some all too familiar anxieties in modern living.

A veteran television actor with Broadway credentials has been chosen to portray President Lincoln in the upcoming production of LINCOLN. Geoffrey Wade, of Los Angeles, California, is a familiar face to audiences of such television shows as Numb3rs, ER, Law & Order, Scrubs, Brothers & Sisters, The King of Queens, and Monk.

Complete with sequins, feathers, gorgeous girls, and one show-stopping hit after another, Gotta Get a Gimmick is a loving homage to the theatrical world of burlesque. Inspired by such luminaries as Gypsy Rose Lee, Bette Midler, Fanny Brice, and Flo Ziegfeld's 'glorified girls,' vivacious Quinn Lemley and her sizzling dancers sing and dance up a storm with unforgettable hits like Hey Big Spender, Ten Cents a Dance, Let Me Entertain You, My Man, and My Heart Belongs to Daddy, in this fast-paced and totally glamorous new production.

Musical Theatre West is proud to announce that tickets for their production of the Jonathan Larson Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize-Winning smash Rent are available now. Rent will run December 11-20, 2009 at the Richard and Karen Carpenter Performing Arts Center located at 6200 Atherton Street, Long Beach, CA 90815.

West Coast Ensemble is thrilled to announce that their critically-acclaimed, smash-hit production of BIG, The Musical, with book by John Weidman, music by David Shire, lyrics by Richard Maltby, Jr., based on the motion picture 'BIG' written by Gary Ross and Anne Spielberg and directed by Richard Israel (Floyd Collins, Assassins) is EXTENDING THROUGH SUNDAY, JULY 26 at West Coast Ensemble's new home - The El Centro Theatre, 800 N. El Centro Ave. in Hollywood.

Playwrights 6 is pleased to announce John Ireland's 'Broken Ink' - an abstract drama dealing with the confrontation of pain and absurdities in life and death - will be presented as a staged reading Sunday, June 28.

TheatreWorks, the nationally acclaimed theatre of Silicon Valley, launches its 40th Anniversary season with a vibrant world premiere musical, TINYARD HILL, by Tommy Newman and 2009 Jonathan Larsen Award-winning composer Mark Allen.

Stage West Dinner theatre offers a downsized version of the Tony winning Broadway hit. Where it works it is due to the strength of the material and the commitment of the performers. The result is still funny and entertaining, but will leave some wondering what all the hullabaloo was about when the show played on Broadway. * * * 1/2 (OUT OF 5)

Award winning Steppenwolf playwright Lisa Dillman has chosen ROGUE MACHINE to present the West Coast premiere of her play HALF OF PLENTY, for their season opener of 2009. This hilarious and chilling take on lean times and family values in America uncovers some all too familiar anxieties in modern living.

Rick Culbertson, in association with Lynn Marks and Paradox Entertainment, today announced that DIVORCE! THE MUSICAL has been extended again by popular demand through May 17, 2009, at the Hudson Mainstage Theatre (6539 Santa Monica Blvd.). The world premiere production features music, lyrics and book by 2008 Frederick Loewe Award-winner Erin Kamler (Runway 69 at New Dramatists).

Complete with sequins, feathers, gorgeous girls, and one show-stopping hit after another, Gotta Get a Gimmick is a loving homage to the theatrical world of burlesque. Inspired by such luminaries as Gypsy Rose Lee, Bette Midler, Fanny Brice, and Flo Ziegfeld's 'glorified girls,' vivacious Quinn Lemley and her sizzling dancers sing and dance up a storm with unforgettable hits like Hey Big Spender, Ten Cents a Dance, Let Me Entertain You, My Man, and My Heart Belongs to Daddy, in this fast-paced and totally glamorous new production.

Three studio titles will change and one production will move to the Main Stage in a major revision of the Portland Center Stage 2009/2010 season. Early strong seller The Chosen will move to the Main Stage, replacing Joe Turner's Come and Gone (which will be deferred to future season). In the studio, a possible Broadway tour causes our production of Thurgood Marshall to be postponed, and The Best So Far will be put on hold to give it a bit more gestation (and New York fundraising) time.

American Conservatory Theater (A.C.T.) announces the final show of its 2008-09 season: Edward Albee's At Home at the Zoo, staged by acclaimed director Rebecca Bayla Taichman (world premieres of Theresa Rebeck's The Scene and Mauritius and Sarah Ruhl's Dead Man's Cell Phone). This new spellbinder by the master playwright who also penned Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and A.C.T.'s The Goat, or Who is Sylvia?, is a meticulously calibrated and dangerously brutal look at relationships intimate and unexpected. The story opens with Peter, a tweedy book editor, and his wife, Ann, whose everyday conversation takes an unexpected turn into dangerously personal territory. It's the kind of conversation that can drive a husband out for a walk-to Central Park, where Jerry, a desperate outcast, awaits. An unforgettable pairing of Albee's original The Zoo Story with a freshly penned prequel, At Home at the Zoo (formerly titled Peter and Jerry) bares its teeth to threaten the delicately balanced world its characters inhabit. Artistic Director Carey Perloff has put together an all-star artistic team on this production, featuring Tony Award-nominated actor Manoel Felciano (Ragtime at The Kennedy Center, A.C.T.'s Rock 'n' Roll, and Sweeney Todd on Broadway) as Jerry and scenic designer Robert Brill, who received a Tony Award nomination last week for his work on Guys and Dolls on Broadway. Hailed by critics as 'a thoroughly satisfying package of jagged-edged provocation' (Newsday) and 'an essential and heartening experience' (The New York Times), Edward Albee's At Home at the Zoo plays at A.C.T. June 5-July 5, 2009. Opening night is Wednesday, June 10, 2009, at 8 p.m. Tickets-starting at $14-are available by calling A.C.T. Ticket Services at 415.749.2228, or at www.act-sf.org.