Suzan-Lori Parks News

This season, Theatre Horizon has introduced audiences to celebrated works of theatre that spark dialogue about race with its Diverse Voices Reading Series. This series will close Monday, January 27 with a free reading of Suzan-Lori Parks' Pulitzer Finalist, In The Blood. The theatre is pleased to have TONY nominee Forrest McClendon as part of the ensemble for this reading. The reading is at 7 p.m. and is free and open to the public. Tickets are available online at www.theatrehorizon.org/shows/readings.html. Advanced reservations are required. Theatre Horizon is located at 401 DeKalb St. More information can be found at www.theatrehorizon.org or by calling 610.283.2230.

Rattlestick Playwrights Theater's Artistic Director David Van Asselt and Managing Director Brian Long have announced that Ken Urban's The Correspondent, directed by Stephen Brackett will begin previews Wednesday, January 29, 2014, at Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, 224 Waverly Place, west of Seventh Avenue South, between West 11th and Perry Streets. The official opening night is set for Thursday, February 13, 2014. The Correspondent is scheduled to run through Sunday, March 16.

The critically acclaimed Elephant Theatre Company presents the World Premiere of Timothy McNeil's The Twilight of Schlomo.

One of the most classic American musical pieces of all time can be viewed in an early draft thanks to a social media post from the current tour of THE GERSHWINS' PORGY & BESS byway of a script sample containing 'Summertime'.

Winner of the 2012 TONY AWARD® FOR BEST REVIVAL OF A MUSICAL, The Gershwins' Porgy and Bess is hitting the road with award-winning members of the Broadway cast in this stunning and stirring new staging. Accompanied by a lush 23-piece orchestra, this re-envisioned Broadway production includes such legendary songs as 'Summertime,' 'It Ain't Necessarily So,' and 'I Got Plenty of Nothing.' Check out highlights of the production below!

The most recent version of the famous and often controversial opera, PORGY AND BESS by George Gershwin, DuBose and Dorothy Heyward and Ira Gershwin, re-titled as THE GERSHWINS' PORGY AND BESS, is now playing at DC's National Theatre through Dec. 29, 2013. The opera, which has garnered scores of awards since its first performance in 1935, has been re-mounted by the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge with a creative team including Pulitzer-prize winning playwright Suzan-Lori Parks, who adapted the book, and Dierdre L. Murray, who adapted the musical score. THE GERSHWINS' PORGY AND BESS opened on Broadway in 2011.

Historic adaptation of PORGY AND BESS returns to National Theater.

Tickets for The National Tour of THE GERSHWINS' PORGY AND BESS, winner of the 2012 Tony Award for Best Musical Revival, are now on sale. Part of the BROADWAY PHILADELPHIA season, presented by the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts and the Shubert Organization, THE GERSHWINS' PORGY AND BESS arrives at the Academy of Music for a limited engagement beginning Feb. 18 - 23. The official press opening is Tuesday, Feb. 18 at 7:30 p.m.

The University of the Arts has appointed Joanna Settle as the new director of the Ira Brind School of Theater Arts. Settle, a freelance theater director and educator, will begin her tenure at the university on January 13, 2014.

The critically-acclaimed ALLIANCE REPERTORY COMPANY is returning in conjunction with Witzel View Entertainment with its first production in over 3 years and the first show of their 2013-2014 season, with Tony Award-winning actress Daisy Eagan (The Secret Garden) featured in THE EIGHT: REINDEER MONOLOGUES written by Jeff Goode and directed by Alliance Repertory Artistic Director Royana Black and David Peryam. THE EIGHT: REINDEER MONOLOGUES will open tonight, December 5 at 8:00pm and run through Saturday, December 21 at the Complex Theatre, 6476 Santa Monica Blvd. in Hollywood.

Signature Theatre presents the New York Premiere of August Wilson's How I Learned What I Learned, co-conceived with and directed by Todd Kreidler, in collaboration with and featuring Tony Award-winner Ruben Santiago-Hudson. The show opened last night, November 24 in The Alice Griffin Jewel Box Theatre at The Pershing Square Signature Center (480 West 42nd Street between 9th and 10th Avenues), and BroadwayWorld brings you photos from the big opening below!

San Francisco audiences were delighted to welcome a powerful and wistfully evocative production of The Gershwin's Porgy and Bess to the bay area and to the stage of the Golden Gate Theatre where it plays now through December 8. Opening night was also the launch of the much anticipated national tour of this Tony award-winning revival. Directed by Diane Paulus, with a book adapted by Suzan-Lori Parks from DuBose and Dorothy Heyward's original book, Porgy and Bess's dramatic story of love, death, addiction and hope comes alive once again for a whole new audience of theatregoers.

Happy Birthday Daphne Rubin-Vega! Rubin Vega is a two-time Tony and Drama Desk nominee and recipient of the Theater World, Obie, Blockbuster awards and was recently nominated for an Independent Spirit Award for her role in Jack Goes Boating. She is perhaps best known for the roles she originated, including Mimi (RENT) and Conchita (Anna in the Tropics), both Pulitzer Prize winning Broadway shows for which she was nominated for the Tony award. She also originated the role of Rahmi (Gum), Sofia (Nilo Cruz' Two Sisters and a Piano), Canary Mary (Suzan-Lori Parks' f**king A, Lucille Lortel nomination) and Lucy (Jack Goes Boating) at the Public Theater, as well as starred in the Broadway revivals of The Rocky Horror Picture Show (Magenta) and Les Mis, ('Fantine') and most recently, The New Group's Blood From a Stone ('Yvette') opposite Ethan Hawke.'

A new promotional trailer for the national tour of American musical classic THE GERSHWINS' PORGY & BESS is now available to view, featuring the cast and creative team discussing their participation in the production and the content of the legendary opera itself.

Blessed Unrest presents a new adaptation of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, adapted by Matt Opatrny, and directed and choreographed by Jessica Burr. A Christmas Carol runs from December 5 - 22, 2013 in a limited engagement at The Interart Theatre, located at 500 West 52 Street (at the corner of 10th Avenue) in New York City. Previews begin December 5 for a December 7 opening.

The National Tour of THE GERSHWINS' PORGY AND BESS, winner of the 2012 Tony Award for Best Musical Revival, begins performances today at San Francisco's Golden Gate Theatre. The tour officially opens on Wednesday, Nov. 13.

The critically-acclaimed ALLIANCE REPERTORY COMPANY is returning in conjunction with Witzel View Entertainment with its first production in over 3 years and the first show of their 2013-2014 season, with Tony Award-winning actress Daisy Eagan (The Secret Garden) featured in THE EIGHT: REINDEER MONOLOGUES written by Jeff Goode and directed by Alliance Repertory Artistic Director Royana Black and David Peryam.

The Catastrophic Theatre will present Marie and Bruce by Wallace Shawn on November 22 - December 14, 2013. All tickets Pay-What-You-Can.

Women's Project Theater, the 36-year-old non-profit company dedicated to producing plays written and directed by women, is seeking a few good women for its 2014-2016 Lab of playwrights, directors and producers, underwritten with a generous grant from the Time Warner Foundation. The application deadline is November 4.

Arion Press announces its eagerly awaited edition ofPorgy & Bess, the libretto by DuBose Heyward and Ira Gershwin, illustrated by Kara Walker. This artist book is the occasion for Walker's first series of lithographs. The book contains 16 lithographs, with another four available separately in a portfolio. Kara Walker has called her images “an homage to the feeling of the (Gershwin) music. And to that feeling I had as a child of a heavy atmosphere hanging around a timeless act of love.” You can read Kara Walker's complete artist's statement and a description of the publicationonline. The book and suite are now on display at the Press and can be viewed in New York during the IFPDA Print Fair at the Park Avenue Armory, November 6 through 10.