Sylvia News

BWW Interview: Actress and Director Catherine Burkhart

The nominations for the 8th Annual Indie Series Awards were revealed on Wednesday, February 1. The ISAs celebrate the best in independently produced scripted entertainment created for the Web. Nominations were announced in 29 categories.

Lyric Opera announced today that world-renowned jazz vocalist and composer Kurt Elling, along with Grammy Award-winning rapper and record producer Lupe Fiasco, have joined the star-studded lineup of performers who will come together for the biggest night in Chicago music.

Award-winning playwright Arlene Hutton's newest play THE THREE SISTERS BRONTË receives a FREE staged reading at Rubicon Theatre Company on February 6 at 7:00 p.m. Interweaving the famous trio of literary sisters and Anton Chekhov's masterpiece Three Sisters, the play examines the complexities of feminism, art, love and family. Set against the bleak and windy Yorkshire moors in the mid-1800s, Arlene Hutton's THE THREE SISTERS BRONTË follows the lives of the sisters as they struggle to find creative prosperity while navigating the harsh realities of a male society. Faced with limited opportunities for educated women, Charlotte, Emily and Anne live in the rich worlds of their imaginations, until they are forced to face the truth that nothing is certain, and their destinies are best served when held firmly in their own hands.

Acclaimed Director Rider McDowell will debut his original dramatic play, 'Fringe Deaths,' on New York's Off-Broadway this spring. Based upon the final hours of the lives of four American 'noir' icons-Carl 'Alfalfa' Switzer, George 'Superman' Reeves, Jack Ruby, and Barbara Payton-'Fringe Deaths' will be presented Off-Broadway in four standalone mini acts.

Joanna is devastated to learn her daughter, Mercy, who disappeared six years before, was murdered. Returning home from alcohol rehab, Joanna finds her surviving daughter, Bethany, bent on a personal agenda: Bethany has hired a legal advocate and insists on supporting a plea bargain for Mercy's killer.

HOLLYWOOD, CA - Juniper Smoke, a fresh new novel series by Sadia Ash that swept the women's lit world, will now be optioned as a major film by Cinespots, Clover Entertainment Inc. and other production companies (TBA). This is the first romance series since Fifty Shades of Grey and Me Before You to gain such momentum in Hollywood.

In an artistic collaboration with Cafe Nordo in Pioneer Square, a four-course meal will deliciously underscore a signature Book-It theatrical experience. Ernest Hemingway's A Moveable Feast captures what it meant to be young and poor and writing in Paris during the 1920s.

Broads' Word Ensemble has announced Kate Motzenbacker to direct the West Coast Premiere of The Lady Was a Gentleman; set to open April 8, 2017 in the Dorie Theatre of The Complex Stages.

New Dramatists, Tony Honor recipient and the nation's premier playwright development laboratory, will honor 10-time Tony Award-winning producer Daryl Roth and Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Paula Vogel with their 2017 Distinguished Achievement Awards at its 68th Annual Spring Luncheon tribute.

An ambitious geneticist is hired to help solve why a Native American tribe is being devastated by diabetes, but her research threatens to destroy their most sacred traditions. With genomic breakthroughs happening at breakneck speed, Informed Consent explores the question of just how much knowledge is too much.  And who gets to decide?

Mid-Michigan's award winning professional theatre company, Williamston Theatre, located at 122 S. Putnam Street in downtown Williamston, starts 2017 with the World Premiere of A Painted Window by Christy Hall.  Performances begin Today, January 26 and run through Sunday, February 26.  Tickets go on sale Tuesday, January 10 at Noon.

Grease is the word! Full casting is announced for the hit '70s musical, which returns this year for a UK tour.

Boog City's annual Presidents' Day Weekend event, Welcome to Boog City 10.5 Poetry, Music, Theater, and Film Festival, will take place from Fri. Feb. 17-Sun. Feb. 19.

Musical Theatre West (MTW) presents Andrew Lloyd Webber & Tim Rice's musical masterpiece Evita at the Carpenter Performing Arts Center February 10-26.  The seven-time Tony Award-winning musical captivated audiences with Eva Peron's passionate and unforgettable true story of her meteoric rise to become Argentina's champion of the poor and most influential first lady.  Tickets are now on sale at www.musical.org, by calling (562) 856-1999, ext. 4, or at the MTW Ticket Office.  Tickets start at $20.

This winter, Tony- and Oscar Award-winning actress Mercedes Ruehl returns to the faculty at HB Studio, one of New York's most venerable institutions for theater training and practice, to teach an advanced scene study class for professional performers.

Frances Ruffelle is perhaps best known for originating the role of Eponine in Les Miserables. She's since done numerous other stage roles, produced several albums and represented the UK in the Eurovision Song Contest, and will soon star as Queenie in The Wild Party, the opening musical of Andrew Lloyd Webber's revamped The Other Palace; the show begins previews on 13 February.

Different Stages continues its 2016 - 2017 season with Carlo Goldoni's The Noisy Neighbors or Il Campiello. Written for the Venetian Carnival of 1756, Goldoni's comedy recounts the matrimonial scheming, gossip, and games enlivening the daily activity of a bustling but poor Venetian piazza where pandemonium reigns. The commedia-inspired play centers on four scrappy, hard-working, hard-playing families whose daily lives on a small square are interrupted by the arrival of a mysterious wealthy stranger during Carnival. 

The Washington Stage Guild continues its 30th anniversary season with a pearl of a romantic comedy, Arlene Hutton's charming LAST TRAIN TO NIBROC. On the train carrying F. Scott Fitzgerald's and Nathaniel West's coffins across the country, a young couple, each returning home from unexpected disappointment, begins a journey to life together that takes several detours, in this WWII-era story of thwarted dreams that lead to unexpected opportunities. 

Full casting for Edward Albee's The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia? is announced today. Joining Damian Lewis and Sophie Okonedo, who play husband and wife Martin and Stevie in Ian Rickson's production, will be Jason Hughes as Martin's oldest friend Ross and Archie Madekwe as their son Billy.