Syracuse Stage News

The Glass Menagerie is the play that launched Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Tennessee Williams' career and is among the masterworks of the American stage. Drawn from Williams' life, this moving play explores the illusory nature of dreams and the fragility of hope. Abandoned by the father of her children, Amanda is obsessed with finding a suitor for her shy and vulnerable daughter, Laura. Tom, the restless and sensitive son who narrates the story, eases his frustrations with nighttime escapes 'to the movies.' At Amanda's urgings, Tom asks a co-worker to dinner. Can this 'gentleman caller' offer any light to these bruised souls clinging to the tattered edges of lost dreams and faded hopes?

Pioneer Theatre Company presents the comedy-thriller Deathtrap by Ira Levin, today, March 28 through April 12, 2014.

Can we practice goodness and create a world to sustain it? In Brecht's comic and complex play, this question is raised by one of his most entertaining characters, Shen Tei, the good-hearted, penniless, cross-dressing prostitute, who is forced to disguise herself as a savvy businessman named Sui Ta so she can master the ruthlessness needed to be a 'good person' in a brutal world. The Good Woman of Setzuan will run March 28-April 13, 2014 in the Loft Theater at the Syracuse Stage/Drama Complex. Tickets can be purchased online at http://vpa.syr.edu/drama, by phone at 315-443-3275, and in person at the SU Drama Box Office, 820 East Genesee Street.

Pioneer Theatre Company presents Alabama Story, the third installment of PTC's new play reading series, called Play-By-Play. Alabama Story by Kenneth Jones runs April 4 and 5, 2014. PTC Artistic Director Karen Azenberg directs the production.

Roundabout Theatre Company's production of Joe Masteroff, John Kander and Fred Ebb's Tony winning musical Cabaret, starring Tony Award-winner Alan Cumming and Golden Globe-winner Michelle Williams, begins previews tomorrow, Friday March 21. Cabaret officially opens on Thursday, April 24, 2014 at Studio 54 (254 West 54th Street). This is a 24-week limited engagement. Scroll down to learn more about the full company, plus watch a TV spot for the production below!

Syracuse Stage is pleased to announce that the 2014/15 season will include Sizwe Banzi is Dead, the acclaimed 1975 Tony Award-winning play by Athol Fugard, John Kani, and Winston Ntshona. Intensely funny and poignant, Sizwe tells the tale of a black man in apartheid-era South Africa who is trying to overcome restrictive work regulations in order to support his family. An opportunity comes his way-unexpectedly-but taking it comes at an unusual cost.

Pioneer Theatre Company presents the second installment in its new play reading series, called Play-By-Play: A Public Education by Jeff Talbott tonight and tomorrow, March 14 and 15, 2014. Guest artist Shana Gold directs the production.

From Egypt and England to South Africa, backstage, and beyond -The Tony Award-Winning McCarter Theatre Center is about to take audiences around the world as Artistic Director Emily Mann announces the five theatre productions for McCarter's 2014-2015 season.

Pioneer Theatre Company presents the second installment in its new play reading series, called Play-By-Play: A Public Education by Jeff Talbott on March 14 and 15, 2014. Guest artist Shana Gold directs the production.

Alley Theatre Artistic Director Gregory Boyd announces the cast and creative team for Alan Ayckbourn's science fiction comedy Communicating Doors. Eleven plays penned by Alan Ayckbourn have been produced by the Alley, including the American premiere of Henceforward, directed by Ayckbourn, in 1987 and House & Garden in 2002. Alan Ayckbourn has been inducted into the American Theatre's Hall of Fame, received the 2010 Critics' Circle Award for Services to the Arts, became the first British playwright to receive both Olivier and Tony Special Lifetime Achievement Awards and was knighted in 1997 for services to the theatre.

Written in 1978, Deathtrap still holds the record for longest-running comedy thriller on Broadway. Sidney Bruhl is a playwright desperately in need of a hit. Just in time, a former student sends him the manuscript of his first play, a murder mystery called Deathtrap. Sidney smells a hit, but he's never been that fond of sharing credit. TIME Magazine said, 'If you care to assassinate yourself with laughter, try Deathtrap.'

All the Way, the new play by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Robert Schenkkan, starring BREAKING BAD's Bryan Cranston, is currently in previews on Broadway at the Neil Simon Theatre. The production officially opens on Thursday, March 6, 2014 for a strictly limited engagement. The play is directed by Bill Rauch, Artistic Director of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, where All the Way began its theatrical life. Scroll down to learn more about the full cast of ALL THE WAY, plus watch interviews with the company below!

Ripe Time, the Brooklyn-based company led by Rachel Dickstein, has garnered acclaim for creating physically charged, visually powerful adaptations of classic and contemporary stories by authors raging from Edith Wharton to Jhumpa Lahiri. Conceived, written and directed by Dickstein, the play The World is Round epitomizes the company's work, creating from Gertrude Stein's book a fable (for grownups and mature children) full of original, live music by Heather Christian and aerial movement choreographed by Nicki Miller. Ripe Time's first new show since its celebrated Mrs. Dalloway adaptation Septimus and Clarissa (2011), The World is Round makes its world premiere April 17 - 30 at BAM Fisher (Fishman Space, 321 Ashland Place, Brooklyn).

Chinglish is Tony Award-Winning playwright David Henry Hwang's hilarious new comedy about the misadventures of miscommunication. It tells the story of an American businessman, Daniel Cavanaugh, who travels to a bustling Chinese province looking to score a lucrative contract in properly translated signs. But the deal isn't the only thing lost in translation as he tangles with a government official, a bumbling consultant, and a surprisingly sexy bureaucrat along the way. Chinglish performs today, February 26-March 16 in the Archbold Theatre at the Syracuse Stage/Drama Complex. BroadwayWorld has a first look at the cast in action below!

Kenny Leon and True Colors Theatre Company announce the upcoming Atlanta Premiere of David Mamet's Race directed by John Dillon. Race will run from today, February 25 - March 23, 2014 at Fulton County's Southwest Arts Center located at 915 New Hope Road, Atlanta, GA 30331.

T. Schreiber Studio and Theatre presents BLOOD SKY by award-winning playwright Yasmine Beverly Rana - author of 'The Fallen,' which received a critically-acclaimed production at T. Schreiber in 2013.

Alley Theatre presents the world premiere of a new comedy by Theresa Rebeck, Fool. In Rebeck's new comedy, two kings get together and place a wager on their fools - a jester competition, and the funniest one gets to keep his head. Two evil minions have a lot to say about this, but not as much as the kitchen wench. And what's the queen been up to all night? A dramatical comical farcical tragical play about power, love and laughter, set in a medieval kitchen. Adult Language, Adult Situations, Beheadings.

Berkshire Theatre Group and Artistic Director/CEO, Kate Maguire have announced the Summer 2014 Theatre Season offering classic works coupled with contemporary plays.

Chinglish is Tony Award-Winning playwright David Henry Hwang's hilarious new comedy about the misadventures of miscommunication. It tells the story of an American businessman, Daniel Cavanaugh, who travels to a bustling Chinese province looking to score a lucrative contract in properly translated signs. But the deal isn't the only thing lost in translation as he tangles with a government official, a bumbling consultant, and a surprisingly sexy bureaucrat along the way. Chinglish performs February 26-March 16 in the Archbold Theatre at the Syracuse Stage/Drama Complex. BroadwayWorld has a first look at the cast in action below!

Coming up this week, 54 BELOW, the performance venue located just below the legendary Studio 54 at 254 West 54th Street, presents some of the brightest stars from Broadway, cabaret, jazz and beyond: