The Acting Company News

Today, in a day-early, pre-William Shakespeare's 456th birthday announcement, Freewill Shakespeare Festival is excited, and delighted, to announce its new Artistic Director, David Horak.

Today is the birthday of Broadway legend Patti LuPone! The cast of Company compiled video message wishing her a happy birthday!

The Acting Company today announces a postponement and changes to its originally scheduled summer 2020 theater season.

BroadwayWorld is saddened to report that David Schramm has passed away. Schramm was a founding member of The Acting Company. The company's Margot Harley announced his death today. He was 73 years old.

Ideastream has reported that Great Lakes Theater Legend Gerald Freedman has passed away at age 92.

The Old Vic theatre in London has today (15 March) announced that it will end its run of Samuel Beckett's Endgame/Rough for Theatre II early due to the coronavirus situation. The production stars Daniel Radcliffe and Alan Cumming, and had been due to run until 28 March.

Hear more from artistic director Joseph Haj on welcoming director Anne Bogart and this famed ensemble to the Guthrie below!

Hampstead Theatre has announced the cast and creative team for Tennessee Williams' innovative, and partly autobiographical work, The Two Character Play. Acclaimed stage and screen actors, David Dawson and Lyndsey Marshal, will perform in this unique two-hander which Williams called 'My most beautiful play since Streetcar, the very heart of my life'. The production, directed by award-winning theatre and film artist, Sam Yates, will run from 24 April until 23 May 2020.

Company is officially in previews on Broadway!  Following the engagement in London's West End, the new production of Sondheim and George Furth's landmark American musical, Company, directed by two-time Tony Award® winner Marianne Elliott comes to Broadway starring Tony and Grammy Award® winner Katrina Lenk as Bobbie and two-time Tony Award and two-time Grammy Award winner Patti LuPone as Joanne.

When you get seated inside the Chace Theater at Trinity Rep, you might think you're in the wrong place. Eugene Lee's set for A TALE OF TWO CITIES, written by Brian McEleny and based on Dickens' novel, looks like a library. Stacks and stacks of books on two levels set behind rows of tables. When Christopher Sadlers and Joel Thibodeau enter alone to perform a musical introduction, you might still be confused. Check your program; you're in the right place. Not until the actors appear and begin intoning 'It was the best of times, it was the worst of times . . .,' are you totally certain. It's a roundabout trip, but A TALE OF TWO CITIES ends up where it needs to be.

Full casting has been announced for NY Classical Theatre's staged reading of Carlyle Brown's drama The African Company Presents Richard III, which will be performed on two nights in March in Harlem and midtown.

The Acting Company, (Founded by John Houseman and Margot Harley; Ian Belknap, Artistic Director; Elisa Spencer-Kaplan, Executive Director) has announced a special one-night-only benefit reading of Arthur Miller's iconic mid-century drama A View from the Bridge. The reading will star two-time Emmy Award winner Bobby Cannavale (The Irishman, Boardwalk Empire) and his real-life partner, Emmy and Golden Globe nominee Rose Byrne (Like A Boss, Damages, Bridesmaids), as they play Miller's emotionally torn Eddie and Beatrice Carbone.

Theatre for a New Audience (TFANA; Jeffrey Horowitz, Founding Artistic Director) will host a celebration of Andrew Weems (1961-2019). The celebration will take place at Polonsky Shakespeare Center (262 Ashland Place, Brooklyn), TFANA's home, on Monday, February 17 at 7pm.

The Guthrie Theater (Joseph Haj, artistic director) today announced SITI Company's cast and creative team for the riveting ancient tale The Bacchae, written by Euripides, translated by Aaron Poochigian and directed by celebrated SITI Company co-founder Anne Bogart. The globally renowned acting company's debut on the Guthrie's mainstage offers a rare opportunity for local theatergoers to experience this influential Greek tragedy through a contemporary lens.

City Theatre at Sacramento City College continues its 2019-20 season with Mr. Burns, a Post-Electric Play.

From February 27 to March 29, Woodie King, Jr.'s New Federal Theatre will celebrate both Black History Month and Women's History Month with an Off-Broadway production of 'Two Can Play' by Trevor Rhone, directed by Clinton Turner Davis, at Castillo Theater, 543 West 42nd Street. In this two-act comedy, Gloria and Jim, a lower middle-class couple in Kingston, try their wildest schemes to escape gun crime and establish residence in the United States. They survive because they learn to communicate and rediscover each other. Playwright Trevor Rhone was the artistic giant of Jamaican theater. The play celebrates the pent-up need for self-discovery and personal development in Jamaican women, a theme which is also universal. Director is Clinton Turner Davis, who helmed the comedy's New York premiere in 1985.

Baruch Performing Arts Center continues its Milt Hinton Jazz Perspectives Concert Series with pianist Vijay Iyer and trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith performing selections from their 2016 album A Cosmic Rhythm With Each Stroke on April 17, 2020 at 8PM. The concert will be held at Baruch Performing Arts Center, 55 Lexington Avenue (25th Street between Third and Lexington Avenues), NYC. Tickets are $16-$51 and can be purchased online at https://ci.ovationtix.com/1091/production/1014634?performanceId=10437252.

The Guthrie Theater (Joseph Haj, artistic director) announced today a return of rotating repertory with Shakespeare's History Cycle (Richard II, Henry IV [Parts I and II as one play] and Henry V), which will play on the Wurtele Thrust Stage during the 2020-2021 Season.

When Henry begins restoring an old abandoned house, his worldview is shaken by the arrival of the ghost of Anna Catherine. Questioning her presence - and his own sanity a?" Henry's search for answers leads him straight into the world of her living descendants and a romance that will touch his life forever. As the story weaves through time and generations, Henry becomes the unwitting catalyst for healing, change, loss, and love, mending broken ties between the present and the past. This premiere production of Rod Mechem's new play, transport a magical story through time and space, creating an imaginative, engaging evening of theatrical storytelling.

Antoinette Nwandu's searing and poetic new play 'Pass Over' will be performed at Luna Stage in West Orange from February 6 to March 1. Directed by Devin E. Haqq, 'Pass Over' is a provocative, contemporary mashup of 'Waiting for Godot' and the 'Exodus' saga. Broadwayworld.com had the pleasure of interviewing Kevis Hillocks who plays Moses in the show.