The Geffen Playhouse News

Annabelle Gurwitch (Dinner and a Movie, You Say Tomato, I Say Shut Up, Fired!) is adapting her third book, the forthcoming memoir, I SEE YOU MADE AN EFFORT (Blue Rider Press, March 2014) into a theatrical property, following the success of her past two book to plays: You Say Tomato, I Say Shut Up and Fired! A sneak preview of the work in progress is scheduled for Nuyorican Poets Café (236 East 3rd Street) on November 12th at 9pm.

Roundabout Theatre Company has officially announced that Oscar nominee Michelle Williams will star for the first time on Broadway as 'Sally Bowles' in its upcoming production of Cabaret. She will take the stage at Studio 54 alongside Alan Cumming as the Emcee, reprising the role that won him a Tony Award in 1998.

League of American Orchestras Chair Lowell J. Noteboom has announced the appointment of Henry Peyrebrune and Barry A. Sandersto the League's Board of Directors. Peyrebrune and Sanders, who will both serve three-year terms, were elected by the League membership during its annual meeting in June.

The New York Musical Theatre Festival & Tritone Productions will present a reading of Nightmare Alley, a new musical with book, music & lyrics by Jonathan Brielle and directed by Michael Bush. This is the second NYMF collaboration for Brielle and Bush. Last summer, NYMF presented Brielle's Himself and Nora directed by Bush which has since gone on to a critically acclaimed production at the American Theater Group's Hamilton Stage. The reading of Nightmare Alley will take place Tuesday, July 23 at 5pm & Wednesday, July 24 @at5pm & 9pm at the Signature Theater.

On April 24, American Theater Group, New Jersey's newest professional theater company, will present, direct from its success at the 2012 New York Musical Theatre Festival, Jonathan Brielle's new musical Himself and Nora at its new home, Hamilton Stage in Rahway, New Jersey.

Philadelphia Theatre Company announces BILL CAIN as the first recipient of the Terrence McNally New Play Award for the research and development of his newest play about Philadelphia artist Thomas Eakins which has the working title Unvarnished. The Terrence McNally New Play Award is a $10,000 cash prize given annually to recognize a new play that celebrates the transformative power of art. The Award will also include a year of development support at PTC, including readings as well as administrative support and networking to help manage the future of the play beyond its time at PTC.

Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Beth Henley's latest one-act The Jacksonian is a no-holds-barred look at the decadent middle-class values of the residents of Jackson, Mississippi in 1964. Now in its world premiere at the Geffen Playhouse, the complicated nature of The Jacksonian may shock or jolt you, but its moody, high on intrigue structure will also keep you fixated from beginning to end.

Red Hot Patriot written by Margaret Engel & Allison Engel directed by David Esbjornson @ the Geffen Playhouse through February 12

As first reported on TVLine.com, actress Alicia Silverstone is set to join the cast of ABC's new comedy series SUBURGATORY. Silverstone will join former 'Clueless' co-star Jeremy Sisto in a multi-episode guest appearance in the role of 'Eden' the new love interest of the show's single dad George.

Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater is set to present Oregon Shakespeare Festival's production of Bill Cain's Equivocation in the first collaboration between Arena Stage and OSF.

Four-time Academy Award nominee Annette Bening (The Kids Are All Right, Being Julia, American Beauty, The Grifters) and acclaimed Los Angeles director Bart DeLorenzo return to the Geffen Playhouse for a special one-day-only performance of Joe Landry?s It?s a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play.

The 30th anniversary season at Performance Network has been dubbed 'A very Tony season,' with 5 shows on the roster that have been nominated or won the prestigious theatre award.

The 30th anniversary season at Performance Network has been dubbed 'A very Tony season,' with 5 shows on the roster that have been nominated or won the prestigious theatre award.

Primary Stages (Casey Childs, Founder & Executive Producer; Andrew Leynse, Artistic Director; Elliot Fox, Managing Director) will continue its 27th season with the New York premiere of the new play, Motherhood Out Loud, conceived by Susan R. Rose and Joan Stein. Directed by Lisa Peterson, the cast will feature Mary Bacon, Saidah Arrika Ekulona, Randy Graff and James Lecesne.

The Development Wing which has dedicated itself to nurturing new musicals via partnerships with regional not for profit theaters held an exclusive, intimate one-night-only benefit concert on Sunday July 24 featuring Broadway stars singing songs form three new musicals at the historic Tewksbury, New Jersey home of Cherie King.

Ed Harris, Bill Pullman, Amy Madigan and Glenne Headly are checking into The Jacksonian, Pulitzer Prize winner Beth Henley's eerie world-premiere set in a seedy motel in Jackson, Mississippi circa 1964. Ed Harris, a four-time Oscar nominee and Broadway vet who recently appeared at the Geffen Playhouse in Wrecks, is Bill Perch, a dentist with ambiguous morality who goes to The Jacksonian to bury his secrets. Estranged from his wife, played by Amy Madigan (Broadway's Streetcar Named Desire and Oscar nominee for Twice in a Life Time), Perch makes his new home in the motel's unsettling world where the subversive becomes commonplace and the passage of time becomes hauntingly unpredictable. As the Perch's lives become intertwined with the inhabitants of the motel - proprietor Fred Weber played by Bill Pullman (most recently seen on Broadway in Oleanna and on-screen in HBO's Too Big to Fail) and bar tender Glenne Headly (most recognizable for her big-screen role in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels and recently seen at the Geffen Playhouse in Love, Loss, and What I Wore) - the audience is taken on a surreal trip that is rife with disturbingly dark humor. Helmed by Tony Award winner and Goodman Theatre Artistic Director Robert Falls, The Jacksonian opens in the Audrey Skirball Kenis Theater at the Geffen Playhouse on February 8, 2012.

Philadelphia Theatre Company concludes its 35th Anniversary Mainstage Season with the Philadelphia premiere of Ruined by Lynn Nottage, running May 20 through June 12, 2011 at the Suzanne Roberts Theatre (Broad and Lombard Streets).

Next season the Geffen Playhouse is introducing Angelenos to acclaimed new works - including the previously announced Red Hot Patriot: The Kick Ass Wit of Molly Ivins featuring Kathleen Turner, Pulitzer Prize nominee The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity by Kristoffer Diaz and Tony Award nominee Next Fall by Geoffrey Nauffts - as well as introducing the theater community at large to three world premieres - including a stage adaptation of The Exorcist by Edgar Award winner John Pielmeier (Agnes of God), The Jacksonian, a new work by Pulitzer Prize winner Beth Henley, and Radiance: The Passion of Marie Curie, the playwriting debut of actor Alan Alda. In addition to the acclaimed playwrights represented this season, the Geffen Playhouse is welcoming internationally lauded directors to helm these works including Tony Award winners John Doyle and Robert Falls.

To commemorate the tenth anniversary of 9/11, the play '110 Stories' will be performed by an illustrious cast in NY this September to benefit a related charity. Participating artists include Alec Baldwin, Matt Dillon, Edie Falco, Sam Shepard, James Gandolfini, Patricia Clarkson, Kathleen Turner, Angela Bassett, John Turturro, Andre Braugher, Josh Lucas, John Hawkes, Michael Shannon, Stelio Savante, Daniel Sunjata, and Michael Stuhlbarg, all schedule permitting.

Philadelphia Theatre Company concludes its 35th Anniversary Mainstage Season with the Philadelphia premiere of Ruined by Lynn Nottage, running May 20 through June 12, 2011 at the Suzanne Roberts Theatre (Broad and Lombard Streets).