The National Theatre News

Merrimack Repertory Theatre (MRT) invites high schools students to register for Young Company, a professional theatre training program and one of MRT's signature education initiatives. Will Rogers, a creative producer, director, and performer, will become the new director for the 2018-19 session. Guest teaching artists this year include MRT alums-playwright, director, and actor Vichet Chum (KNYUM) and fight choreographer Angie Jepson (The Villains' Supper Club)-as well as Los Angeles-based acting teacher Richard Liccardo.

A Chicago housewife turns one small step into a giant, life-changing leap in Bartram & Hill's new musical You Are Here. Goodspeed Musicals continues its commitment to innovative, thought-provoking works with this intimate tour-de-force new musical featuring Tony Award nominee Patti Cohenour as Diana, Broadway performers Andrea Frierson as Voice 1 and Stacia Fernandez as Voice 2, and Spamilton: An American Parody starDan Rosales as Voice 3.

The full cast is announced to join Hollywood star Orlando Bloom starring as a cop who moonlights as a killer-for-hire in multi award-winning Tracy Letts' blackly comic thriller, Killer Joe in the West End.

The Public Theater (Artistic Director, Oskar Eustis; Executive Director, Patrick Willingham) will begin previews for a limited eight-week run of the Abbey Theatre and the Royal Court Theatre's acclaimed production of CYPRUS AVENUE on Saturday, June 2. The new play, written by David Ireland and directed by Royal Court Artistic Director Vicky Featherstone, features Stephen Rea, who last performed at The Public in 2008 in Sam Shepard's Kicking a Dead Horse. The run at The Public follows encore engagements at Dublin's Peacock Stage at the Abbey Theatre (April 30-May 19) and the MAC in Belfast (May 23-26). CYPRUS AVENUE will run through Sunday, July 29 in The Public's LuEsther Hall, with an official press opening on Monday, June 25.

Producers Tim Levy (Director, NT America) and Jordan Roth (President, Jujamcyn Theaters) announced today that the Olivier Award®-winning National Theatre revival of Tony Kushner's masterwork, Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes, has established the 'Angels Fund' to provide hundreds of $5 tickets to each part of the play to NYC-area LGBTQ & HIV/AIDS service organizations. Some of the organizations that have received these specially-priced tickets include: Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS (BC/EFA), Gay Men's Health Crisis (GMHC), SAGE, Callen-Lorde Community Health Center and The LGBTQ Center.

Alan Cumming sits down with the women of the View to talk his friendship with Whoopi Goldberg, Instinct, and more! Check out the clip below! 

Breaking news from the diner! Six-time Grammy nominee and composer of WAITRESS, Sara Bareilles will be at the National Theatre to host "Cast Album Karaoke" following the 8pm show this Saturday, May 19. Limited seats for that performance remain. Interested audience members at that show will be chosen at random for the chance to sing any song from WAITRESS on the National Theatre's historic stage accompanied by the show's band.

See the spellbinding performance of The National Theatre's Peter Pan on the big screen in HD at The Ridgefield Playhouse on May 30.

Captured live from the National Theatre in London, see The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time in a critically acclaimed production by the director of Angels in America and War Horse -- in HD on the big screen at The Ridgefield Playhouse on June 15.

Wales Millennium Centre and Wiltshire Creative are thrilled to announce the first ever UK stage adaptation of Agatha Christie's much-loved Miss Marple thriller The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side. The Mirror Crack'd will be a European Premiere, opening at Salisbury Playhouse on 15 February before touring to Dublin, Cambridge and Cardiff. The Mirror Crack'd will have an Opening Night on 25 February.

Brummie bystanders enjoyed a brush with British acting royalty on Tues 15 May as three of theatre's most iconic stars descended on Birmingham's IKON Gallery to celebrate the launch of the Olivier Award-winning comedy Art.

Assembly Festival (1st - 27th August 2018) announced its FULL programme goes on sale at 10am today (Thu 17 May 2018). This year there are 208 shows - 60 theatre acts, 60 comedy shows and the biggest programme of cabaret Assembly Festival has ever staged.

The Provincetown Tennessee Williams Theater Festival will host an auction of locally donated artworks and other items as part of its Annual Dinner celebration on Saturday, June 2, 2018.

Rose Hudson-Wilkin, Kwame Kwei-Armah, Danny Sapani, Vanessa Kisuule and Bristol Mayor Marvin Rees to perform in a celebration of the life of Frederick Douglass, born 200 years ago this year.

Boundless Theatre today announces Lace Akpojaro to join the company for a major revival of Judy Upton's Confidence. Akpojaro takes on the role of Edwin, replacing Vauxhall Jermaine who has left the company due to unforeseen circumstances. First performed in 1998 at Birmingham Repertory Theatre, Artistic Director of Boundless, Rob Drummer, directs the previously announced Tanya Burr in the role of Ella. The full cast are Anna Crichlow (Ruby), Will Pattle (Dean) and Rhys Yates (Ben). The production opens at Southwark Playhouse on 25 May with previews from 23 May.

The DC theatre community hurried along the waterfront on Monday night, attempting to beat the looming, black storm clouds that threatened, but this could not dampen the vibrant crowds as they entered the recently opened Anthem for this year's Helen Hayes Awards. This stunning, modern space will be greeting the likes of Belle & Sebastian, Janelle Monae, and Nine Inch Nails in the coming months, and on this evening, theatre creative showed off their finest.

The National Theatre of Great Britain's Olivier and Tony Award-winning production of THE CURIOUS INCIDENT OF THE DOG IN THE NIGHT-TIME will tour Australia for the first time from June 2018.  Due to popular demand an extra week has been added to the Sydney season with the production now playing until Saturday 28 July.  In this additional week there will be special midweek matinee performances on Wednesday 25 July and Thursday 26 July at 1pm.

New York Classical Theatre (Stephen Burdman, Artistic Director), New York City's only all-free professional Off-Broadway theatre company, is pleased to announce a new production of William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet to celebrate its 19th Anniversary Season. The production, directed by Mr. Burdman, is the company's first staging of Shakespeare's tale of star-crossed lovers, and will be presented in five New York City parks - Central Park, Rockefeller Park/Battery Park City, The Battery, Carl Schurz Park and Brooklyn Bridge Park - with performances from June 5 through July 29 at 7:00 PM. There is no ticketing, and all performances are free and open to the public. New York Classical Theatre also invites audiences to experience unique behind-the-scenes access to open rehearsals on selected dates for each of the five park stagings. 

Producers Tommy Mottola, the Dodgers, Tribeca Productions and Evamere Entertainment are pleased to announce the complete touring schedule for the 2018-2019 season for the North American tour of A BRONX TALE, the new musical featuring a book by Academy Award nominee Chazz Palminteri,music by Oscar, Grammy, and Tony Award winner Alan Menken, and lyrics by Grammy Award winner and Oscar and Tony Award nominee Glenn Slater, directed by two-time Oscar winner Robert De Niro and four-time Tony Award winner Jerry Zaks, with choreography by Tony nominee Sergio Trujillo.

The full company has been confirmed for Chichester Festival Theatre's summer musical ME AND MY GIRL, directed by Daniel Evans and running from 2 July - 25 August (press night: 9 July).