The Public Theater News

Yesterday, May 6, 2022, the The Cowsills appeared at the New Orleans Jazz Festival  and on the famed Gentilly Stage performed the title song from the legendary Broadway musical HAIR, as the climactic final number of their set this afternoon. The SRO festival crowd went wild! 

  Seattle Rep today announced a second round of its large-scale playwright commission project, 20x30: Reimagining the Anthropocene, in which the organization has commissioned three playwrights in an effort to plants seeds for the future of the industry.

Phillipa Soo sat down on the third hour of the TODAY Show this morning to discuss the importance of the new Off-Broadway musical, SUFFS. Soo also touched on the fact that SUFFS is her return to the Public Theatre, the same theatre that she originated the role of Eliza in Hamilton at.

Written and performed by real-life couple David Carl and Katie Hartman, David and Katie Get Re-Married is a real time sweet and sour wedding betwixt a star-crossed couple who has broken up and reunited more frequently than Spiderman has been rebooted. 

Jeffrey Seller and Cameron Mackintosh, producers of the West End production of Lin-Manuel Miranda's HAMILTON, have announced new casting for the show who will have their first performance at the Victoria Palace Theatre on 21 June 2022 where tickets are currently on sale to 1 October 2022.

On May 13, the Metropolitan Opera will present the company premiere of Australian composer Brett Dean’s Hamlet, a bold adaptation of Shakespeare’s timeless drama, with six additional performances through June 9.

New York Stage and Film, will return July 9-August 7 for five weeks of in-person programming in Poughkeepsie for their 2022 Summer Season. 

The Public Theater and National Black Theatre will begin previews on Thursday, May 12 for the upcoming New York Premiere of FAT HAM, written by James Ijames and directed by Public Theater Associate Artistic Director and Resident Director Saheem Ali.

The Off Broadway Alliance, an organization of Off-Broadway producers, theaters, general managers, press agents, and marketing professionals, has announced the nominees for the 11th Annual Off-Broadway Alliance Awards, honoring commercial and not-for-profit productions that opened Off Broadway during the 2021-2022 season. 

New York Stage and Film returns July 9-August 7 for five weeks of in-person programming in Poughkeepsie for their 2022 Summer Season.  For 38 years, NYSAF has operated as a vital incubator for artists and their work, a catalyst for stories that continue across the country and around the world.  All tickets are $25 and go on sale June 1.

The first-ever stage adaptation of Maya Angelou's game-changing autobiography for young audiences, I KNOW WHY THE CAGED BIRD SINGS, will have its world-premiere Off-Broadway as New York City Children's Theater concludes its 25th season.

The Juilliard School will hold its 117th commencement ceremony on May 20, 2022, at 10:30am. The ceremony will be held outdoors on the Lincoln Center campus in Damrosch Park, presided over by Juilliard President Damian Woetzel. It will also be livestreamed at juilliard.edu for those unable to attend in person.

The 10th annual “Night Of A Thousand Judys” – the Pride concert to benefit The Ali Forney Center written and hosted by Justin Elizabeth Sayre – will take place at Joe’s Pub on Sunday, June 5. 

Woolly Mammoth’s upcoming 2022-2023 season is a break-out collection of unconventional storytelling, filled with characters who upend roles, rules, and regimes, and authentic, in-your-face playwriting voices.

Westport Country Playhouse will stage the comic satire, “Straight White Men,” by Young Jean Lee, from May 24 through June 5, directed by Mark Lamos, Playhouse artistic director. The show’s 2018 Broadway run made Lee the first Asian American female playwright to have a work produced there. The cast includes Richard Kline, who was a series regular on television’s “Three’s Company” as Larry Dallas. The production reunites Kline and Lamos, who were classmates at Northwestern University. Others in the ensemble are Bill Army, Denver Milord, Nick Westrate, Akiko Akita, and Ashton Muñiz.

Uncommonly Studio presents Brahms Horn Trio, a series of performances by violinist Samuel Gray, pianist Mika Chang, and horn player Erik Hyman. The trio will present the world premiere of Estuary, a newly-commissioned work from young composer Pyam Pendleton and conclude each evening with a performance of Johannes Brahms' poignant, deeply introspective Horn Trio in Eb. The performances will take place at 8:00pm on May 13, 15, 20, and 21.

The New Cosmopolitans led by Ryan Hartley, founding member & director, is making its Hollywood Fringe Festival debut with a workshop production of the new comedy 'Gummy Worm'. Written by New York playwright Nathaniel Foster, 'Gummy Worm' follows four high school juniors in over their heads when they sign up for their school's abstinence-only sex-ed class.

Rhinebeck Writers Retreat is presenting a reading of MISSING PEACE, a contemporary Native musical by Kalani Queypo and Kyle Puccia. The reading is directed by Devanand Janki (Little Girl Blue-The Nina Simone Musical) and music-directed by Yan Li.

Actionplay, a theatre company dedicated to providing autistic, neurodivergent, and disabled teens and young adults equal access to the theatre-making process, is pleased to announce their next production, the new musical comedy The Surface (or, That One Time Atlantis Washed Up On the Beach).

Ahead of the 60th Anniversary Season of Free Shakespeare in The Park at New York City’s Delacorte Theater in Central Park, American Masters: Joe Papp in Five Acts tells the story of this indomitable, street-wise champion of the arts.