The Public Theater News

Rosedale Community Players is proud to present Stop Kiss, a play by Diana Son. This production is directed by Eric Goldstein and will run on select dates from January 25 - February 9, 2019.

Falstaff, Verdi's exuberant final opera, returns to the Met for performances February 22-March 16, 2019. Robert Carsen's acclaimed production moves the action from Shakespeare's era to 1950s England. Fresh off his much-lauded performance as Michonnet in the Met's Adriana Lecouvreur, Ambrogio Maestri stars as the notorious glutton Falstaff, reprising his celebrated betrayal in this production's premiere run in the 2013-14 season. The ensemble cast of merry wives and noblemen also includes Ailyn Perez as Alice Ford, Golda Schultz as Nannetta, Marie-Nicole Lemieux as Mistress Quickly, Jennifer Johnson Cano as Meg Page, Francesco Demuro as Fenton, and Juan Jesus Rodriguez as Ford. Conductor Richard Farnes, the former longtime music director of Opera North, makes his Met debut on the podium.

MAX VERNON will continue his first ever residency at Joe's Pub, Existential Life Crisis Lullaby, on Tuesday, February 26 at 7:00 PM. Following three sold out shows last year, he returns with special guests Bonnie Milligan, Larry Owens, Kenita R. Miller, Brittain Ashford, and Jaime Cepero.

After his hit production of King Charles III, David Muse returns to Shakespeare Theatre Company to direct Shakespeare's Richard the Third, a mesmerizing chronicle of the megalomaniac's rampage to the throne. The production will play at Sidney Harman Hall (610 F Street NW) from February 5-March 10, 2019.

Join Bespoke Plays at The Pico (10508 Pico Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90064) on February 10 at 2pm and February 12 at 8pm for an inventive new musical in progress from the mind of musician, writer, and producer Erin McKeown (MISS YOU LIKE HELL, La Jolla Playhouse & The Public Theater). Featuring original songs in the style of the Great American Songbook, TERRARIUM BEHAVIOUR is art for our current moment. Danny Mefford (Broadway's FUN HOME & DEAR EVAN HANSEN) directs a cast which includes: Bitch, Robert Rodriguez, Andy Alseri, MJ Brown and Brian Hostenske, with Music Direction by Tim Hanson and Drums & Percussion by Mona Tavakoli.

Blockchain Theater Project (BTP), founded by Sofia Alvarez and Nicola Korzenko, is a new theater company that empowers artists to produce the work they create, funded in part by cryptocurrency donations. Like Bitcoin and other blockchains, BTP eliminates the institutional gatekeeper, creating a peer-to-peer model of support where the next play to be produced will be nominated by the playwright of the current production. Alvarez's NYLON will start this chain.

Broken, a new play by Devlin Elliott, will have an industry presentation today, February 8, in New York City. Directed by Teddy Bergman (KPOP, Empire Travel Agency), the cast is led by three-time Emmy and Tony Award winner Stockard Channing and Tony Award winner Robert Sean Leonard who star as a birth-mother and son reunited after decades apart.

Already admired in the industry for her impressive range of work, actress Justine Mitchell enjoyed a breakout hit recently with David Eldridge's Beginning, which transferred from the National to the West End. She's now tackling Anne Washburn's new Donald Trump-era play, which begins next week at the Almeida. 

The Donmar Warehouse's sold-out production of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Sweat by Lynn Nottage will transfer to London's Gielgud Theatre for a limited 6 week run from Friday 7 June 2019.

Provocateur Thomas Bradshaw revisits his incendiary 2008 play SOUTHERN PROMISES in a new production helmed by The Flea's Artistic Director, Niegel Smith. SOUTHERN PROMISES begins previews Monday, March 11 with opening night slated for Sunday, March 24.

The world's only curated beer and dance pairing, The Love Show's 'Brooklyn Beerlesque', returns to Brooklyn Brewery, where it debuted in 2012!

A young Classics professor puts her career-and her love life-in peril, and calls on the gods of Ancient Greece to save her. Things don't go according to plan when the gods who show up are The Gods of Comedy!

Good morning, BroadwayWorld! One day more until Friday! Power through the rest of your week by catching up on the top Broadway news!

Haven Theatre, in association with About Face Theatre, presents the Midwest premiere of THE TOTAL BENT, a dynamic new rock show about fathers, sons, social upheaval and the choice between salvation and selling out.

Celebrated performer and writer Justin Sayre will debut his new variety show "Queer Revolution Live!" at Joe's Pub on Saturday, February 9 and Sunday, February 10 at 9:30 PM. Saturday's program will features special guests Jaime Cepero, Darlinda Just Darlinda, Angela Di Carlo, Eric Schmalenberger, and Dane Terry, while Sunday includes Julian Fleisher, Daphne Only, Matt Knife, and Paul Solieau.

The Public Theater (Artistic Director, Oskar Eustis; Executive Director, Patrick Willingham) announced the line-up today for the 2019 Free Shakespeare in the Park season, continuing a 57-year tradition of free theater in Central Park. Since 1962, over five million people have enjoyed more than 150 free productions of Shakespeare and other classical works and musicals at the Delacorte Theater. Conceived by founder Joseph Papp as a way to make great theater accessible to all, The Public's Free Shakespeare in the Park continues to be the bedrock of the Company's mission to increase access and engage the community.

A youthful, emerging talent whose incisive and uniquely devastating songs speak out from an almost ancient wisdom, San Francisco-based songwriter Lila Blue is an artist who pulls no punches and conquers any stage. Starting the new year off with a string of theatre performances in New York City for Under the Radar Festival, where her leading role performance in the rock opera 'Weightless' at BRIC drew praise in a review from the New York Times. An earlier review by the SF Chronicle was similarly inspired by her captivating voice, noting that 'Blue's lovely timbre has a delicate surface warble whose every note whispers of fathomless depths below.' As part of the festival, Lila also performed at The Public Theater in a reunion of The Chekhov Project, featuring several of her original compositions.

Hercules is about to go from zero to hero of your 2019. BroadwayWorld has just learned that the Public Theater will present a stage adaptation of the Disney classic this summer at the Delacorte Theatre. The musical, which features music by Alan Menken, lyrics by David Zippel and a book by Kristoffer Diaz, will be directed by Lear deBessonet and choreographed by Chase Brock.

Magic Window Productions will present the Off-Broadway Premiere of RANDOM ACTS, a drama written and performed by Obie Award winner Renata Hinrichs (A Simple Heart, Debbie Does Dallas, Einstein's Dreams). Directed by Jessi D. Hill, previews begin February 14 at TBG Mainstage Theatre. Opening is set for Wednesday, February 20.

Four women of color breaking boundaries at Mabou Mines as part of the 2019 SUITE/Space program - Cinthia Chen, Marcelle Davies-Lashley, Cristina Pitter and Edisa Weeks.