The Public Theater News

Tickets for the West End production of Motown the Musical, opening at the Shaftesbury Theatre in February 2016, are released for sale today (15 May 2015).  With music and lyrics from the legendary Motown catalogue and book by Motown founder Berry Gordy, Motown the Musical is directed by Charles Randolph-Wright.  London previews will begin on 11 February 2016 with press night on 8 March 2016 with the show booking to 22 October 2016.  Casting and further information about Motown the Musical will be released shortly.

TOGETHER WE ARE MAKING A POEM IN HONOR OF LIFE, written by Dean Poynor, will receive its world premiere this summer in a stirring environmental production staged in the cafeteria of a New York City public school. The show will run for 15 performances starting on June 4th. Mikhael Tara Garver (Artistic Director of the Woodshed Collective) directs the production, which runs through June 28th.

As part of New York Voices, the artist commissioning program of Joe's Pub at The Public, singer-songwriter Dawn Landes (music and lyrics) and director Daniel Goldstein (book) bring forth a new musical called ROW - the heartbreaking but ultimately uplifting story of Tori Murden McClure, the first woman to row solo across the Atlantic Ocean. On June 21 and 22, Landes, with Xanthe Elbrick (Tori), Stephen Bogardus (Mac) and more, will perform a concert version of ROW at Joe's Pub (425 Lafayette, NYC).

Andrew Lippa along with Kate Baldwin and Conor Ryan, the stars of the recent acclaimed Keen Company production of John & Jen, the musical with music by Andrew Lippa, lyrics by Tom Greenwald, and a book by Greenwald and Lippa, will head over to 54 Below (254 West 54th Street) on Saturday June 6th, to celebrate the upcoming release of the 2015 Off-Broadway Cast Recording for Broadway Records.  A June 16th release is planned. Andrew Lippa and Michael Croiter produced the album. Musical Director is Lily Lang.  This recording will include the premiere of the new song, "Trouble with Men,' as well as new orchestrations and two songs from the score never before recorded.  

This month Berkeley Repertory Theatre proudly welcomes four exceptional new hires: General Manager Theresa Von Klug; Director of Marketing, Communications, and Patron Engagement Polly Winograd Ikonen; Associate Managing Director Sarah Williams; and Artistic Associate Sarah Rose Leonard. Together they bring to the award-winning Theatre a wealth of knowledge and extensive experience working in the arts and not-for-profit performing arts sectors.

Classic Stage Company, under the leadership of Artistic Director Brian Kulick and Managing Director Jeff Griffin, has announced that its upcoming production of DOCTOR FAUSTUS, adapted by David Bridel and Andrei Belgrader from the play by Christopher Marlowe, starring Chris Noth ("Law & Order," "Sex and the City," "The Good Wife"), directed by Andrei Belgrader (CSC's production of The Cherry Orchard) will extend through Sunday, July 12.  Previews will now begin Tuesday, June 2 with an official opening Thursday, June 18 at CSC (136 East 13th Street).   Joining Noth in the cast are Tony Award nominee and "The Good Wife" co-star Zach Grenier as Mephistopheles, Jeffrey Binder, Ken Cheeseman, Carmen M. Herlihy, Walker Jones, Marina Lazzaretto, Geoffrey Owens and Lucas Caleb Rooney. 

The Public Theater remounts Elevator Repair Service's acclaimed THE SOUND AND THE FURY this spring. Directed by John Collins, THE SOUND AND THE FURY begins performances in The Public's Martinson Theater tonight, May 14 and run through Saturday, June 13, with an official press opening on Thursday, May 21.

Tonight's performance of THE OTHER THING at Second Stage Uptown has been cancelled following a nearby apartment fire, BroadwayWorld has confirmed.

SPARKLE & CIRCULATE with JUSTIN SAYRE - the official monthly podcast of the International Order of Sodomites - has posted the seventh episode, which features an in-depth conversation with Carl Siciliano, founder of the Ali Forney Center, which provides shelter and services for homeless LGBT youth. The show is available on iTunes here.  Every June, Sayre's event Night of a Thousand Judys honors Judy Garland for Pride and raises money for the organization. Carl explains how the center was formed, who Ali Forney was and the challenges they face with fundraising. The first six episodes of the show - featuring interviews with Randy Harrison, Michael Musto, Frank DeCaro, Kim David Smith, Jeffery Self and R&B legend Sarah Dash - are also available. SPARKLE & CIRCULATE is produced by Dan Fortune and Tyrus Emory.

Pacific Symphony has reunited with Academy Award-winning composer Elliot Goldenthal to release the world-premiere recording of his “Symphony in G# Minor” on the Zarathustra Music label Tuesday, May 12. Goldenthal wrote the 22-minute work for Pacific Symphony and Music Director Carl St.Clair as part of the orchestra's 2014 American Composers Festival. This collaboration comes 20 years after the orchestra commissioned Goldenthal to write a piece for the 20th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War. Entitled “Fire Water Paper: A Vietnam Oratorio,” the hour-long work for orchestra and SATB chorus with soloists and a cello obbligato, was premiered in 1995, with the recording released in 1996 on Sony Classical Records, featuring renowned cellist Yo-Yo Ma.

Today, May 12, at The Broadway League's Spring Conference, Hamilton's Lin-Manuel Miranda talked about his first experience seeing RENT when he was 17 and how it inspired him to begin writing musicals. Click below to hear what he had to say!

Awards were presented to more than 25 outstanding actors, directors, designers and ensembles tonight by The Boston Theater Critics Association (BTCA), at the 33nd Annual Elliot Norton Awards ceremony, held at Boston's Citi Performing Arts Center Shubert Theatre. Scroll down for the full list!

The Meeting* hosted by Justin Sayre, the acclaimed comedy/variety show, will return to JOE'S PUB at The Public Theater on Sunday, May 17 at 9:30 PM to conclude the Spring 2015 Season. The Meeting* has been called 'delicious and delightfully droll' by The New York Post and 'hilarious and sardonic' by The Village Voice. A story for Slate.com called the evening 'so deliciously icy that it left me shivering with fear and delight.' The Fall 2014 shows sold out after a New York Times 'Arts & Leisure' piece ran last September. The May show will be a celebration of The Scissor Sisters with special guests Amber Martin, Edgar Oliver, Tammy Faye Starlight, Michael Cavadias, Bridget Barkan, Jamie Wright, Angela DiCarlo, Philip Taratula and Brendan Michael. David Nagler serves as the show's Music Director.

The Public Theater will begin previews for the MOBILE SHAKESPEARE UNIT production of MACBETH on Sunday, May 17. Directed by Edward Torres, MACBETH follows a three-week tour, bringing free Shakespeare to audiences who have limited or no access to the arts. The production will run at The Public Theater through Sunday, June 7 with an official press opening on Wednesday, May 20. All tickets are $20.

Gaiety ruled at the 33rd Annual Elliot Norton Awards ceremony as Ryan Landry, impresario of the Gold Dust Orphans, received the Elliot Norton Prize for Sustained Excellence, and comedian-actress-jazz musician Lea DeLaria was the Guest of Honor. Bragging rights went to American Repertory Theater with seven wins in the large theater categories, while Lyric Stage Company led all midsize theaters with four wins.

Books are the structure around which Mark Dendy's NEWYORKnewyork @ Astor Place is built. The cramped Joe's Pub stage is set with an abstracted skyline of books, soon to be destroyed by Mei Yamanaka as she embodies the forces of gentrification that Dendy not-so-subtly suggests are destroying our twice-named city. The piece itself is painstakingly researched, pulling together historical moments from 1848 to the present to tell the story of the Astor Place Library (where the Public Theater now sits), a story intertwined with the artists and activists it housed, displaced, informed, and inflamed.

Joe's Pub at The Public has announced its nightly performances, running May 13-24, 2015. Scroll down for details!

San Francisco Playhouse continues its twelfth season with the world premiere of Trouble Cometh by Richard Dresser and directed by May Adrales.

Public Theater Artistic Director Oskar Eustis and Executive Director Patrick Willingham announced the line-up today for The Public's 2015-16 season, continuing the theater's six-decade tradition of producing theater that is accessible to all.

The Off-Broadway League just announced winners in 18 categories for the 30th Annual Lucille Lortel Awards for Outstanding Achievement Off-Broadway. BroadwayWorld a there for the big night, and below, you can check out interviews straight from the red carpet! Click here for the full list of winners.