The Sundance Institute News

The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts today announced its 2019–2020 theater season, with more than 15 productions from New York, London, and across the globe, plus original Kennedy Center productions.

Middle East conflict is normally not thought of a rich source of laughter, but Hassan Abdulrazzak's 'Love, Bombs & Apples' finds a way to be amusing as well as a thought-provoking way to reconsider the conflicts.

Antic in a Drain (Artistic Director, Ross Travis) proudly presents its world premiere production of Tempting Fate, a satirical sideshow entertainment reflecting the house of mirrors called climate change. Balk at the science, bemoan the social impacts, and scream in horror at the political divide. You'll find yourself laughing at the grotesque hyperbole, and the fantastically fecund characters bedecked in disdain and hubris. See Mother Earth talk trash to those who bite her tit while suckling her life-giving abundance.

Powerful drama: still made in America. Lynn Nottage's 2017 Pulitzer Prize-winning play Sweat opens tonight in its Chicago premiere at Goodman Theatre. Ron OJ Parson directs the collision of race, class and friendship at a pivotal moment in America-hailed as 'extraordinarily moving' (The New York Times) and 'passionate and necessary...a masterful depiction of the forces that divide and conquer us' (Time Out New York). Sweat marks the fourth Nottage play to be produced at the Goodman, following Crumbs from the Table of Joy (2006), Ruined (a 2008 world-premiere Goodman commission that earned the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for Drama) and By the Way, Meet Vera Stark (2013). Sweat appears through April 14 in the Albert Theatre. Tickets ($20 - $80; subject to change) are available at Goodmantheatre.org/Sweat, by telephone at 312.443.3800 or at the box office (170 N. Dearborn).

Soho Rep. presents the New York Premiere of Obie Award-winning playwright Christopher Chen's Passage (April 23-May 26), a fantasia on colonialism past and present that asks the question: if Country Y occupies Country X, can someone from Country X and someone from Country Y ever form a mutual relationship? Directed by Saheem Ali, Passage is a playful and gripping experiment that isolates power as the sole differentiator between people challenging the arbitrary binaries that define how we live.

In her one woman show, Hanane Hajj Ali quite noisily warms up, stretches and approximates her morning routine of jogging the streets of Beirut. The activity lets her mind run free as well. She thinks of roles she'd like to play. Medea, for example. And that brings to her a more immediate story of a woman and a tragedy further inland in Lebanon.

BRIC, celebrating 40 years as the leading presenter of free cultural programming in Brooklyn, announces the world premiere of acclaimed playwright Phillip Howze's multidisciplinary play Self Portraits (April 24-27), an intimate, impressionistic collection of personal meditations framing and reframing the Black body in America today. In the midst of the BRIC OPEN-BRIC's annual arts and ideas festival-Howze's new work will activate the space in unconventional ways, using the organs of a theater to interrogate the boundaries of form and the limits of bodies, to witness together what's seen and what's often imperceptible. Described by Howze as his "most personal work to date…born from a spirit of intentional disruption and curiosity," Self Portraits both explodes theatricality beyond the proscenium while imploding it into intimate, ghostly, separately enacted fragments.

The Light in the Piazza will be lighting up City Theater in Biddeford for 3 weekends in March. This exciting production features some the best vocal talent in Southern, Maine and an extraordinary 5 piece chamber orchestra. This new production has been said to have 'the most intensely romantic score of any musical since West Side Story' (NY Times) THE LIGHT IN THE PIAZZA will sweep you off your feet as it transports you to a beautiful, sun-drenched Italian piazza.

Ucross, a prestigious artist residency program and creative laboratory for the arts, today announced the recipients of its Spring 2019 fellowships. 54 visual artists, writers, playwrights, composers and more were selected from nearly 400 applicants to utilize uninterrupted time, studio space, and living accommodations on Ucross's 20,000-acre ranch at the foothills of the Bighorn Mountains.

The Light in the Piazza will be lighting up City Theater in Biddeford for 3 weekends in March. This exciting production features some the best vocal talent in Southern, Maine and an extraordinary 5 piece chamber orchestra. This new production has been said to have 'the most intensely romantic score of any musical since West Side Story' (NY Times) THE LIGHT IN THE PIAZZA will sweep you off your feet as it transports you to a beautiful, sun-drenched Italian piazza.

The National Association of Latino Arts and Cultures (NALAC) announced 43 NALAC Fund for the Arts grants today. Totaling $267,000, the awards provide funding to 26 Latinx artists and collectives and 17 Latinx arts organizations in 13 states and Puerto Rico.

Lori Sokol, Executive Director of Women's eNews, today announced the Host, Honorary Gala Chair, and Honorary Gala Co-Chairs for the 19th annual '21 Leaders for the 21st Century' Awards gala, which will take place on May 6th at Club 101 in New York City.

Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater announces the full company for Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and author Ayad Akhtar's (Arena's Disgraced) timely tale Junk. Inspired by the real junk bond giants of the 1980s, Akhtar explores how the riveting, hostile takeover of a family-owned manufacturing company paved the way to expose the rise of greed, power, race and wealth that led to reshaping the rules of Wall Street and the world. Directed by Jackie Maxwell, Junk runs April 5 - May 5, 2019 in the Fichandler Stage.

Opera Columbus and ProMusica Chamber Orchestra are partnering to co-produce and co-commission a new chamber opera titled The Flood - a story of loss, human tragedy and redemption set in Columbus. The work represents the first collaboration between the two arts organizations, as well as ProMusica's 67th commissioned work and Opera Columbus' first commission of a new mainstage opera in nearly 20 years.

Next up in Town Hall Theatre 2018/19 "Lost & Found" Season is the California Premiere of Melissa James Gibson's BROOKLYN BRIDGE, a play full of heart and humor for the whole family.  BROOKLYN BRIDGE will have 12 performances, including two previews, February 28 through March 23, 2019, at Town Hall Theatre Company, 3535 School Street, in Lafayette, CA.  Tickets are $18 - $30, and are available through the Box Office at (925) 283-1557 or online at www.TownHallTheatre.com. 

Four new works for the stage, with a global cohort of theatremakers, have gathered for development at the two-week Sundance Institute Theatre Lab at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA), convening December 2-16, 2018, including a public performance on December 7. The Labs process, rigorous and generative, is founded on concentrated and abundant time and resources; projects are cast individually and rehearsed daily.

Ucross, a prestigious artists' residency program and creative lab for the arts located in Wyoming's majestic High Plains, is proud to announce that Ucross Fellows Lars Jan and Mia Barron will stage The White Album, Jan's word-for-word celebration of Joan Didion's famous essay, at Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) from November 28th through December 1st.

Lincoln Center Theater/LCT3 has announced a special event - THROW ME ON THE BURNPILE AND LIGHT ME UP, an 80-minute solo show written and performed by Lucy Alibar and directed by Neel Keller.  BURNPILE will have 3 performances only - Thursday, December 6; Friday, December 7; and Saturday, December 8 - all at 7pm at the Claire Tow Theater (150 West 65 Street).

Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater continues to host Arena Civil Dialogues to engage the D.C.-area community. Scholar, professor and public intellectual Amitai Etzioni curates and moderates a series of discussions focusing on topics and questions in today's headlines. The next Arena Civil Dialogue will discuss what makes a great America and will be held in the Molly Smith Study at Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater from 5:30-7 p.m. on November 11, 2018.

Composer and vocalist Trevor Bachman continues his U.S. tour of FARMED: A Live Podcast Album after a packed concert at Joe's Pub in May. Join LICA, Theatre C, The Bushwick Book Club and The Parsnip Ship for a hybrid concert experience highlighting voter rights as they present FARMED: A Live Podcast Album, featuring performances by The Bushwick Book Club.