TheatreWorks News

Westport Country Playhouse will present the musical Junie B. Jones, based on the popular book by Barbara Park, as part of its Family Festivities Series on Sunday, February 11, at 1 and 4 p.m. Produced by TheatreWorks USA, the one-hour production is appropriate for grades K through 5. Tickets are $20.

Rebel Theatrical Management, LLC announces that two private industry readings of Little Rock: An American Play With Music, written and directed by Rajendra Ramoon Maharaj, will be presented in New York City on Thursday, January 25, 2018 at 11:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m.

Chance Theater, Anaheim's official resident theater company, is pleased to announce its production of Violet, which will kick off its 20th Anniversary Season. The show has book and lyrics by Brian Crawley, music by Jeanine Tesori, direction and choreography by Kari Hayter, and musical direction by Robyn Manion. Violet will preview from February 2 through February 9; regular performances will begin February 10 and continue through March 4 at Chance Theater @ Bette Aitken theater arts Center on the Cripe Stage.

Rebel Theatrical Management, LLC just announced that two private industry readings of Little Rock: An American Play With Music, written and directed by Rajendra Ramoon Maharaj, will be presented in New York City on Thursday, January 25, 2018 at 11:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m.

FEINSTEIN'S/54 BELOW, Broadway's Supper Club, presents Award-winning songwriters Marcy Heisler and Zina Goldrich as they celebrate their 25th year of romantic comedy writing with a one-night only, all-original show.

The Huntington Theatre Company's 2018 Breaking Ground festival of new plays will be held February 9 11, 2018 at the Huntington's home for new work, the Calderwood Pavilion at the BCA. The festival is a vital part of the Huntington's new play development efforts and highlights the work of locally-based Huntington Playwriting Fellows and national writers in partnership with the Huntington. Over the last decade, Breaking Ground plays have gone on to appear at the Huntington as well as theatres in Boston, across the country, and internationally.

Prospect Theater Company, under the leadership of Producing Artistic Director Cara Reichel and Managing Director Melissa Huber, will present MONUMENT, a collection of new mini-musicals in concert, the culmination of Prospect's 2018 Musical Theater Lab. MONUMENT, the company's 12th lab performance, will be presented on February 3, 2018 at 8pm at The TimesCenter (242 West 41st, NYC).

TheaterWorks (Rob Ruggiero, Producing Artistic Director) announced today that CONSTELLATIONS by Nick Payne will run January 18 through February 18, 2018 (note date change). CONSTELLATIONS is the 2nd show of TheaterWorks 32nd Season.

Innumerable American children and teens are exposed to gun violence at home, in school, in their communities and in the media. In 'Subway Story (A Shooting),' playwright/director William Electric Black means to elucidate the pressures that drive the epidemic in young people. The piece is the final installment of his five-play GUNPLAYS Series, which has dramatized the epidemic of gun violence using differing approaches and theatrical styles. Theater for the New City, which has presented the entire series, will mount 'Subway Story (A Shooting),' its final installment, February 22 to March 18 in its Community Theater.

Mosaic Theater Company of DCtakes its acclaimedVoices From a Changing Middle East Festival on tour this winter, bringing several of its seminal Festival productions (I SHALL NOT HATE, VIA DOLOROSA, and the recent film adaptation of WRESTLING JERUSALEM) to the University of Oklahoma, Grinnell College, and Eastern Mennonite University for presentations of each project, and culminating in a special evening at the University of Chicago's Logan Center for the Arts where excerpts from all three works will be shared in a single evening. The tour reflects different dimensions of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and the efforts to achieve reckoning and reconciliation through live performance and discussion, in works performed in English, Arabic, and Hebrew (with translated surtitles).

The Artistic Home will continue its 2017-18 season with Paula Vogel's Pulitzer Prize winning HOW I LEARNED TO DRIVE, to be directed by The Artistic Home's Associate Artistic Director Kayla Adams. It will open to the press Sunday, March 25 at 7:00 pm, following previews from March 21-24. HOW I LEARNED TO DRIVE, which premiered in 1997, was a Pulitzer Prize winner and a pioneering drama for its examination of pedophilia and sexual abuse of women. It follows a young woman, named L'il Bit, from age 11 to age 18 and her friendship and sexual affair with her uncle. Director Adams says, this courageous and surprising script reminds me again and again of the healing power of storytelling. In reviewing the 2017 production by the Cleveland Playhouse, the Cleveland PLAIN DEALER said, We can rejoice that 'How I Learned to Drive' feels as fresh and fearless as it did two decades ago - and mourn for the same reason.

Megan Bandelt has announced that the world premiere of her latest work, what she found, will be presented at the 12th Annual FRIGID Festival. The festival will take place February 14th through March 4th 2018 at The Kraine and UNDER St. Marks Theaters on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.

The Shakespeare Theatre Company (STC) announces the cast and creative team for Hamlet, directed by STC Artistic Director Michael Kahn and featuring acclaimed actor Michael Urie as the tortured Danish prince. Shakespeare's most celebrated tragedy will run January 16-February 25, 2018 at Sidney Harman Hall.

After a raucous debut, Leanne Borghesi's MOOD SWINGS has been EXTENDED and is swingin' uptown, Monday Nights at The Triad Theater (Feb 12, Mar 19, Apr 16, 7pm) From sold out houses at Feinstein's at the Nikko get seduced into 'Borghesi's Hideaway' for a one of a kind 75-minute spree of sultry jazz, bawdy comedy, and over-the-top bling! Borghesi's robust vocals and comedic chops are accompanied by a sizzlin' 4 piece jazz combo under the musical direction of Brandon Adams (Erika Johnson-drums, Jamie Mohamdein-bass, Owen Brody-sax). Sound by Sharon Boggs. Directed by Nicolas Minas.

The votes have been counted... Check out the fill list of winners for the 2017 BWW Regional Awards!

California State University San Marcos School of the Arts presents Lauren Gunderson's uplifting and provocative I & YOU, directed by Jason Heil. This is part of the 2017-18 Season that includes The Woman in Black, The Bald Soprano, Waiting for My Summer and The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui.

On February 16, TheatreWorks New Milford will open their production of Proof, a drama by David Auburn. One of the most acclaimed plays in contemporary theater, the Pulitzer Prize-winning Proof is a witty and compassionate exploration of a young woman's journey of self-discovery.

Nunsense, with book music and lyrics by Dan Goggin, has become quite a cottage industry since its debut off-Broadway in 1985. The original production ran for 3,672 performances, making it the second-longest-running off-Broadway show in history (behind Fantasticks). Since that successful opening, the playwright has concocted six sequels and three spinoffs. A couple of years ago, Desert Theatreworks presented Nunsense: The Mega Musical, one of the spinoffs, which was basically the original five-nun musical expanded to a cast of 17, with a couple of new songs added. They are currently presenting Nunsensations, the fifth of the six sequels.

The winner of the 2016 Tony Award for Best Play, Stephen Karam's The Humans, begins performances on January 24 in Northwest Arkansas. In its 2016 Broadway production, the play was a breakout critical and popular success, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, and called the best play of the year by nearly a dozen top publications ranging from The New York Times to the Washington Post. Performances are scheduled January 24-February 18, and tickets are on sale now from $17-$48 at (479) 443-5600 or theatre2.org.

The Old Globe today announced it will present the fifth annual Powers New Voices Festival, a weekend of readings of new American plays by professional playwrights, playing January 12 14, 2018. The festival will kick off today, January 12 at 7:30 p.m. with Voices of the Community: Celebrating Local Playwrights, an evening of work created by San Diego residents through the Globe's arts engagement initiatives Community Voices and coLAB, and will continue with four readings by some of the most exciting voices writing for the American theatre today. The new American play readings commence on Saturday, January 13 at 4:00 p.m. with Laurel Ollstein's They Promised Her the Moon, directed by Giovanna Sardelli (Somewhere, The Whipping Man at the Globe), followed at 7:30 p.m. by Too Heavy for Your Pocket by Jir h Breon Holder, directed by Patricia McGregor (Globe for All's Measure for Measure).The Festival continues on Sunday, January 14 at 3:00 p.m. with The Tale of Despereaux, with book, music, and lyrics by PigPen Theatre Co. (The Old Man and The Old Moon at the Globe), based on the novel by Kate DiCamillo and the Universal Pictures animated motion picture. The Festival will wrap up that evening at 7:30 p.m. with The Great Leap by Lauren Yee, directed by Delicia Turner Sonnenberg (Globe's Skeleton Crew).