Theresa Rebeck News

Primary Stages (Casey Childs, Founder & Executive Producer; Andrew Leynse, Artistic Director; Elliot Fox, Managing Director) will continue its 27th season with the New York premiere of the new play, Motherhood Out Loud, conceived by Susan R. Rose and Joan Stein. Directed by Lisa Peterson, the cast will feature Mary Bacon, Saidah Arrika Ekulona, Randy Graff and James Lecesne.

Off-Broadway's The New Group proudly announces that Lily Rabe will star in the company's world premiere of David Rabe's An Early History of Fire. Directed by Jo Bonney, this production opens in April 2012 at The New Group @ Theatre Row as part of the company's 2011-2012 Season.

What should be a simple 'put in' for a new understudy turns into a rehearsal from hell complete with romantic liaisons, life-changing movie deals, malfunctioning intercoms and a pot-smoking crew member that collectively make the bizarre Kafka play the characters are working on seem like a psychological breeze in comparison in Theresa Rebeck's delightlful comedy The Understudy playing at Hartford's TheaterWorks.

Primary Stages launched its 27th season last night, August 16, with the World Premiere of a work commissioned by the company, the new comedy, Olive and the Bitter Herbs by Charles Busch directed by Mark Brokaw.The five-me mber cast features Dan Butler as Trey, David Garrison as Robert, Julie Halston as Wendy, Marcia Jean Kurtz as Olive and Richard Masur as Sylvan. Performances run through Saturday, September 3, 2011 at Primary Stages at 59E59 Theaters (59 East 59th Street, between Park and Madison Avenues). BroadwayWorld was there for the big opening and brings you photos from the event below!

Primary Stages launches its 27th season tonight, August 16, with the World Premiere of a work commissioned by the company, the new comedy, Olive and the Bitter Herbs by Charles Busch directed by Mark Brokaw.The five-me mber cast features Dan Butler as Trey, David Garrison as Robert, Julie Halston as Wendy, Marcia Jean Kurtz as Olive and Richard Masur as Sylvan. Performances run through Saturday, September 3, 2011 at Primary Stages at 59E59 Theaters (59 East 59th Street, between Park and Madison Avenues).

Producers Jeffrey Finn, Jill Furman and Smuggler Films announced today that Tony Award nominee and two-time Drama Desk Award nominee Lily Rabe (The Merchant of Venice, Steel Magnolias, this summer's lauded A Doll's House at Williamstown) and Obie Award winner and Drama Desk nominee Hamish Linklater (The School for Lies, Twelfth Night, 'The New Adventures of Old Christine') have joined two-time Tony Award nominee, Emmy Award and Golden Globe winner Alan Rickman (Private Lives, Les Liaisons Dangereuses, the Harry Potter franchise) in the World Premiere of SEMINAR, a new play by Pulitzer Prize finalist and Peabody Award winner Theresa Rebeck (Mauritius, The Understudy, Omnium Gatherum, The Family of Mann, Spike Heels, NBC's upcoming 'Smash').

The Williamston Theater, mid-Michigan's award winning professional theatre company located at 122 S. Putnam in downtown Williamston, kicks off its 2011-2012 Season in September. This season will have two World Premieres along with some familiar faces in familiar roles. The season will include: The Dead Guy by Eric Coble, This Wonderful Life by Steve Murray, the World Premiere of Dead Man's Shoes by Michigan playwright Joseph Zettelmaier, the World Premiere of The Usual: A Musical Love Story by Alan Gordon and Mark Sutton-Smith, The Understudy by Theresa Rebeck and Red, White and Tuna by Jaston Williams, Joe Sears and Ed Howard.

Rehearsals began this week for 'Poor Behavior,' Theresa Rebeck's new play making its world premiere at the Center Theatre Group/Mark Taper Forum with previews beginning September 7 and opening set for September 18, 2011.

Rehearsals began this week for 'Poor Behavior,' Theresa Rebeck's new play making its world premiere at the Center Theatre Group/Mark Taper Forum with previews beginning September 7 and opening set for September 18, 2011. Directed by Doug Hughes, the cast for 'Poor Behavior' includes Johanna Day, Sharon Lawrence, Reg Rogers and Christopher Evan Welch (in alphabetical order).

From its founding in 1974 through the present day, Victory Gardens Theater has dedicated itself to playwrights and their works as well as emphasizing the development of an ethnically and culturally diverse community of artists.

Emmy® Award winner and two-time Tony® Award nominee Bobby Cannavale will appear as a special guest star in all 10 episodes of the fourth season of NURSE JACKIE. Cannavale will play a formidable hospital administrator sent by the new conglomerate that buys the financially beleaguered All Saint's Hospital to improve the hospital's efficiency and profitability, but his arrival is sure to shake things up. Production on season four begins in September in New York for a 2012 premiere.

Artistic Director Chay Yew and Executive Director Jan Kallish announce the final selections for the 2011-2012 Victory Gardens season.

Single tickets go on sale starting August 9 for San Jose Rep's 2011-2012 season.

Hottest Articles on BroadwayWorld.com from this weekend Sunday, August 7, 2011 - Sunday, August 7, 2011.

Today we are talking to DROP DEAD DIVA guest star Sharon Lawrence and discussing her long-awaited return to the series as Bobbie Dobkins in Sunday's "Mother's Day" episode as well as taking a look at her long and varied film and theater career with thoughts on everything from CABARET and CHICAGO onstage to DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES, LAW & ORDER: SVU, CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM on the small screen and the new Theresa Rebeck play she stars in opening next month at the Mark Taper Forum in LA, POOR BEHAVIOR and much, much more! Over the course of the next several weeks, we are going to be taking an extensive look at the sights and sounds both onscreen and onset of the hit TV dramedy series DROP DEAD DIVA - new episodes airing Sunday nights at 9 PM on Lifetime - featuring exclusive interviews with the leading lady divas and dashing supporting men on the LA-based supernatural legal series. Featuring a memorable collection of musical performances and Broadway guest stars over the years - Paula Abdul, Rosie O'Donnell, Delta Burke and many more included - DROP DEAD DIVA is the quintessential TV series for Broadway babies looking for some laughs and levity - the latter available in many more ways than one, given the show's heavenly aspirations. DROP DEAD DIVA centers on a legal eagle named Jane whose body acts as the means for the indomitable spirit of a model, Deb, who loses her life, to make a second chance and how the girl inside must learn to adjust to looking like the woman on the outside that she is now. In other words, a model finds out what it means to look like everyone else, in a delightfully quirky twist of fate - and learns to be a lawyer, too. Season Three picks up with the cliffhanger car crash that closed last season in a dark and shocking way. What will Grayson remember of the conversation he had with Jane pre-crash? What will Jane do to save him? What about his engagement (to somebody else)? What will happen back at the office with Teri, Kim and Parker? What about Stacy and Fred? All these questions and many more will most assuredly be answered come Sunday night! Plus, there's always a musical number or two not too far off if you stay tuned - such as this week's BroadwayWorld exclusive world premiere of "Lean On Me" available here! Be sure to check back often because in the following weeks, we will also feature conversations with DROP DEAD DIVA stars Josh Henderson, Jackson Hurst, Ben Feldman and definitely stay tuned for next week's exclusive chat with featured guest star and Tony-winner, the one and only Faith Prince! Continuing the BRIDGING TV & THEATRE: DROP DEAD DIVA series, here is my extended conversation with DROP DEAD DIVA guest star Sharon Lawrence in which we discuss her many Broadway credits - CABARET, CHICAGO, ZORBA and FIDDLER ON THE ROOF included - as well as her extensive and varied theater career and acting alongside the likes of Cherry Jones, Marian Seldes and DROP DEAD DIVA guest star and fellow Broadway baby Faith Prince. Additionally, Ms. Lawrence shares her fascinating insights into the art of acting and the role of the actor in society as well as provides detailed insight into her own process and musical theatre versus straight drama - plus, comments on SMASH, GLEE, Weill, Brecht, feminism and much, much more!

Today we are talking to a singular literary talent who has written for Broadway, Hollywood, television and film, but, besides her Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway debut, ‘NIGHT MOTHER, which opened on Broadway in 1982, she is perhaps best known as the Tony-winning book-writer for two particularly beloved musicals of the last few decades: THE SECRET GARDEN and THE COLOR PURPLE. Generously covering her varied career writing for stage and screen, Ms. Norman and I discuss her process, her passions, her many projects old and new, and, most importantly, the two premieres she has looming large on the horizon in the next year, both coming after her highly successful collaboration with Jason Robert Brown on THE TRUMPET OF THE SWAN symphonic suite (available now on PS Classics) and the recent world premiere of her new play, THE MASTER BUTCHERS SINGING CLUB, at the Guthrie Theater: in addition to writing the book for Jason Robert Brown's musical adaptation of THE BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY, we also discuss her newest project for Theater For Humans which is focused on international women's and children's issues and the manner in which she will tackle the hot button topics of human trafficking and enslavement in it. Additionally, we touch on the bumpy Broadway road of THE RED SHOES and working with Jule Styne, NY versus LA, musicals versus plays, GLEE, WEST SIDE STORY at the Hollywood Bowl, playwrighting pal Teresa Rebeck, as well as much, much more!

According to Black Star News, Nicole Ari Parker will star opposite Blair Underwood in the upcoming Broadway revival of Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire, directed by Emily Mann. Parker will play Blanche Du Bois in the production, which is set to open in the spring of 2012.

Johanna Day, Sharon Lawrence, Reg Rogers and Christopher Evan Welch (in alphabetical order) have been cast in the world premiere of "Poor Behavior," a new play about lust and deception, marriage and fidelity opening at the Center Theatre Group/Mark Taper Forum September 18, 2011. Written by renowned playwright Theresa Rebeck and directed by Doug Hughes, "Poor Behavior," begins previews September 7; performances will continue through October 16.

Primary Stages (Casey Childs, Founder & Executive Producer; Andrew Leynse, Artistic Director; Elliot Fox, Managing Director) launches its 27th season with the World Premiere of a work commissioned by the company, the new comedy, Olive and the Bitter Herbs by Charles Busch directed by Mark Brokaw.

Single tickets go on sale starting August 9 for San Jose Rep's 2011-2012 season.