Tom Stoppard News

The Boston University College of Fine Arts (CFA) is pleased to present their second annual InCite Arts Festival, 'InCite 2009: Art Never Backs Down,' taking place March 3 - 10, 2009 in New York City. Conceived to showcase the dynamic artistic strengths and synergy of the College's schools of Music, Theatre, and Visual Arts, the festival offers new and interdisciplinary programming that boasts an eclectic and compelling combination of titles and artists. Throughout history, art's response to bad times has been to endure, using creativity and wit, and InCite epitomizes that response.

Several short plays by the late Pulitzer Prize-winning writer William Inge, never before publicly performed, will premiere April 22 at the annual William Inge Theatre Festival in his Kansas hometown. The 28th annual William Inge Theatre Festival celebrates the legacy of great American playwrights and honors Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt April 22-25. They will receive the coveted Distinguished Achievement in the American Theatre Award, joining the list of previous Inge Festival honorees such as Arthur Miller, August Wilson, Wendy Wasserstein, Neil Simon, and Stephen Sondheim.

Canadian Stage Company Artistic Producer Martin Bragg announced today details regarding the 2009-2010 Season, marking his final season with the Company after 17 memorable years. The Company's 22nd subscription season kicks off in September and includes five plays at the Bluma Appel Theatre and three at the Berkeley Street Theatre. Rounding out the playbill is the annual CanStage TD Dream in High Park. Season subscriptions are available with 5-play packages starting from $90 and 8-play packages starting from $138. To subscribe, call 416-368-3110, visit canstage.com or purchase in-person from the Box Office at the Bluma Appel Theatre (27 Front Street East) or Berkeley Street Theatre (26 Berkeley Street).

Pittsburgh Irish and Classical Theatre celebrates thirteen years of theatrical excellence next year with six mainstage productions and the return of the popular Storytellers Series. The 2009 season runs May-September with a special family friendly December production in time for the holidays. The organization has snagged the rights to produce one of the very first regional productions of Tom Stoppard's recent Broadway sensation Rock'n'Roll, and will present the play as the opener of the 2009 season, 'New and Ideal.' The season continues with the naughty-yet-sophisticated wit of Joe Orton's What the Butler Saw, the moral uncertainty of John Patrick Shanley's Doubt, the unbridled enthusiasm of Alan Bennett's students in The History Boys, and two classics of modern literature, Crime and Punishment and Jane Eyre, in phenomenal new adaptations for the stage. The Storytellers Series returns with Prague Spring: Three comedies about life under Communism by Vaclav Havel.

The American Theatre Wing today announced the recipients of the 2009 Jonathan Larson? Grants. The grants, given annually to honor emerging composers, lyricists and book writers, help to continue Tony Award-winning composer Jonathan Larson's dream of infusing musical theatre with a contemporary, joyful, urban vitality.

The Susan Smith Blackburn Prize has announced ten finalists for the prestigious playwriting award, now entering its fourth decade. The awards are given annually to recognize women from around the world who have written works of outstanding quality for the English-speaking theatre.

The Susan Smith Blackburn Prize has announced ten finalists for the prestigious playwriting award, now entering its fourth decade. The awards are given annually to recognize women from around the world who have written works of outstanding quality for the English-speaking theatre.

The wit and creativity of Steve Martin debuts on the Saint Sebastian Players' (SSP) stage when the company performs his play Picasso at the Lapin Agile. The production runs February 13-March 8, 2009 at St. Bonaventure, 1625 W. Diversey Pkwy. in Chicago.

Theatre and politics are and have always been inevitably intertwined. Whether, it's the funding relationships that bring us the 1st taste of work by Stoppard, Pinter etc. Or in the themes it covers from government corruption, the Iraq war to the US presidency. All of these themes were played out at in works at the National Theatre and the Royal Court just this year - to great success.

Roundabout Theatre Company (Todd Haimes, Artistic Director) is proud to announce the full cast for the upcoming New York premiere of Distracted, by Lisa Loomer, directed by Mark Brokaw. Distracted will begin previews on Saturday, February 7th and open officially on Wednesday, March 4th, 2009 at the Laura Pels Theatre in the Harold and Miriam Steinberg Center for Theatre (111 West 46th Street).

Emmy-nominated Paul Anthony Stewart stars as Raskolnikov in a gripping 90-minute adaptation of Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment at The Cleveland Play House. In addition to numerous New York and regional theatre roles, Stewart, who was nominated for his recurring role on 'Guiding Light,' recently appeared on Broadway in the revivals of Fiddler on the Roof and Cyrano - The Musical. Performed with only three actors, the adaptation of Crime and Punishment by Marilyn Campbell and Cut Columbus is being helmed by the acclaimed director of the 2005 Play House production of I Am My Own Wife, Anders Cato. Crime and Punishment begins in the Drury Theatre at The Cleveland Play House on Friday, February 27 and runs through Sunday, March 22, 2009. Tickets are on sale now at The Cleveland Play House box office by calling 216.795.7000 ext 4 or online at www.clevelandplayhouse.com. Crime and Punishment is presented in promotional partnership with National City and Baker & Hostetler.

Film and theatre production company Jean Doumanian Productions (August: Osage County) will produce a musical based on Mitchell Zuckoff's acclaimed biography 'Ponzi's Scheme: The True Story of a Financial Legend.' Jean Doumanian Productions will be co-producing the musical with Michael Shulman and Craig Saavedra of Starry Night Entertainment. The two companies jointly acquired the rights to Zuckoff's book for both the stage and film.

Celebrating its 40th Anniversary, T. Schreiber Studio will present a production of Tom Stoppard's dazzling romantic comedy The Real Thing at The Gloria Maddox Theater, 151 West 26th Street, 7th Floor from February 19th to March 29th. Directed by Terry Schreiber, director of the Tony-nominated play K2, as well as The Trip Back Down (starring John Cullum) and Devour the Snow on Broadway, The Real Thing is Stoppard's multi-layered look at love, passion, adultery, and marriage. The full-scale, profession production will feature members of the T. Schreiber Company.

The lure of a world premiere play by Pulitzer winner Donald Margulies (Dinner with Friends) directed by Tony Award winner Daniel Sullivan (Proof) is enticing enough to convince actors Anna Gunn (HBO's Deadwood, AMC's Breaking Bad), Alicia Silverstone (Clueless, Miss Match), David Harbour (Quantum of Solace, Revolutionary Road, State of Play) and Robin Thomas (Damages, Murphy Brown) to temporarily forgo the screens for a stint at the Geffen Playhouse. The second produced work in the Geffen's ongoing commission program, Time Stands Still opens February 11, 2009 on the theater's main stage.

This summer, Broadway?s hottest musical made Canadian premiere electrifying audiences at the Toronto Centre for the Arts, extending twice and garnering extraordinary critical acclaim. Today, Dancap Productions Inc. and JERSEY BOYS are pleased to announce that the show will remain in Toronto!

Keen Company announced today that Tony Award-winner Ron Holgate (1776, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Grand Hotel, recent revivals of Kiss Me, Kate and Guys and Dolls) will join John Cullum and Jonathan Hogan for its upcoming production of Heroes, replacing previously announced Tony Roberts. Mr. Roberts has withdrawn from the production to attend to family matters. The New York premiere of this 2006 Olivier Award-winning play by Gerald Sibleyras with a translation by Tom Stoppard, will be helmed by Keen Artistic Director Carl Forsman and run from February 24 - April 11 at The Clurman Theatre / Theatre Row ( 410 West 42nd Street ). The official opening is set for March 8.

Tom Stoppard's classic comic masterpiece, Travesties, previewing at the Drama Theatre, Sydney Opera House from 9 March 2009 (opening 13 March), will reunite one of Australia's most versatile comic actors, Jonathan Biggins, with director Richard Cottrell, award-wining designer Michael Scott-Mitchell and Composer and Sound Designer, Paul Charlier: the creative team behind Sydney Theatre Company's 2007 hit, Ying Tong. Travesties is set during the first world war when James Joyce (Peter Houghton), Lenin (William Zappa) and the Dadaist Tristan Tzara (Toby Schmitz) were all, for various reasons, resident in Zurich. Stoppard imagines them coming together to mount an amateur production of Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest. The uproarious action is presented from the indistinct memories but distinctive perspective of Biggins' minor British consulate official, Henry Carr, who places himself, to hilarious effect, at the centre of this convergence of some of the most acute minds of the twentieth century.

The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts today announced casting for its production of RAGTIME in the Eisenhower Theater April 18 - May 10, 2009. Based on a 1975 novel by E.L. Doctorow, the production features book by Terrence McNally, music by Stephen Flaherty and lyrics by Lynn Ahrens, and will be directed and choreographed by Marcia Milgrom Dodge. The musical is part of the Kennedy Center's Broadway: The Third Generation, a series celebrating the current generation of Broadway musical composers. The official press night will take place on Saturday, April 25, 2009 at 7:30 p.m.

On March 12, 2009 at 7:00 p.m., The Collegiate Chorale appears with The New York City Opera Orchestra at the newly renovated Alice Tully Hall in a performance of Kurt Weill and Ira Gershwin's 1945 Broadway operetta The Firebrand of Florence. The performance, led by guest conductor Ted Sperling, stars baritone Nathan Gunn, soprano Anna Christy, baritone Terrence Mann, and soprano Victoria Clark. Krysty Swann, David Pittu and Patrick Goss complete the cast, and narration will be provided by Stage Director Roger Rees. Boasting a score by Kurt Weill, lyrics by Ira Gershwin, and a book by playwright and screenwriter Edwin Justus Mayer, The Firebrand of Florence had a short run on Broadway in 1945. The work was subsequently not heard for over a half-century until three presentations - Ohio Light Opera (1999), the BBC Symphony Orchestra in London (2000) and the Radio Symphony Orchestra in Vienna (2000) - shed new light on the relatively obscure work. The performances were not only accepted, but widely acclaimed, thus giving hope for a new life in a new century. Variety's theater critic Steven Suskin says 'I have long believed that Firebrand in concert should be a dazzling delight.' Benvenuto Cellini, the great Florentine artist, is sentenced to hang, but he is pardoned when the duke realizes that he has not completed a previously commissioned sculpture. Freed, he is able to turn his attention to his favorite model (and object of his affections), Angela. The Duke also is interested in Angela. In a typical operetta plot, Cellini swashbuckles around the stage, keeping the Duke away from Angela, keeping himself away from the Duchess, and escaping yet another death sentence by fleeing to Paris, as the end of the show recapitulates the beginning.

UK's The Telegraph is reporting that Trevor Nunn discussed the potential for a Harry Potter musical and the fact that he almost had the rights for such a project, but the timing wasn't right...Nunn presented a South Bank Show lifetime achievement award to Sir Cameron Mackintosh last week and told the Telegraph that Warner Bros swiped the production rights from under his nose. 'Many many years ago I proposed it and they said: 'Oh if only you had come to us a few weeks ago. We have just sold the movie rights',' he harrumphs. 'It will be a long time now before anyone is allowed to stage Harry Potter.'