Tony Taccone News

Berkeley Repertory Theatre today announced that long-time Managing Director Susie Medak will depart the company at the end of its current 53rd season, 2021/22.

Stage Directors and Choreographers Foundation has announced the recipient and three finalists for its annual Zelda Fichandler Award. The Fichandler Award recognizes directors and choreographers who have demonstrated great accomplishment to date with singular creativity and deep investment in a particular community or region.

Experience the opening number for Paradise Square, A New Musical. Featuring Tony Award nominee Joaquina Kalukango (Slave Play), Chilina Kennedy (Beautiful: The Carole King Musical), Nathaniel Stampley (The Color Purple), Matt Bogart (Jersey Boys), Kevin Dennis (Assassins) and the ensemble, the show’s exuberant and emotional opening number can be viewed below!

Tony Award-winning playwright Richard Greenberg (TAKE ME OUT, THREE DAYS OF RAIN) has been commissioned to write A SHOT RANG OUT: A PLAY IN ONE MAN, which continues its World Premiere production at South Coast Repertory in Costa Mesa, CA through November 6. Featuring ecstatic delivery by SCR Artistic Director David Ivers, this one-man extended lecture-slash-monologue disguised as a play is dense in meandering thoughts and good intentions, but sorely lacking in theatrical bang.

Hartford Stage announced today that the musical Kiss My Aztec! will be the final production of the Tony Award-winning regional theatre's 2021-2022 season, running June 2 through 26, 2022. This hilarious and irreverent new musical features a book by Tony and Emmy Award-winner John Leguizamo and Tony Taccone, music by Benjamin Velez, and lyrics by David Kamp, Velez, and Leguizamo.

Single tickets are now on sale for the new Broadway musical, Paradise Square. The first new musical announced for Broadway since the industry-wide shut down, Paradise Square begins previews February 22, 2022 at Broadway’s Barrymore Theatre (243 West 47th Street), where it opens March 20, 2022.

On Saturday, September 25, Adelphi University will introduce you to the work of rising composer-lyricist Benjamin Velez in his one-night-only showcase Benjamin Velez, a Larson Legacy Concert.

Theatre Aspen will present its second annual one-person show festival, Solo Flights, as the third act of this year’s 38th summer season, launching next Wednesday, August 25 and running through Tuesday, August 31, 2021 at the Hurst Theatre in Aspen, Colorado. 

This morning, Berkeley Rep's Artistic Director Johanna Pfaelzer announced the return of The Ground Floor: Berkeley Rep's Center for the Creation and Development of New Work. Thirteen projects from 29 talented artists across the Bay Area have been selected for its Summer Residency Lab.

Ahead of the start of the 38th Season, Theatre Aspen announced today that after a successful first flight, the organization will present its second annual one-person show festival, Solo Flights, as the third act of this year’s summer season, August 25 – 31, 2021 at the Hurst Theatre in Aspen, Colorado.

Casting and performance dates have been announced for the Broadway run of Paradise Square, which will open on Broadway on Sunday, March 20, 2022 at the Shubert Organization's Barrymore Theatre.

Broadway In Chicago has announced single tickets for the Pre-Broadway Premiere of Paradise Square will go on sale on Tuesday, June 8. This bold and uncompromising new musical, which examines a remarkable yet virtually unknown moment in American history, will play a strictly limited engagement from November 2 - December 5, 2021.

Seattle Rep’s Plays in Process will take audiences behind the scenes showcasing early stages of show development, featuring commentary from its creators as well as two musical performances from Louie Pérez and David Hidalgo.

After a 15-month shutdown due to the COVID-19 epidemic, proprietors Steve Baruch, Richard Frankel, and Tom Viertel have announced that “Broadway’s Supper Club” Feinstein’s/54 Below will reopen its iconic red door for live performances on June 17, 2021. 

On this day in 2017, John Leguizamo returned to the Broadway stage with his latest one-man show, Latin History for Morons!

Segerstrom Center for the Arts is offering its first Fall Musical Theatre Training Program for young people ages 9-18 years of age. Students of all experience levels are welcome for this 5-class program, where they will be coached in musical theater performance and technique by some of the industry's leading professional artists & educators.

This 2020/2021 season at Syracuse Stage is obviously starting out a little different than usual as theaters all over are adapting to how they present stories to their audiences. Syracuse Stage opens its season with two productions available online (both free of charge). Syracuse Stage has partnered with more than 75 theaters across the country to broadcast a radio adaptation, produced by Berkeley Repertory, of Sinclair Lewis’ 1930s politically charged novel It Can’t Happen Here.

On Tuesday, October 13 a radio production of Sinclair Lewis' novel It Can't Happen Here will broadcast at 5PM PDT/8PM EDT via YouTube. Written in 1935 during the rise of fascism in Europe, Lewis' darkly satirical It Can't Happen Here follows the ascent of a demagogue who becomes president of the United States by promising to return the country to greatness.  

Berkeley Repertory Theatre today has announced that nearly 100 organizations nationwide are onboard to share the free radio play, It Can't Happen Here. The new audio adaptation will premiere on Tuesday, October 13 at 5pm PT/8pm ET, followed by a live Q&A with the creative team, director Lisa Peterson & co-adaptors Tony Taccone & Bennett S. Cohen.

Pittsburgh Public Theater will join theaters across the nation to help spread the word about Berkeley Rep's YouTube radio production of Sinclair Lewis' novel It Can't Happen Here on Tuesday, October 13 at 8pm ET.