Underbelly News

The award-winning Impro Theatre continues its 10th Anniversary Season with a one-time-only production of L.A. Noir UnScripted at the Ford Theatres.  The completely improvised performance will take place in the newly renovated 1200-seat amphitheatre in the Hollywood Hills, on October 14 at 8:30pm.

Sheridan College's Canadian Music Theatre Project (CMTP), under the leadership of Michael Rubinoff, Associate Dean of Visual and Performing Arts, is an international centre of excellence for the development of new musicals in Canada. Since its inception in 2011, 15 shows have been incubated, with four having enjoyed their professional premieres (Come From Away, The Theory of Relativity, Prom Queen and Marathon of Hope) and one opening on Broadway in 2017 (Come From Away). To learn more about the CMTP and the works developed to date, click here.

Looking for a good time? Looking for love? Either way, Impromptunes has got you covered! Returning from sold out shows in their Edinburgh Fringe debut at Underbelly, Impromptunes are back home in Melbourne with a brand new show that aims its improv comedy straight for the heart. 

Leading up to his sophomore album release, 'Spent' next month, Josh Franklin just released the album's first single, 'Masterpiece', complete with a fun, inspiring new video. The playful video uses beautiful choreography between two couples - one straight, one gay - to illustrate the initial mating dance that we've all experienced upon meeting a potential new love and the uncertainty that ensues.

Leading up to his sophomore album release, 'Spent' next month, Josh Franklin just released the album's first single, 'Masterpiece', complete with a fun, inspiring new video.

At an event held to celebrate the decade since the reopening of Royal & Derngate, Martin Sutherland, Chief Executive, announced three ambitious new initiatives that will shape the future of Royal & Derngate and the cultural development of Northamptonshire. 

Jan Needle has written more than 50 books, as well as plays for stage, television and radio. His thriller Kicking Off was serialized for TV as Underbelly, and several others have also been televised. As well as thrillers, he writes highly acclaimed historical naval fiction, and has just finished a third series of novellas based around Nelson's life.

Mercury Musical Developments and Musical Theatre Network are delighted to announce that Harry Blake will be The Cameron Mackintosh Resident Composer at West Yorkshire Playhouse, commencing October 2016.

 The acclaimed ensemble, Transatlantic Love Affair (TLA), tackles a dark tale of ambition, revenge and the seedy underbelly of the criminal world in 105 Proof; or, the Killing of Mack 'The Silencer' Klein. In this original tale, set in Prohibition times - the era of the Tommy gun and the speakeasy - a small-time bootlegger discovers the true cost of moonshine. The new work will be on stage November 5-20 at the Illusion Theater, located on the eighth floor of The Cowles Center for Dance & the Performing Arts, 528 Hennepin Ave. in downtown Minneapolis.

Brand new artists' collective Opera by the Glass will present its contemporary interpretation of Vincenzo Bellini's famous tearjerker The Sleepwalker (La Sonnambula in Italian) at the Somis Thursday Club for two special performances on Friday, November 4, and Sunday, November 6, 2016 in the rural Ventura County town of Somis. The Sleepwalker's intensely psychological plot weaves together universal themes of jealousy and trust, loyalty and abandonment, friendship and love, madness and pain, and, ultimately, reconciliation and reunion.

American Theater Company (ATC) announces casting for its regional premiere of Men on Boats by Jaclyn Backhaus, Jan. 6-Feb. 12, 2017, immediately following the production's acclaimed Off Broadway run directed by ATC Artistic Director Will Davis at Playwrights Horizons. Davis also helms the ATC production, with an all new Chicago cast.

The Ingram New Works Project is proud to announce its Ingram New Works Lab Playwrights for the 2016/17 season.

Toronto Comedy All Stars founder and performer Danish Anwar joins Toronto based Eggplant Picture and Sound and Timshel Pictures to launch the pilot of new live-to-tape comedy series, 'Your Hood's a Joke' - filmed in 360 VR as well as Traditional Broadcast and Digital production style.

Casting was announced today for the HighTide production of Al Smith's debut play Harrogate. Nigel Lindsay joins Sarah Ridgeway, who starred in the original production at HighTide Festival 2015, for the London premiere at the Royal Court Theatre from 20 - 29 October and UK Tour. Richard Twyman, the newly appointed Artistic Director of English Touring Theatre, returns to direct Harrogate, which had an acclaimed sell-out run at the influential annual HighTide Festival in Aldeburgh, Suffolk.  

"I loathe us, I loathe our stupid puerile view of the World … That WE have only to do it, that WE have only to go puff, and the monster buildings will go splat…" The first professional London production in over 40 years of Magnificence, the seminal 1973 play by revered British dramatist Howard Brenton, runs at the Finborough Theatre for a strictly limited four week season from Tuesday, 25 October 2016 (Press Nights: Thursday, 27 October and Friday, 28 October 2016 at 7.30pm).

On Monday, September 26, 2016, The New York Innovative Theatre Foundation, the organization who for the past 12 years has been dedicated to celebrating Off-Off-Broadway, announced the 2016 recipients at its annual awards ceremony, The IT Awards. Hosted by a crowd favorite, Jason Kravits and directed by award winning director and sound designer, DeLisa White the ceremony took place from 7pm to 10pm at the Kaye Playhouse at Hunter College.

MY FAIR LADY, Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe's award winning and universally praised musical, based on George Bernard Shaw's play, PYGMALION, centers on Eliza Doolittle, an uneducated Cockney flower girl who, in an attempt to 'become a proper lady,' takes lessons from professor Henry Higgins, a self-centered egotist.

Critically acclaimed for original writing and star casting and boasting multiple national and international awards, the Dejvicke Theatre is one of Prague's most celebrated cult venues. Now, to mark the 20th anniversary of the Made in Prague festival organized by the Czech Centre London, the theatre will make its London debut. All plays are in Czech with English surtitles.

This is the first installment of a two-part profile on actress, producer, director, and filmmaker Courtney Lomelo.

The Watchtower, a film based on the play by Steve Silver, will have an exclusive preview today, September 23 at 7:30 p.m. at The Magno Screening Room, 729 Seventh Avenue in NYC. Contact Jay Michaels at JMae.events@gmail.com for reservations.