Verona News

Audiences across the USA can catch The Royal Ballet's critically acclaimed Romeo and Juliet from The Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, London at their local movie theater from July 2 (varying dates across markets), which closes the magnificent 2018/19 cinema season. 

Celebrating their 10th anniversary in 2019, Sydney Fringe Festival, New South Wales' largest independent arts festival, today announced its most ambitious program yet including a take-over of Sydney's historic City Tattersalls Club in a month of activations ending in a giant CBD party. Presented from 1 until 30 September, the Fringe will program performances, exhibitions, large-scale events, a festival club and more, in venues in and surrounding Sydney's CBD.

Watford Palace Theatre today announce a radical re-imagining of Patrick Hamilton's classic psychological thriller, Gaslight, directed by Richard Beecham. The production opens on 7 October with previews from 2 October and runs until 26 October.

Boundless Theatre and Boom Shakalaka Productions today announce the full cast for new musical Parakeet welcoming Lula Mebrahtu, Isabel Oliver and Michelle Tiwo to the production. Parakeet will also star the show's creators Brigitte Aphrodite and Quiet Boy. Directed by Laura Keefe, it opens at Paines Plough's ROUNDABOUT @ Summerhall on 4 August, with previews from 31 July, and runs until 25 August.

San Francisco Opera Guild launched its 80th season celebrations on Thursday, May 16, with Marchesa, a fashion show featuring the Marchesa Fall 2019 collection, at Neiman Marcus Union Square in San Francisco. A prominent event of the new anniversary season will be Opera Ball, one of the premier philanthropic events on the West Coast. Presented in partnership with San Francisco Opera, Opera Ball 2019: The Capulets' Masked Ball will celebrate the opening of San Francisco Opera's 97th Season on September 6 with a festive evening featuring dinner, a masquerade ball and the opening night performance of Charles Gounod's Romeo and Juliet. The co-chairs for Opera Ball 2019 are Elizabeth Birka-White and Jane Mudge. Honorary chairs for the event are John A. and Cynthia Fry Gunn and Diane B. Wilsey.

The Ridgefield Playhouse and Atria Senior Living Classical HD Series present an encore in HD screening of Gounoud's Romeo et Juliette on Sunday, June 30 at 4pm. The electrifying team of Vittorio Grigolo and Diana Damrau reunites for a new production of Gounod's opera based on the Shakespeare play. Damrau makes her role debut as Juliette in Bartlett Sher's new production, conducted by Gianandrea Noseda. Elliot Madore sings Mercutio and Mikhail Petrenko sings Frere Laurent.

The Muny announced today its complete cast, design and production team for Lerner and Loewe's Paint Your Wagon, the sixth show of its second century, July 27 – August 2. Lerner and Loewe's Paint Your Wagon is proudly sponsored by Ameren.     

The annual Marcia Quick Gard Theatre Arts Scholarship was founded and funded in 2018 by Larry Gard in memory of his wife and her life-long commitment to excellence as an actor.  The scholarship offers awards of both $1,000 and $500 to university level theatre students who intend to become professional actors.  The funds are intended to provide financial support for the recipients' education expenses.

As the 2019 Summer Shakespeare Festival kicks off, The Old Globe today announced the cast and creative team with As You Like It, the Bard's fabulously charming romantic comedy, whose heroine is one of his most remarkable creations. Director Jessica Stone's recent body of work-including Barefoot in the Park, Ken Ludwig's Robin Hood!, Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, and Arms and the Man-has had Globe audiences rolling in the aisles. Her Shakespearean directing debut will run June 16 - July 21, 2019 outdoors under the stars in the Lowell Davies Festival Theatre. Tickets start at $30.00 and are on sale to the general public now. Previews run June 16-21 with opening night on Saturday, June 22, 2019 at 8:00 p.m.

Sebastian is rich (heir to a fish-stick fortune), handsome, gay and unattached. Although independently wealthy, he would really like to establish himself as a professional photographer. His best friend Kate is straight, single, and would like to get her play produced. Meanwhile, she works temp jobs.

New York company Fiasco Theater has announced plans to expand its training programs beginning this fall. 

It's October 4, 1965, and Pope Paul VI is spending 14 hours in New York City, marking the first visit by a reigning pope to the United States. Millions line the streets to greet him and zookeeper Artie Shaughnessy, a wannabe Hollywood songwriter with big dreams and no discernible talent, joins the throngs in the hope that a papal blessing will help propel him out of Queens, away from his mentally ill wife, Bananas, and into a new life in Los Angeles with his girlfriend, Bunny Flingus. 

Summer and Shakespeare are the perfect pairing. Baltimore Shakespeare Factory is proud to present two classics from the Shakespeare canon this June and July, both performed indoors (with air conditioning!) at The Great Hall Theater in Hampden.

Greater Boston Stage Company, in collaboration with The Front Porch Arts Collective, proudly presents a new take on the classic The Three Musketeers. With a cast of predominately black and brown actors, it's all for one and one for all in this action-packed, humor-filled take on Alexandre Dumas' The Three Musketeers. The Three Musketeers marks our inaugural production in Giving Voice: The Foundation Trust Drama Series.

Play On Shakespeare today announces an expansive list of compelling actors and dynamic directors confirmed to participate in the Play on! Festival, presented in association with Classic Stage Company (CSC) and Oregon Shakespeare Festival (OSF). Play on! features 39 readings of new, work-in-progress translations of Shakespeare's plays into contemporary modern English by some of today's most exciting playwrights-May 29-June 30 at the Lynn F. Angelson Theater at CSC (136 E. 13th Street). In 2015, Oregon Shakespeare Festival launched an ambitious 39-play, three-year commissioning project, Play on!, tasking 36 playwrights-more than half of whom were women and playwrights of color, each paired with a dramaturg-to translate Shakespeare's canon in celebration of the enduring impact of the Bard's work. Supported by a generous grant from the Hitz Foundation and inspired by long-time patron Dave Hitz's passion for Shakespeare, the project was and continues to be led by Lue Morgan Douthit. For more information, visit playonfestival.org.

The Stage Directors and Choreographers Foundation (SDCF), the not-for-profit foundation of Stage Directors and Choreographers Society (SDC), will host a symposium entitled 'Choreography in Collaboration' on Monday, June 10, 2019, from 11:00 AM - 5:00 PM at SDC, 321 West 44th Street, Suite 804.

Boundless Theatre and Boom Shakalaka Productions today announce the Edinburgh Festival Fringe run of new musical Parakeet by Brigitte Aphrodite and Quiet Boy. The pair renew their collaboration with director Laura Keefe following My Beautiful Black Dog, which toured the UK following a sold-out run at Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2015. The production opens at Paines Plough's ROUNDABOUT @ Summerhall on 4 August, with previews from 31 July, and runs until 25 August.

HENRY V: OCCUPY HARRY is an energetic, feminist telling of Shakespeare's classic history, reimagined in a post-civilization U.S.A., in which the ingrained forces of patriarchal power are challenged by a new, vibrant resistance embodied by its fearless and charismatic leader, King Harry. Through her struggle, the play explores the many obstacles to true revolutionary change, and the courage necessary to overcome them.

It's a new season full of new experiences at Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts. The 2019 20 seaon is jam-packed with legends of world music, acclaimed dance companies, renowned classical musicians, returning favorites and more.

Regent's Park Open Air Theatre have today announced full casting for A Midsummer Night's Dream (28 June - 27 July). Directed by Dominic Hill, Artistic Director of Citizen's Theatre, Glasgow, the production features Amber James as Hippolyta/Titania, Kieran Hill (Theseus/Oberon), Susan Wokoma (Bottom) and Myra McFadyen (Puck).