Walt Whitman News

Brooklyn's Brave New World Repertory Theatre is bringing the Bard to the Boardwalk in September with two open air performances of The Tempest by William Shakespeare to be staged on the Coney Island beachfront. Two thousand folding chairs will be provided FREE of charge for audience members on the section of boardwalk adjacent to the Aquarium Education building at 10th Street, which the New York Aquarium is donating for the actors' dressing rooms.

Brooklyn Center for the Performing Arts at Brooklyn College kicks off its 2009-2010 World Stages: Dance series on Sunday, October 25 at 2pm with Chicago-based Luna Negra Dance Theater, performing a program of works by Latino choreographers including the New York premiere of Danzón, a new piece created by Luna Negra's former artistic director, Eduardo Vilaro. The company will be joined onstage by special guests Turtle Island Quartet and the legendary Paquito D'Rivera, who will provide live accompaniment for Danzón.

Pittsburgh Irish and Classical Theatre will turn to the fertile landscape of dreams and the dark underworld of nightmares next year with a world premier musical, Shakespeare, a blow-out festival of the works of Harold Pinter, a holiday comedy, and the popular Storytellers Series. The 2010 season runs April-August, with a special family-friendly December production in time for the holidays. PICT begins its 'Dreams and Nightmares' season with a World Premier music drama by local star Martin Giles. Beautiful Dreamers features the songs of a local who became an international legend - Stephen Foster. The season continues with an intense, intimate production of Shakespeare's masterful Othello in the Henry Heymann Theatre; Hearing Noise in the Silence: A celebration of the life and theatre of Harold Pinter, featuring the hilariously dark comedy The Hothouse and the resonant, haunting No Man's Land, as well as The Room, Celebration, The Dumb Waiter and Betrayal; and wraps up with Harold Brighouse's Victorian comedy Hobson's Choice. The Storytellers Series continues this year with Pinteresque, featuring works by some of the top American and British playwrights who were inspired by the great Harold Pinter. Pinteresque will include directed readings of Joe Penhall's Blue/Orange, Jez Butterworth's The Night Heron, Sam Shepard's Geography of a Horse Dreamer, and Joe Orton's The Ruffian on the Stair.

Diversionary Theatre's Queer Theatre program will present a concert reading of four scenes of the new queer opera Sextet by Nicolas Reveles.

Brooklyn's Brave New World Repertory Theatre is bringing the Bard to the Boardwalk in September with two open air performances of The Tempest by William Shakespeare to be staged on the Coney Island beachfront. Two thousand folding chairs will be provided FREE of charge for audience members on the section of boardwalk adjacent to the Aquarium Education building at 10th Street, which the New York Aquarium is donating for the actors' dressing rooms.

Brooklyn's Brave New World Repertory Theatre is bringing the Bard to the Boardwalk in September with two open air performances of The Tempest by William Shakespeare to be staged on the Coney Island beachfront. Two thousand folding chairs will be provided FREE of charge for audience members on the section of boardwalk adjacent to the Aquarium Education building at 10th Street, which the New York Aquarium is donating for the actors' dressing rooms.

Brooklyn Center launches its 55th anniversary season with Irving Berlin's I LOVE A PIANO on Sunday, September 13, 2009 at 3pm at the Brooklyn Center for the Performing Arts.

Once described obscene for its overt sexuality, Walt Whitman's collection of poems in Leaves of Grass (www.leavesunbound.com) takes on new life through a naked, dance-inspired adaptation at the cell in Chelsea through August 29 (Thursday at 8pm; Friday and Saturday at 8 and 10pm; Sunday and Monday at 8pm).

Once described obscene for its overt sexuality, Walt Whitman's collection of poems in Leaves of Grass (www.leavesunbound.com) takes on new life through a naked, dance-inspired adaptation at the cell in Chelsea from August 14 through August 29 (Thursday at 8pm; Friday and Saturday at 8 and 10pm; Sunday and Monday at 8pm).

The Ruckus Theater is making some noise with its inaugural Chicago production and 2009/2010 world-premiere season opener Heist Play by Mitch Vermeersch, directed by Ruckus Artistic Director Allison Shoemaker. A black comedy that deconstructs the film noir formula and turns archetypes inside out, Heist Play follows three sad and desperate misfits-portrayed by Chicago actors Joshua Davis, Melissa Pryor and Byron Melton-in their attempt to plan the perfect heist, pull the perfect con or find some way to force a plot twist-no matter what it costs.

The Ruckus Theater is making some noise with its inaugural Chicago production and 2009/2010 world-premiere season opener Heist Play by Mitch Vermeersch, directed by Ruckus Artistic Director Allison Shoemaker. A black comedy that deconstructs the film noir formula and turns archetypes inside out, Heist Play follows three sad and desperate misfits-portrayed by Chicago actors Joshua Davis, Melissa Pryor and Byron Melton-in their attempt to plan the perfect heist, pull the perfect con or find some way to force a plot twist-no matter what it costs.

Once described obscene for its overt sexuality, Walt Whitman's collection of poems in Leaves of Grass (www.leavesunbound.com) takes on new life through a naked, dance-inspired adaptation at the cell in Chelsea through August 29 (Thursday at 8pm; Friday and Saturday at 8 and 10pm; Sunday and Monday at 8pm).

The Ruckus Theater is making some noise with its inaugural Chicago production and 2009/2010 world-premiere season opener Heist Play by Mitch Vermeersch, directed by Ruckus Artistic Director Allison Shoemaker. A black comedy that deconstructs the film noir formula and turns archetypes inside out, Heist Play follows three sad and desperate misfits-portrayed by Chicago actors Joshua Davis, Melissa Pryor and Byron Melton-in their attempt to plan the perfect heist, pull the perfect con or find some way to force a plot twist-no matter what it costs.

The Ruckus Theater is making some noise with its inaugural Chicago production and 2009/2010 world-premiere season opener Heist Play by Mitch Vermeersch, directed by Ruckus Artistic Director Allison Shoemaker. A black comedy that deconstructs the film noir formula and turns archetypes inside out, Heist Play follows three sad and desperate misfits-portrayed by Chicago actors Joshua Davis, Melissa Pryor and Byron Melton-in their attempt to plan the perfect heist, pull the perfect con or find some way to force a plot twist-no matter what it costs.

Once described obscene for its overt sexuality, Walt Whitman's collection of poems in Leaves of Grass (www.leavesunbound.com) takes on new life through a naked, dance-inspired adaptation at the cell in Chelsea from August 14 through August 29 (Thursday at 8pm; Friday and Saturday at 8 and 10pm; Sunday and Monday at 8pm).

Since its inception, Coney Island has played host to a magnificent array of theatre, performance, poetry, dance, and literature. A naked Walt Whitman read Shakespeare to the Atlantic Ocean; Cary Grant was a stilt walker at Steeplechase Park; Woody Guthrie strummed his guitar on Mermaid Avenue; Bread and Puppet Theatre was in residence in the 1970's and Coney Island USA has been a theatrical presence and Coney Island fixture for nearly thirty years.

Brooklyn Center launches its 55th anniversary season with Irving Berlin's I LOVE A PIANO on Sunday, September 13, 2009 at 3pm at the Brooklyn Center for the Performing Arts.

The Ruckus Theater is making some noise with its inaugural Chicago production and 2009/2010 world-premiere season opener Heist Play by Mitch Vermeersch, directed by Ruckus Artistic Director Allison Shoemaker. A black comedy that deconstructs the film noir formula and turns archetypes inside out, Heist Play follows three sad and desperate misfits-portrayed by Chicago actors Joshua Davis, Melissa Pryor and Byron Melton-in their attempt to plan the perfect heist, pull the perfect con or find some way to force a plot twist-no matter what it costs.

Family Opera Initiative is excited to present the musical pre-premiere of Goodnight Moon, this year's Opera & Ice Cream performance. Goodnight Moon is a lullaby for singer and piano continuing composer Glen Roven's settings to music of celebrated children's author, Margaret Wise Brown. It will premiere next May at Carnegie Hall with the Buffalo Philharmonic. The pre-premiere musical event is executive produced by Family Opera Initiative founder Grethe Barrett Holby and produced by Ray Wetmore.

Brooklyn Center for the Performing Arts at Brooklyn College opens its 2009-2010 Season on Sunday, September 13, 2009 at 3pm with Irving Berlin's I Love A Piano. This enchanting new musical revue spans over seven decades of American history as seen through the insightful and earnest eyes of Irving Berlin, a man whom Jerome Kern described by saying 'Irving Berlin has no place in American music...He IS American music!'