Wendy Wasserstein News

The Eugene O'Neill Theater Center announces casting and creative teams for the summer season of new musicals and plays selected for development at the National Music Theater Conference and National Playwrights Conference.

TDF, the not-for-profit service organization for the performing arts has just completed its 23rd year of school programs with the end of the 2018-19 school year.

Lynn Nottage, a two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, is the Playwright Honoree of the 39th William Inge Theater Festival.

Playwright, librettist, scriptwriter and outspoken LGBTQ activist Terrence McNally has long believed in the power of the arts to transform society and make a difference. The new documentary American Masters - Terrence McNally: Every Act of Life, premiering nationwide Friday, June 14 at 9 p.m. on PBS (check local listings),pbs.org/americanmasters and the PBS Video app in honor of LGBT Pride Month, lifts the curtain on the life, career and inspirations of the complicated and brilliant Emmy- and four-time Tony Award-winning writer.

Over 400 guests including current and past New York City high school students and their mentors who have participated in the TDF Wendy Wasserstein Project, the theatre arts mentoring program, (formerly called "Open Doors"), that TDF founded in 1998 with playwright Wendy Wasserstein, will attend this year's graduation ceremony at 5:30pm on Monday, June 3at The Gerald W. Lynch Theater at John Jay College (524 West 59th Street, NYC). The graduation ceremony will open with a performance by Aisha Jackson who covers the role of Anna in Disney's Frozen.

ENSEMBLE STUDIO THEATRE announces its 50th Birthday Gala honoring the people and legacy of EST's Marathon of One-Act Plays. The 50th Birthday Gala will take place on Monday, May 13, 2019 at 6:30PM at the New York Museum of Contemporary Art (528 West 39th Street, 3rd Fl.).

The Eugene O'Neill Theater Center just held its Monte Cristo Award Gala last night at the Edison Ballroom- an event that featured opening remarks from composer, actor and Tony Award-winner, Lin-Manuel Miranda.  Academy Award-winning actor and O'Neill Center trustee, Michael Douglas presented the iconic statue to playwright and screenwriter John Logan, at the gala evening in celebration of Logan's many achievements.

New Jersey Repertory Company (NJ Rep) will present 'Surfing My DNA' by actressplaywright, Jodi Long from Thursday, May 2 through Sunday, May 26, 2019. Directed by Eric Rosen, the play stars Jodi Long and features composermusician Yukio Tsuji. Broadwayworld.com had the pleasure of interviewing Jodi Long about her career and the upcoming show.

Today, April 15 (3pm EST), Pulitzer Prize Administrator Dana Canedy will announce the winners of the the 2019 Pulitzer Prizes, including the finalists and winners for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. This announcement marks the 103rd year of the Prizes. For more information on this year's and all past years' winners and finalists, please visit http://www.Pulitzer.org.

It was just announced by Pulitzer Prize Administrator Dana Canedy that Jackie Sibblies Drury's Fairview has officially won the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

Playwright Eleanor Burgess' latest work THE NICETIES receives its west coast premiere at the Geffen Playhouse beginning April 9, 2019. THE NICETIES charts the escalating series of calm-to-volatile discourses between a university college professor and her brilliant student on history, race and reputation. Eleanor, a Huntington Playwright Fellow, carved out some time to answer a few of my inquisitive inquiries on her writing processes, while touching on some of her professional milestones.

Ensemble Studio Theatre (EST) (William Carden, Artistic Director, Sarah McLellan, Executive Director) and the Radio Drama Network (Melina Brown, President) announced today the lineup for the 37th Marathon of One-Act Plays. This year's selection of fifteen plays were chosen from 1120 submissions. They will be presented across three different series from Sunday, May 12, 2019 through Saturday, June 29, 2019.'

Jim Kierstead and Broadway Factor have announced a private industry reading for the new play, SPARKLER. Written by Erik Champney and directed by Sheryl Kaller, the reading will be held in New York City on March 29, 2019.

For the fifth straight year, Rover Dramawerks is pleased to partner with the playwrights' group 365 Women a Year to present a festival of plays about women, for everyone. This international playwriting coalition, founded by Jess Eisenberg, involves playwrights across the world who have signed on to write one or more plays about extraordinary women in both past and present history. The project's ambitious yet focused goal is to write women back into the social consciousness, as well as empower and promote female playwrights, and plant seeds of herstory around the country.

Tickets are now on sale for the 38th annual William Inge Theater Festival, which will honor playwright Octavio Solis with the William Inge Distinguished Achievement in the American Theater Award.  The Inge Festival has been the official theater festival of Kansas since 2010. It runs May 22-25, 2019 and is produced by the William Inge Center for the Arts at Independence Community College, in the lovely town of Independence, in southeast Kansas.

Princeton Summer Theater is pleased to announce that Daniel Krane and Hannah Semmelhack will return as the company's leadership team for the 2019 season. Daniel Krane, Princeton University Class of 2018, will serve as PST's Artistic Director again, while Hannah Semmelhack, Princeton Class of 2020 and a Theater certificate student, reprises her role as Executive Director.

The Eugene O'Neill Theater Center, announces that composer, actor and Tony Award-winner, Lin-Manuel Miranda will give the opening remarks at the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center's Monte Cristo Award Gala, while Academy Award-winning actor and O'Neill Center trustee, Michael Douglas will  present the iconic statue to playwright and screenwriter John Logan, at the gala evening in celebration of Logan's many achievements being held at the Edison Ballroom (New York) on Monday, April 22, 2019.

In the second event of the Folsom Lake College Speakers Series, the Harris Center welcomes Susan Stamberg to the podium. The nationally renowned broadcast journalist is a Special Correspondent for National Public Radio. She was the first woman to anchor a national nightly news program, she has won every major award in broadcasting, and she has been inducted into both the Broadcasting and Radio Hall(s) of Fame. Charismatic and insightful, Susan Stamberg is well-known for her conversational style, intelligence, and knack for finding the interesting story.

Hot off the heels of sellout smash "Pride and Prejudice," 4th Wall Theatre Company is starting 2019 with another Houston premiere, "Rapture, Blister, Burn" by Gina Gionfriddo. This 2013 Pulitzer Prize Finalist is a comedic but unflinching look at gender politics in the wake of fourth-wave feminism.

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