Will Casey News

The House Theatre of Chicago is proud to announce its 2016 - 2017 season opening production, the world premiere of Kara Davidson's A Comedical Tragedy for Mister Punch. Influenced by the long history of puppets, Punch and Judy, and directed by Shade Murray, the production runs September 2 - October 23 at the Chopin Theatre's Upstairs Theater, 1543 W. Division St.

The House Theatre of Chicago is proud to announce its 2016 - 2017 season opening production, the world premiere of Kara Davidson's A Comedical Tragedy for Mister Punch. Influenced by the long history of puppets, Punch and Judy, and directed by Shade Murray, the production runs September 2 - October 23 at the Chopin Theatre's Upstairs Theater, 1543 W. Division St.

THE ACTORS FUND has just announced its 2016 Medal of Honor recipients, who will be recognized at the annual gala, April 25, 2016 (6pm) at the Marriott Marquis. Honorees include: actor and producer Michael Douglas, producer and singer/songwriter Emilio and Gloria Estefan, NBC Entertainment Chairman Robert Greenblatt, American prima ballerina Cynthia Gregory, and director and choreographer Casey Nicholaw.

THE PROM, a hilarious new musical directed and choreographed by Tony Award winner Casey Nicholaw (Tuck Everlasting, Something Rotten!, The Book of Mormon), will have its world premiere at Atlanta's Alliance Theatre in August 2016. 

Michael Menendian, Producing Artistic Director of Raven Theatre, has announced casting for The Old Friends by Horton Foote. Raven's production will be the play's second since its World Premiere staging in fall 2013 by New York's Signature Theatre Company. That production was subsequently remounted in 2014 at the Alley Theatre in Houston, Texas. The Raven production will run on the company's East Stage from January 27 to March 26, 2016 under Menendian's direction.

TUCK EVERLASTING, the new musical based on Natalie Babbitt's beloved best-selling novel of the same name, will play Broadway's Broadhurst Theatre (235 West 44th Street) this spring with opening night set for Sunday, April 17, 2016. The show will begin previews Wednesday, March 23, 2016 (first preview was previously announced for March 19). The musical, which debuted earlier this year in a record-breaking engagement at Atlanta's Alliance Theatre, features a book by Tony Award® nominee Claudia Shear (Dirty Blonde), music by Chris Miller (The Burnt Part Boys), lyrics by Nathan Tysen (The Burnt Part Boys), and direction and choreography by Tony Award® winner Casey Nicholaw (Something Rotten!, Aladdin, The Book of Mormon). TUCK EVERLASTING is produced by Grove Entertainment, Arlene Scanlan & Michael Jackowitz, Howard & Janet Kagan, and Barry Brown.

Sean Graney, who recently returned to Chicago to resume his post as Artistic Director of The Hypocrites, informed the Joseph Jefferson Awards Committee that he just learned the theater company had been operating under an Equity CAT-N contract for the duration of the 2014-2015 Non-Equity season.  Over the past year, requests for judging its productions were made to the Non-Equity Wing without the committee having knowledge of the company's Equity status. The Jeff Committee was aware that two of the productions had Equity performers (as indicated in the program); however, the committee has now confirmed that these were not guest contracts.  As such, the company's productions are not eligible for consideration in the Non-Equity Wing, and all related Non-Equity Jeff Award nominations have been rescinded.  The productions in question will be shifted to the Equity Wing for awards consideration during its current season, which commenced on August 1, 2014 and will end on July 30, 2015.

Raven Theatre Company's exploration of Horton Foote will continue with its free reading of Foote's Courtship, the fifth of nine plays in the writer's The Orphans' Home Cycle, a series of plays based on the life of Foote's father between the years 1902 and 1928.

Raven Theatre Company's exploration of Horton Foote will continue with its free reading of Foote's Courtship, the fifth of nine plays in the writer's The Orphans' Home Cycle, a series of plays based on the life of Foote's father between the years 1902 and 1928.

Thirst comes in many flavors. Some men thirst for power and the taste is so strong they cannot see or hear reason for the want of it. Some thirst for revenge and the urge is so primal that weapons are soon wet with blood. Others just plain thirst for water, as they live in a time when to drink the water we take for granted is death, though it comes from faucets and rivers and lakes that once were fresh and clean and safe.

Today we continue our Tonys coverage with Casey, a nominee for Best Choreography for Aladdin, who chats about the evolution of the musical, what it means to him to have two hit shows on Broadway, and more. Check out what he had to say below!

Raven's revival of this later play by Tennessee Williams that was 'rediscovered' in acclaimed productions in London and New York is an autobiographical play that Williams first began writing around the time he started The Glass Menagerie. It concerns a young writer who in 1938 moves to a ramshackle French Quarter rooming house that's home to an assortment of desperate and eccentric characters. The New York Times said Vieux Carre is, along with The Glass Menagerie, Williams' other autobiographical memory play, one of two 'critical bookends' to Williams' career. Scroll down to see a trailer for the production!

Raven's revival of this later play by Tennessee Williams that was 'rediscovered' in acclaimed productions in London and New York is autobiographical play that Williams first began writing around the time he started The Glass Menagerie. It concerns a young writer who in 1938 moves to a ramshackle French Quarter rooming house that's home to an assortment of desperate and eccentric characters. The New York Times said Vieux Carre is, along with The Glass Menagerie, Williams' other autobiographical memory play, one of two 'critical bookends' to Williams' career. Scroll down to see some pictures of the cast in action!

Complete casting has been announced for Raven's revival of this later play by Tennessee Williams that was 'rediscovered' in acclaimed productions in London and New York. An autobiographical play that Williams first began writing around the time he started The Glass Menagerie, it concerns a young writer who in 1938 moves to a ramshackle French Quarter rooming house that's home to an assortment of desperate and eccentric characters. The New York Times said Vieux Carre is, along with The Glass Menagerie, Williams' other autobiographical memory play, one of two 'critical bookends' to Williams' career.

The Broadway Across America national tour rolled into Salt Lake City for a three-performance run, and the cast created a highly entertaining, stirring production of this musical snapshot of a teenage wasteland.

The Will Rogers Institute (WRI) announced Casey Affleck as its 2013 Summer Theatrical Fundraising Spokesperson.

A small, horsey, winter resort town, Aiken, South Carolina, is forced through a major upheaval when the United States Atomic Energy Commission announces and then constructs a massive nuclear weapons plant during the beginning of the Cold War. The project is enormous in every respect, requiring 8,000 people to build it and as many as 22,000 employees to run it when completed. When it began operations, it encompassed 310 square miles and occupied a significant portion of two existing South Carolina counties.

Green Day lead singer Billie Joe Armstrong, who wrote this rock opera's lyrics, and his punk rock band that created its unstoppably vibrant music weren't going for "comfortable." They were aiming, along with co-creator and director Michael Mayer (who picked up a Tony for his direction of Spring Awakening), to offer a musical production that breaks ground for its in-your-face punk rock approach to storytelling and its entirely unapologetic tale of sex, drugs and (punk) rock n' roll. And while there's lots of all of the above-and all very well done-there's not so much in the way of a plot with any depth.

Billie Joe Armstrong, Green Day's vocalist/guitarist wrote the lyrics for 'American Idiot' in the rock opera style of 'The Who', with songs that follow three disenfranchised young men- Johnny (Alex Nee), Will (Casey O'Farrell), and Tunny (Thomas Hettrick) as they attempt to leave their stifling suburban selves in the hopes of not becoming another 'American Idiot'.

Raven Theatre's 30th season continues with Rebecca Gilman's dark drama, Boy Gets Girl. Two opening nights are scheduled for Sunday, January 20 at 7:00 p.m. and Monday, January 21 at 7:30 p.m. at Raven Theatre, 6157 N. Clark. Tickets and information are available at www.raventheatre.com or 773-338-2177.