William Finn News

Arena Stage in association with Tony Cacciotti and David Steiner presents Looped starring four-time Emmy Award winner Valerie Harper (Rhoda, The Mary Tyler Moore Show) at the Lincoln Theatre.

Theatre Aspen, Aspen¹s only professional theatre and school, is pleased to announce that casting is complete for the 2009 summer season, reported Artistic Director Paige Price. Theatre Aspen enters its 26th season with an award-winning mix of music, comedy and family fare.

New Line Theatre, 'The Bad Boy of Musical Theatre,' closes its eighteenth season of provocative, adult, alternative musical theatre with the hilariously quirky and big-hearted Broadway musical, THE 25th ANNUAL PUTNAM COUNTY SPELLING BEE, running July 16-August 8, 2009, at the Washington University South Campus Theatre (formerly CBC High School), 6501 Clayton Road, just east of Big Bend. This is not on the Wash.U. main campus.

Over 300 current and past New York City high school students and the 22 mentors and 5 guest mentors who have participated in TDF's Open Doors, the theatre arts mentoring program that TDF founded in 1998 with playwright Wendy Wasserstein, will attend this year's graduation ceremony tomorrow, Wednesday, May 27 at 6:00pm at Professional Performing Arts School (328 West 48 Street).

Musical theatre lovers, join us for a special event: Transport Group Theatre Co. presents An Evening With William Finn and Friends with musical direction by Vadim Feichtner.

Jim Caruso's Cast Party is proud to announce the return of MALCOLM GETS to the Broadway at Birdland concert series. Gets will be celebrating the release of his new cd, ?The Journey Home? (PS Classics) on Monday, June 1 at 7pm. Composer/pianist/Emmy winner JOHN McDANIEL will serve as Musical Director for the evening, with Tom Hubbard on bass, Rich Mercurio on drums, Peter Sachon on cello and special guest (and Amour co-star) Melissa Errico, who will duet with Gets.

Jenna gives a rundown of where she's been and who she's seen in the world of cabaret in the past week. The past week's events include the MAC Awards, Hector Coris' 'Life Is Wonderful' and Rob Langeder's 'Any Place I Hang My Hat...'

Barrington Stage Company's Musical Theatre Lab, under the mentorship of Tony winning composer/lyricist William Finn, kicks off its fourth season, with a reading of a new musical, Poolside at the Hotel Bel Air by Nikos Tsakalakos and Janet Allard, as part of the theater's 15th Anniversary Season.

Get out your dictionaries! Celebrating 35 years of producing award-winning musical theater in Chicagoland, The Marriott Theatre is thrilled to present this side-splitting production of the Tony Award-winning musical comedy The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee previews May 13th, opens May 20th, and runs through July 19th at the Marriott Theatre, 10 Marriott Drive.

Transport Group, the winner of a special 2007 Drama Desk Award and a 2007 Obie Award, will present An Evening With...William Finn & Friends on Monday, June 15th at 7:00PM at the Lucille Lortel Theatre, 121 Christopher Street, between Bleecker and Bedford Streets.

Previews are now underway at Playwrights Horizons (Tim Sanford, Artistic Director; Leslie Marcus, Managing Director) for the New York premiere of Our House, a new play by Pulitzer Prize finalist Theresa Rebeck (The Butterfly Collection and Bad Dates at Playwrights Horizons, Broadway's Mauritius, co-author of Omnium Gatherum). A scathing new comedy that shakes up Reality TV, Our House is the final production of the theater company's 2008/2009 Season.

Get out your dictionaries! Celebrating 35 years of producing award-winning musical theater in Chicagoland, The Marriott Theatre is thrilled to present this side-splitting production of the Tony Award-winning musical comedy The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee previews May 13th, opens May 20th, and runs through July 19th at the Marriott Theatre, 10 Marriott Drive.

Over 300 current and past New York City high school students and the 22 mentors and 5 guest mentors who have participated in TDF's Open Doors, the theatre arts mentoring program that TDF founded in 1998 with playwright Wendy Wasserstein, will attend this year's graduation ceremony on Wednesday, May 27 at 6:00pm at Professional Performing Arts School (328 West 48 Street). This year has been Open Doors biggest year ever with a total of 27 mentors and guest mentors working with 20 groups of students from New York City high schools, representing all five boroughs.

Celebrated cabaret performer Jamie deRoy presents a special evening of her Multi MAC Award-winning variety show, Jamie de Roy & friends on Tuesday, June 2nd (7PM) at the New York hotspot Metropolitan Room (34 West 22nd Street ~between 5th & 6th Avenues) with a an evening of songs from Tony Award®-winning Musicals.

Three studio titles will change and one production will move to the Main Stage in a major revision of the Portland Center Stage 2009/2010 season. Early strong seller The Chosen will move to the Main Stage, replacing Joe Turner's Come and Gone (which will be deferred to future season). In the studio, a possible Broadway tour causes our production of Thurgood Marshall to be postponed, and The Best So Far will be put on hold to give it a bit more gestation (and New York fundraising) time.

Barrington Stage Company, under the leadership of Artistic Director Julianne Boyd and Producing Director Richard M. Parison, Jr., presents a workshop of a new play, I Got Sick Then I Got Better by Jenny Allen, directed by James Lapine and Darren Katz, as part of the theater's 15th Anniversary Season. Performances will take place at BSC's Stage 2 space, 36 Linden Street, Pittsfield, on Friday, May 15 and Saturday, May 16 at 8pm, with a Sunday matinee May 17 at 3pm.

Three studio titles will change and one production will move to the Main Stage in a major revision of the Portland Center Stage 2009/2010 season. Early strong seller The Chosen will move to the Main Stage, replacing Joe Turner's Come and Gone (which will be deferred to future season). In the studio, a possible Broadway tour causes our production of Thurgood Marshall to be postponed, and The Best So Far will be put on hold to give it a bit more gestation (and New York fundraising) time.

The Canadian Stage Company is pleased to announce the second Festival of Ideas and Creation at the Berkeley Street Theatre, 26 Berkeley Street, Toronto, June 8 to 27, 2009. The three-week festival offers public, youth, artist and industry programming and features more than 350 theatre luminaries, emerging artists and youth in over 75 live events, most of them free.

Following a critically acclaimed season which included the Pulitzer Prize finalist Becky Shaw and the Broadway transfer of its musical hit Next to Normal, Second Stage Theatre (Carole Rothman, Artistic Director; Ellen Richard, Executive Director) has announced three of the four plays scheduled for its upcoming 31st Season.

A new play written and directed by Paul Weitz and the rain-check run of the latest Douglas Carter Beane play are set for the 2009-10 season at Off Broadway's Second Stage Theater according to a report in Variety.