Wilma Theater News

Between the national pride celebrated on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day and the oft overlooked commemoration of Executive Order 9066 to intern Japanese-Americans in the 1940s, Plays & Players presents two theatrical events that remind us of the struggles we have overcome and the steps yet to be taken: Voices of a People's History of the United States and Hold These Truths.

Milwaukee Repertory Theater brings its uplifting production of Charles Dickens' beloved holiday classic A Christmas Carol to The Pabst Theater this December.

Philadelphia Theatre Company's continues its 40th Anniversary season with the Tony Award-nominated play Outside Mullingar by John Patrick Shanley November 28-December 28. Directed by Mary B. Robinson, the cast features Beth Dixon, David Howey, Anthony Lawton, and Kathleen McNenny.

Milwaukee Repertory Theater brings its uplifting production of Charles Dickens' beloved holiday classic A Christmas Carol to The Pabst Theater this December.

Christopher Marlowe's 1587 epic Tamburlaine, Parts I and II, edited and directed by Olivier Award-winner Michael Boyd and starring John Douglas Thompson, opens Sunday, November 16, at 1:00pm at Theatre for a New Audience, Polonsky Shakespeare Center, 262 Ashland Place.

Take a musical journey back to your youth, or even before you were born, with the songs that speak to all of our hearts and shine through all of our memories. Slim Bob Slim -- the ukulele-playing vaudevillian alter-ego of Philadelphia actor, writer, and director Seth Reichgott -- takes you on a journey through the great old-timey music we all know and love. Featuring such favorites as 'Take On Me,' 'Come On Eileen,' 'Walking On Sunshine,' and many more, STAND BACK I'M GONNA UKE is a concert, an evening of storytelling, and a chance to tap your feet and sing along to all new arrangements of great songs from the 80s.

As part of their 31st season, Undermain Theatre is thrilled to bring the Regional Premiere of Meg Miroshnik's The Fairytale Lives of Russian Girls to their home in Deep Ellum at 3200 Main Street. Performances will run tonight, November 11th through December 6th, 2014.

La Jolla Playhouse announces five shows for its 2015/2016 season, featuring all new works, including the world-premiere musical Come from Away, featuring book, music and lyrics by acclaimed Canadian husband-and-wife team Irene Sankoff and David Hein, directed by Playhouse Artistic Director Christopher Ashley; the world premiere of Indecent, co-created by director Rebecca Taichman (Playhouse's Sleeping Beauty Wakes, Milk Like Sugar), and Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Paula Vogel (How I Learned to Drive), co-produced with Yale Repertory Theatre; and Blueprints to Freedom: An Ode to Bayard Rustin, by Michael Benjamin Washington (Memphis, The Wiz), directed by The Cosby Show's Phylicia Rashad, which had its first workshop during the Playhouse's 2014 DNA New Work Series.

The award-winning companies VS. Theatre and Firefly Theater & Films are co-producing the West Coast Premiere of a newly revised version of Itamar Moses' COMPLETENESS. The production will be directed by Philadelphia's multi-Barrymore Award-nominee and F. Otto Haas Award-winning director Matt Pfeiffer and will feature Steven Klein, Emily Swallow, Nicole Erb and Rob Nagle. COMPLETENESS will preview tonight, November 6 at 8pm and will open on Friday, November 7 at 8pm and will run through Sunday, December 7 at VS. Theatre, 5453 W. Pico Blvd. in Los Angeles.

Theatre Exile begins its season examining the dark side of the American Dream with the Philadelphia Premiere of Lucas Hnath's Red Speedo. This taut, darkly comic new play runs now through November 23 at Theatre Exile's Studio X, 1340 S. 13th Street (13th and Reed Streets.) Opening Night is tonight, November 5 at 8 p.m.

The National Theatre production of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, the acclaimed new play by Simon Stephens, adapted from Mark Haddon's best-selling novel, directed by Tony Award-winner Marianne Elliott, officially opened on Broadway on October 5 at the Barrymore Theatre (243 West 47th Street). Scroll down to learn more about the full cast and watch interviews with the company below!

Marin Alsop leads the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra (BSO) in the BSO premiere ofShostakovich: Notes for Stalin, a Symphonic Play by Playwright in Residence Didi Balle. This special Off the Cuff performance onFriday, November 14 at 8:15 p.m. at The Music Center at Strathmore and Saturday, November 15 at 7 p.m. at the Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall dramatizes Shostakovich's harrowing life during Stalin's murderous reign in 1930s Russia, and features actors Jered McLenigan, Richard Poe and Tony Tsendeas. Please see below for complete program details.

On October 27, 2014, the following nominees and award recipients were honored at the 2014 Barrymore Awards Ceremony at The Merriam Thater, produced by Theatre Philadelphia.

The first Globe for All free Shakespeare tour will begin today, October 28 and will culminate in three low-cost performances on November 7 - 9 in the Globe's Hattox Hall, part of the Karen and Donald Cohn Education Center in the Conrad Prebys Theatre Center.

The 2014 Barrymore Awards for Excellence in Theatre, live blogged from the Merriam Theatre!

Philadelphia Theatre Company's continues its 40th Anniversary season with the Tony Award-nominated play Outside Mullingar by John Patrick Shanley November 28-December 28. Directed by Mary B. Robinson, the cast features Beth Dixon, David Howey, Anthony Lawton, and Kathleen McNenny.

As part of their 31st season, Undermain Theatre is thrilled to bring the Regional Premiere of Meg Miroshnik's The Fairytale Lives of Russian Girls to their home in Deep Ellum at 3200 Main Street. Performances will run November 11th through December 6th, 2014.

The Old Globe invites your participation and coverage as it begins presenting shows through an exciting new producing platform, Globe for All. This free-of-charge tour of a professional production of Shakespeare will allow the theatre to serve more communities throughout San Diego by collaborating with a diverse range of local organizations. Old Globe Artistic Director Barry Edelstein directs the first production, Shakespeare's fascinating romance All's Well That Ends Well. He has cast local professional actors, including recent graduates of the Old Globe/University of San Diego Graduate Theatre Program. The first Globe for All free Shakespeare tour will begin October 28 and will culminate in three low-cost performances on November 7 to 9 in the Globe's Hattox Hall, part of the Karen and Donald Cohn Education Center in the Conrad Prebys Theatre Center.

After the highly acclaimed production of Becky Shaw in the 2009/10 season The Wilma Theater is thrilled to be producing its second Gina Gionfriddo play-Rapture, Blister, Burn directed by UArts Ira Brind School of Theater Director Joanna Settle. When celebrity professor Catherine reunites with her best friends from graduate school, now a married couple with kids living in a New England college town, she begins to rethink the choices she's made over the past twenty years. As these three friends navigate their new relationships with each other, feelings of regret begin to arise. Catherine's homecoming leads to shifting dynamics and a larger look at how much (or little) the lives of women have evolved over the past century, while examining subjects ranging from pornography to Betty Friedan to slasher films. Susan Smith Blackburn Prize-winner Gina Gionfriddo offers a fresh take on timeless questions by wittily juxtaposing feminist theories with messy human desires.

Theatre Exile begins its season examining the dark side of the American Dream with the Philadelphia Premiere of Lucas Hnath's Red Speedo. This taut, darkly comic new play runs October 30-November 23 at Theatre Exile's Studio X, 1340 S. 13th Street (13th and Reed Streets.) Opening Night is Wednesday, November 5 at 8 p.m. Tickets cost $25-$40 and are available online at www.theatreexile.org or by phone (215) 218-4022.