The course of true love never did run smooth, Lysander tells his distraught lover Hermia at the beginning of A Midsummer Night?s Dream. Mischief, mayhem, moonbeams, and magic potions abound as four young Athenian lovers encounter more than they imagined possible in one of Shakespeare?s best known romantic comedies.
The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey celebrates the summer with two back-to-back classic comedies on the Main Stage. Molière's classic farce, The School for Wives, directed by Brian B. Crowe, kicks off the summer's mirth on July 8 and runs through July 26. The Tony Award nominated Noises Off, the hugely popular British farce by Michael Frayn and directed by Paul Mullins, begins performances on August 5 and continues through August 30.
Marin Theatre Company presents the final show of its highly successful 2008-09 season with a seminal work of modern comedy, Joe Orton's uproarious farce What the Butler Saw in MTC's Boyer Theatre beginning June 4.
The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey continues its annual summer tradition of family theatre 'under-the-stars' with William Shakespeare's magical and mysterious romance The Tempest directed by Joe Discher.
Broadway's surprise 'head banging' hit Rock of Ages, is among the celebrated ranks of this year's Tony contenders, earning no fewer than five nominations-including a Best Actor nomination for star Constantine Maroulis. A Season 4 veteran of American Idol, Maroulis is the first contestant from the hit FOX series to earn such a prestigious distinction. But it shouldn't come as such a big shock as the actor attended the The Boston Conservatory of Music, where he received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Musical Theater from the Boston Conservatory of Music and a minor in voice from the Berklee College of Music in 2002.
La MaMa to present American Debut of Italian Playwright/Director Alessandro Corazzi with 'Blue Day,' a human comedy, May 28 to June 14.
Center Theatre Group has announced that Bill Pullman and Julia Stiles will appear in David Mamet's 'Oleanna', the third production of the Mark Taper season, replacing the previously announced 'Uncle Vanya.' That production was cancelled due to scheduling conflicts. Tony-winning Broadway director Doug Hughes will stage 'Oleanna,' which is scheduled to run May 28th through July 12th. Opening night is scheduled June 5th.
American Conservatory Theater (A.C.T.) announces the final show of its 2008-09 season: Edward Albee's At Home at the Zoo, staged by acclaimed director Rebecca Bayla Taichman (world premieres of Theresa Rebeck's The Scene and Mauritius and Sarah Ruhl's Dead Man's Cell Phone). This new spellbinder by the master playwright who also penned Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and A.C.T.'s The Goat, or Who is Sylvia?, is a meticulously calibrated and dangerously brutal
look at relationships intimate and unexpected. The story opens with Peter, a tweedy book editor, and his wife, Ann, whose everyday conversation takes an unexpected turn into dangerously personal territory. It's the kind of conversation that can drive a husband out for a walk-to Central Park, where Jerry, a desperate outcast, awaits. An unforgettable pairing of Albee's original The Zoo Story with a freshly penned prequel, At Home at the Zoo (formerly titled Peter and Jerry) bares its teeth to threaten the delicately balanced world its characters inhabit. Artistic Director Carey Perloff has put together an all-star artistic team on this production, featuring Tony Award-nominated actor Manoel Felciano (Ragtime at The Kennedy Center, A.C.T.'s Rock 'n' Roll, and Sweeney Todd on Broadway) as Jerry and scenic designer Robert Brill, who received a Tony Award nomination
last week for his work on Guys and Dolls on Broadway. Hailed by critics as 'a thoroughly satisfying package of jagged-edged provocation' (Newsday) and 'an essential and heartening experience'
(The New York Times), Edward Albee's At Home at the Zoo plays at A.C.T. June 5-July 5, 2009. Opening night is Wednesday, June 10, 2009, at 8 p.m. Tickets-starting at $14-are available by calling A.C.T. Ticket Services at 415.749.2228, or at www.act-sf.org.
Rehearsals have begun for David Mamet's 'Oleanna,' which begins previews May 28 and continues through July 12 at the Center Theatre Group / Mark Taper Forum (opening night is Friday, June 5). 'Oleanna' features Bill Pullman and Julia Stiles under the direction of Tony Award-winner Doug Hughes.
The Canadian Stage Company wraps its 2008.2009 season with Doubt, a parable, the award-winning play that's taken North America by storm. The production stars Canadian theatre icons Seana McKenna (Canadian Stage's The Clean House, Wit) and David Storch (Canadian Stage's Frost/Nixon and director of Palace of the End), and is helmed by renowned director Marti Maraden (Canadian Stage's Trying). The production runs from through May 30, 2009 (media night: May 7) at the Bluma Appel Theatre, 27 Front Street East. For tickets and information, contact 416-368-3110 or canstage.com.
La MaMa to present American Debut of Italian Playwright/Director Alessandro Corazzi with 'Blue Day,' a human comedy, May 28 to June 14.
The Public Theater announced initial casting today for the Shakespeare in the Park production of TWELFTH NIGHT, directed by Daniel Sullivan and featuring the previously announced Anne Hathaway as Viola. TWELFTH NIGHT will run June 10-July 12 at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park with an official press opening on Thursday, June 25 at 8 p.m. Bank of America will return as lead sponsor of Shakespeare in the Park 2009.
The Tony Award®-winning Old Globe is pleased to announce the cast of its 2009 Summer Shakespeare Festival, featuring two works by Shakespeare, Twelfth Night and Coriolanus, along with Edmond Rostand's celebrated classic, Cyrano de Bergerac. The three productions will be performed in nightly rotation in the Globe's outdoor Lowell Davies Festival Theatre June 13 - September 27, 2009.
BAM is delighted to present a new staging of Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice from Edward Hall's award-winning company Propeller. Last at BAM with renowned productions of The Taming of the Shrew and Twelfth Night (2007 Spring Season), comedies that revel in the trials and inevitable tribulations of romantic love, Propeller returns with an audaciously compelling interpretation of The Merchant of Venice, critically acclaimed in its recent U.K. run.
Marin Theatre Company presents the final show of its highly successful 2008-09 season with a seminal work of modern comedy, Joe Orton's uproarious farce What the Butler Saw in MTC's Boyer Theatre beginning June 4.
The producers of ROCK OF AGES announced the complete, awesome cast for Broadway's new, smash hit musical today. Constantine Maroulis, ('American Idol' Season 4, Broadway's The Wedding Singer, RENT) reprising his critically acclaimed role as 'Drew', is now joined by Broadway's best 1970's & 1980's period actors Amy Spanger (The Wedding Singer, Kiss Me Kate) as 'Sherrie' and James Carpinello (Saturday Night Fever, VH1's 'So NoTORIous') as 'Stacee Jaxx'.
Oskar Eustis, Artistic Director of The Public Theater, has announced the 26-member Broadway cast of HAIR: The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical. Newcomers to the cast include Gavin Creel, Caissie Levy and Sasha Allen, who join the rest of the tribe, who are reprising their roles from Central Park last summer. HAIR begins preview performances on Friday, March 6 at the Al Hirschfeld Theatre (302 West 45th Street, NYC) with an Opening Night set for Tuesday, March 31, 2009.
Broadway's most talked about new musical and the biggest Tony Award-winner in years is coming to Cleveland. Spring Awakening, the 8-time Tony Award? winning Broadway musical, will open at PlayhouseSquare's PalaceTheatre and play for 16 performances, March 3-15. Spring Awakening is part of the KeyBank Broadway Series at PlayhouseSquare.
Spring Awakening swept the 2007 Tony Awards? winning eight out of its eleven nominations, including Best Musical, Best Director (Michael Mayer), Best Book (Steven Sater), Best Choreography (Bill T. Jones), Best Orchestrations (Duncan Sheik), Best Lighting Design (Kevin Adams), Best Featured Actor (John Gallagher Jr.).
McCarter Theatre Center announces the complete cast of William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, directed by Rebecca Taichman. A co-production with Washington, D.C.'s Shakespeare Theatre Company, Twelfth Night begins performances in the Matthews Theatre on Tuesday, March 10 and runs until March 29. (Press opening Friday, March 13).
Shipwrecked in a foreign land without family, friends or possessions-what's a girl to do? Identity is under siege in the labyrinth of misconceptions that is Twelfth Night, Shakespeare's bewitching comedy of unquenchable desire, self-deception and misdirected love. This fantastical, timeless production-helmed by rising-star director Rebecca Taichman-is a real sensualist's delight: full of longing 'all as hungry as the sea' and awash in ethereal charm.
The producers of ROCK OF AGES announced the complete, awesome cast for Broadway's new, smash hit musical today. Constantine Maroulis, ('American Idol' Season 4, Broadway's The Wedding Singer, RENT) reprising his critically acclaimed role as 'Drew', is now joined by Broadway's best 1970's & 1980's period actors Amy Spanger (The Wedding Singer, Kiss Me Kate) as 'Sherrie' and James Carpinello (Saturday Night Fever, VH1's 'So NoTORIous') as 'Stacee Jaxx'.
The Public Theater (Artistic Director Oskar Eustis; Executive Director Andrew D. Hamingson) announced today that the 2009 Shakespeare in the Park summer season will begin in June with a new production of William Shakespeare?s TWELFTH NIGHT directed by Daniel Sullivan and featuring Academy Award nominee Anne Hathaway as Viola. TWELFTH NIGHT will run June 9-July 12 at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park. In August, JoAnne Akalaitis will return to direct Euripides?s THE BACCHAE, translated by Nicholas Rudall, and featuring original music by Philip Glass. THE BACCHAE will run August 11-September 6.
Bristol Riverside Theatre presents the World Premiere of What You Will, a BRT original interpretation of Shakespeare's comedy Twelfth Night from February 10 through March 1, 2009. A daring and bold take on the classic comedy that combines the language of Shakespeare with contemporary rhythms and movement, What You Will is conceived and co-directed by BRT Artistic Director Keith Baker and Donald Byrd, acclaimed choreographer of Broadway's The Color Purple and Artistic Director of Seattle's Spectrum Dance Theater. Music direction and original music by hip hop producer Justin Ellington completes the marriage of text, high-energy movement and heart-pounding music.
What You Will begins previews February 10, opens February 12, and closes March 1, 2009. Tickets are $29 - $37, with $10 student tickets, and are available by calling the Box Office at (215) 785-0100 or visiting the theatre at 120 Radcliffe Street in Bristol, with information online at www.brtstage.org. [A full performance schedule follows on page 4.]
In this new interpretation, Shakespeare's original text is heard with a distinctively contemporary American voice as the worlds of modern urban and classical theatre are fused. In What You Will (Shakespeare's full title for the play was Twelfth Night, Or What You Will), the social center of Illyria is Club 12th Night - a place where pranks and disguises, playful games and folly rule. A shipwrecked woman stumbles into the club, beginning a chain of events leading to an astonishing conclusion. Mistaken identities, intrigue, music, a beautiful heiress, drunken partiers, and a spiteful servant merge with a hip-hop rhythm in Shakespeare's enchanting tale of revelry and love.
Center Theatre Group has announced that Bill Pullman and Julia Stiles will appear in David Mamet's 'Oleanna', the third production of the Mark Taper season, replacing the previously announced 'Uncle Vanya.' That production was cancelled due to scheduling conflicts. Tony-winning Broadway director Doug Hughes will stage 'Oleanna,' which is scheduled to run May 28th through July 12th. Opening night is scheduled June 5th.
Oskar Eustis, Artistic Director of The Public Theater, has announced the 26-member Broadway cast of HAIR: The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical. Newcomers to the cast include Gavin Creel, Caissie Levy and Sasha Allen, who join the rest of the tribe, who are reprising their roles from Central Park last summer. Currently in rehearsal at the Union Square Theatre, HAIR begins preview performances on Friday, March 6 at the Al Hirschfeld Theatre (302 West 45th Street, NYC) with an Opening Night set for Tuesday, March 31, 2009.
Broadway's most talked about new musical and the biggest Tony Award-winner in years is coming to Cleveland. Spring Awakening, the 8-time Tony Award? winning Broadway musical, will open at PlayhouseSquare's PalaceTheatre and play for 16 performances, March 3-15. Spring Awakening is part of the KeyBank Broadway Series at PlayhouseSquare.
Spring Awakening swept the 2007 Tony Awards? winning eight out of its eleven nominations, including Best Musical, Best Director (Michael Mayer), Best Book (Steven Sater), Best Choreography (Bill T. Jones), Best Orchestrations (Duncan Sheik), Best Lighting Design (Kevin Adams), Best Featured Actor (John Gallagher Jr.).
Videos