Back Back Back - 2008 - Off-Broadway Articles Page 8

In October of 2025, 54 BELOW will present some of the brightest stars from Broadway, cabaret, jazz, and beyond, including Joy Woods, Adrienne Warren and more. Learn more!

Original Spaceballs cast members Rick Moranis, Bill Pullman, Daphne Zuniga, and George Wyner are all set to reprise their roles in the long-awaited sequel to the 1987 cult classic from Mel Brooks. Check out a photo of the first table read!

CASA 0101 Theater will present the World Premiere production of Josefina López's latest play, Eléctrico, as part of CASA 0101 Theater's ongoing 25th Anniversary Season. 

Ringo Starr and His All Starr Band, featuring Steve Lukather, Colin Hay, Hamish Stuart, Warren Ham, Buck Johnson, and Gregg Bissonette, returns for a third year to The Venetian Resort Las Vegas from Sept. 24-27.

The University of North Carolina School of the Arts (UNCSA) is celebrating its 60th anniversary this month, commemorating the moment in 1965 when it opened its doors as the nation's first public arts conservatory.

Broadway veterans Dianne Wiest and Lois Smith, along with Tony Hale, have joined the guest star lineup for Season 3 of Elsbeth. The CBS detective series, led by Carrie Preston, will return for its third season on October 12, 2025.

Camp Rock 3 has officially been greenlit for Disney+ and Disney Channel, with Joe, Nick, and Kevin Jonas returning to their fan-favorite roles. The movie began filming this week in Vancouver.

To celebrate the return of The Sound of Music in theaters, we are taking a look back at Christopher Plummer's expansive stage career, from Cyrano to King Lear, and more.

Show One Productions has announced the return of the legendary, all-male ballerinas, Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo (the Trocks). Learn more here!

The World Premiere of the play HIGH NOON, starring Emmy and Tony Award-winner Billy Crudup as Will Kane and Olivier Award-winner Denise Gough as Amy Fowler, opens in December.

On 4–7 September 2025, EKI Dance Company returned to the stage with Perempuan Punya Cerita, performed at Gelora Bakti Budaya, Taman Ismail Marzuki.

Tuacahn Amphitheatre has announced its 2026–2027 season, a lineup that balances blockbuster musicals, a family favorite, and a comedy hit, with productions running in both the iconic outdoor amphitheatre and the Hafen Indoor Theatre.

BroadwayWorld talks to Brian Copeland about 'The Waiting Period,' his searingly honest and surprisingly humorous life-saving solo show which will have its 500th performance September 20th at The Marsh Berkeley, coincidingBrian Copeland could easily point to any number of impressive achievements from his multi-faceted career. As a standup comic, he’s opened for icons like Aretha Franklin and Smokey Robinson. His seminal theater piece Not a Genuine Black Man still reigns as the longest-running solo show in San Francisco theater history. For 5 years, he co-hosted KTVUs Mornings on 2, and for 27 years hosted his own radio program on KGO. Related to the latter, he will be inducted into the Bay Area Radio Hall of Fame next month, something of which he is particularly proud. But – if you ask him “What is the most worthwhile thing you’ve ever done?” he answers without hesitation, “The Waiting Period,” because it has actually saved people’s lives. I spoke with him recently to learn more about this uniquely impactful solo theater piece, which will mark its 500th performance on September 20th at The Marsh Berkeley. As has become standard practice for The Waiting Period, tickets are free of charge. Based on his personal experience, the piece is an exploration of depression and suicidal ideation, its title referring to the state-mandated 10 ten days that must elapse between purchasing a gun and taking possession of it. For Copeland, those ten days were literally a lifesaver, and so he felt compelled to share his story. Although he’d long struggled with depression, back in 2008 he was faced with an unimaginable chain of events that was more than he could handle. Within a short time, the grandmother who’d raised him died of a stroke, his wife announced out of the blue that she wanted a divorce, and he got into a horrific accident that totaled his car and necessitated spinal cord surgery, putting on his couch in a neck brace for three months, popping Vicodin. Thoughts of suicide became inescapable so he purchased a TomCat, planning to use it to end his life. Against all odds, he managed to “white-knuckle it” through the waiting period while the most acute aspects of his depression lifted just enough to stop him from killing himself. But, as Copeland says, “The thing about depression is it’s never cured – it’s better, it’s worse, it’s manageable, there are times when it’s absent - but it’s always a hair trigger away from something, from some catastrophe or some chemical imbalance.” Once the fog had lifted at least temporarily, he seriously started rethinking his experience as someone who believes in finding reasons for things. During that period, a young man within Copeland’s circle committed suicide at the age of fifteen and Robin Williams killed himself as well, although the complicating factor of Lewy Body Dementia had not been made public at that time. Copeland took those incidents like a blow to the solar plexus and began to explore what he could personally do to help prevent such tragedies. He was encouraged to bring his own struggles to light by his publicist, who happened to have represented film icon Rock Hudson in 1985 when the actor announced to the world that he had AIDS, thereby removing some of the stigma from that disease. The publicist suggested to Copeland that by going public with his story maybe he could do the same thing for depression and suicidal ideation. Copeland had received his mission. Collaborating with the Bay Area’s guru of solo performance, David Ford, Copeland set out to “create a show about depression that wasn’t depressing,” making sure to include enough reality-based humor to draw audiences in and counterbalance the heaviness of the topic. As he puts it, “the comedy makes the drama much more impactful, and the drama makes the comedy funnier because it’s a release.” The Waiting Period opened at The Marsh in 2012 and became an instant sensation, winning awards and getting extended multiple times. After a year or so, Copeland realized he couldn’t keep performing the show on a regular basis because it required him relive some very dark and harrowing episodes. But he felt he could continue to do the show on an occasional basis, maybe twice a month or so, without seriously endangering his own mental health. He also talked to Stephanie Weisman, artistic director of The Marsh, about making the show free of charge to audiences so that cost wouldn’t be a barrier to attending. Weisman readily agreed to having a GoFundMe campaign was set up to cover basic production costs like theater staffing. Copeland and his publicist then placed calls to various industry contacts and were stunned by the outpouring of support from celebrities like Glenn Close, Ed Asner and Lucie Arnaz, whose lives had been personally touched by depression and suicide. Fast forward to 2025, and Copeland is now embarking on the 500th performance of The Waiting Period on September 20th, timed to coincide with Suicide Prevention Month. Copeland remains committed to continuing to do the show because he knows the profound impact it’s had on the lives of so many people, from the letters he’s received and follow-up conversations he’s had. Just one example: a woman planned to jump off the Golden Gate Bridge one Sunday morning and stopped off at her favorite café enroute to savor one last coffee and pastry before ending her life. She noticed the San Francisco Chronicle “pink” section lying on her table and thumbed through it while finishing her coffee. It happened to contain a brief article about The Waiting Period that noted a performance would be happening that very afternoon. She was intrigued enough to alter her plan - slightly. She decided to flip a coin and if it came up heads, she would proceed straight to the bridge; if it came up tails, she would go see Copeland’s show first. It came up tails, and so she went to see The Waiting Period, the core message of which is “If you’re thinking of doing some kind of harm to yourself, tell someone first.” When the play was over, she remained in her seat crying for another twenty minutes, then called her sister to tell her what she was thinking of doing, and her sister got her help. Or there’s the story of a woman who struggled with depression and her husband always wondered why she couldn’t just lighten up and smell the roses. She basically dragged him to The Waiting Period, and afterwards he said to her, “That’s what you’ve been going through? I had no idea.” And that’s the thing with depression: it is so misunderstood. It’s not something that can be cured by thinking happy thoughts. As Copeland says, “You know, we’re dealing with a disease, and yet people are ashamed of it. There’s such shame and stigma attached to it, and I want people to know they have nothing to be ashamed of, any more than if you had Lou Gehrig’s Disease or muscular dystrophy or cancer. You wouldn’t be ashamed of those afflictions. And the world, society, would be a lot more sympathetic.” As a comedian and talk show host, i.e. someone who earns his living projecting amiability and cheerfulness, Copeland makes a perfect communicator for that message. If someone as seemingly light-hearted as him can suffer from depression, then it can truly happen to anyone. When he started debuted The Waiting Period in 2012, some people were quite surprised to learn that he’d ever wanted to kill himself. And yet, what sticks with him most over the years is the number of people who’ve approached him after a performance and whispered in his ear that they, too, are “one of us,” as Copeland refers to those who experience acute depression. Some of them are people Copeland knows well and are in the public eye, people he says you would never guess struggled with the disease. Toward the conclusion of our conversation, Copeland tells me, “If there’s nothing else at all worthwhile I’ve done while I was here, at least there are a couple of people walking around who might not be here.” I tell him that’s a statement most of us can’t make, myself included, and he responds, “You don’t know that. That’s the thing. I’m fortunate enough that I’m in a position where people are able to reach out and tell me. But you don’t know who you told to have a nice day to, who were planning on doing something and ended up not because of your kindness, you know, in tipping the barista and saying they did a good job one day when they thought they were worthless and were going to do something right after they got off work. There are stories like that, and those stories are real.” (Header photo of Brian Copeland by Joan Marcus) --- The Waiting Period will play its 500th performance 5:00pm, Saturday, September 20 at The Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston Way, Berkeley. Additional dates are soon to be announced. Thanks to the support of generous donors, general admission tickets are FREE. Supporters may donate $50/$100 for reserved seats, funds which make it possible for others to see the show at no cost. To order free tickets or reserve seats, please visit themarsh.org. with National Suicide Prevention Month.

Three-time Tony Award winner Patti LuPone will bring her theatrical concert MATTERS OF THE HEART to The Auditorium – Chicago’s Landmark Stage. Learn more and see how to purchase tickets.

Two-time Academy Award nominee Bryan Buckley, producing team Academy Award winner Taika Waititi, international recording artist Rita Ora, Tony Award nominee Matthew Weaver and Hungry Man Productions just announced the development of FYRE FEST THE MUSICAL. We have all of the details!

Since the early 1970s, Penelope Wilton has established herself as a major player on the British stage, and we are taking a look back at her expansive theatrical career, just in time for Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale.

Read BroadwayWorld's interview with Eli Bauman, the writer, composer, director, and producer for 44- The Musical, the satirical Barack Obama musical, Off-Broadway.

Emerson Theater Collaborative will present the world premiere of Silence is Not Golden by Anita Yellin Simons this month at Verde Valley School's Brady Hall.

Canada's National Arts Centre (NAC) announced today that the internationally acclaimed Finnish conductor John Storgårds will become the NAC Orchestra's eighth music director, beginning in the 2026-2027 season.

After years of developing a revised version of the 1986 musical with Danny Strong (who has written the new book), Michael Mayer is finally ushering the final product back to Broadway, where it hasn't been seen in almost four decades. Before rehearsals began, Mayer checked in with BroadwayWorld to tell us all about how he's setting up the board to create a Chess for 2025.  ​

Burning Coal Theatre Company will present Oakwood 2025: Un/NAMED, 6 Short Plays by North Carolina Playwrights, directed by Hayley Philippart. Learn more!

In 'The Life of a Showgirl,' Taylor Swift is tapping into a rich history of showbiz and glamor from days gone by. As we prepare for Swift’s new album, which arrives in October, we have compiled a list of some of the brightest Broadway showgirls that Mackie has costumed over the years, from Barbra Streisand to Bernadette Peters.

At Brussels’ enchanting Château du Karreveld, Festival Bruxellons! delivers a climatic French-language premiere of Rebecca, a romantic thriller musical that easily surpasses the English-language London production with its breathtaking spectacle, including the audacious use of real fire on stage.

A robust talk back series will follow select performances of The Whole of Time by celebrated Argentinian playwright Romina Paula in a translation by Jean Graham-Jones.

Lyric Opera of Chicago’s 2025/26 Season will kick off with a searing tale of vengeance and betrayal: Cherubini’s Medea. Learn more and see how to purchase tickets here!