Broadway and the Bard - 2016 - Off-Broadway Articles Page 19

'This is an excellent season of plays,' Glory Kadigan, founder and curator of Planet Connections Theatre Festivity's Playwrights For A Cause, said, remarking about this year's plays and playwrights, and now, the creative team. 'I'm so proud of the activist artists involved with Planet Connections for continuing to connect with audiences in so many creative ways while drawing attention to organizations who are on the front lines of this important work.'

New York Theatre Workshop (NYTW) has announced five productions as part of its complete 2017/18 Season.

Paper Mill Playhouse, recipient of the 2016 Regional Theatre Tony Award, has announced casting for the hit Broadway musical Mary Poppins based on the stories of P.L. Travers and the Walt Disney Film with original music and lyrics by Richard M. Sherman and Robert B. Sherman, book by Julian Fellowes, new songs and additional music and lyrics by George Stiles and Anthony Drewe, and co-created by Cameron Mackintosh. Bank of America is the Major Sponsor of Mary Poppins.

Jason Forbach, who was recently featured in the Broadway revival of Les Miserables and Phoenix Best who made her Broadway debut in The Color Purple will star in this summer's production of Evita at Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival.

Global Scenic Services, Inc. (GSS), an internationally respected scenery fabrication company, based in Bridgeport, Connecticut, turns the fantastical and dramatic visions of leading scenic designers of opera, ballet and drama productions into multi-dimensional realities.

In an effort to broaden opportunities for women playwrights, Project Y Theatre Company has commissioned nine female playwrights in two separate productions, Great Again, an evening of plays by Crystal Skillman and Chiori Miyagawa, and The Hrosthvitha Project, 7 adaptations of the 10th century female-written play 'Dulcitius' written by playwrights Caridad Svich, Pia Wilson, Julienne Hairston, Michole Biancosino, Lia Romeo, Stacie Lents, and Erin Mallon.

The New School's Mannes School of Music will celebrate its centennial with a concert at Carnegie Hall honoring the school's rich history on Tuesday, April 25 from 7 to 10 p.m.

On May 22nd, 2017 Stephen Colbert will host a star-studded gala, celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Obie-Award winning theater ensemble, Elevator Repair Service.

In the third of Alan Gilbert's final four subscription weeks as New York Philharmonic Music Director, he will lead an enhanced concert production of Wagner's Das Rheingold. Soloists include bass-baritone Eric Owens as Wotan, mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton as Fricka (in her New York Philharmonic debut), baritone Christopher Purves as Alberich (debut), tenor Russell Thomas as Loge, mezzo-soprano Kelley O'Connor as Erda, bass Morris Robinson as Fasolt (debut), bass Stephen Milling as Fafner (debut), soprano Rachel Willis-Sorensen as Freia (debut), tenor Brian Jagde as Froh (debut), bass-baritone Christian Van Horn as Donner (debut), tenor Peter Bronder as Mime (debut), soprano Jennifer Zetlan as Woglinde, mezzo-soprano Jennifer Johnson Cano as Wellgunde, and mezzo-soprano Tamara Mumford as Flosshilde. The enhanced concert production will be directed by Louisa Muller with costume design - featuring character-based treatment of modern concert attire - by David C. Woolard. The performances will take place Thursday, June 1, 2017, at 7:30 p.m.; Saturday, June 3 at 8:00 p.m.; and Tuesday, June 6 at 7:30 p.m.

Ryan Jamaal Swain, Donnell E. Smith, Clinton Lowe and Sidiki Fofana will star in the award-winning playwright James Ijames' "Kill Move Paradise," opening at Dr. Barbara Ann Teer's National Black Theatre (NBT) this spring. The world premiere production is also the New York City debut of Ijames, a Whiting Award winner. Saheem Ali ("Nollywood," "The Booty Call," and "The Erlkings") will direct. The provocative production closes the historic theater's 48th season, "In Pursuit of Black Joy," and runs from May 31 through June 25.

The 33rd annual Helen Hayes Awards will be celebrated at the historicLincoln Theatre at 7:30 pm on May 15, with accomplished actors E. Faye Butler and Lawrence Redmond as hosts. The line-up of award presenters includes artistic leaders from across the Washington region, highlighting the depth and breadth of a theatre community recognized worldwide for the quality and diversity of its work. Following the awards, a roof-raising dance party gets underway at the world-renowned 9:30 Club. Both events honor 236 Helen Hayes Award nominees drawn from 200 eligible productions presented in 2016. Tickets for the combined Awards Ceremony and Dance Party are $275 for premium seating, $150 for balcony seating, and can be purchased online.

Celebrating the Grammy Award-winning Brooklyn Youth Chorus' 25th anniversary, Silent Voices is a fully-staged multimedia, multi-composer work conceived, commissioned, produced, and performed by the chorus.

On May 12 & 13, the Grammy Award-winning Brooklyn Youth Chorus will premiere their new work Silent Voices at the BAM Howard Gilman Opera House. Silent Voices is a fully-staged multimedia, multi-composer work conceived, commissioned, produced, and performed by the chorus, and comes at the culmination of their year-long 25th anniversary season.

Schimmel Center presents New York Theatre Ballet (NYTB) Uptown/Downtown/Dance at Schimmel Center, 3 Spruce Street, NYC, on Friday and Saturday, April 28 and 29, 2017 at 7:30pm and The Alice-in-Wonderland Follies! on Sunday, April 30, 2017 at 3pm.

The Uptown/Downtown/Dance program will include an as-yet-untitled World Premiere from Martin Lawrance and the World Premiere of Painted Within by Zhong-Jing Fang, as well as a restaging of former NYTB resident choreographer Edward Henkel's ReVision, created in 1986, with music by Edvard Grieg, Holberg Suite op. 40 (1884). A 2013 NYTB commission, Short Memory by Pam Tanowitz, is set to live music by Lou Harrison and Henry Cowell and helps set up Ms. Tanowitz's brilliant use of stage space. The evenings include two more pieces by Ms. Tanowtiz: Light Moving, set to music by David Lang, and Double Andante, a 13-minute ballet for ten dancers set to the Andante movement of Beethoven's Sonata in D Major #15, which will be played live on piano two times at different tempos. Tickets are $29 and are available at SchimmelCenter.org.

BroadwayWorld presents a comprehensive weekly roundup of regional stories around our Broadway World, which include videos, editor spotlights, regional reviews and more. This week, we feature A RAISIN IN THE SUN at Arena Stage, JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR in Raleigh, and SCOTTSBORO BOYS in Phoenix, just to name a few. Check out our top features below!

As previously announced, Second Stage Theatre will begin the 2017 Uptown Series with the world premiere of Chisa Hutchinson's SOMEBODY'S DAUGHTER, directed by MAY ADRALES.

Folger Theatre concludes its very successful 25th anniversary season this spring with Shakespeare's gripping tragedy Timon of Athens.

Baryshnikov Arts Center (BAC) presents a World Premiere from playwright and director Ain Gordon, written and directed in partnership with percussionist and composer Josh Quillen.

Schimmel Center presents New York Theatre Ballet (NYTB) Uptown/Downtown/Dance at Schimmel Center, 3 Spruce Street, NYC, on Friday and Saturday, April 28 and 29, 2017 at 7:30pm and The Alice-in-Wonderland Follies! on Sunday, April 30, 2017 at 3pm.

Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival announced today that Broadway, film and television actor Dan Domenech will star as Che in Evita this summer at Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival. The production opens the Festival's 26th season.

Yale Repertory Theatre (James Bundy, Artistic Director; Victoria Nolan, Managing Director) concludes its 50th Anniversary Season with the world premiere of MARY JANE by Amy Herzog, directed by Anne Kauffman, April 28 through May 20 at Yale Repertory Theatre (1120 Chapel Street). Opening Night is Friday, May 5.

HAIL OBLIVION: A Pirate Fantasia, the latest music theater work by composer/lyricist Stephanie Ryan Johnstone and librettist Joshua William Gelb, will be released as a concept album on April 9th with a cast featuring Bryce Pinkham (Gentlemen's Guide, Heidi Chronicles, Holiday Inn), Ato Blankson-Wood (The Total Bent, Lysistrata Jones , Hair), Amber Gray (Great Comet, An Octoroon), Julian Fleisher (February House, Coraline), Rick Burkhardt (Three Pianos), among others.

Berkeley Repertory Theatre today announced the full and final casting for the world premiere of Monsoon Wedding. The musical stage production will be directed by acclaimed filmmaker Mira Nair and hosts a cast of 20 actors from around the globe.

Mannes School of Music will celebrate its centennial with a concert at Carnegie Hall honoring the school's rich history and its vision for the future. The concert will feature live performances by esteemed alumni, past and present faculty, and students.