Caroline, or Change - 2003 - Off-Broadway Articles Page 6

Last night, supporters of TheatreWorks Silicon Valley gathered to hear the 2019 Regional Theatre Tony Award-winning company and its Board of Trustees announce the launch of its 50th Anniversary Campaign, a $5 million fundraising campaign to ensure the future success of the nationally-acclaimed theatre, including commissions for new plays and musicals. 

The Broadway community mourns the loss of multiple Tony Award® winning producer Margo Lion, who died on January 24, 2020 at age 75. To commemorate her life and work, the Committee of Theatre Owners will dim the lights of the Jujamcyn Theatres (the Al Hirschfeld, August Wilson, Eugene O'Neill, St. James, and Walter Kerr Theatres) where Ms. Lion often collaborated and worked; as well as the American Airlines, Bernard Jacobs, Helen Hayes, Neil Simon, New Amsterdam, Lincoln Center, Lyric Theatre, and Samuel J. Friedmans; in New York for one minute on Saturday, February 29 at exactly 7:45pm.

This Spring, the acclaimed Watermill Theatre presents the World premiere of a captivating and powerful new folk-inspired musical. The Wicker Husband, by Rhys Jennings and Darren Clark, was the winner of the inaugural MTI Stiles + Drewe Mentorship Award in 2016 celebrating new British musical theatre writers and was included in the National Alliance for Musical Theatre's 30th Annual Festival of New Musicals in New York.

2019 is almost over and we can't help but look ahead to the 2020 Broadway season, which is bound to be filled with countless star-making (and star-preserving) performances. Who should you keep your eye on as the spring season begins and awards season approaches?

Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater announces the company for A Thousand Splendid Suns, adapted for the stage by Ursula Rani Sarma and based on the 2007 New York Times bestselling novel by Khaled Hosseini (Kite Runner). Set in 1992 in war-torn Afghanistan, this gripping story centers around a friendship that develops between two Afghan women following a tragedy. While facing insurmountable odds of a brutal and oppressive way of life, the two form an unlikely bond in a heart-rending fight for survival. Directed by Carey Perloff, A Thousand Splendid Suns runs January 17 - March 1, 2020 in the Kreeger Theater.

The Music Institute of Chicago celebrates Grammy and Pulitzer Prize-winning composer George Crumb, who recently celebrated his 90th birthday, with a festival of music, discussion, and exhibition January 31 and February 1 at Nichols Concert Hall, 1490 Chicago Ave., Evanston.

If your washer and dryer sing to you it may be a bad reaction to medication or you may be at the wonderfully humorous and thought-provoking musical production of CAROLINE, OR CHANGE, which opened Saturday night November 9 at the Johnson County Arts and Heritage Center in Overland Park. The Spinning Tree Theatres Kansas City premiere, with book and lyrics by Tony Kushner and music by Jeanine Tesori, runs through November 24. Spinning Tree Artistic Director Michael Grayman-Parkhurst directs this musical incorporating blues, Motown, Jewish melodies, and folk music.

TheatreWorks Silicon Valley rings in the holidays with the new musical Pride and Prejudice, the 2019 Tony-winning company's 70th World Premiere. Based on Jane Austen's iconic novel, this engaging work features book, music, and lyrics by Paul Gordon, whose musicals include TheatreWorks favorites Jane Austen's EMMA, Daddy Long Legs, and the Tony-nominated Broadway musical Jane Eyre. Pride and Prejudice follows delightfully liberated Lizzie Bennet and dashing, disdainful Mr. Darcy as they discover the irresistible power of love. A favorite from TheatreWorks's 2018 New Works Festival, this brand new musical romantic comedy will be directed by TheatreWorks's Founding Artistic Director Robert Kelley.

Spinning Tree Theatre continues the 2019-20 season November 8-24 with Caroline, or Change. This Kansas City premiere, with book and lyrics by Tony Kushner (Angels in America) and music by Jeanine Tesori (Fun Home), premiered at New York City's Off-Broadway Public Theater in 2003, with a Broadway run in 2004. The subsequent London production won The Olivier Award for Best New Musical; a successful West End revival will transfer to Broadway in 2020.

There is just something so damned exciting about Tony Kushner and Jeanine Tesori's 'Caroline, or Change'! It is rare indeed to experience a work of art this ambitious, morally complex, entertaining, honest, and just plain downright human. It is easily one of the handful of best musicals written in the past 25 years. And how original - a musical play about nothing less than the human capacity for change and growth despite seemingly insurmountable odds. For anyone out there bemoaning the dumbing-down of the American musical theater and longing for the halcyon days of Broadway's supposed Golden Age, you need look no further than 'Caroline' to restore your confidence.

51Fest, presented by Women in the World and IFC Center, today unveiled the lineup for the inaugural event. Celebrating the voice, vision and stories of the female majority through compelling screenings and conversations, all by or about women, the first annual 51Fest will be held July 18-21 in New York City. 

On the eve of the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra's (MMFO) opening performances at the 2019 Mostly Mozart Festival, Ehrenkranz Artistic Director Jane Moss has announced that Lincoln Center has extended the contract of Renee and Robert Belfer Music Director Louis Langree through the summer of 2023. Langree has held the position since 2003, fostering the Festival Orchestra's profile as an established ensemble and steadfast presence on the Lincoln Center campus, furthering its scope of repertoire beyond music of the classical era, and heightening its reputation as one of America's premier chamber orchestras. Langree made his Mostly Mozart Festival debut in 1998 and began his tenure as music director in 2003. 2023 will be his twenty-first season in the role. American Express is the lead sponsor of the Mostly Mozart Festival.

51Fest, presented by Women in the World and IFC Center, today unveiled the lineup for the inaugural event. Celebrating the voice, vision and stories of the female majority through compelling screenings and conversations, all by or about women, the first annual 51Fest will be held July 18-21 in New York City.

The French Institute Alliance Fran aise (FIAF), New York's premier French cultural and language center, today announced the 2019 Crossing the Line Festival, featuring 11 performances and a gallery exhibition from a geographically, generationally, and artistically diverse group of artists whose work transcends genres and boundaries. All performances are world, US, or New York premieres; they are united by their convention-breaking fearlessness as they confront topics from social injustice to personal demons. Many of the performances pay homage to legendary artists of our time and previous eras, while the theme of migration and its transformational effects on identity informs several others. The festival runs from September 12 to October 12. Ticket are available at crossingtheline.org.

Award-winning and critically-acclaimed Astoria Performing Arts Center (APAC - Jesse Marchese, Executive Director; Dev Bondarin, Artistic Director) continues its 18th mainstage season with a production of the Tony-nominated musical Caroline, or Change by Tony Kushner (Book & Lyrics) and Jeanine Tesori (Music), directed by APAC artistic director, Dev Bondarin (New York Innovative Theatre Award nominee for Best Director for APAC's 2017 production of Raisin). Caroline, or Change runs from May 2 - 25, 2019 at the Broccoli Theater at the Variety Boys & Girls Club of Queens, 21-12 30th Road (at 21st Street), Astoria, NY 11102.

CAROLINE, OR CHANGE is Tony Kushner's (book and lyrics) semi-autobiographical, sung-through musical, with music by Jeanine Tesori (FUN HOME), that had its origins Off-Broadway in 2003, before transferring to Broadway in 2004 for 136 performances and receiving six Tony nominations. In the ensuing years, it had numerous productions in regional theaters and London, and it has long been on Moonbox Productions' short list, according to Producer and Artistic Director Sharman Altshuler. Under the direction of Allison Olivia Choat, the Moonbox staging is a solid effort with a cohesive ensemble, excellent musical direction and vocals, and vivid design elements. Yewande Odetoyinbo is a force in the title role.

BroadwayWorld has learned that The Muny announced today 25 principal cast members for the first season of its second century. Complete company casting will be announced throughout April and May. The 101st season opens on a brand new, state-of-the-art stage with Muny favorite Guys and Dolls followed by the U.S. regional premiere of Kinky Boots. The season continues with 1776, Rodgers + Hammerstein's Cinderella, Footloose and a newly-reimagined Lerner and Loewe's Paint Your Wagon. Season 101 closes with the highly-anticipated Muny debut of Roald Dahl's Matilda.

Lynne Meadow (Artistic Director) and Barry Grove (Executive Producer) are pleased to announce the complete casting for the world premiere of Continuity, the new play by Lortel and Drama Desk Award nominee Bess Wohl (Small Mouth Sounds, American Hero) and directed by Tony Award nominee Rachel Chavkin (Hadestown; Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812). The production will feature Max Baker (1984, The Explorers Club), Jasmine Batchelor (The River), Rosal Colon ('Orange is the New Black,' Between Riverside and Crazy), Curran Connor (Pidgeon, A Picture of Autumn), Garcia ('Tales of the City'), Darren Goldstein (Lillian Hellman's The Little Foxes, The Madrid), Alex Hurt (Cardinal, The Whirligig) and Megan Ketch (The Big Wedding, 'American Gothic').

Award-winning and critically-acclaimed Astoria Performing Arts Center (APAC - Jesse Marchese, Executive Director; Dev Bondarin, Artistic Director) continues its 18th mainstage season with a production of the Tony-nominated musical Caroline, or Change by Tony Kushner (Book & Lyrics) and Jeanine Tesori (Music), directed by APAC artistic director, Dev Bondarin (New York Innovative Theatre Award nominee for Best Director for APAC's 2017 production of Raisin). Caroline, or Change runs from May 2 - 25, 2019 at the Broccoli Theater at the Variety Boys & Girls Club of Queens, 21-12 30th Road (at 21st Street), Astoria, NY 11102.

Can opera be a medium for social commentary and change? I've been thinking about this lately--or, more accurately, yet again--since attending a preview of the new Jeanne Tesori-Tazewell Thompson opera, BLUE, which was part of the Guggenheim Museum's fascinating Works & Process series. The performance of excerpts and roundtable with its creators were part of preparations for the work's world premiere this summer at the Glimmerglass Festival.

The Old Globe today announced the cast and creative team for the American premiere of Life After, a rapturously beautiful and stirring new musical with book, music, and lyrics by Britta Johnson. The Globe's own Barry Edelstein directs, with choreography by Ann Yee. Life After will run March 22 - April 28, 2019 on the Donald and Darlene Shiley Stage in the Old Globe Theatre, part of the Conrad Prebys Theatre Center. Preview performances run March 22-28.

Atlantis Theatrical Entertainment Group opens its 20th-Anniversary Season with Tony Kushner's modern classic ANGELS IN AMERICA: MILLENNIUM APPROACHES, part one of the two-part play cycle.

After his hit production of King Charles III, David Muse returns to Shakespeare Theatre Company to direct Shakespeare's Richard the Third, a mesmerizing chronicle of the megalomaniac's rampage to the throne. The production will play at Sidney Harman Hall (610 F Street NW) from February 5-March 10, 2019.

After his hit production of King Charles III, David Muse returns to Shakespeare Theatre Company to direct Shakespeare's Richard the Third, a mesmerizing chronicle of the megalomaniac's rampage to the throne. The production will play at Sidney Harman Hall (610 F Street NW) from February 5-March 10, 2019.