Co-Optimists - 1925 - West End Articles Page 10

The University of Washington has announced the complete roster of artists who have been selected as Creative Research Fellows as part of its first three-year Creative Fellowships Initiative. Funded by a $750,000 grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the interdisciplinary initiative will advance the field of performing arts by supporting artists in the development of new works and by integrating the performing arts disciplines into a broader context academically, artistically, and socially.

Complete casting has been announced for 54 BELOW CELEBRATES THE RICHARD RODGERS THEATER at Feinstein's/54 Below on Sunday, February 10th, 2019 at 7pm and 9:30pm.

Commonwealth Shakespeare Company and Founding Artistic Director Steven Maler announced the cast of the second production of its 2018-19 Season: Birdy, adapted by Naomi Wallace from the novel by William Wharton, and directed by Steven Maler. The production runs February 27 through March 10 at the Carling-Sorenson Theater at Babson College in Wellesley.

To see INHERIT THE WIND, in its current iteration at Theatre Artists Studio, is to revisit the endless battle between open-minded reason and the intolerance of blind faith. It is, as well, a golden opportunity to witness two bears of the stage ~ Michael Fleck and Tom Koelbel ~ have at each other in their portrayals of the goliaths that put the trial of the century on the map. Runs through December 9th.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced today that the Community Development Commission voted to approve a $75 million rehabilitation of the long-vacant Uptown Theatre at 4816 N. Broadway.

Theatre for a New Audience (TFANA; Jeffrey Horowitz, Founding Artistic Director) presents the New York Premiere of C.I.C.T. - Theatre du Bouffes du Nord's The Prisoner, continuing Peter Brook's 40-year-long collaboration with playwright/director Marie-Helene Estienne.  

Angela Lansbury has enjoyed a career without precedent. Her professional career spans more than half-a-century, during which she has flourished, first as a star of motion pictures, then as a four-time Tony Award-winning Broadway musical star, and most recently as the star of 'Murder, She Wrote,' the longest running detective drama series in the history of television.

NYU Steinhardt's Program in Educational Theatre will present Peter and the Starcatcher, a theatrical retelling of Peter Pan's story before Neverland, featuring a cast of 19 developmentally diverse performers, from Oct. 19 to 28. The production is accessible to audience members of all abilities.

Applications are now available for two Goodman Theatre Education and Engagement programs-Disney Musicals in Schools and Cindy Bandle Young Critics-offered at no cost to Chicagoland youth. Applications for Disney Musicals in Schools are available through Monday, October 15 and Cindy Bandle Young Critics through Friday, October 19 at GoodmanTheatre.org/Engage-Learn. For more information, call 312.443.5581.

On November 11, 2018, at 22 concerts around the world, 100 works by Polish composers will be performed to mark the 100th anniversary of Polish independence. “100 for 100: Musical Decades of Freedom,” presented in partnership with the Polish Cultural Institute New York, and PWM Edition, features the season-opening concert of the Oratorio Society of New York, at Carnegie Hall that Sunday at 2:00 pm.

The York Theatre Company celebrates the release of three new original cast recordings of York productions from the 2017-2018 season: Desperate Measures, Unexpected Joy, and Lonesome Blues.

Hershey Area Playhouse is proud to present, Inherit the Wind, an American play by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee, which debuted in 1955. The story fictionalizes the 1925 Scopes 'Monkey' Trial as a means to discuss the then-contemporary McCarthy trials.

Goodman Theatre's commitment to new works and emerging artists continues in its 2018/2019 Season. Today, the Goodman named four Chicago-based writers to its Playwrights Unit-Georgette Kelly, whose play Ballast was featured on The Kilroys List and received the Craig Noel Award for Outstanding New Play; Dianne Nora, a playwright, dramaturg, theater scholar and comedy writer who works in Chicago, Brooklyn and Dublin; Marisela Treviño Orta, semifinalist for the 2018 O'Neill Theater Center National Playwrights Conference and 2019 Kendeda Finalist (Alliance Theatre); and Stacey Rose, whose work has been presented at New York University Tisch School of the Arts, Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, National Black Theatre and more. The Playwrights Unit, in partnership with Chicago Dramatists, meets bi-monthly to discuss their commissioned plays-in-progress with the Goodman's artistic team. The residency culminates in a public staged reading of each new play in Summer 2019. 

UnsungMusicals Co. announced today its plans for the 2018 season.

The Majestic Theater has launched a campaign to name seats in the main auditorium in support of the Majestic Theater Centennial Endowment Campaign, offering the general public an opportunity to help the campaign reach its $1 million cash goal by the end of 2018.

Transport Group has announced casting for its world premiere musical, Renascence, which begins performances Friday, October 5 at 7:30pm, at the Abrons Arts Center, 466 Grand Street. Renascence has music by Carmel Dean (musical director If/Then, American Idiot), book by Dick Scanlan (Thoroughly Modern Millie, Everyday Rapture), and lyrics from the poems of Edna St. Vincent Millay. The musical is directed by artistic director Jack Cummings III and Dick Scanlan. The opening is set for Thursday, October 25 at 7:30pm.

This fall, Goodman Theatre presents its New Stages Festival-a free annual celebration and discovery of new plays by some of the country's finest established and emerging playwrights. Audiences experience a first look at seven new works-including three fully staged developmental productions (performed in repertory) There's Always the Hudson by Paola Lazaro-Muñoz; Felons and Familias by Sandra Delgado; Graveyard Shift by Korde Arrington Tuttle. In addition, four staged readings appear during the last weekend of the festival (October 4-7) including The Wizards by Ricardo Gamboa; Between Covers by Sarah Schulman; Birthday Candles by Noah Haidle; and Cressida on Top by Paula Vogel.

Robert Browning, called "the entrepreneur who almost single-handedly created and filled New Yorkers' passion for world music" in the New York Times, has presented world music since April 1976. The next few months feature music from Egypt, Tunisia, Syria, India and Crete. From his years at the Alternative Center for International Arts / Alternative Museum to his 26-year tenure at World Music Institute (which he co-founded and directed from 1985 - 2011) and his past five seasons as the director of Robert Browning Associates, he has presented over 1,800 concerts of world music and dance from internationally renowned figures and emerging artists from over 100 regions.

NYU today announced the first-ever NYU Broadway Orchestra, a new ensemble within NYU Steinhardt's Music and Performing Arts Professions department designed to train the next generation of Broadway musicians for a career in the world's best stage productions and pit orchestras, launching in fall 2018.

Tanglewood's season-long Bernstein centennial celebration will culminate in a gala concert on Bernstein's actual 100th birthday, August 25, to be recorded by Great Performances for an exclusive U.S. broadcast premiere December 28 at 9 p.m. on PBS

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Octavia Spencer and Queen Latifah will star in in The Rhinelander Affair following the controversial 1925 DIVORCE trial in New York involving a man from an upper-class New Rochelle family who married a bi-racial, working-class woman. It is a ripped from the headlines story from the 1920s with many meaty roles in what was a roller coaster ride about money, love, racism and betrayal.

UnsungMusicalsCo. and The York Theatre Company announced today a partnership for the next three years for UMC's Show Time! Trilogy. UnsungMusicalsCo. (UMC) focuses on researching and developing prescient projects that explore the vibrancy of the American musical theatre canon, and how past works influence the artists and repertoire of today and tomorrow.

Long Island's newest theatrical venue The Argyle Theatre (Evan Pappas, Artistic Director) presents the Tony Award winning hit Broadway musical Hairspray with book by Marc O'Donnell and Thomas Meehan, music by Marc Shaiman, and lyrics by Scott Wittman and Marc Shaiman at The Argyle Theatre (34 West Main Street, Babylon, Long Island).  Performances are set to begin Thursday, July 12, 2018 for a limited run through Sunday, August 26, 2018. 

From Friday, July 20 through Thursday, July 26, BAMcinématek presents Pioneers: First Women Filmmakers in collaboration with Kino Lorber and The Library of Congress. A follow-up to its award-winning Pioneers of African-American Cinema, this collection was produced for Kino Lorber by Bret Wood and curated by historian Shelley Stamp. The series presents a vast array of new 2K restorations, focusing primarily on women directors of the silent-era American cinema. As was frequently the case, women directors remained uncredited or were co-credited as director, even though for all intents and purposes, they were the de-facto directors and primary creative forces of the film. “Women played an extraordinary role in early filmmaking, but this history has been largely forgotten,” says series curator Shelley Stamp, 'I'm so thrilled that these films have been restored and re-scored so that contemporary audiences will have a chance to see what female filmmakers were up to 100 years ago.” Stamp will be present to introduce the first four programs in the series.

Tanglewood's season-long Bernstein centennial celebration-one of the most comprehensive looks at Bernstein's amazing impact on the worlds of music and theater taking place in the anniversary year-will culminate in a gala concert on Bernstein's actual 100th birthday, August 25. Reflecting the season-long theme, The Bernstein Centennial Celebration at Tanglewood concert will spotlight Bernstein's wide-ranging talents as a composer, his many gifts as a great interpreter and champion of other composers, his role as an inspirer of a new generation of musicians and music lovers across the country and around the globe, and his presence as a driving musical force at Tanglewood, 1940-1990.