Free to Be... You and Me - 2002 - Off-Broadway Articles Page 14

Gorgeous melodies and a tender love story take center stage in Eagle Theatre's upcoming production of Jason Robert Brown's The Last Five Years, opening June 1st, 2018.

JAG Productions (Vermont's one and only award-winning, professional African-American Theatre company!), will present, the profound jazz musical, Lady Day  Emerson's Bar & Grill by Lanie Robertson. The show will be run from May 24th-May 27th at the Engine Room in White River Junction, May 31st-June 3rd at The Grange Theater in Pomfret and June 7-10 at Main Street Landing's Black Box Theater in Burlington, VT. Lady Day at Emerson's Bar & Grill will be directed by JAG Productions' Founder & Producing Artistic Director, Jarvis Antonio Green.

New York Classical Theatre (Stephen Burdman, Artistic Director), New York City's only all-free professional Off-Broadway theatre company, is pleased to announce a new production of William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet to celebrate its 19th Anniversary Season. The production, directed by Mr. Burdman, is the company's first staging of Shakespeare's tale of star-crossed lovers, and will be presented in five New York City parks - Central Park, Rockefeller Park/Battery Park City, The Battery, Carl Schurz Park and Brooklyn Bridge Park - with performances from June 5 through July 29 at 7:00 PM. There is no ticketing, and all performances are free and open to the public. New York Classical Theatre also invites audiences to experience unique behind-the-scenes access to open rehearsals on selected dates for each of the five park stagings. 

Norah Jones first emerged on the world stage with the 2002 release of Come Away With Me, her self-described “moody little record” that introduced a singular new voice and grew into a global phenomenon, sweeping the 2003 GRAMMY Awards and signalling a paradigm shift away from the prevailing pop music of the time. Since then, Jones has sold nearly 50 million albums worldwide and become a 9-time GRAMMY-winner. She has released a series of critically acclaimed and commercially successful solo albums, as well as albums with her collective bands The Little Willies and Puss N Boots. Her music weaves a rich tapestry that combines the threads of several bedrock styles of American music: country, folk, rock, soul and jazz, frequently transcending genres. Jones has collaborated with artists as diverse as Willie Nelson, Outkast, Herbie Hancock, Foo Fighters, and Danger Mouse, and been described as “pop music's mistress of alchemy…” (The Independent).

Theatre for a New Audience (TFANA; Jeffrey Horowitz, Founding Artistic Director), an award-winning company presenting Shakespeare alongside other classic and contemporary drama at Polonsky Shakespeare Center, Downtown Brooklyn, is pleased to announce its 2018-19 season-the 39th since its founding in 1979.

Victory Gardens Theater concludes its 43rd season with Mies Julie, written by Yael Farber, directed by Dexter Bullard, and adapted from August Strindberg's Miss Julie. Mies Julie runs May 25 - June 24, 2018, with the press performance on Friday, June 1, 2018 at 7:30pm at Victory Gardens Theater, 2433 N. Lincoln Avenue.

Award-winning pioneer playwright Qui Nguyen brilliantly chronicles the love story of his parents' meeting in an Arkansas refugee center after fleeing Vietnam after the fall of Saigon in 1975. It's a buddy story, an all-American romance, and a motorcycle road-trip adventure that reexamines how we think about the heroes and victims of the Vietnam War. Vietgone skips through time and roams the globe with snarky humor, hip-hop, and lots of sex. It's one ironic, foul-mouthed, bad-ass new play.

Now celebrating the 23rd anniversary in Houston and the 26th season since its inception in Brussels, Belgium, Dance Salad Festival promises another gathering of world-class performers. Famous in their own countries, classical, modern and contemporary dance companies/dancers share the Dance Salad Festival stage to form a mix of movement and compelling choreography.

It's in the spirit of the arts as a conduit for education that I found myself drawn to the theater for young audiences, with a particular interest in the work of Atty. Vincent Tañada and the Philippine Stagers Foundation (PSF). Tañada's work--as it relates to the current demands for the arts in schools--will be my main focus of this discussion.

The League of Professional Theatre Women (Kelli Lynn Harrison & Lisa Rothe, Co-Presidents), an organization which has been leading the gender parity conversation and championing women in the professional theatre for over 35 years, will present the final Oral History event of their 2017-18 season with two-time Tony Award winner Chita Rivera.

Zoetic Stage (@ZoeticStageMIA) and the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts of Miami-Dade County (@ArshtCenter) are proud to present the South Florida premiere of FUN HOME, the five-time Tony Award-winning musical and tragicomedy based on Alison Bechdel's best-selling memoir. Playing April 12 - May 13, 2018 in the intimate Carnival Studio Theater (Ziff Ballet Opera House), FUN HOME closes Zoetic Stage's 2017-2018 season and the Center's Theater Up Close Series.

The Muny announced today that Tony and Grammy Award- winning artist Heather Headley and Tony, Emmy and Golden Globe Award-nominated artist Matthew Morrison will serve as co-hosts for The Muny's historic Centennial Gala show, An Evening with the Stars, May 18, 2018 at 9:15 p.m. at The Muny.

REDCAT, CalArts' downtown center for contemporary arts, presents Reframing the House of Dust: A Symposium on Saturday March 24, 2018. 

Shakespeare Theatre Company today announces the cast of Lerner and Loewe's multiple Tony Award-winning musical Camelot. Directed by STC Associate Artistic Director Alan Paul (Kiss Me, Kate; Man of La Mancha), the classic musical will play at Sidney Harman Hall (610 F St NW) from May 22 through July 1, concluding STC's 2017-2018 mainstage season.

Academy Award-nominee, Angela Bassett will join Kathleen Battle as a guest narrator in Battle's program Underground Railroad: A Spiritual Journey accompanied by pianist Joel Martin and the LA-based choir, The Albert McNeil Jubilee Singers at the Younes and Soraya Nazarian Center for the Performing Arts (The Soraya) on Thursday, March 29 at 8:00pm.

"Life is short, and it's up to you to make it sweet." - Sadie Delany (1889 -1999). Goodman Theatre revives Having Our Say: The Delany Sisters' First 100 Years, Emily Mann's "warming theatrical event" (Variety)that celebrates the lives of "two strong, vibrant women dispensing joy and wisdom" (Chicago Tribune). Goodman Theatre Resident Director Chuck Smith's production features Ella Joyce and Marie Thomas as the Delany centenarians, Bessie (1891 - 1995) and Sadie (1889 -1999), respectively, as they trace their lives in a heartfelt reflection of their family history and triumphs over prejudices in times of social unrest.

The Fox Cities Performing Arts Center and Outback Concerts are pleased to present a comedic evening with Kathleen Madigan's Boxed Wine and Bigfoot Tour on Saturday, September 22 at 8 p.m.

As the celebrations, performances, and successes of The Cleveland Orchestra's Centennial Season continue toward its conclusion this spring, the Orchestra has announced details of its 101st season for 2018-2019. Aspects of the celebratory spirit continues - with a 100th Birthday concert in July for the Cleveland community and Centennial Gala in September. The new season also extends the dedicated week-to-week work, creativity, and artistry required to continue being one of the world's best orchestras year after year.

The Guthrie Theater (Joseph Haj, Artistic Director) today announced seven of the eight productions to be offered as part of the theater's 2018-2019 subscription season, including Playing with Fire by Barbara Field based upon the novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, Metamorphoses, written and directed by Tony Award winner Mary Zimmerman, and the renowned musical comedy Guys and Dolls on the Wurtele Thrust Stage, and Michael Frayn's Noises Off, The Great Leap by rising playwright Lauren Yee, Cyrano de Bergerac, adapted and directed by Joseph Haj, and the world premiere of Floyd's, a Guthrie commission by Pulitzer Prize winner Lynn Nottage, on the McGuire Proscenium Stage.

American soprano Kathleen Battle's luminous voice has been called by The Washington Post "...without qualification, one of the very few most beautiful in the world."  Yet beyond the glory of her singing, in a career filled with countless accolades, honors and major milestones, what has perhaps distinguished her most is her almost magical ability to create an unwavering emotional bond between herself, her music and her audience.  On Thursday, March 29 at 8pm, that special bond will be on full display when Ms. Battle makes her debut at The Soraya with Kathleen Battle: Underground Railroad-A Spiritual Journey accompanied by pianist Joel Martin and the LA-based choir, The Albert McNeil Jubilee Singers.

400 members of Seattle Men's Chorus (SMC) and Seattle Women's Chorus (SWC) join together in song at McCaw Hall for Not In Our Town on April 7, 2018 at 8pm and April 8, 2018 at 2pm.  New York-based comedian and YouTube sensation Randy Rainbow is making his Seattle debut as the special guest for both performances. In addition to live performances of his wildly popular parody videos, Rainbow will sing hit songs with the Choruses, including the Oscar-nominated and Golden Globe-winning song "This is Me" from The Greatest Showman.

MCC THEATER (Robert LuPone, Bernard Telsey, William Cantler, Artistic Directors; Blake West, Executive Director) today announced the complete cast for the fourth show of its 2017-18 season: the World Premiere production of Transfers, written by MCC Theater's Youth Company Playwriting Lab Director and Obie Award winner Lucy Thurber, and directed by Jackson Gay.

Due to demand, The New Group has announced a three-week extension for Jerry Springer - The Opera, with Matt McGrath appearing as Jerry Springer beginning March 13.  Terrence Mann, currently appearing in the role of Jerry Springer, plays his final performance March 11 due to an existing commitment beyond that date.

Second Stage Theater (Carole Rothman, Artistic Director; Casey Reitz, Executive Director) has announced that SUSAN POURFAR will join the previously announced TATIANA MASLANY in the New York Premiere of TRACY LETTS' acclaimed play, MARY PAGE MARLOWE, directed by LILA NEUGEBAUER.