It's a Wonderful Life - 2004 - London Articles Page 4

Independent Shakespeare Co.(ISC), announced today the addition of three new members of its Board of Directors: Sarah L. Cronin, Nikhil Pai and Julie Yannatta, under the leadership of Board Chair, Eduardo A. Braniff.   ISC Artistic Director and Co-Founder Melissa Chalsma comments, "2018 is a phenomenal year for ISC and a turning point in our history. With the commitment of our board of directors led by Eduardo Braniff, we are in the midst of a singular time of growth and celebration, one with two new performance spaces. Earlier this year we opened a new, expanded indoor Studio, this summer we celebrate our 15th anniversary of free Shakespeare in the park, and this fall the city of L.A. will be break ground on the new performance stage at our Griffith Park site.   

The concert of A Little Princess at Southbank Centre's Royal Festival Hall was a lovely production with lots of great talent of a musical that still feels a bit messy. Rebecca Trehearn, Danny Mac, and Alexia Khadime all lent their amazing voices to the show and the young girls playing Sara, Becky, Lottie, and their friends were simply incredible. However, the show itself, with book and lyrics by Brian Crawley and music by Andrew Lippa, felt rather lacking in cohesion and proper pacing.

The New England Foundation for the Arts' Creative City program announces The Way We Live Now (2018), a civic dialogue project on opioids, chronic pain, trauma, and hope by artists Maia Dolphin-Krute (writer) and Jesse Erin Posner (director). The performance takes place Today, May 16, at 6pm at Fenway Health (1340 Boylston Street, 9th Floor, Boston) and is free and open to the public with RSVP at https://thewaywelivenow.wixsite.com/project/events.

Full casting has been announced for the sensational feel-good musical MAMMA MIA! which comes to Palace Theatre, Manchester from 3rd - 14th July 2018 as part of its international tour. Shona White (Donna Sheridan), Nicky Swift (Rosie), Helen Anker (Tanya), Tamlyn Henderson (Sam Carmichael), Daniel Crowder (Harry Bright), Matthew Rutherford (Bill Austin), Lucy May Barker (Sophie Sheridan), Phillip Ryan (Sky), Leisha Mollyneaux (Ali), Lottie Henshall (Lisa), Matt Jordan-Pidgeon (Pepper) and Michael Nelson (Eddie) will star in the production. At certain performances the role of Donna Sheridan will be played by Natalie Langston.

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.

The New England Foundation for the Arts' Creative City program announces The Way We Live Now (2018), a civic dialogue project on opioids, chronic pain, trauma, and hope by artists Maia Dolphin-Krute (writer) and Jesse Erin Posner (director). The performance takes place Wednesday, May 16, at 6pm at Fenway Health (1340 Boylston Street, 9th Floor, Boston) and is free and open to the public with RSVP at https://thewaywelivenow.wixsite.com/project/events.

The Actors Fund, the national human services organization for everyone in performing arts and entertainment, will hold its Annual Gala on Monday, May 14, 2018. The evening will celebrate Academy Award-winning actor and filmmaker Warren Beatty, Tony Award-winning Broadway and film director Kenny Leon, currently director of Children of a Lesser God on Broadway, two-time Tony Award-winning actress, singer and dancer Chita Rivera, and Golden Globe-winning, Academy Award and Emmy-nominated actress Uma Thurman. Mr. Beatty, Mr. Leon, Ms. Rivera and Ms. Thurman will be awarded The Actors Fund's Medal of Honor. The event begins with 6 pm cocktails followed by a 7 pm dinner and tribute at the New York Marriott Marquis. The evening will include special tribute performances by guests to be announced.

Vietgone by Qui Nguyen is the Vietnamese-American playwright's own creation story-a telling of his parents' 1975 refugee camp romance in a "geek theater" spectacle that's at turns affecting, sage, raucous, and fantastical. A screenwriter for Marvel Studios and founder of Obie Award-winning company Vampire Cowboys, Nguyen's work champions representation and diversity on stage while dripping with pop culture nods, contemporary music, and action-adventure narrative. The production pairs this Studio-commissioned playwright with director and Studio Cabinet member Natsu Onoda Power. Drawing on Vietgone's comic book aesthetics, Studio's Stage 4 is transformed into a garage concert with a live band and original funk-rock-punk-n-roll score, giving audiences a front row seat to this anything-but-typical story of boy meets girl.

Artistic Director Robert Falls announces Goodman Theatre's new 2018/2019 Season-a 14-play line-up of timely, original and inspired works curated by Falls in collaboration with his artistic associates. The new season, which begins in September and continues through July 2019, includes 10 full productions on the Goodman's stages (856-seat Albert Theatre and 350-seat flexible Owen Theatre) plus three free New Stagesdevelopmental productions, and one TBA production TBA staged as part of the Chicago Latino Theater Alliance's 2018 International Latino Theater Festival. Goodman Theatre memberships, including new flexible packages, are now available for purchase.

A new play, Just My TYPE - The Musical, about the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator Assessment, explores how the four pairs of personality traits affect one's loves and life. Four couples are chosen to illustrate what happens when opposites mate. The script is based on Type Talk (1988) and 16 Ways to Love Your Lover (1994) by Otto Krueger and Janet Thuesen.

Today, Luther Burbank Center for the Arts (LBC) and the Santa Rosa Symphony announced the lineup for the 2018-19 Symphony Pops Series, to be presented in the Ruth Finley Person Theater at Luther Burbank Center for the Arts (50 Mark West Springs Road in Santa Rosa). Now in its 14th year, the Sunday afternoon concert series introduces audiences to the great depth and range of sounds of the Santa Rosa Symphony and acclaimed soloists, through the music of legendary Motown artists, dynamic divas, and tributes to pop sensations.

The Juilliard School announced today that it has received a bequest from Academy Award-winning composer and conductor John Williams of his complete library of concert music and film music scores as well as his sketchbooks. Mr. Williams, who studied piano with longtime Juilliard faculty member Rosina Lhevinne, announced the gift at a special alumni event held in Los Angeles at the Four Seasons Beverly Hills, where Mr. Williams was also presented with a President's Medal by Juilliard President Joseph W. Polisi.

The Theatre Group at SBCC will present will be the comedy thriller COMMUNICATING DOORS by Alan Ayckbourn, directed by Katie Laris, February 28-March 17, 2018  in the Garvin Theatre. This intricate, time traveling, comic thriller by the British master of farcical comedy delighted London and New York audiences.

Huntington Theatre Company in partnership with Roxbury Community College presents a free community event on Thursday, February 15 at 7pm in conjunction with the Huntington's upcoming production of the highly acclaimed hit Off Broadway play Skeleton Crew.

Houston Grand Opera presents Bernstein's West Side Story (April 20 - May 6), Bellini's Norma (April 27 - May 11), and return of Cruzar la Cara de la Luna (May 17, 19, 20) at HGO Resilience Theater World's first mariachi opera returns after New York triumph Houston, January 29, 2018 - Houston Grand Opera (HGO) will present the first major American opera house production of Leonard Bernstein ' s landmark musical West Side Story, April 20 - May 6, and Bellini's vocal powerhouse Norma, April 27 - May 11, in the HGO Resil i ence Theater at the George R. Brown Convention Center.

Theater Alliance kicks off 2018 with Idris Goodwin's The Raid, an imagined debate between two American icons. On the eve of the raid on the federal armory in Harpers Ferry, John Brown and Frederick Douglass argue the merits of violence and pacifism, order and chaos, and the possibility of a nation free of the scourge of slavery.

Due to popular demand, YouTube sensation Katie Goodman's Broad Comedywill return to the SoHo Playhouse (sohoplayhouse.com) beginning January 29, 2018. The internationally-touring riotous, ridiculous, and in-your-face all-women troupe, Broad Comedy, stars Danielle Cohn, Molly Kelleher, Tana Sirois, Carlita Victoria and Katie Goodman. Broad Comedy played the SoHo Playhouse last May in a limited three-show run and is being welcomed back for an official Off-Broadway run, playing Mondays at 7:30pm through March 26 at the Soho Playhouse (15 Vandam Street). Tickets are $35 and can be purchased by visiting www.sohoplayhouse.com

San Francisco Opera General Director Matthew Shilvock today announced plans for the 2018 19 Season. The Company's 96th Season will open Friday, September 7 with a gala double-bill performance of Pietro Mascagni's Cavalleria Rusticana and Ruggero Leoncavallo's Pagliacci in Jos Cura's production with an international cast featuring Lianna Haroutounian, Ekaterina Semenchuk, Roberto Aronica, Marco Berti and Dimitri Platanias, conducted by Daniele Callegari. To usher in the new opera season, San Francisco Opera Guild will produce its signature benefit event, Opera Ball 2018.

San Francisco Opera General Director Matthew Shilvock today announced plans for the 2018 19 Season. The Company's 96th Season will open Friday, September 7 with a gala double-bill performance of Pietro Mascagni's Cavalleria Rusticana and Ruggero Leoncavallo's Pagliacci in Jos Cura's production with an international cast featuring Lianna Haroutounian, Ekaterina Semenchuk, Roberto Aronica, Marco Berti and Dimitri Platanias, conducted by Daniele Callegari. To usher in the new opera season, San Francisco Opera Guild will produce its signature benefit event, Opera Ball 2018.

Following the opening of the Company's first permanent home, Target Margin Theater has announced that 13 diverse artists, via three distinct programs, will be supported in 2018. The Company's new home, located in the Sunset Park section of Brooklyn, enables Target Margin Theater to deepen their support of the next generation of theater makers through its annual incubator LAB festival, it's five-year-old fellowship program, and its new artist-in-residency program.

Due to popular demand, YouTube sensation Katie Goodman's Broad Comedy will return to the SoHo Playhouse beginning January 29, 2018.

Roundabout Theatre Company has announced the seventh annual Roundabout Underground Reading Series, a five-night event that includes nightly readings of new works written and directed by emerging artists, as well as post-show receptions. The Reading Series will feature new works by Selina Fillinger, Harrison David Rivers, Korde Arrington Tuttle, Calamity West and Daniel Zaitchik.

Urban Stages presents this year's award-winning series, WINTER RHYTHMS 2017, which begins tonight, December 12, featuring some of New York's best musical performances through Saturday, December 23, 2017 at Urban Stages Theatre (259 West 30th Street, just East of 8th Avenue).

Yale Repertory Theatre presents NATIVE SON, the critically acclaimed new play by Nambi E. Kelley adapted from the iconic American novel by Richard Wright, directed by Seret Scott, November 24 December 16 at Yale Repertory Theatre (1120 Chapel Street). Opening Night is Thursday, November 30.