Little Piece of You

Contemporary circus company, Circa, has come to Charleston, South Carolina, as part of Spoleto USA’s 50th season,  with their Humans 2.0.  This is the next installment after their successful Humans production — although with their current creation and context, the “2.0” more ironically evokes a software upgrade than a performance sequel.

For the PBS culture series CANVAS, arts correspondent Jeffrey Brown caught up with Nathan Lane and Laurie Metcalf, who have received Tony nominations for their fresh performances in Death of a Salesman. Watch the full segment, which also features footage from the production. 

There is exactly one joke in Peter Shaffer's 1965 farce: when the lights come on, the characters are in the dark. Everything else — the borrowed furniture, the hapless sculptor, the stern colonel, the ex-girlfriend arriving at the worst possible moment — is just escalation.

May 19's ESCAPE: THE MUSIC OF RUPERT HOLMES at AMT Theater was a cabaret with the songwriter himself in attendance, on-stage, and in good spirits, along with some cast members from the hosting J2 Spotlight Musical Theater Company

The 33rd annual Great Blue Heron Music Festival will bring 48+ artists across four stages to the Heron Farm & Event Center in Sherman, New York, with a lineup spanning funk, groove, reggae, and old-time mountain music.

At the heart of every female friendship group, no matter the age group, is love and a joint effort to make sure you’re in each other's lives until you’re old and grey. Our Mother’s Daughters looks at the question of ‘is loving someone enough to look past their political views and belief systems?’, and wonders how complex being alive actually is. 

Told through a series of vignettes, Crossing Delancey examines Bubbie's belief in the old-world Jewish family custom of all young women needing to find a husband as soon as possible to settle down and raise a family against those of Isabel, a modern 1980s Jewish woman in New York City learning to stand on her own two feet. I spoke with Holly Sidell who is portraying Isabel in the current production at Theatre 40 in Beverly Hills through June 21.

The separation of the Washington National Opera from the overrun-and-soon-to-close  Kennedy Center has meant next season’s eight planned productions, including five full length operas, will occur on five different stages in the D.C. area. 

The festival's second weekend kicks off with intestinal trouble, a footloose priest, and imperialist clowns.

Activating Lower East Side community gardens on weekends this May, see first look photos  of Remote Theater Project's free interactive community play EVERYBODY HAS A STORY TO TELL, an original work by Obie Award-winning playwright Carmen Rivera.

BARTLEBY begins with a tease. The curtain only rises a little, just enough to show feet. Expressive. Unexpected and intriguing from the first second. When it finally lifts, Vincent Lemaire’s set reveals itself in clean, minimal lines, white bricks, a black table, black chairs, and a bust. It’s atemporal, and still you feel the lawyer’s office in your bones.

“Stories are stories are stories, whether it’s Wagner’s Wotan and Fricka (in the Ring), Handel’s Jupiter and Juno (in Handel’s SEMELE) or Broadway’s Tevye and Golde (FIDDLER ON THE ROOF) and they repeat in different cultures and traditions,” General Manager and Artistic Director of the Atlanta Opera, Tomer Zvulun, said to me. “And whether it’s talking about siblings or spouses, or parents and children, we always end with similar concerns.” Our conversation was about his company’s new production of Wagner’s TWILIGHT OF THE GODS, better known to Wagner aficionados as GOTTERDAMMERUNG, which opens on May 30 at Atlanta’s Cobb Performing Arts Center.

6/8-9, Jenn Colella brings BIG DYKE ENERGY to NYC's Beechman Theatre. It features “music, mischief, and unapologetically queer storytelling.” Colella spoke about the show, what made her want to create it, and why Pride should be celebrated year-round.

This summer, Chicago is offering a wide variety of plays and musicals, as well as comedy, dance, music, and more. To highlight these productions, The League of Chicago Theatres is publishing its Summer Theatre Guide.

The semester ended, and I hopped on a train to New York City. With sheet music in my hands and showtunes in my earbuds, I was ready for my 54 Below debut. What is it really like to perform at one of NYC’s most iconic cabaret spaces?

Hollywood legend Judy Garland is preparing to take the stage at the infamous Talk of the Town theatre-restaurant in 1968. In her room at The Ritz Hotel, she unravels. The star’s glitz and glamour dim, and the harsh reality of what it takes to make it in Hollywood transpires. The show must go on, but Garland is fighting a whole array of demons and she would pass away the following year in London, overdosing on barbiturates. Peter Quilter’s play (with music) is genre-questioning and tonally indecisive. Former drag queen turned Broadway star  Jinkx Monsoon could have taken on the role of a lifetime, but the lack of cohesion in Rupert Hands’s direction fails her.

This Pittsburgh-centric update of the seventies cult musical bridges the gap between the old world and the new.

When HAIRSPRAY begins its run at Maine State Music Theatre on June 3, the new revival, created as a co-production with Lancaster’s Fulton Theatre, will be an evening of professional firsts for its young star, Eden Franco, who plays the demanding role of the musical’s protagonist, Tracy Turnblad. For Franco, who was graduated from college only two years ago, this production marks her first professional contract, her first experience in regional theatre, her debut in Maine, and her role debut in the Marc Shaiman-Scott Wittman musical.

The festival's first weekend closes out with grief, 'inspiration porn', and a cacophony of kazoos.

2026 marks the first time that Glyndbourne has staged Puccini's Tosca, a devastating opera of love and betrayal. It’s also a first for Glyndebourne Music Director Robin Ticciati, who conducts this powerfully dramatic piece, as well as a Festival debut from exciting American director Ted Huffman.

Players Ring in New Hampshire will close its 2025-26 season with a stage adaptation of EMMA, the classic Jane Austen novel, marking the theater's recent name change and new branding.

Bergen County Players announced its 2026-27 season, opening with the area premiere of Mel Brooks' THE PRODUCERS at the Little Firehouse Theatre, marking the musical's 25th Broadway anniversary.

The age-old literary mystery of the circumstances surrounding the death of the perennially wedding-dress-clad Miss Havisham in Charles Dickens’ 1851 novel “Great Expectations” is reexamined through a contemporary lens in “(re)Dressing Miss Havisham,” by local playwright John Minigan, being performed May 19–24 at Boston Playwrights’ Theatre as part of the company’s New Play Incubator program.

Oh What A Ride! Productions and Crow's Theatre will present DANCER at Toronto's Terminal Theatre, featuring the original creative team and cast in an expanded staging of the 2023 Fringe Festival hit.

The Original Broadway Cast Recording of THE LOST BOYS will be available to pre-order Friday, May 29. More details on the album, including digital and physical release date, will be announced soon.