No Time for Comedy - 1939 - Broadway Articles Page 6

Experience the fireworks of love-first love, unrequited love and mature love-on stage this summer, as Goodman Theatre concludes its 2016/2017 Season with a major revival of Eugene O'Neill's Ah, Wilderness!

Nashville's Artist's Cooperative Theatre 1 (ACT 1) will kick off its 29th season this fall with a production of Delia Ephron and Nora Ephron's Love, Loss and What I Wore, playing the iconic Darkhorse Theater October 6-21. The five plays and their directors, which make up the new season, were revealed to the opening night audience of ACT 1's 2016-17 season closing production of Reefer Madness the Musical, which runs through June 24.

The CAPA Summer Movie Series, the longest-running classic film series in America, celebrates its 47th anniversary in 2017 with an impressive assembly of classics, cult favorites, and beloved films.

Present Laughter, starring Academy Award and two-time Tony Award winner Kevin Kline in his triumphant return to Broadway, opens tonight at the St. James Theatre (246 West 44th Street). Directed by Tony Award nominee Moritz von Stuelpnagel.

Bucks County Playhouse's Executive Producer Robyn Goodman, Producing Director Alexander Fraser and Producers Stephen Kocis and Josh Fiedler have announced details on the world premiere production of 'Clue: On Stage,' the outrageous new comedy adapted from the cult classic film. Performances begin May 2, 2017 with an official press opening on Saturday, May 6.

The Guthrie Theater today announced seven of the nine productions to be offered as part of the theater's 2017-2018 subscription season, including Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet and Todd Kreidler's Guess Who's Coming to Dinner on the Wurtele Thrust Stage, and Lillian Hellman's Watch on the Rhine, Noel Coward's Blithe Spirit, Danai Gurira's Familiar, Kia Corthron's world premiere adaptation of Ibsen's An Enemy of the People and Matthew Lopez's The Legend of Georgia McBride on the McGuire Proscenium Stage.

Michael Weber, artistic director of Porchlight Music Theatre, has announced Porchlight Music Theatre's 2017 - 2018 mainstage season.

Recently, I had the opportunity to chat with Atlanta playwright Topher Payne about his new show, Greetings Friend Your Kind Assistance is Required, premiering at Georgia Ensemble Theater on January 5 and running through the 22nd. A fun and quirky guy, Topher was a delight to talk to, and I'm looking forward to seeing what kinds of conversations Greetings Friend Your Kind Assistance is Required will spark. Without further ado, Topher Payne!

Now in its eighth season, the Obie Award winning The Fire This Time Festival will run January 16-February 5, 2017 at The Kraine Theater (85 East 4th Street between 2nd Avenue and Bowery).

Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol is one of the most well-known and best-loved stories of the season. Over the years, a number of radio adaptations of it have been broadcast; always faithful to the story and always professional.

On Monday 5 December, in front of a packed house, Artistic Director Louise Fischer announced New Theatre's exciting season for 2017.

OBERON, the American Repertory Theater's (A.R.T.) second stage and club theater venue on the fringe of Harvard Square, announces events to be presented at OBERON during December and January - including OBERON Presents, Visiting Artists, and Usual Suspects.

On Monday 5 December, in front of a packed house, Artistic Director Louise Fischer announced New Theatre's exciting season for 2017. 

PRESENT LAUGHTER is a 1939 comedy by Noel Coward. The play's title comes from a song in Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, 'present mirth hath present laughter', that urges the sense of carpe diem. Coward repeats one of his signature theatrical devices at the end of the play, where the main characters tiptoe out as the curtain falls - a device that he also used in Private Lives, Hay Fever and Blithe Spirit. The plot follows the life of self-obsessed actor Garry Essendine (Marc Pouhe) as he prepares for a theatrical tour in Africa. Amid a series of events that border on farce, Garry has to deal with women who want to be with him, placate both his secretary and his estranged wife, cope with a more than slightly crazed young playwright, and overcome an impending mid-life crisis. The story has been described by Coward as 'a series of semi-autobiographical pyrotechnics'.

Artistic Director of Theatr Clwyd Tamara Harvey today announces the 2017 spring season for the company.

Artistic Director of Sheffield Theatres Robert Hastie today announces his inaugural season. The new season opens with Hastie directing William Shakespeare's Julius Caesar bringing Shakespeare back to the Crucible; this will be followed in the Studio by the winner of the new annual RTST Director Award Scheme Kate Hewitt directing the regional premiere of Nina Raine's Tribes.  

OBERON, the American Repertory Theater's (A.R.T.) second stage and club theater venue on the fringe of Harvard Square, announces events to be presented at OBERON during November and December - including OBERON Presents, Visiting Artists, and Usual Suspects.

No Time for Comedy is unlike anything you have ever seen, I feel sure. It is funny and clever - much of the dialogue is of Jane Austen caliber - but it joyfully refuses to go any of the places you think it probably might. It is political, and pointed, but never preachy, except to call attention to the motives of those who would preach. It is at once a parody of a witty Broadway comedy of the nineteen-twenties, -thirties, and -forties, and the apotheosis of it; and a part of it also contains a convincing and fairly furious repudiation of itself. For this 1939 play seems well aware that its very style is about to be subsumed by world conflict…

The award-winning East Lynne Theater Company of Cape May, NJ has announced complete casting for S. N. Behrman's effervescent 1932 comedy, Biography.

'Without Dietrich, there would have been no Madonna...and no Gaga,' Janice Hall announced at the outset of her brilliant revival of GRAND ILLUSIONS: THE MUSIC OF MARLENE DIETRICH, the most recent installment of Stephen Hanks' New York Cabaret's Greatest Hits. Co-produced by Father Jeffrey R. Hamblin and flawlessly directed by Peter Napolitano, Hall's show---for which the former opera singer won both MAC and Bistro awards in 2011 and 2012, respectively---seamlessly weaves together the music and life of the enigmatic movie star and international cabaret sensation whose greatest creation, in Hall's words, 'was herself.'

Japan Society announces its 2016-2017 Performing Arts Season featuring works by visionary artists in dance, music and theater, along with one-of-a-kind related workshops and events.

Chicago Filmmakers and Showtime Networks have announced that Broadway legend Anthony Rapp, from the original casts of Rent and If/Then, will attend the 34th edition of Reeling: The Chicago LGBTQ+ International Film Festival.

The award-winning East Lynne Theater Company of Cape May, NJ has announced complete casting for S. N. Behrman's effervescent 1932 comedy, Biography.

Japan Society announces its 2016-2017 Performing Arts Season featuring works by visionary artists in dance, music and theater, along with one-of-a-kind related workshops and events.

Bergen County Players, the New Jersey Association of Community Theater's "2015 Community Theater of the Year", is proud to announce its 84th consecutive season, running from September 2016 to June 2017. From an entertaining musical to hilarious comedies to intense dramas, BCP has garnered a reputation for outstanding quality productions at affordable prices. As audiences have been anxiously anticipating, the new season kicks off with the Tony Award winning musical, Cabaret. Donors who make a tax-deductible contribution of $85 now have early access for tickets to Cabaret and the rest of the 2016-17 season by ordering online at www.bcplayers.org. Ticket sales to non-donors will begin on August 10th via online or by phone at 201-261-4200. The box office, located at the Little Firehouse Theatre, 298 Kinderkamack Road in Oradell, NJ, will then open on Thursday, August 18th for walk up and phone sales. Special discounts for groups of 20 or more are also available by calling the box office number (extension 6) or by emailing groups@bcplayers.org.