She Would and She Would Not

This time, the reader question was: What is the history of Romeo and Juliet on Broadway?

Catch the opening of MEN ON BOATS at Long Beach Playhouse this weekend. Experience the thrilling adventure play that brings to life the historical 1869 Powell expedition.

Natalie Merchant unveils a new video for her latest single “Come On, Aphrodite”—watch here. Filmed in Brooklyn, New York, the new video is directed by Matthew Shattuck (Foo Fighters, John Legend) and edited by Andrew Pulaski (Joey Bada$$, A$AP Ferg). Watch the new music video now!

It is the first track released from Merchant’s forthcoming album, Keep Your Courage, and establishes the record’s themes of love and passion as essential to the human experience. Merchant’s ninth solo studio album, and the latest new material since 2014’s self-titled record, Keep Your Courage will be released in April.

The Power of Destiny opens a series of operas that Giuseppe Verdi wrote for a foreign commission. 

The Greek National Opera’s 2022-23 season curated by GNO Artistic Director Giorgos Koumendakis will feature ten new opera and ballet productions, one newly commissioned opera, five revivals of past productions, music concerts, major co-productions with some of the world’s foremost opera houses, collaborations with leading conductors and more.

Expect cross dressing, deceit, and general campy comedic hijinks.

The award-winning Pittsburgh Playhouse at Point Park University, a multidisciplinary arts and entertainment center located in Downtown Pittsburgh, announced the lineup for their Inside/Outside Summer Series as well as over 30 performances across a multitude of arts disciplines for the 2022-2023 season.

The Cal Poly Pomona Department of Theatre and New Dance announces its first completely virtual Fall season of theatre with a production of Men On Boats written by Jaclyn Backhaus and directed by Nancy Keystone, available for on-demand viewing October 23 a?" 28, 2020; and Zorro X2 written by Bernardo Solano and directed by Linda Bisesti, available for on-demand viewing November 20 a?" 24, 2020. All tickets are free.

The Metropolitan Opera announced today that the ongoing health crisis has resulted in the cancellation of the entire 2020-21 season, but the company also announced ambitious artistic plans for its 2021-22 season, which will open with the Met premiere of Terence Blanchard's Fire Shut Up in My Bones.

Palo Alto Players, the Peninsula's first theatre company, has announced its reimagined 90th Anniversary season - a lineup of shows designed to withstand these uncertain times.

The Adelphi Orchestra will celebrate New Jersey's centennial anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment by building on its expanding tradition and implicit mission of recognizing the merit and excellence of women composers and musicians with PROJECT 19. 

In the musical Barnum, a song lyric compels you to 'join the circus like you wanted to, when you were a kid.'  In the family friendly new musical The Giant Hoax, a young farm girl named Emily will do just that.  She's heard about the Cardiff Giant and wants to see the amazing wonder for herself.  Emily runs away from home and will learn some valuable lessons, meet an assortment of colorful characters and sing about 'Wonderful Things.'

'It is my belief that the spirit of man is eternal, and free to communicate with the living,' claimed photographer William H. Mumler (1832-1884).  He also claimed he could take pictures of ghosts with his camera. Mary Todd Lincoln was among the many who flocked to his studio to have pictures taken just to see who would be in the photo. Mumler's photo of Mrs. Lincoln shows the ghost of her husband standing above her, his hand on her shoulder.

MIONG opened at REP Philippines on February 22 and is running through March 10, 2019.

Troupe today announces the transfer of the Off West End Award-nominated The Sweet Science of Bruising to Wilton's Music Hall, following its sold-out run at Southwark Playhouse last year. As a Victorian music hall, Wilton's offers a new authenticity to the play which follows four female boxers in 1869. The production opens on 7 June, with previews from 5 June, and runs until 29 June.

Questions about power and authority; stories of nostalgy; colorful, imaginative and comedic history; romance; music and humor. The 2019 theatreproductions in Finland look promising!

The Drama League (Gabriel Stelian-Shanks, Executive Artistic Director) has announced the theater directors chosen to develop new plays and musicals as part of the 2019 Drama League Artist Residency Program. Public work-in-progress presentations of each residency will be held periodically throughout the year at The Drama League Theater Center, 32 Avenue of the Americas, in Tribeca. Schedules for the presentations, which are open to the public, will be available throughout 2019 at www.dramaleague.org or by calling (212) 244-9494.

Marni Penning is an audiobook narrator, playwright, acting coach, children's book illustrator, two-time Helen Hayes Award nominee, and other-award-winning actress who lives with her husband, son, dog, fish, and chickens in Falls Church, VA. She is starring as Susan B. Anthony in Mosaic Theater Company's upcoming production, The Agitators.

The 2018 Margaret Mead Film Festival—the internationally recognized premier platform for documentary films—will screen 55 outstanding films representing 39 countries and host special events and performances from Thursday, October 18, through Sunday, October 21, at the American Museum of Natural History. The public can purchase tickets and see full film descriptions and trailers online at amnh.org/mead, and can create a personalized film schedule at mead2018.sched.com.

New York's beloved Dance Theatre of Harlem, under the artistic direction of Virginia Johnson, returns to NY City Center for its annual homecoming season tonight, April 4, the 50th Anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., with the annual Vision Gala, honoring dance legend Carmen de Lavallade and civil rights icon Xernona Clayton.

The Hawai'i Symphony Orchestra offered another of its wildly successful pop up concert series at the Bank of Hawaii headquarters downtown on March 28. Joseph Stepec, Assistant Professor of Music at The University of Hawaii at Manoa, Director of Orchestras, conducted the free concert, which received thunderous applause throughout the event.

SpeakEasy Stage Company opens its 27th season with the Boston-area premiere of MEN ON BOATS, directed by Dawn Simmons, and featuring an all-female design team and a racially diverse, non-male cast. The playwright specifies in the script that the actors are to be female-identifying, trans-identifying, gender fluid, and/or non-gender-conforming, but no cisgender white males. Even as she bases the play on the known history and Major John Wesley Powell's own journal of the events on his 1869 expedition, Jaclyn Backhaus flips the narrative by altering the nature of the cast of characters.

Today's subject Tracy Lynn Olivera is currently living her theatre life onstage at Signature Theatre as the stalwart countess Charlotte in Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler's Tony Award-winning musical, A Little Night Music. The production runs through October 8th in Signature's Max Theatre.