Brief Lives

The Stanford Jazz Workshop has announced the 54th annual Stanford Jazz Festival at Stanford University. This year's festival will feature a diverse lineup including jazz legends and contemporary artists across various genres.

This past season contained a higher than usual amount of Broadway shows involving death; in fact, Operation Mincemeat and Dead Outlaw both specifically revolved around transporting a corpse! And Death Becomes Her leans into the hilarity as two women become gorgeous living corpses before our very eyes, thanks to a touch of magic. But plays and musicals about death and its attendant macabre topics have been a part of the theatre landscape for many decades...

We're falling into fall with a great Broadway read! This season, Broadway's best have put pen to paper to turn out theatre page-turners of every kind. From theatre biographies to theatre fiction; theatre books for kids to theatre history; check out our collection of 32 new Broadway books for every theatre lover's Fall 2024 reading list.

 Chicago’s Raven Theatre Company has announced its upcoming productions and programming during the company’s 42nd season in 2024 - 2025. Learn more about the lineup here!

Center Theatre Group announces its Spring 2024 CTG:FWD programming, featuring special events, community gatherings, and artist residency programs at the Mark Taper Forum, the Kirk Douglas Theatre, and throughout the greater Los Angeles area.

Talking Band will celebrate its 50th anniversary season with three premieres and collaborations with 600 Highwaymen and Anne Bogart.

'Now's The Time: The Genius of Charlie Parker #3' will be released on vinyl, as part of Verve/UMe's Verve By Request series with Third Man Records. Get all the details here!

Popcorn Group, a film, television, and theatre production company founded by filmmaker Charlotte Colbert, has again partnered up with the BBC Writersroom and eight renowned Edinburgh theatre venues to shortlist the best of new writing coming to this year’s Fringe Festival.

The cast has been revealed for The Contention (Henry VI, Part II) at Shakespeare & Company, directed by Founding Artistic Director Tina Packer and staged June 17 through July 15, opening Saturday, June 24.

Fine performances and a good helping of laughs, but the violence throws a wet blanket over the fun

The 2023–24 Boston Symphony Orchestra season, October 5–May 4, has been programmed to offer the BSO’s most devoted audiences and newcomers alike an exciting and wide-ranging spectrum of musical styles and periods.

Pasadena Playhouse has announced the cast for Sunday in the Park with George, the first production of the theater’s six-month-long celebration of Stephen Sondheim. See performances dates and how to purchase tickets!

People’s Light is presenting the world premiere of Mushroom, an original play from Pulitzer Prize finalist and Mare of Easttown cast member Eisa Davis. Mushroom runs September 14 through October 16 on the Steinbright Stage.

Mount Wilson Observatory—the place where humankind discovered its place in the universe—will present a special exhibition of Acoustic Sculptures created by the late Michael Brewster, to take place on Saturday and Sunday, August 13-14, 2022.

 Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater will return to Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts’ David H. Koch Theater June 15-19, 2022, for a six- performance engagement that caps a decade of Artistic Director Robert Battle’s leadership.

The Stratford Festival is overcome with grief at the death of Martha Henry, just 12 days after her final tour-de-force performance in Edward Albee’s Three Tall Women. The grief of her colleagues is matched only by their gratitude for her unparalleled contributions to Canadian theatre.

Vineyard Theatre, Goodspeed Musicals, and Irish Repertory Theatre in association with Jeff Berger, have announced John Cullum: An Accidental Star, which will premiere April 8 and will be available for streaming on demand through April 22. Two live watch party events will take place April 8 at 7:00 pm EDT and April 17 at 2:00 pm EDT.  

discovery+, the definitive non-fiction subscription streaming service, today announced the original series and specials that will be available during its debut month of January 2021.

BWW Reviewer Peter Nason chooses the 101 greatest Motown songs from 1960-1994. See if your favorite songs or artists made the list!

The incomparable life and extraordinary, trailblazing career of jazz titan and influential composer Charlie Parker will be honored throughout 2020 with a worldwide celebration commemorating the 100th anniversary of his birth (August 29, 1920). Lovingly dubbed Bird 100 after the nickname of the preeminent alto saxophonist who was one of the fathers of bebop and progenitors of modern jazz, the centennial will include a host of major initiatives including exciting new music releases, a tribute tour, festivals and events, prestigious exhibitions, special partnerships, a unique graphic novel, exclusive collectible art, and myriad of independent appreciations and concerts.

While I find Beckett's plays often too intensely intellectual for my comprehension, this was not the case with Irwin's seemingly effortless way of donning a bowler hat (or 2 or 3), juggling them until the perfect one is atop his head, and then going on to flop around the stage in his baggy pants and oversize shoes as a quintessential clown while explaining his interpretation of passages reflecting a?oethe noise of lifea?? in Beckett's a?oeText for Noting,a?? a?oeWatt,a?? a?oeWaiting for Godot,a?? a?oeEndgame,a?? and a?oeThe Unnamable.a?? It was an extraordinary evening of watching a master of the stage interpret the life and brilliance of a theatre legend.

PEN America today announces the full lineup of events for the 2019 PEN World Voices Festival: Open Secrets (May 6-12), focusing on the dissolving boundary between the public and the private in the literary, cultural, social, and political realms.

PEN America presents the 2019 PEN World Voices Festival: Open Secrets (May 6-12), focusing on the dissolving boundary between the public and the private in the literary, cultural, social, and political realms.  A flowering of the genres of literary memoir and personal testimony has been accompanied by increased digital avenues for story-telling, revelation, and expose before both designated and public audiences.

The Stratford Festival lost one of its pioneers today. Douglas Rain died of natural causes early this morning at the age of 90 at St. Marys Memorial Hospital, just outside of Stratford, Ontario, the city in which he established his career, becoming one of the world's great classical actors.

Commonwealth Shakespeare Company, Founding Artistic Director Steven Maler, announced the cast of the first production of its 2018-19 Season: Universe Rushing Apart: Blue Kettle & Here We Go, two one-act plays by Caryl Churchill, directed by Bryn Boice. The production runs November 7-18 at the Black Box Theater, Sorenson Center for the Arts at Babson College in Wellesley.