The Invention of Love Photos - Broadway

Take a look back on Richard Easton's life and career with a collection of vintage photos from our archives. 

The Rudes. They're like the cast of Star Wars or Star Trek, iconic and revered in that way that Trekkers love Leonard Nimoy or George Takei, but for Austin and its avid theatre going Rude fans, well, that, and their collaborative works with others from Helsinki to Cedar Rapids. And their current production, REQUIEM FOR TESLA, is, in its third incarnation, like a Star Trek reboot. While other theatres around town dust off the usual December holiday fare, The Rude Mechanicals, never to be usual, have resurrected REQUIEM FOR TESLA in celebration of their 20th anniversary season. It's obvious they've been around and drummed up an enthusiastic fan base. (Full disclosure: I'm one of them). On opening night for this particular production, one ebullient fan behind us waxed poetic to total strangers about each and every Rude production he'd seen (many of which I've seen myself) including the 2001 and 2003 iterations of REQUIEM FOR TESLA.

The National Theater Institute includes a vibrant community of over 3,500 alumni. The many talents of these actors, writers, directors, and designers can be seen on Broadway, Off-Broadway, in films, television, London's West End, and at every major regional theater in the U.S. Today, in an excerpt from The O'Neill: Transformation of Modern American Theater, we hear from actor-writer-director John Krasinski (Promised Land, Away We Go, Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, Big Miracle, The Office) about why he calls his semester away at NTI "one the most influential moments of [his] life".

Sonnet Repertory Theatre presented their annual Benefit & Cabaret last night, November 8th. Sonnet Repertory Theatre brought together a diverse and talented group of performers and composers at Joe's Pub to honor multi Tony and Drama Desk Award-winning director Jack O'Brien. Jerry Mitchell served as the evening's host.

The world premiere of Rajiv Joseph's (Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo) Gruesome Playground Injuries features Selma Blair (Hellboy, Hellboy 2: The Golden Army, Storytelling, Legally Blonde, NBC's Kath & Kim) playing Kayleen and Brad Fleischer (Center Theatre Group's premiere of Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo, Broadway's Coram Boy, Off Broadway's Streamers) playing Doug.

Portland Center Stage invites you meet one of America's unlikeliest Ben Franklin scholars, monologist and fringe theater performer Josh Kornbluth, as he loses some hair and gains a fresh perspective on the costs of independence, the meaning of revolution and the vagaries of Founding Fatherhood in Ben Franklin: Unplugged. Ben Franklin: Unplugged previews on Tuesday September 29th, opens on Friday, October 2nd and runs through November 22, 2009. Tickets start at $24, with student and under 30 discounts available. Rush tickets for Ben Franklin: Unplugged are $20. Show times are 7:30 pm Tuesday through Saturday, with a 2:00 pm Sunday matinee and alternating Saturday 2:00 pm and Sunday 7:30 pm performances. See the show calendar http://tickets.pcs.org/buytickets/calendar.asp for the complete performance schedule.

Previews are now underway at Playwrights Horizons (Tim Sanford, Artistic Director; Leslie Marcus, Managing Director) for the New York premiere of Our House, a new play by Pulitzer Prize finalist Theresa Rebeck (The Butterfly Collection and Bad Dates at Playwrights Horizons, Broadway's Mauritius, co-author of Omnium Gatherum). A scathing new comedy that shakes up Reality TV, Our House is the final production of the theater company's 2008/2009 Season.

Berkeley Repertory Theatre greets the new year by proudly presenting its 50th world premiere, a new comedy about marriage, intimacy, and electricity from the creators of Eurydice. Celebrated playwright Sarah Ruhl and Obie Award-winning director Les Waters come together again for the debut of In the Next Room (or the vibrator play). Commissioned by Berkeley Rep and staged in the state-of-the-art Roda Theatre, this hotly anticipated play begins previews on January 30, opens February 4, and closes March 15. BART and Wells Fargo serve as season sponsors for Berkeley Rep's 41st year of fearless theatre, and the executive producer for this show is the Strauch Kulhanjian Family.