As part of the collaborative partnership between Roundabout Theatre Company and Columbia University, the reading series awards three playwrights from the current MFA program and recent alumni with a cash prize as well as a reading produced by Roundabout.
Williamstown Theatre Festivalhas announced additional casting and members of the creative teams for all three of their 2021 Live Season productions, which begins July 6 and will take place outdoors, socially distanced, and with safety prioritized.
Tony winner Nikki M. James, Tony nominee Andy Grotelueschen, Broadway alums Jeannette Bayardelle and Michaela Diamond, and more are headed to Massachusetts this summer for Williamstown Theatre Festival. As previously announced, the three-production outdoor season begins July 6 with Celebrating the Black Radical Imagination: Nine Solo Plays. In addition to the casting announcement, WTF has extended its season by one week through August 15, adding performances for the musical Row and immersive theatrical experience Alien/Nation.
The world premiere of Celebrating the Black Radical Imagination will feature Brian D. Coats, Rosalyn Coleman, Cindy De La Cruz, Antwayn Hopper, Naomi Lorrain, Sharina Martin, Ronald Peet, Portia, and Ashley C. Turner. Joining the creative team are costume designer April Hickman (for Week 1) and associate lighting designer Shannon Clarke, with casting by William Cantler, Karyn Casl, and Destiny Lilly of The Telsey Office.
Co-starring in Row alongside Grace McLean will be Bayardelle (Girl From the North Country), Diamond (The Cher Show), Grotelueschen (Tootsie), Lisa Brescia (Dear Evan Hansen), Nehal Joshi, John McGinty, Zachary Noah Piser, Horace V. Rogers, and Jennifer Sánchez. The creative team has added music supervisor Julie McBride, music director Geoffrey Ko, copyist Cam Moncur, music contractor Sarah Briggs, and music assistant Noah Teplin, with casting by Patrick Goodwin and Destiny Lilly of The Telsey Office.
READ: Girl From the North Country Will Return to Broadway With a Majority of Its Original Cast
Finally, the cast of Alien/Nation will include James (The Book of Mormon), Yeman Brown, Andrei Chagas, Maxwell Dunham, Leigh-Ann Esty, Sara Esty, Chantelle Good, Christopher Hampton Grant, Eriko Jimbo, Matthew Alexander Johnson, Jesse Kovarsky, Renni Magee, Jodi McFadden, Emilio Ramos, Shea Renne, and Lauren Yalango-Grant. Rounding out the company are Julian Abelskamp, Oluwatobiloba Adeyemo, Tim Creavin, Cody Hayman, Austin Phillips, Kallie Pong, Jaime Lee Rodney, Marissa Ruben, Jessica Natalie Smith, Tyqaun Malik White, Ontaria Kim Wilson, and Bekah Zornosa. The creative team will also feature choreographer Eamon Foley, video editor Edward Michael Rose, and AV coordinator Daniel Hartman.
For more information, visit WTFFestival.org.
After more than a year of being homebound and Zoomed out, the cast of Broadway Bares will turn on their cameras and turn up the heat when Broadway Bares Twerk from Home premieres tonight, June 20 at 9pm ET.
The Broadway League hosted a free outdoor event centered around Black joy and unity that featured Black Broadway performers in a 90-minute concert with live music provided by The Music Performance Trust Fund.
1978 Carol Hall‘s The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, starring Carlin Glynn, opens on Broadway at the 46th Street Theatre. The musical directed by Peter Masterson and Tommy Tune garners seven Tony nominations and wins two, for Glynn and co-star Henderson Forsythe.
1987 Robert Harling‘s smalltown drama Steel Magnolias transfers from Off-Broadway’s WPA Theatre to Off-Broadway’s Lucille Lortel Theatre where it plays 1,126 performances. The play features Betsy Aidem, Mary Fogarty, Margo Martindale, Rosemary Prinz, Constance Schulman, and Kate Wilkinson under the direction of Pamela Berlin.
1997 Cats officially becomes the longest-running musical in Broadway history when it plays its record-breaking 6,138th performance. The record is later surpassed by another Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, The Phantom of the Opera, in 2006.
2002 A.R. Rahman and Don Black‘s Bombay Dreams, a musical about a love story set in India, opens at London’s Apollo Victoria. The producer is Andrew Lloyd Webber. It opens on Broadway in 2004.
2004 The musical Children’s Letters to God, inspired by the bestselling book of the same name, makes its Off -Broadway debut at the black box space of the Lamb’s Theatre. Stafford Arima directs the new musical by David Evans (music), Douglas Cohen (lyrics) and Children’s Letters to God author Stuart Hample (book).
2007 Husband-and-wife actors Harry Hamlin and Lisa Rinna join the Broadway company of the Tony-winning revival of Kander and Ebb’s Chicago as Billy Flynn and Roxie Hart.
2011 Nilaja Sun’s portrait of New York City public schools, No Child…, which played 311 performances at the Barrow Street Theatre in 2006, returns to that venue for 40 performances only.
2013 The Off-Broadway premiere of Tennessee Williams‘ rarely-seen The Two-Character Play opens at New World Stages. Amanda Plummer and Brad Dourif star as two actors on tour who find themselves deserted by their troupe.
2014 Holler If Ya Hear Me, a non-biographical musical inspired by the music and lyrics of Tupac Shakur, opens on Broadway at the Palace Theatre. Directed by Kenny Leon, the cast includes Saul Williams, Christopher Jackson, Saycon Sengbloh, John Earl Jelks, and Tonya Pinkins. It closes a month later, after 38 performances.
2018 Donja R. Love’s drama Sugar in Our Wounds opens Off-Broadway in a Manhattan Theatre Club production. Saheem Ali directs a cast led by Sheldon Best, Stephanie Berry, Fern Cozine, Tiffany Rachelle Stewart, and Chinaza Uche as Henry. In the play, a mystical tree stretches toward heaven and protects James (Best), who reads newspapers about the imminent possibility of freedom. When a brooding stranger arrives, James and his makeshift family take the man in—the start of an unexpected bond and striking romance.
Today’s Birthdays Dame May Whitty (1865–1948). Moe Howard (1897-1975). Mildred Natwick (1905–1994). Eddie Bartell (1907–1991). Martin Gabel (1912–1996). Louis Jourdan (1919–1975). Nancy Marchand (1928–2000). Gena Rowlands (b. 1930). Maria Tucci (b. 1941). Phylicia Rashad (b. 1948). Kathleen Turner (b. 1954). Lauren Ward (b. 1970). Hugh Dancy (b. 1975). Erin Mackey (b. 1986).