RUNAWAY HOME at the Fountain Theatre in LA, produced by Stephen Sachs, featured in American Theatre magazine here.
RUNAWAY HOME, Produced by Stephen Sachs, Featured in American Theatre
MadLab’s Ohio Premiere Production of AND THEN THEY FELL by Tira Palmquist
MadLab’s Ohio premiere production of And Then They Fell by Tira Palmquist will take place Fridays and Saturdays, Oct. 6 – 21, 2017, with a special preview performance on Thursday, Oct.5, at MadLab, 227 N. 3rd St., in Columbus. Admission is $18 for the general public, $15 for students and seniors and $13 for MadLab members. Tickets are available online at www.madlab.net.
JorDan Matthews would be fine, if her mother could hold down a decent job, or if her mother hadn’t been arrested on another DUI, or if her mother’s boyfriend wasn’t a skeevy bastard. But things aren’t fine, and Jordan’s life is falling apart. The adults in her life are either impotent or uninterested, and the only solace comes from out of the blue.
Tira Palmquist’s plays include Overburden, Two Degrees (Denver Center), Ten Mile Lake (Serenbe Playhouse), Age of Bees (MadLab Theater, Tesseract), And Then They Fell (Brimmer Street, New York Film Academy). Two Degrees had its World Premiere in the Denver Center’s 2016/17 Season and was also listed in the 2016 Kilroys Honorable Mention List. Ten Mile Lake, which premiered in 2014 at Serenbe Playhouse just outside of Atlanta, GA, was a finalist for the 2015 Primus Prize. Her work as a director and dramaturg includes several seasons at the Seven Devils Playwrights Conference and the New Territories Playwriting Residency, a program she developed with Brian Clowdus at Serenbe Playhouse in Georgia. More info at www.tirapalmquist.com.
Read more from Broadway World here.
Trinity Rep Announces New Artistic Director Title After Generous Donation
Trinity Rep has announced that it has received a generous multi-year donation from Arthur P. Solomon and Sally E. Lapides to support its company, community, and education-focused mission. In celebration of this commitment, Trinity Rep’s artistic director position, held by Curt Columbus, will be named “The Arthur P. Solomon and Sally E. Lapides Artistic Director” through June 2022.
“We consider Trinity Rep to be one of Rhode Island’s real jewels and Curt Columbus to be its outstanding artistic director,” said Solomon and. Lapides. “Therefore, both of us feel honored to be associated with such a world class theater and artistic leader.”
“It is a great honor for me, both personally and professionally, to be associated with both Art and Sally,” said Curt Columbus. “Sally Lapides and her family have been supporters of Trinity Repertory Company since its founding, and she is one of the premier corporate and philanthropic leaders of Rhode Island. Art Solomon is a world class businessman who has made his home in Providence. In getting to know him, I have been struck by his intellect, his heart, and his capacity for understanding art. They are people of taste, experience, and class. I know that their naming of the artistic director chair at Trinity brings their imprimatur with it, and I am beyond thrilled.”
Arthur P. Solomon and Sally E. Lapides’ gift supports Trinity Rep’s commitment to reinventing the public square and inspiring dialogue by creating emotionally-stimulating live productions and innovative education programs for all ages and abilities.
Rhode Island’s Tony Award-winning theater, Trinity Rep has created unparalleled professional theater for and with its community since its founding in 1963. Trinity Rep strives to facilitate human connection and has been a driving force behind the creativity that fuels and defines the region for more than 50 years.
Trinity Rep is committed to reinventing the public square and inspiring dialogue by creating emotionally-stimulating live productions that range from classical to contemporary and innovative education programs for all ages and abilities. Its annual production of A Christmas Carol has brought families together for 40 years and made memories for over a million audience members.
Subscriptions for the 2017-18 season are now on sale. The season includes Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller, Skeleton Crew by Dominique Morisseau, Into the Breeches! by George Brant, Othello by William Shakespeare, Native Gardens by Karen Zacarías, and Ragtime by Terrence McNally, music by Stephen Flaherty, lyrics by Lynn Ahrens, based on the novel by E.L. Doctorow. For more information and to purchase tickets, call the box office at (401) 351-4242 or visit Trinity Rep’s website at www.TrinityRep.com.
Cast Complete for Paper Mill’s World Premiere of THE HONEYMOONERS MUSICAL
Paper Mill Playhouse, by arrangement with Jeffrey Finn, has announced complete casting for its world-premiere production of the new musical comedy The Honeymooners, based on the CBS television series of the same name.
Directed by Tony Award winner John Rando, with choreography by Emmy Award winner Joshua Bergasse, and musical direction and vocal arrangements by Remy Kurs, the production is scheduled to begin previews at the New Jersey venue September 28 for a limited run through October 29.
The cast will be headed by Tony Award winner Michael McGrath as Ralph Kramden, Michael Mastro as Ed Norton, Leslie Kritzer as Alice Kramden, and Tony nominee Laura Bell Bundy as Trixie Norton, with Lewis Cleale as Bryce Bennett, Lewis J. Stadlen as Old Man Faciamatta, and David Wohl as Allen Upshaw.
The ensemble will feature Holly Ann Butler, Chris Dwan, Hannah Florence, Tessa Grady, Stacey Todd Holt, Ryan Kasprzak, Drew King, Eloise Kropp, Harris Milgrim, Justin Prescott, Lance Roberts, Jeffrey Schecter, Britton Smith, Alison Solomon, Michael Walters, and Kevin Worley.
With a book by Dusty Kay and Bill Nuss, music by Stephen Weiner, and lyrics by Peter Mills, the new musical concerns Ralph Kramden and buddy Ed Norton, who are still shooting for the moon. “After shocking their wives by winning a high-profile jingle contest,” press notes state, “they are catapulted out of Brooklyn and into the cutthroat world of Madison Avenue advertising, where they discover that their quest for the American Dream might cost them their friendship.”
The production will also have set design by Beowulf Boritt; costume design by Jess Goldstein; lighting design by Jason Lyons; sound design by Kai Harada; hair, wig, and makeup design by Leah J. Loukas; with orchestrations by Doug Besterman and dance arrangements by Sam Davis. The production stage manager is Timothy R. Semon. Casting is by Telsey + Company, Patrick Goodwin, CSA.
Tickets are on sale now starting at $34 and may be purchased by calling (973) 376-4343, at the Paper Mill Playhouse Box Office at 22 Brookside Drive in Millburn, or online at www.PaperMill.org.
Learn more from Playbill.com here.
The Fountain Theatre Presents Mother-Daughter Tale RUNAWAY HOME
Sometimes what you’re searching for is right where you started. The Fountain Theatre presents a powerful, funny and deeply moving mother-daughter story by Jeremy J. Kamps. Multiple award-winning Shirley Jo Finney returns to the Fountain to direct the world premiere of Runaway Home for a Sept. 16 opening.
Three years after Hurricane Katrina, the unhealed wounds of New Orleans’ Lower 9th Ward continue to fester. Camille Spirlin(ABC’s American Koko, Fox TV’sRosewood, Nickelodeon’s Marvin Marvin) stars as 14-year-old runaway Kali. Rhyming, stealing and scamming her way through the still-destroyed neighborhood, she embarks on a journey to pick through the wreckage of what used to be her life. While the rest of the country’s attention drifts, the neighborhood’s residents are left to repair the damage from the inside out. As their attempts at renewal leave a path of destruction in their wake, Kali bears witness to what the floodwaters left behind…
“This play couldn’t be more timely,” says Fountain co-artistic director Stephen Sachs. “Hurricane Katrina may have ceased in 2005, but the storm of racism, poverty and class inequality rages on in our country to this day. We need look no further than Flint, Michigan, to see systemic government prejudice against citizens of color and the poor. But as Jeremy’s play so beautifully demonstrates, the bonds of family and community will weather any storm.”
When Kamps traveled to New Orleans two years after Katrina to volunteer “gutting and mucking” (stripping homes to the studs to remove mold), he had been teaching middle school in Connecticut. He already had an idea in his head about a runaway girl who collects other people’s garbage, finding meaning in the meaningless.
“Kali’s world paralleled the displacement, hope for renewal, fracture and resilience I was seeing in the social-political reality of the Lower 9th Ward,” he explains. “Whenever a character’s inner life and experience are so congruent with an important social issue, that’s the story I want to write.”
While in New Orleans, Kamps met Antoine, a man in his ’70s who had just returned to what had been his family’s home for generations. Antoine was going from house to house trying to trace relatives, friends, acquaintances and neighbors, to find out what had happened to them in the years since the storm. “His friendship helped me honor the stories of this community in a truthful way – to see the past, present and future of the Lower 9th through their eyes,” says the playwright.
Read the full article from Broadway World here.