Mel Gussow News

Pan Asian Repertory Theatre continues its 40th Milestone Season in 2017 with the commissioned World Premiere of INCIDENT AT HIDDEN TEMPLE, running now through February 12, 2017 at the Clurman Theatre at Theatre Row in New York City (410 W. 42nd Street). The official opening is tonight, January 26, at 7:30PM.

Tisa Chang, Founding Artistic Producing Director of Pan Asian Repertory Theatre, announces its 40th Milestone Season in 2017 with the commissioned World Premiere of INCIDENT AT HIDDEN TEMPLE, which will run from January 21 - February 12, 2017 at the Clurman Theatre at Theatre Row in New York City (410 W. 42nd Street). The official opening will be on Thursday January 26 at 7:30PM.

Tisa Chang, Founding Artistic Producing Director of PAN ASIAN REPERTORY THEATRE, opens up about Chinese-American relations as the company begins its 40th Milestone Anniversary Season.

Tisa Chang, Founding Artistic Producing Director of Pan Asian Repertory Theatre, announces its 40th Milestone Season in 2017 with the commissioned World Premiere of INCIDENT AT HIDDEN TEMPLE, which will run from January 21 - February 12, 2017 at the Clurman Theatre at Theatre Row in New York City (410 W. 42nd Street). The official opening will be on Thursday January 26 at 7:30PM.

Vernal & Sere Theatre presents Sincerity Forever by Mac Wellman, running December 2 - 11, 2016, playing Todays, Saturdays, Sundays at 8pm at The Robert Mello Studio, 4048 Flowers Road.

Vernal & Sere Theatre presents Sincerity Forever by Mac Wellman, running December 2 - 11, 2016, playing Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays at 8pm at The Robert Mello Studio, 4048 Flowers Road.

Tisa Chang, Founding Artistic Producing Director of Pan Asian Repertory Theatre, announces its 40th Season in 2017, exploring unchartered terrain, with the commissioned World Premiere of INCIDENT AT HIDDEN TEMPLE and the New York Premiere of ACQUITTAL from Pakistan.

The Susan Smith Blackburn Prize has announced 10 Finalists for its prestigious playwriting award, the oldest and largest prize awarded to women playwrights.

For the first time in two decades, The Kitchen will present a new edition of the acclaimed performance series And That's How the Rent Gets Paid, written by downtown legends Jeff Weiss and Richard C. Martinez. For three nights only (tonight, July 14, through July 16), Weiss and Martinez's thrilling serial drama, which follows a charming serial killer through the queer underbelly of New York City, will be brought to life by director and producer Brooke O'Harra with Kate Valk and Nicky Paraiso. The three-day marathon performance features an eclectic group of 50 performers including David Cale, Jennifer Miller, Keith McDermott, Becca Blackwell, Jess Barbagallo, Moe Angelos and Mark Bennett, among others. Weiss will appear in the production, in various cameo performances, throughout the three-day run.

For the first time in two decades, The Kitchen will present a new edition of the acclaimed performance series And That's How the Rent Gets Paid, written by downtown legends Jeff Weiss and Richard C. Martinez. For three nights only (July 14-16), Weiss and Martinez's thrilling serial drama, which follows a charming serial killer through the queer underbelly of New York City, will be brought to life by director and producer Brooke O'Harra with Kate Valk and Nicky Paraiso. The three-day marathon performance features an eclectic group of 50 performers including David Cale, Jennifer Miller, Keith McDermott, Becca Blackwell, Jess Barbagallo, Moe Angelos and Mark Bennett, among others. Weiss will appear in the production, in various cameo performances, throughout the three-day run.

 Margot Harley, who co-founded The Acting Company with John Houseman in 1972, will step down as its Producer effective the end of this year.  The Acting Company began with the first graduating class of Juilliard's Drama Division, which included Kevin Kline, Patti LuPone, David Schramm and David Ogden Stiers.  "They were classically trained, superbly talented and had worked together for four years," stated Ms. Harley.

The Susan Smith Blackburn Prize previously announced 12 Finalists for its prestigious playwriting award, the oldest and largest prize awarded to women playwrights. The winner of the 2014-2015 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize will be named at the Awards Presentation today, March 2 in New York City.

The Susan Smith Blackburn Prize has announced 12 Finalists for its prestigious playwriting award, the oldest and largest prize awarded to women playwrights. Chosen from over 150 nominated plays, the Finalists are:

Elia Schneider, formerly of Venezuela, is known for hauntingly visual productions which transcend language with strong imagery and a dreamlike fresco of movement and design. In 'Judgment on a Gray Beach,' her newest work, themes of exile and totalitarianism are explored by a condemned man--he knows not for what--on a beach populated with ten sheepish antiheroes who agree to obey absurd laws and nonsensical orders. Will he escape or return for punishment? La MaMa E.T.C., her theatrical home in New York, will present the work's world premiere March 6 to 15 in its Ellen Stewart Theater, 66 East 4th Street.

Veteran actor Jim Dale has a long history with Roundabout Theatre Company. Starting with one of Roundabout's earliest successes, A Day in the Death of Joe Egg, Jim Dale has performed in five Roundabout productions over the last 30 years. In his brand new solo show, Just Jim Daleunder the direction of Tony winner Richard Maltby, Jr. (Fosse, Ain't Misbehavin'), Dale shares his passion for the stage as he recounts a lifetime of irresistible showbiz tales. We look back at some of his great roles at Roundabout below.

Roundabout mourns the loss of our dear friend, Eli Wallach, who passed away on June 24th at the age of 98. Eli was known to many for his huge breadth of film work, taking on character roles of all kinds over the course of his 60-year career. He was deservedly awarded an honorary Oscar for those performances in 2010. But Eli's first love was the theatre, and he returned to it over and over again in the midst of his success on screen. He was an early favorite of playwright Tennessee Williams, appearing in the original productions of both The Rose Tattoo and Camino Real. Eli was frequently paired on stage with his wife, Anne Jackson. They would play together in everything from Eugene Ionesco's Rhinoceros to Jean Ahouilh's Waltz of the Toreadors, becoming a leading couple of the American theatre. We were lucky to have Eli join the Roundabout in 1992 with his performance in Arthur Miller's The Price at the Criterion Center on Broadway.

Beneath the genteel suburban surface in A DELICATE BALANCE, the real questions raised are existential, abstract, and dangerous - from the unknown fear that taunts their neighbors to the response they receive from Agnes and Tobias, a couple who has been living in separate bedrooms for years in their own home. 'The play is concerned with the isolation of people who have turned their backs on participating fully in their own lives and therefore cannot participate fully in anyone else's life,' explained Albee to biographer Mel Gussow.

'155 Thru the Roof,' a fanciful comedy with music, will be presented by Theater for the New City, April 3 to 20. Written by award-winning playwright Toby Armour, directed by George Ferencz with music by Peter Dizozza, the play follows the epic adventures of Lily Field, director of Theater for the New Syzygy, as she moves through the Fourth Dimension beyond Earth and the Lower East Side.

Playwright Franz Xaver (F.X.) Kroetz is infrequently presented in Chicago, despite being Germany's most-produced living playwright during the 1980s and 90s. All that will change when the side project - known for its hyper-intimacy - takes on Kroetz, known for his hyper-realism and unrelenting depictions of loneliness, with a two-show rep in January and February.