Faetra Petillo - Page 36

The trustees of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation have awarded Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre Company a three-year, $600,000 grant as part of a new initiative to expand the commissioning for the development of new plays for the American stage - while providing audiences greater transparency into the artistic process

Broadway's Boy George Euan Morton will host the 2008 Theatre Museum Awards for Excellence on Tuesday October 21, 2009 at New York City's famed Players Club located at 16 Gramercy Park. Cocktails and Silent Auction at 6 p.m. Dinner at 7 p.m. Awards Ceremony at 8 p.m.

Josephson Entertainment, Erich Jungwirth/VoiceChair Productions and Richard Jordan Productions Ltd announced today the Off-Broadway premiere of BASIC TRAINING (www.BasicTrainingNYC.com), a new comedy created by and starring Kahlil Ashanti. BASIC TRAINING is a hilarious story based on one soldier's outrageous experience in the U.S. Air Force and will play the Barrow Street Theatre (27 Barrow St. at 7th Avenue, 1 block south of Christopher Street) beginning Friday, Sept. 26th with an official opening on Monday, Oct. 13th.

Ethan McSweeny will be directing Center Stage's production of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf in Baltimore.

Wicked's Sean McCourt and Mary Poppins' Anthony Glade will headline the debut of 'Planet Broadway' on October 19th, 2008 at Planet Hollywood.

The previously announced Alice Ripley and J. Robert Spencer will be joined by Adam Chanler-Berat, Jennifer Damiano, Louis Hobson and Aaron Tveit for the upcoming hit musical Next to Normal.

The Brick Theater and Third Lows Productions continue their innovative theater series Penny Dreadful on Saturday, October 18 at 11:00 PM and Sunday, October 19 at 2:00 PM, with the premiere of Penny Dreadful Episode 7 - The Peril of Penny, a Damsel Lost in Time! The newest chapter in the serialized story marks the beginning of Season Two that will consist of six new plays through March 2009.

The Sun is reporting that actor actor Zac Efron may be considering the role of Alan Strang in EQUUS. At the London premiere of High School Musical 3 Efron was quoted as saying, 'You know that Daniel Radcliffe role on Broadway? Well it's been mentioned.'

Opera Pacific's 2008-2009 main stage season at Segerstrom Hall of the Orange County Performing Arts Center in Costa Mesa, opens with Rossini's The Barber of Seville, which performs October 22 - November 1, 2008. This is Opera Pacific's first main stage offering of The Barber of Seville since 1996.

Keen Company (Artistic Director Carl Forsman, Producer Wayne Kelton) is thrilled to announce a special promotion for its run of Jan de Hartog's The Fourposter: 15 seats available for $15 at every Tuesday night performance.

Westport Country Playhouse (Joanne Woodward and Anne Keefe, artistic directors, Jodi Schoenbrun Carter, managing director) will stage John Steinbeck's classic drama, 'Of Mice and Men,' directed by Mark Lamos. Peformances began October 7th and will run through November 1. Steinbeck won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962 and the Pulitzer Prize for his 1939 novel 'The Grapes of Wrath.' The production will honor the late Paul Newman, who was married to Westport's Artistic Director Joanne Woodward and who participated in many Westport Playhouse productions.

Primary Stages (Casey Childs, Executive Producer; Andrew Leynse, Artistic Director; Elliot Fox, Managing Director) presents the New York premiere of A Body of Water by Lee Blessing. Maria Mileaf (Going to St. Ives) returns to Primary Stages to direct the three-member cast that features Michael Cristofer (Romeo & Juliet, The Shadow Box) as Moss, Christine Lahti ('Chicago Hope,' The Heidi Chronicles) as Avis and Laura Odeh (The Rivals) as Wren.

New writing from Niger will be performed by actors in New York City to raise funds for girls' education in the West African country. This unique collaboration, featuring stories, poems and songs written by young Nigerien women, will be held at Manhattan Theatre Source (177 MacDougal Street) on Saturday, November 1, 2008.

Gates of Gold, a new drama by Frank McGuinness will open at 59E59 on Tuesday, January 27, 2008. Directed by Lonnie Price, the production will be produced by Artists Theatre Group, Sally Jacobs and Warren Baker. McGuinness, a Tony Award winner, has his new version of Oedipus, starring Ralph Fiennes opening at the National Theatre in London and will soon have his adaptation of Ibsen's The Master Builder opening in New York at the Irish Repertory Theatre on October 29.

New Repertory Theatre, in residence at the Arsenal Center for the Arts, is thrilled to present The Lieutenant of Inishmore.

Ellie Covan, Artistic Director of Dixon Place, announced today the opening of the world premiere of FOREVER, created by Laura Peterson Choreography, on October 29, 2008. FOREVER. will be the inaugural production at the new Dixon Place, a state-of-the-art laboratory facility located at 161 Chrystie Street.

Steppenwolf Theatre Company continues its 2008-2009 season, an exploration of the imagination, with The Seafarer by Conor McPherson, directed by ensemble member Randall Arney. The production, featuring ensemble members Francis Guinan, Tom Irwin, John Mahoney and Alan Wilder with Randall Newsome, runs December 4, 2008 - February 8, 2009 in Steppenwolf's Downstairs Theatre, 1650 N. Halsted St.

North Shore Music Theatre (NSMT) announced today that the role of Peggy Sawyer in its upcoming production of 42nd STREET (October 28 to November 23, 2008) will now be played by actress Melissa Lone. Ms. Lone comes to NSMT from Broadway where she recently appeared as Maggie in the Tony(R) Award winning revival of A Chorus Line. No stranger to 42nd STREET, she played Gladys in the National Tour and Peggy Sawyer in the Trump Plaza's production in Atlantic City.

Direct from New York, VALARIE PETTIFORD - THANKFUL, the smash hit solo show starring Tony Nominee Valarie Pettiford makes its west coast debut at Upright Cabaret at Mark's Restaurant, 861 N. La Cienega Blvd., West Hollywood, CA 90069.

Performance Space 122 presents the world premiere of Death, a dance-theater piece by solo performance artist Sara Juli that addresses the taboo topic of death. After losing her father tragically to cancer, Juli experienced first-hand our culture's inability to deal with death. She was amazed that something inevitable was so uncomfortable for people who, in particular, seemed to struggle to find the right thing to say and do. In this 50-minute solo performance, Juli uses movement, text, song, gesture, sounds, humor and audience interaction to present a reflection on the awkwardness of death. Juli will be six months pregnant during the performance adding a layer of a piece about death while pregnant with life.