Casting Announced For GEM OF THE OCEAN at the Goodman
Resident Director Chuck Smith, who served as the original production's dramaturg, directs a cast of seven—featuring Sharif Atkins (Citizen Barlow), Sydney Charles (Black Mary), Lisa Gaye Dixon (Aunt Ester), Gary Houston (Rutherford Selig), Kelvin Roston, Jr. (Caesar), A.C. Smith (Eli) and James A. Williams (Solly Two Kings).
Playwrights' Center Announces 2021-2024 Core Writers
As the industry and theater artists grapple with equity and the many issues facing the field, the 2021-2024 Core Writers Mathilde Dratwa, L M Feldman, Franky D. Gonzalez, Yilong Liu, TyLie Shider, Deborah Yarchun, and Nathan Yungerberg will be given the space and support to create over the next three years.
Director Marion McClinton Has Died at 65
Acclaimed director Marion McClinton, best known for bringing the works of August Wilson to the Broadway stage, has died at age 65, according to StarTribune. He died on Thanksgiving morning, November 28, at Regions Hospital in St. Paul, after suffering from kidney disease.
BWW Review: Accomplished and Raw Performance Centers LADY DAY AT EMERSON'S BAR AND GRILL at Jungle Theater
Twin Cities native Thomasina Petrus and legendary director Marion McClinton have teamed up to mount a definitive production of this famous concert show about the great jazz singer Billie Holiday. The show is structured as a club performance late in Holiday's career in a small Philadelphia venue, after she was barred from performing in New York nightclubs due to multiple drug convictions. Her voice has lost some of its power and flexibility. She is worn out by a hard life of multiple childhood traumas, abusive lovers and subsequent addiction made even harder by the endemic racism in the United States. It's March 1959. Her heyday is well behind her. Death will come in a matter of months, when she is just 44.
Photo Flash: Mallory Catlett's Award-Winning THIS WAS THE END Returns to the Mabou Mines Theater
Since 2004, director Mallory Catlett has worked across disciplines to expand the boundaries of theater. Through original works with her own company, Restless NYC, and collaborations with some of today's leading artists-composer Mika Karlsson (The Echo Drift), Dread Scott (Decision), Aaron Landsman (City Council Meeting & Perfect City)-Catlett creates theater that The New York Times calls "lurid, feverish and powerful." She has been called a "downtown treasure" by Time Out New York.