Three additional schools* have been invited to perform on the main stage at the nation's leading high school theatre festival. They join eight schools announced previously this year. (Complete list of schools and shows to-date follows.)

Performances for the 2019 Maine Playwrights Festival, the state's most prolific incubator for new plays by local playwrights, have been announced for April 25 through May 4 in Portland. This year's eighteenth annual festival features the world premiere performances of six new plays by Maine playwrights. Public performances will be held at the Studio Theater at Portland Stage (25 Forest Avenue). Festival tickets are available now at www.acorn-productions.org.

Dallas Summer Musicals (DSM) has announced the 2019 nominees for the 8th Annual DSM High School Musical Theatre Awards (HSMTA). Tickets for the awards ceremony on May 9, 2019 will go on sale today at 10 a.m.

Jo-Ann Ragosta, Chairperson of the ARTS Scholarships 2019 program, along with members of the Community Outreach Committee of the Providence Performing Arts Center (PPAC), are pleased to announce the winners of the ARTS Scholarships 2019 program, sponsored by Textron Charitable Trust and PPAC Annual Fund Donors.

The 'Greatest Movie Musical of All Time', Singin' in the Rain Jr. has hilarious situations, snappy dialogue and a hit-parade score of Hollywood standards making it a guaranteed good time for performers and audience members alike. Singin' in the Rain JR. has all the makings of a Tinseltown tabloid headline - the starlet, the leading man and a romance that could change lives and make or break careers! Performance dates: April 5th at 7pm, April 6th at 2:30 and 7pm. Tickets will be $8 students/staff/senior, $10 adults. Where: Jeanne B McCoy Center for the Arts, 100 West Dublin-Granville Rd., New Albany, OH 43054. Reserved seating, Tickets sold at the door. Sales begin 3/1/19, via Ticketmaster by phone at 800-745-3000 or via the CAPA ticket office in person or by phone at 614-469-0939

Lindsey Reynolds (who plays the title character) and Anna McRae (The Cheshire Cat) shared some of their own theatrical backgrounds and interests, as well as offering some compelling reasons for you to join them and their castmates at the show this weekend in today's edition of High School Drama.

Center Theatre Group invites current high school students to attend Celebrating Our Stories, a teen youth summit inspired by Ruben Santiago-Hudson's one-man show "Lackawanna Blues." The free youth summit will take place on Thursday, April 11, 2019, from 4:30 to 9:30 p.m. (includes performance time for "Lackawanna Blues") at The Music Center Annex (601 West Temple St) and the Mark Taper Forum (135 N Grand Ave) in Downtown L.A.

West Side Story: Staging 'America' in a fresh production at Dos Pueblos High School

A school board in Waynesboro, Pennsylvania voted unanimously this week to give Superintendent Todd Kline authority to review theatrical content before it is performed for audiences.

Imagination Stage's Performance Ensemble will perform The Secret in the Wings, by Mary Zimmerman, March 29-31, 2019 in the Annette M. and Theodore N. Lerner Family Theatre.

Newport Festivals Foundation (NFF), which is partnering with Newport Jazz and Folk Festival artists to donate on their behalf to a music education cause of the artist's choosing, is teaming up with 2018 Newport Jazz Festival performer Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah and Conn-Selmer to present a Master Class and donate $10,000 worth of instruments to McDonogh 35 Senior High School, 4000 Cadillac Street in New Orleans.

Orange County School of the Arts' (OCSA) Creative Writing Conservatory hosts its sixth annual Orange County Regional Youth Slam Event (OC RYSE), on April 13-14, bringing together aspiring young writers from across Southern California for a dynamic and engaging poetry competition. Student teams compete by performing a dramatic recitation of a classic poem. They also write and perform an original response poem that echoes elements from the classic work. OC RYSE is the only performance poetry competition of its kind in the county and features nearly 50 high school students.

A high school in New Jersey has taken the internet by storm with their stage production of Alien. Now, the film's original director, Ridley Scott, has reached out and to offer to assist in funding an encore performance of the production. 'This is maybe the biggest lesson for ALL OF YOU, and your future plans - stay with this determination, and this spirit in everything you do and you will succeed...' he wrote to the students. See the full letter below!

Wilson High School presents a tale as old as time, Disney's Beauty and the Beast. The show will come to life on the Wilson High School stage April 12-April 20, 2019. 

The Hanover Theatre and Conservatory for the Performing Arts is honored to be one of only a handful of New England organizations to receive a Challenge America Grant from the National Endowment for the Arts from a national pool of applicants. The $10,000 grant will support the theatre's Adopt-A-School program. Endowment for the Arts Acting Chairman Mary Anne Carter recently approved more than $27 million in grants as a part of the arts endowment's first major funding announcement for fiscal year 2019. Challenge America grants support projects that extend the reach of the arts to underserved populations of those whose opportunities to experience the arts are limited by geography, ethnicity, economics or disability.

Here we go again! MAMMA MIA! is coming to Sioux Falls at V.A. Bell Auditorium Brookings High School from July 19 to 28, 2019.

The award-winning Rahway High School Performing Arts program brings the popular musical Pippin to the stage this March.

The Music Conservatory of Westchester is honored to announce MCW Prep, a precollege training program for serious, advanced high school musicians and singers to study with master performers of the New York Philharmonic, The Metropolitan Opera, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and Broadway.

Multi-talented young theater artists and technicians from 28 Tennessee high schools will put their skills on display this year in hopes of claiming their place in the spotlight as the sixth annual Nashville High School Musical Theatre Awards – aka The Spotlight Awards – are presented in Nashville on May 11.

Back for another year and with a new take on the Great Depression, the Ma'ayanot Drama Society, in partnership with Black Box Studios, will be performing Clifford Odets's classic three-act drama, Paradise Lost. The play follows a Jewish family forced to rediscover what 'family' truly means and to face the harsh reality of the American dream as they see their lives begin to unwind. Watch as a family and friends join together and split apart as they make their way through the-mid 1930's in Paradise Lost.

The Broadway League has awarded the New York Education and Engagement Grants to the Broadway productions of Oklahoma! and Lincoln Center Theater's To Kill A Mockingbird. Each production received a $5,000 grant toward its 2019 educational and engagement initiatives. The grants aid the growth and development of theatre education in the city in an effort to encourage Broadway productions to create more opportunities for young people.

The Ziegfeld Club, one of the first New York City performing arts charities to benefit women is thrilled to announce that the fourth Liz Swados Inspiration Grant will open to applicants beginning April 29, 2019. Created in 2016 and underwritten by actor Diane Lane, The Liz Swados Inspiration Grant serves to honor an influential female music educator in New York City through a $5,000.00 cash grant.

At a press conference held in the Providence Performing Arts Center (PPAC)'s Grand Lobby this morning, PPAC President J.L. "Lynn" Singleton recapped the Theatre's recently announced 2019/2020 Season. Singleton introduced Board Chairman Joseph W. Walsh, Esq., who unveiled plans for the Theatre's brand-new state-wide education initiative, called Experience PPAC.

California School of the Arts - San Gabriel Valley (CSArts-SGV) Musical Theatre students take the stage with Broadway actress Jessica Lea Patty for the school's second annual "Performing with the Pros." The performance occurs after a four-week-long artist-in-residence program. During that time, the students work alongside Patty to put together an energetic, cabaret-style show featuring music from Broadway hits and stories from her career. The event takes place at Bonita Center for the Arts on Saturday, April 6 at 7 p.m.