James Scruggs News

The Obie Award-winning HERE has announced programming for Puppetopia, a presentation of HERE’s Dream Music Puppetry program. Puppetopia will run May 11–22, 2022 in the HERE Mainstage & Dorothy B. Williams Theatres (145 Sixth Avenue, New York, NY 10013).

Tony Award-nominated and five-time Obie Award-winning theater company Clubbed Thumb has announced the complete line-up for the rescheduled 25th SUMMERWORKS festival of new plays. SUMMERWORKS will run May 20 – July 2, 2022 at The Wild Project (195 East 3rd Street) and will feature productions of three new plays.

 The Flea Theater today announced a major strategic evolution for the performing arts organization, committing to positive and equitable artists relations while prioritizing Black, brown, and queer artistry through partnership and programming.

Fourteen prominent American writer/directors are part of a worldwide roster of over 100 global theater artists lending their voices July 20, 2021 to 'HowlRound for India,' a 24-hour online marathon of live readings and talks honoring the Indian theater community for its efforts in facing Covid-19. 

Rattlestick Playwrights Theater has announced online programming for April and May including the return of New Songs Now In Your Living Room, new episodes of MTA Radio Plays, and several public conversations. The activities highlight new and necessary theatrical voices while also deepening connections between audiences and artists.

Rattlestick Playwrights Theater has announced details for its March programming including new episodes of MTA Radio Plays. The activities highlight new and necessary theatrical voices while also deepening connections between audiences and artists in new and meaningful ways.

The OBIE-winning HERE, has announced HERE THERE EVERYWHERE, a return to live in-person events along with expanded online programming for its summer and fall 2020 season, featuring original relevant works by more than 235 diverse artists. A centerpiece of the season is #stillHERE: IRL, an adventurous new series that reimagines the live experience.

The Martin E. Segal Theatre Center has announced the eleventh weekly line-up of its new global series, SEGAL TALKS, which was conceived, created and curated by Frank Hentschker in March 2020. New York, US, and international theatre artists, curators, researchers, and academics will talk daily for one hour with Segal Center's director, Frank Hentschker, about life and art in the Time of Corona and speak about challenges, sorrows, and hopes for the new Weltzustand- the State of the World.

HERE will welcome Bengali theater-maker Shayok Misha Chowdhury, playwright and director Normandy Sherwood, and instrumentalist gamin and sound & visual composer Sachiyo Takahashi as new members of the HERE Artist Residency Program (HARP).

Clubbed Thumb has announced the complete line-up for the 25th annual SUMMERWORKS, its festival of new plays. SUMMERWORKS will run May 15 - July 1, 2020 at The Wild Project (195 E. 3rd Street) in Manhattan and will feature productions of three new plays: SPINDLE SHUTTLE NEEDLE by Gab Reisman and directed by Tamilla Woodard; BODIES THEY RITUAL by Angela Hanks and directed by Knud Adams; and THE WOMAN'S PARTY by Rinne Groff and directed by Tara Ahmadinijad.

Pulp Vérité, a new play by playwright Crystal Skillman will receive a 29-hour reading with the award-winning The Workshop Theater. The presentation will culminate in two readings on March 6th at 3 and 7 PM, at the A.R.T/NY studios (520 8th Avenue), in the Bruce Mitchell Room. The reading is free, and reservations can be made at www.workshoptheater.org.

Join the Village Playwrights in its new location at St. John's Lutheran Church, 81 Christopher St. NYC.  The Village Playwrights will meet the second and fourth Monday from 7 pm to 9 pm.  

As the Earth crumbles around us and we continue to kill everything in our path, it is time we face the paradoxic integration of evils within ourselves: sterility and garbage, meaninglessness, sexuality as the sin of origin, the contradictory drives of human things. KOSMOS INVERS is the creation of two inverse planets filled with bizarre otherworldly puppets: one, an Edenic parallel of our green earth; and the other, its tentacled pink opposite. Strange fragments of stories coalesce through the contours of different biomes piecing together a patchwork of utopian armageddon and weird psychological metaphors with a green cosmic bent.

Each spring HERE offers a window into the creative process of their nationally recognized HERE Artist Residency Program (HARP). For 21 years, this exploration of new work in development, previously known as the Culturemart Festival, has blurred the boundaries between theatre, music, dance, new media, and visual art. The 2020 edition, which runs February 23-March 1, not only features seven daring workshop presentations but a new name that better captures the essence of the experience: HERE RAW / Resident Artist Works.

WP Theater, under the leadership of Producing Artistic Director Lisa McNulty and Managing Director Michael Sag, has announced that the world premiere of playwright and performer Donnetta Lavinia Grays' Where We Stand, co-presented by WP Theater and Baltimore Center Stage, will star Grays [Men on Boats, In The Next Room (or The Vibrator Play)], who will alternate select performances with David Ryan Smith (One Man, Two Guvnors; Passing Strange) beginning February 15. Directed by Tamilla Woodard (Hadestown Broadway associate director), previews begin Off-Broadway on Friday, January 31 at WP Theater with an opening night of February 11, 2020. The limited engagement at WP Theater will run through March 1, 2020 before playing Baltimore Center Stage April 2-26.

HERE has announced that applications for the HERE Artist Residency Program (HARP) are currently open. This multi-year, $100,000 residency program was created in 1999 and serves as a national model. HARP provides commission funds, development support, career planning, fiscal sponsorship, and a full production to recipients, all within a collaborative environment of peers working across artistic disciplines including theatre, dance, music, puppetry, visual art, and new media. HARP provides significant long-term support, as well as up to $50,000 in cash and more than $50,000 in space, equipment, and services over two to three years. Each residency is tailored to the needs of the artist.

HERE has announced its 2019-2020 season, which marks the OBIE-winning institution's 27th year of producing daring new hybrid performances by artists from all disciplines - theatre, opera, music, art, dance, puppetry, and media art.

RATTLESTICK PLAYWRIGHTS THEATER announces upcoming programming for June 2019 at Rattlestick Playwrights Theater (224 Waverly Place New York, NY 10014). 

Pigeonholed presents #yourmemorial, a new play written by Emily Daly and directed by Emily Lyon, from May 9-26, 2019 at HERE, 145 Sixth Avenue, NYC (entrance on Dominick, one block south of Spring). Tickets are now on sale and can be purchased at https://web.ovationtix.com/trs/pr/1009680 or by calling 212-352-3101. For more information, visit HERE.org.

On May 13, the OBIE-winning HERE will honor MacArthur fellow Taylor Mac and the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation ArtsProgram at BLOOM, HERE's annual spring gala. The evening celebrates Mac, a playwright, actor, singer-songwriter, performance artist, director and producer and "critical darling of the New York scene" (New York Magazine) who also has been HERE's resident playwright since 2016. Mac's current Broadway debut, Gary: A Sequel to Titus Andronicus, was commissioned by HERE and written during Mac's residency.