Stephanie Wright News

Playwrights Horizons (Tim Sanford, Artistic Director; Leslie Marcus, Managing Director) begins accepting entries today, Tuesday, January 2, for the LIVE for FIVE online lottery for $5 tickets to the New York stage return of MILES FOR MARY, a new play created by The Mad Ones. The play is written by Marc Bovino, Joe Curnutte, Michael Dalto, Lila Neugebauer and Stephanie Wright Thompson; in collaboration with Sarah Lunnie and the creative ensemble of Amy Staats and Stacey Yen. Directed by Lila Neugebauer, the production received critical acclaim during its smash run at The Bushwick Starr in Brooklyn during the fall of 2016. This new limited engagement at Playwrights Horizons marks the production's Off-Broadway debut.

After a smash run last fall, Playwrights Horizons (Tim Sanford, Artistic Director; Leslie Marcus, Managing Director) will present MILES FOR MARY, a new play by The Mad Ones. Directed by Lila Neugebauer, MILES FOR MARY received critical acclaim during its fall 2016 run at The Bushwick Starr. Watch the new trailer below!

Award-winning Artist/Poet Annie Ruth and the Cincinnati Arts Association are proud to present Dada Rafiki: A Celebration of Sisterhood, an empowering, inspirational cultural gathering celebrating remarkable women in the community by honoring their spirit and the legacy of their service and accomplishments.

After a smash run last fall, Playwrights Horizons will present MILES FOR MARY, a new play by The Mad Ones. Directed by Lila Neugebauer, MILES FOR MARY received critical acclaim during its fall 2016 run at The Bushwick Starr.

Award-winning Artist/Poet Annie Ruth and the Cincinnati Arts Association are proud to present Dada Rafiki: A Celebration of Sisterhood, an empowering, inspirational cultural gathering celebrating remarkable women in the community by honoring their spirit and the legacy of their service and accomplishments.

The Bushwick Starr will present the world premiere of MILES FOR MARY, created by The Mad Ones, directed by Lila Neugebauer -- a bittersweet missive about endurance and surrender.

The Bushwick Starr will present the world premiere of MILES FOR MARY, created by The Mad Ones, directed by Lila Neugebauer -- a bittersweet missive about endurance and surrender.

The Bushwick Starr is thrilled to present the world premiere of MILES FOR MARY, created by The Mad Ones, directed by Lila Neugebauer -- a bittersweet missive about endurance and surrender.

The Bushwick Starr is thrilled to present the world premiere of MILES FOR MARY,

The Bushwick Starr is proud to announce our 2016-17 Season of Programming. The Season begins with our developing work program, the Propeller Project, which this year introduces a new piece by eclectic performance artist, Shasta Geaux Pop, aka Ayesha Jordan (Enter & Exit, Living Room Dance Breaks). Our Main Stage shows feature an ambitious and exciting line-up of world premiers from: award-winning theater ensemble The Mad Ones (The Essential Straight & Narrow, The Tremendous Tremendous), celebrated downtown duo Kate Benson and Lee Sunday Evans (A Beautiful Day in November on the Banks of the Greatest of the Great Lakes), rising star playwright Phillip Howze(abominable, Tiny Boyfriend), and multi-media cult favorites Royal Osiris Karaoke Ensemble(Everything One in the Disc of the Sun). Our ongoing community events and festivals, Puppet Kitchen, Brooklyn Gypsies, and Big Green Theater, will continue to present new collaborative work geared towards our Bushwick neighborhood audience, including a multi-lingual partnership between playwright William Burke (Comfort Dogs, the food was terrible) and Modesto Flako Jimenez(Brooklyn Gypsies). And finally, our free Starr Reading Series will cultivate new plays in development from some of NYC's most exciting young playwrights.

F*It Club, the New York Innovative Award-winning film and theatre company, joins acclaimed partner companies The Assembly, EST/Youngblood, The Mad Ones, Naked Angels, Slant Theatre Project and The TEAM at The Green Building in Brooklyn with GAP Presents! The Green Plays 2.0, seven new short plays developed and created by each individual company.

We pride ourselves on our bounteous Southern hospitality here in Nashville, so who's gonna explain this: On Thursday, as thousands of country music fans gathered downtown for CMA Fest and thousands more fans of every musical genre you can think of were headed southward for the Bonnaroo Music Festival - just another summer in Tennessee, mind you - a truck spilled its load all over Interstate 65-S, adding to the hot, humid atmosphere with a whole mess of fish parts. Yep, you heard it right: smelly, disgusting fish parts baking on the hot asphalt under the blazing sun.

It's another busy theater week in Tennessee, and in Nashville there are an extra 50,000 to 100,000 country music fans jamming up traffic and increasing wait times at local restaurants, thanks to CMA Music Fest, which natives and longtimers will remember as Fan Fair. So while you're steering clear of our version of Broadway in downtown Nashville, which will be teeming with more people than you can shake a stick at (as my mama would say),  you should instead make reservations to see some local talent onstage at some of the shows included in our Critic's Choice column today!

That will also explain my rapturous response to the performance of A Closer Walk With Patsy Cline, a dramatized tribute to the country music superstar that opened at Dickson's Gaslight Dinner Theater on Thursday, June 4, running for a much-too-short two weekends at what was once known as The Renaissance Center.

It's another busy weekend of new shows opening and many others continuing to delight audiences, with ACT 1's Dog Sees God and Street Theatre Company's Dogfight both opening tonight, while two shows that opened yesterday will continue to treat audiences to some especially wonderful music. Plus, there's a whole slate of shows being performed at Crossville's Cumberland County Playhouse, a revival of Osborne & Epplers' Southern Fried Nuptials down in Woodbury at the Arts Center of Cannon County, and John Chaffin's Cliffhanger enters its final weekend at Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre. Go to the theater, young man (and woman) and let yourself be transported to a whole new world of magic and enchantment!

Today, in a special edition of The Friday Five (on Wednesday), we introduce two actors from The Gaslight Dinner Theatre's upcoming production of A Closer Walk With Patsy Cline: Linda Sue Simmons (my favorite Miss Chattanooga of all time) and Curtis LeMoine-Reed. Directed by Greg Frey, the musical - filled with some of Patsy Cline's best-loved hits that will transport you back to her starry heyday in the 1960s - opens Thursday afternoon at The Renaissance Center in Dickson.

No matter what the calendar says, we're in early summer already - insofar as theater in Tennessee is concerned, at least - and there are four new shows opening this week that should command your attention. Along with a number of shows that are continuing their runs (like John Chaffin's Cliffhanger at Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre), you have plenty of diverse and intriguing onstage offerings to keep you in the relative, air-conditioned comfort of a darkened theater. We've done the necessary research, made the calls to the people-in-the-know and have included the dates, the phone numbers and the websites to make it as easy as possible for you to buy tickets and go show some support for the arts while indulging in the magic of live theater…

Vineyard Theatre's world premiere of the original musical BROOKLYNITE, helmed by Tony Award-winning director Michael Mayer (HEDWIG AND THE ANGRY INCH, SPRING AWAKENING), opened last night, February 25th. Check out photos from opening night below!

Although it seems hard to believe, Thanksgiving is this Thursday and as we reflect on the people, places and things that have made us truly happy this year and makes us most thankful, in general, we're also considering what things theatrical for which we are especially grateful in 2014.

Two years ago, The New Ohio Theatre and IRT Theater (new neighbors in the historic Archive Building on Christopher Street) kicked-off their exciting new developing and presenting initiative: the Archive Residency. The Archive Residency offers select independent theatre companies a two-year commitment of space, artistic support, and institutional continuity for the development and presentation of a new work. Now in their second-year of the Archive Residency the companies are ready to show the fruits of this process. Scroll down for a first look at the cast in action!