Eric Simonson News

Manhattan Theatre Club, in partnership with the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, announces the upcoming Sloan Panel Discussion on INCOGNITO, which will be held following tonight's May 17 performance of the play at MTC at New York City Center-Stage I (131 West 55th Street), and is open to anyone attending the evening's performance.

Manhattan Theatre Club, in partnership with the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, announces the upcoming Sloan Panel Discussion on INCOGNITO, which will be held following the Tuesday, May 17 performance of the play at MTC at New York City Center-Stage I (131 West 55th Street), and is open to anyone attending the evening's performance.

The highly anticipated world premiere of The Shining - a new opera based on Stephen King's 1977 best-selling novel - by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Paul Moravec and librettist Mark Campbell, was presented by the Minnesota Opera on May 7th, at the Music Theater at the Ordway in St. Paul, Minnesota. 

On May 7th, the highly anticipated world premiere of The Shining - a new opera based on Stephen King's 1977 best-selling novel - by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Paul Moravec and librettist Mark Campbell, will be presented by the Minnesota Opera, at the Music Theater at the Ordway in St. Paul, Minnesota. With less than three weeks to go before the curtain rises, all 7,056 seats across The Shining's four performances are sold out and only standing room tickets remain for the production which runs through May 15th.

National Geographic Channel (NGC) announced today that veteran actor Tim Matheson (“The West Wing,” “Burn Notice,” “Animal House”) will star as the actor turned California governor turned president in the network's forthcoming two-hour scripted movie Killing Reagan

? Steppenwolf Theatre Company will to welcome Sandra Marquez and Caroline Neff to its world-renowned ensemble. Both have performed in multiple shows with the company and can currently be seen on Steppenwolf's stages in Mary Page Marlowe and The Flick respectively. Marquez and Neff are the first two members added under Artistic Director Anna D. Shapiro.

MasterVoices (formerly The Collegiate Chorale)will open its 75th anniversary season with Ricky Ian Gordon's 27, with libretto by Royce Vavrek, starring Stephanie Blythe, Heidi Stober,Theo Lebow, Tobias Greenhalgh, and Daniel Brevik, conducted by Ted Sperling, and directed by James Robinson, with Orchestra of St. Luke's on October 20 and 21, 2016at New York City Center.

On May 7th, the highly anticipated world premiere of The Shining - a new opera based on Stephen King's 1977 best-selling novel - by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Paul Moravec and librettist Mark Campbell, will be presented by the Minnesota Opera, at the Music Theater at the Ordway in St. Paul, Minnesota. With less than three weeks to go before the curtain rises, all 7,056 seats across The Shining's four performances are sold out and only standing room tickets remain for the production which runs through May 15th.

Do you remember that cataclysmal moment in the Stanley Kubrick film of Stephen King's “The Shining,” when Jack Nicholson axes his way through the bathroom door and says, wild-eyed, “Here's Johnny!” Well, you won't find it in King's book--or in Mark Campbell's libretto for THE SHINING, the new opera written with composer Paul Moravec and directed by Eric Simonson, opening May 7 at the Minnesota Opera as part of its New Works Initiative.

Manhattan Theatre Club just announced the lineup for this spring's Ernst C. Stiefel Reading Series, which kicks off next Monday, March 14.

The 2015-16 season at City Theatre continues with one of the hottest plays in the country this year. Sex with Strangers, by Laura Eason (Netflix's "House of Cards"), runs on the Mainstage, March 12 - April 3, 2016. It is directed by Christian Parker.

The Minnesota Opera's 2015–2016 season continues at the Ordway Music Theater tonight, January 23, 2016, with Antonin Dvorák's Rusalka, the tragic tale of a beautiful water nymph who falls in love with a prince and yearns to become human. The Czech composer, beloved for his “New World” symphony and “Slavonic Dances,” suffuses Rusalka with a melancholy yet achingly beautiful sound that perfectly evokes Rusalka's fantastical realm and her doomed love affair; his lovely folk melodies and luminous arias, including Rusalka's heartbreaking “Song to the Moon,” seamlessly depict the two worlds – mortal and mythical – Rusalka tries, and fails, to bridge. Rusalka stars soprano Kelly Kaduce, who was acclaimed for her first-ever Rusalka with Minnesota Opera in 2008 and has been in demand in the role ever since. Minnesota Opera's vibrant, evocative production has traveled around North America, and Kaduce has frequently been tapped to go with it, performing at Opera Colorado and Opéra de Montréal among other companies.

MINNEAPOLIS (December 20, 2015) – The Minnesota Opera's 2015–2016 season continues at the Ordway Music Theater on January 23, 2016, with Antonin Dvo?ák's Rusalka, the tragic tale of a beautiful water nymph who falls in love with a prince and yearns to become human. The Czech composer, beloved for his “New World” symphony and “Slavonic Dances,” suffuses Rusalka with a melancholy yet achingly beautiful sound that perfectly evokes Rusalka's fantastical realm and her doomed love affair; his lovely folk melodies and luminous arias, including Rusalka's heartbreaking “Song to the Moon,” seamlessly depict the two worlds – mortal and mythical – Rusalka tries, and fails, to bridge. Rusalka stars soprano Kelly Kaduce, who was acclaimed for her first-ever Rusalka with Minnesota Opera in 2008 and has been in demand in the role ever since. Minnesota Opera's vibrant, evocative production has traveled around North America, and Kaduce has frequently been tapped to go with it, performing at Opera Colorado and Opéra de Montréal among other companies.

The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra (BSO) celebrates the 2015 holiday season with a wide variety of concert programming, from the traditional annual performances of Handel's Messiah with the Concert Artists of Baltimore to a one-of-a-kind experience that pairs world-class acrobats and gymnasts with music by the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, in an exciting program titled Cirque de la Symphonie.

Lyric Opera of Kansas City continues its 58th season with a Lyric Opera Premiere production of Anton Dvo?ák's rarely performed opera Rusalka, November 7, 11, 13 and 15  at the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts. The production will be sung in Czech with English titles. This is not only the first Dvo?ák opera produced by the Lyric Opera of Kansas City but the first Czech opera for the Company and Kansas City audiences.The production, directed by Academy-Award winning director Eric Simonson, will feature members of the Kansas City Symphony under the baton of Alexander Polianichko and a unique partnership with members of the Kansas City Ballet. One of the highlights of this lush production will be the spectacular lighting and video projections. 

The Palace Theater kicked off the fall season with LOMBARDI and the reviews have been fantastic!

Lyric Opera of Kansas City General Director and CEO Deborah Sandler today announced the four conductors for the 2015-2016 season in the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts. Gary Thor Wedow (pictured, left, Mozart's Don Giovanni), and David Charles Abell (Bizet's Carmen) will be returning to the Lyric Opera. Alexander Polianichko (Dvorak's Rusalka) and Christopher Allen (Donizetti's The Elixir of Love) will be making their Lyric Opera debut.

Lyric Opera of Kansas City General Director and CEO Deborah Sandler today announced the four conductors for the 2015-2016 season in the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts. Gary Thor Wedow (pictured, left, Mozart's Don Giovanni), and David Charles Abell (Bizet's Carmen) will be returning to the Lyric Opera. Alexander Polianichko (Dvorak's Rusalka) and Christopher Allen (Donizetti's The Elixir of Love) will be making their Lyric Opera debut.

As a companion piece to Eric Simonson's Lombardi on the main stage, Group rep presents Lee Blessing's The Winning Streak on their second stage. Both plays involve sports: Lombardi, football and The Winning Streak, baseball. For full enjoyment of Lombardi, it helps to be a football fan; for The Winning Streak, you need not care at all about baseball. Whereas Lombardi derives its spark from the spirit of the sport, Streak's comes totally from the human spirit. Blessing's brilliance as a writer is in his ability to show human conflict full-out, and there is no finer example of a dysfunctional father/son relationship than this play.

From the moment you enter the Group rep theatre and see a warmup football practice onstage, the tone for the play is set. You are about to watch, breathe, eat and sleep football. At least that is what Vince Lombardi did as head coach of the Green Bay Packers from 1959-1968. Now onstage at the theatre in NoHo, LOMBARDI, an LA premiere, has no great dramatic plot or conflict but is true to form, an excellent slice.of.life character study of the man of the hour whom the play is named after. Boasting brilliant direction from Gregg T. Daniel and an outstanding cast of six, LOMBARDI, like a good football season, should pack 'em in.