Lee Thompson News

The AUDELCO and Obie-Award-winning Billie Holiday Theatre will present a special virtual edition of its popular 50in50 monologue showcase series with the highly anticipated 50in50:Letters to Our Sons as part of its new #StayAtHome Reading Series, an innovative online play reading series.

Since its launch in 2015, the Film Movement Classics label has been dedicated to seeking out distinctive films of the past from around the globe, and offering these digitally restored classics to cineastes everywhere. Following the recent theatrical releases of FRITZ LANG'S INDIAN EPIC and Bill Forsyth's coming-of-age classic GREGORY'S GIRL and the home entertainment releases of French farce THE MAD ADVENTURES OF RABBI JACOB and King Hu's pioneering wuxia film, THE FATE OF LEE KHAN, Film Movement has acquired a baker's dozen of British classics from the '40s-'60s for Blu-ray and digital release on the Film Movement Classics label beginning this December.

Gloria Steinem turns 85 this year, and she's still working as a feminist activist. As embodied in this regional premiere by the great Charity Jones, she's as humble as she is savvy. This production dives into her long life, consistently dedicated to issues of women's rights, but full of personal evolution and discovery. Dozens of supporting roles are taken up by a strong ensemble of six additional women, dedicated to explicating Steinem's life in both the personal and public arenas. The play unrolls in brisk, forthright, direct address to the audience.

The Frank Silvera Writers Workshop kicks off its forty-seventh annual reading series this Monday September 9th at 7pm with David Davila's immigration drama, Aztec Pirates And The Insignificance Of Life On Mars. The reading, directed by Nilsa Reyna, features Ollie Corchado, Cory Alexander, Lillian Andrea De Leon, Julia Botero, Selina Michelle Fonseca, Gerard Lucero, Alexandra Castro, and Jatnna Marte.

Alicia Foxworth's period drama Ghost Writer will bring the curtain down on the 2018 -19 season of the Frank Silvera Writer's Workshop monthly play reading series in partnership with The Billie Holiday Theatre.

Poet Langston Hughes questions in 1951 through his poem "Harlem;" What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?" The legendary poem inspired Lorraine Hansbury to write the award winning drama A Raisin in the Sun eight years later. In 1959, Hansberry became the first African American women to have her play produced at New York's Barrymore Broadway theater in an era when women in general, regardless of ethnicity, were published. Opening in '59 with a primarily African American cast, the play heralded a dramatic change for theater audience in years to come. At Anoka's Main Stage Theater, Lyric Arts presents an outstanding revised thirteenth anniversary production of the play directed by Austene Van, which features a stellar cast, two tiered set designed by Peter Lerohl and lighting designed by Matt McNabb.

The Frank Silvera Writers' Workshop will present Douglas Lyons's new family comedy Chicken & Biscuits Monday May 13th at 7pm; at The Billie Holiday Theatre. Chicken & Biscuits, written in residence at The Directors Company, has previously been selected and performed in the Front Porch Reading Series and Queen Theatre's 2019 New American Voices Reading Series.

Friends, mad heads and countrymen. Lend me your ears. This year be the 40th anniversary of the groupus maximus MADNESS XL. And to celebrate the country will be witness to celebrations of Romanesque proportions!

Great Picture Show, founded by actor and producer Columbus Short, today announced a long-term production and promotional partnership with Dame Dash Studios (DDS33), a multimedia studio and production house founded by producer and entrepreneur, Dame Dash.

A staged reading of Rafael Moreno's family drama Fotos, which played to packed houses and critical acclaim last summer at The Producers Club, will close the 2017 -2018 season of the prestigious Frank Silvera Writers Workshop at the Billie Holiday Theatre in Brooklyn on Monday June 18.

Winner of the 1993 Obie Award, Marisol is an apocalyptic urban fantasy which urges society to 'wake up' and somehow find a way to recover the long-lost and much-needed compassion for our fellow man, as this is the only way to save our world. Angelic warfare, mental illness, and the disintegration of modern society are the themes as we follow Marisol Perez, a young Puerto Rican woman, through a disturbing and disorienting world that pushes the boundaries of conventional theology, biological sex, personal relationships, and the pathology of fear and paranoia.

THEATER at Downtown Urban Arts Festival 2018 will feature Corporatesthenics, written and performed by Baindu D. Kalokoh. Mary E. Hodges is the director.

The AUDELCO and Obie Award-winning Billie Holiday Theatre brings back the groundbreaking 50in50: Women's Voices Initiative with the Obie Award-winning Frank Silvera Writers' Workshop with a reading March 17, 2018 at 7pm in The Billie Holiday Theatre, 1368 Fulton Street, Brooklyn, NY. 

The Billie Holiday Theatre presents the tour de force one-man show An Adam Experiment written and performed by Michael Chenevert with creative collaborator Hollis King, opening on Fri, Jan 12 at 7PM, Sat, Jan 13 at 2PM and Sun, Jan 14 at 3PM at the Billie Holiday Theatre, Brooklyn, NY 11216.

The Billie Holiday Theatre presents the tour de force one-man show An Adam Experiment written and performed by Michael Chenevert with creative collaborator Hollis King, opening on Fri, Jan 12 at 7PM, Sat, Jan 13 at 2PM and Sun, Jan 14 at 3PM at the Billie Holiday Theatre, Brooklyn, NY 11216.

The one-woman show, Platform Griot, features spirited anecdotes interwoven with soulful songs as a brazen homeless woman solicits money on a New York City subway.

In the wake of an election that has left us facing such xenophobic rhetoric as "Build the Wall" and establishing a "Muslim Ban," many activists have said that we must build bridges in order to make human connections and provide people with sanctuary, not walls.

The one-woman show, Platform Griot, features spirited anecdotes interwoven with soulful songs as a brazen homeless woman solicits money on a New York City subway.

'This play has been known throughout history to turn a lens onto the audience's own moral compass, and I hope that people will walk away from this show willing to talk about the issues it brings up. Too many times we hide from those challenging dialogues, but through art and storytelling, we can hopefully help to engage conversation in our communities.'

BARBECUE is a darkly funny new play that turns the traditional family comedy on its head, forcing hilarious and uneasy revelations about the assumptions we make about poverty, race and social class.