Arthur Wing Pinero News

NATIONAL THEATRE LIVE has announced an international broadcast of the National Theatre of Great Britain's production of Euripides' Greek tragedy MEDEA, in a new version by Ben Power, directed by Carrie Cracknell and starring Helen McCrory in the title role. The production will be broadcast live from the National's Olivier Theatre on Thursday September 4 2014, with varying dates internationally and encore screenings to follow.

Primavera has announced full casting for Jean-Jacques Bernard's seminal 1922 play Martine, which opens on Tuesday, 22 April 2014 for a four-week season. Award-winning film and television star Hannah Murray plays Martine, supported by the iconic Susan Penhaligon as Madame Mervan, Leila Crerar as Jeanne, Chris Porter as Alfred, and Barnaby Sax as Julien.

Best known for his recurring role as DI Mike Burden in The Ruth Rendell Mysteries, accomplished stage, TV and film actor Christopher Ravenscroft teams up with Rhiannon Sommers, acclaimed for her portrayal of Mary Shelley in Bloody Poetry at Jermyn Street Theatre in 2012, for the first ever revival of Arthur Wing Pinero's The Notorious Mrs Ebbsmith.

Fathom Events, National Theatre Live (NT Live) and BY Experience have come together again to broadcast the National Theatre's original stage production of 'War Horse,' pre-recorded live from London's West End, for only one night in cinemas across the country tonight, Feb. 27 at 7:00 p.m. local time. Based on Michael Morpurgo's novel and adapted for the stage by Nick Stafford, 'War Horse' takes audiences on a journey from the fields of rural Devon to the trenches of France during World War I. Filled with stirring music and songs, this powerfully moving and imaginative drama is a show of phenomenal inventiveness. At its heart are astonishing life-size puppets by South Africa's Handspring Puppet Company, who bring breathing, galloping, charging horses to life on stage.

Primavera is presenting three extraordinary plays in 2014.

Fathom Events, National Theatre Live (NT Live) and BY Experience have come together again to broadcast the National Theatre's original stage production of 'War Horse,' pre-recorded live from London's West End, for only one night in cinemas across the country on Thursday, February 27. For the first time ever, a broadcast from National Theatre Live will be shown at New York City's legendary Ziegfeld Theatre (141 West 54th Street) on February 27th at 7:00 p.m. The broadcast can also be seen in New York at Cinema 123 (1001 3rd Avenue) with encore dates/times to follow.

Most of ESP's recent outings have been stories written directly for the stage. For our January 2014 reading (the last to be held at our beloved NSCC before we move to ACT), we turn to a master playwright's take on (apparently) undramatic material - John Van Druten's adaptation of Christopher Isherwood's Berlin Stories, I Am a Camera.

J. B. Priestley's 1938 farcical comedy, set in 1908, is about three couples who married on the same day in the same church, who learn on their twenty-fifth anniversaries that they aren't legally married at all, sending them into a tizzy of spousal re-evaluation. The play is full of funny lines, and is a first-rate screwball comedy - but this hilarious Yorkshire farce has more going on in it than this premise would indicate, because, after all, this is a play by J. B. Priestley!

Two-time Olivier Award winner Simon Russell Beale's performance in the title role of William Shakespeare's KING LEAR, directed by Academy Award winner Sam Mendes, will be seen by cinema audiences worldwide whenNATIONAL THEATRE LIVE broadcasts the production live from the National's Olivier Theatre on Thursday, May 1, 2014, with varying dates internationally and encore screenings to follow.

J. B. Priestley's 1938 farcical comedy, set in 1908, is about three couples who married on the same day in the same church, who learn on their twenty-fifth anniversaries that they aren't legally married at all, sending them into a tizzy of spousal re-evaluation. The play is full of funny lines, and is a first-rate screwball comedy - but this hilarious Yorkshire farce has more going on in it than this premise would indicate, because, after all, this is a play by J. B. Priestley!

ESP presents the great American comedy by the otherwise unjustly forgotten Paul Osborn, Morning's at Seven. Originally produced on Broadway in 1939, and set the year before, it ran only 44 performances, even though directed by the young tyro Joshua Logan. It wasn't until 1980 that the play was widely produced, after enjoying a major Broadway revival directed by Vivian Matalon. This production starred - as the four sisters at the center of the story - Nancy Marchand, Maureen O'Sullivan, Elizabeth Wilson, and Teresa Wright. The revival ran 564 performances, and was later televised by Showtime and PBS, and suddenly people remembered Paul Osborn.

The 50th anniversary celebration 'LIVE FROM THE NATIONAL THEATRE: 50 YEARS ON STAGE,' directed by Nicholas Hytner, will be broadcast by National Theatre Live to cinemas internationally today, November 2, 2013 (with many encore dates in U.S. cities). From Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead to The History Boys, from Antony and Cleopatra to Angels in America, from Guys and Dolls to London Road, this will be a thrilling evening of live performance and rare glimpses from the archive, featuring many of the most celebrated actors who have performed on their stages over the past five decades.

ESP presents the great American comedy by the otherwise unjustly forgotten Paul Osborn, Morning's at Seven. Originally produced on Broadway in 1939, and set the year before, it ran only 44 performances, even though directed by the young tyro Joshua Logan. It wasn't until 1980 that the play was widely produced, after enjoying a major Broadway revival directed by Vivian Matalon. This production starred - as the four sisters at the center of the story - Nancy Marchand, Maureen O'Sullivan, Elizabeth Wilson, and Teresa Wright. The revival ran 564 performances, and was later televised by Showtime and PBS, and suddenly people remembered Paul Osborn.

Now in its fifth consecutive year, the multi-award-winning Finborough Theatre - the coalface of British Theatre - presents Vibrant 2013 - A Festival of Finborough Playwrights, its annual explosion of new writing, running between today, 6-25 October 2013

ESP comes around the curve and into summer's final stretch with Pinero's 1887 horse-racing farce, Dandy Dick! With two impetuous daughters both on the brink of matrimony,the Very Reverend Augustin Jedd is in need of a bit of dowry enhancement... So, even though he's a staunch disapprover of the racing game, when his sometime-do-well sisterGeorgiana Tidd, the 'daisy of the turf,' shows up with a supposedly sure thing -the horse of the play's title - the Very Reverend gets very interested, and he and his whole household go delightfully and British-ly bonkers!

Now in its fifth consecutive year, the multi-award-winning Finborough Theatre - the coalface of British Theatre - presents Vibrant 2013 - A Festival of Finborough Playwrights, its annual explosion of new writing, running between 6-25 October 2013

Endangered Species Project is tickled to once again blow the dust off an undeservedly dusty script - the astoundingly charming family comedy, THE REMARKABLE MR. PENNYPACKER. Playwright Liam O'Brien honors, by reference and imitation, the great George Bernard Shaw, who died two years before PENNYPACKER's premiere. The play, O'Brien's only work for the stage, was founded on a true story that occurred in O'Brien's family.

Endangered Species Project is tickled to once again blow the dust off an undeservedly dusty script - the astoundingly charming family comedy, THE REMARKABLE MR. PENNYPACKER. Playwright Liam O'Brien honors, by reference and imitation, the great George Bernard Shaw, who died two years before PENNYPACKER's premiere. The play, O'Brien's only work for the stage, was founded on a true story that occurred in O'Brien's family.