Marc Masterson News

Theatre Communications Group (TCG), the national organization for theatre, has announced the recipients of the third round of the 2016 Edgerton Foundation New Play Awards. The awards, totaling $669,000, allow 16 productions extra time in the development and rehearsal of new plays with the entire creative team, helping to extend the life of the play after its first run.

Anaheim's official resident theater company, Chance Theater is pleased to remount the heartwarming and wondrous Little Women - The Broadway Musical. Book by Allan Knee, music by Jason Howland, lyrics by Mindi Dickstein, directed by Casey Long, associate direction by Sarah Figoten Wilson, and music direction by Bill Strongin. Little Women - The Broadway Musical will preview from November 25 through December 2, regular performances will begin December 3 and continue through December 23 on the Cripe Stage at Chance Theater @ Bette Aitken theater arts Center.

Right at the start of Robert Schenkkan's mesmerizing Tony Award-winning play ALL THE WAY---now playing in an outstanding new production at Orange County's South Coast Repertory in Costa Mesa through October 2---actor Hugo Armstrong is introduced in what would become one of the most powerful, fiery acting performances I have witnessed on this very stage. Commanding, and yet remarkably relatable without ever traversing caricature, Armstrong deftly portrays one of American History's most complex leaders, our 36th President, Lyndon B. Johnson. Armstrong's powerhouse portrayal is the explosive epicenter of a richly dense, dialogue-heavy drama that recounts the rocky 11-month period leading up to Johnson's re-election as the leader of the world's most powerful nation. The play spends its entirety focusing on this contentious time which finds Johnson pushing for the passage of the Civl Rights Act---which itself incites a tug-of-war between his longtime pro-segregation Dixiecrat friends and the African-American community lobbying for rights that have been long overdue.

What happens to us when we die? Do we all make it to 'heaven,' regardless of our faith? This question is thrust front-and-center in playwright Bekah Brunstetter's pleasing world premiere play GOING TO A PLACE WHERE YOU ALREADY ARE, which continues performances at Costa Mesa's Tony Award-winning South Coast Repertory through March 27, 2016. This stirring SCR-commission helmed by SCR artistic director Marc Masterson marks this new play's first full-scale production after its well-received reading at last year's Pacific Playwrights Festival… and after experiencing the play here first-hand, it's certainly understandable why. Touching and brilliantly performed, the play explores a wonderfully hopeful view of what it means for a person to 'move on.'

The tale of the naughty puppet hoping to become a real boy gets an infusion of music, clowning and fun when South Coast Repertory's Theatre for Young Audiences series presents Pinocchio by Greg Banks, based on the classic story by Carlo Collodi. Pinocchio runs Feb. 5-21 on the Julianne Argyros Stage and is directed by Jeremy Aluma. Tickets are on sale at www.scr.org.

The Directors Lab West Steering Committee is pleased to announce the opening of applications for its 17th annual Directors Lab West, Saturday, May 21 through Saturday, May 28, 2016. 

South Coast Repertory today announced that OFFICE HOUR, a commissioned work from Julia Cho, will receive its world premiere in performances April 10-May 1, 2016. Stage, film and television actor Sandra Oh will lead the cast for this production, which also is part of the Pacific Playwrights Festival. Neel Keller will direct OFFICE HOUR on the Julianne Argyros Stage.

Bram Stoker's Dracula has been a mainstay at Actors Theatre of Louisville (ATL) since 1995, and has become identified with actor/director William McNulty, who eight years ago was invited to forge his own adaptation of the horror classic. The result only intensified audience demand and acceptance, and the play now stands as the second holiday perennial (with A Christmas Carol) for Louisville's highly acclaimed regional theatre. This interview with Mr. McNulty was originally published in 2013 by Arts-Louisville.com, and covers Dracula as well as the veteran actor's long association with Actors Theatre.

South Coast Repertory's 2015-16 season will take audiences- theatrically speaking-from Brighton, England, in the swinging '60s (Richard Bean's One Man, Two Guvnors) to 18th-century Austria (Peter Shaffer's Amadeus) to the American Wild West (Beth Henley's Abundance). In addition, the season will delve into the lives of artist Mark Rothko (Red by John Logan) and writer Sandra Tsing Loh (in her adaptation of her memoir, The Madwoman in the Volvo).

Pull up a seat, grab some pasta and reconnect with the definitive crime family in Theatre Movement Bazaar's BIG SHOT: a.k.a this is not The Godfather, directed and choreographed by Tina Kronis, with text by Richard Alger. This world premiere production kicks off the 2015 Studio SCR series, performing in the Nicholas Studio tonight, April 22-May 3. BIG SHOT also is presented as part of the Pacific Playwrights Festival.

Pull up a seat, grab some pasta and reconnect with the definitive crime family in Theatre Movement Bazaar's BIG SHOT: a.k.a this is not The Godfather, directed and choreographed by Tina Kronis, with text by Richard Alger. This world premiere production kicks off the 2015 Studio SCR series, performing in the Nicholas Studio April 22-May 3. BIG SHOT also is presented as part of the Pacific Playwrights Festival.

Organized crime, a revolutionary music critic and clowns find themselves side by side in South Coast Repertory's 2015 Studio SCR series. In its fifth year, Studio SCR offers Orange County audiences diverse productions and companies in the 94-seat Nicholas Studio.

On Saturday, February 7, Chance Theater's Board of Directors, staff and resident artists held a special event to honor their major capital campaign donors and give them a literal standing ovation. The guest of honor at the event was community leader, Bette Aitken, whose husband Wylie surprised her last year with a $250,000 gift to the Chance to name the theater's new home after her.

Do you believe in heaven? If so, what does it look like? That's what playwright Bekah Brunstetter explores in her new work, Going to a Place where you Already Are. It's up next for South Coast Repertory's NewSCRipts reading series on Monday, Dec. 8, at 7:30 p.m., on the Julianne Argyros Stage. Tickets are available online at ?www.scr.org. The play is an SCR commission.

In the world premiere production of playwright (and creator of NBC's Smash) Theresa Rebeck's ZEALOT---now performing at South Coast Repertory in Costa Mesa through November 16---Mecca, Saudi Arabia serves as the setting for a volatile tug-of-war that erupts at the start of the 'Hajj,' the holy city's annual Islamic pilgrimage. Here a young woman's act of civil disobedience incites riots, prompting a carefully-considered, if endlessly circling debate on the merits of whether to comply and honor a host country's 'traditional' rules, or to allow Western ideologies to triumph in order to best serve the needs of a fellow human---a fellow global citizen---in dire need of care and protection. While Rebeck's play, helmed by SCR's own artistic director Marc Masterson, is generally insightful, the play feels pretty unfinished, as if there's plenty more to unearth in the narrative that didn't quite make it to the page (and, consequently, the stage). Regrettably, it doesn't quite reach the point of heightened urgency you would come to expect in a drama with such a politically-charged storyline.

South Coast Repertory will produce a new work by Pulitzer Prize finalist and Peabody Award-winning writer Theresa Rebeck. Her play Zealot is on SCR's Segerstrom Stage tonight, Oct. 17-Nov. 16, directed by Artistic Director Marc Masterson.

Rogue Machine presents the World Premiere of NICE THINGS by Vince Melocchi opening tonight, October 4, 2014 with reception to follow 8pm Fridays and Todays, 3pm on Sundays through November 23, 2014 5041 W. Pico Blvd., LA, CA 90019

South Coast Repertory will produce a new work by Pulitzer Prize finalist and Peabody Award-winning writer Theresa Rebeck. Her play Zealot is on SCR's Segerstrom Stage Oct. 17-Nov. 16, directed by Artistic Director Marc Masterson.

Two years ago, with funding from The James Irvine Foundation and in partnership with Latino Health Access, South Coast Repertory launched a play-development project in Santa Ana called Dialogue/Dialogos. The project captured the stories and memories of nearly 1,000 of the city's Latino residents, which created the core of a new bilingual play, The Long Road Today/El Largo Camino de Hoy,written by Jose Cruz Gonzalez.

Rogue Machine presents the World Premiere of NICE THINGS by Vince Melocchi Opening October 4, 2014 with reception to follow 8pm Fridays and Saturdays, 3pm on Sundays through November 23, 2014 5041 W. Pico Blvd., LA, CA 90019