Frank Boyd News

Artists Rep presents the World Premiere of Magellanica, by E.M. Lewis, directed by D maso Rodr guez from January 20 through February 18 on the theatre's Morrison Stage. Magellanica is a five-part epic play written by Oregon playwright E.M. Lewis. This production is made possible through major funding from the Oregon Community Foundation (OCF) Creative Heights Initiative and the Edgerton Foundation New Play Award. Magellanica is a part of Portland's Fertile Ground Festival of New Works.

Artists Repertory Theatre is excited to announce two major gifts in support of the World Premiere production of Magellanica, a play by E.M. Lewis, with a limited run January 20 through February 18, 2018. Artists Rep will receive $75,000 from the Oregon Community Foundation Creative Heights Initiative and $44,000 from the Edgerton Foundation New Play Awards made through the Theatre Communications Group.

Organic Nation Listening Club returns to Artists Rep with Jazz and World Music composer David Ornette Cherry's new show COMIN' AND GOIN', a special evening of music performance that integrates music with storytelling about Portland's late, great, Native American musician Jim Pepper.

Artists Repertory Theatre launches its 2017/18 season with Branden Jacobs-Jenkins' provocative An Octoroon. An incendiary satire, this bold start to their 35th theatre season is co-directed by Lava Alapai and Artistic Director Damaso Rodriguez.

Award-winning Brooklyn ensemble the TEAM will present PRIMER FOR A FAILED SUPERPOWER, a two-night-only concert event featuring a multigenerational band of teenagers, TEAM performers, and Baby Boomers, directed by the TEAM's Artistic Director and Tony Award nominee Rachel Chavkin (Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812).

Artists Repertory Theatre launches its 2017/18 season with Branden Jacobs-Jenkins' provocative An Octoroon. An incendiary satire, this bold start to their 35th theatre season is co-directed by Lava Alapai and Artistic Director Damaso Rodriguez.

For its 35th anniversary as Portland's premiere mid-size regional theatre company, Artists Repertory Theatre will offer seven gripping, contemporary plays for their mainstage series.  Among these plays are Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winners, the second  Table|Room|Stage commission, The Thanksgiving Play, by Larissa FastHorse, and a limited run of the World Premiere of the epic theatrical event Magellanica, by Portland playwright E.M. Lewis. Artists Rep's FRONTIER SERIES returns for a second season with internationally acclaimed artists from New York, Seattle and Iran.

Theater professionals from across Michigan will gather Aug. 28 when The 2017 Wilde Awards are presented at The Berman Center for the Performing Arts in the Detroit suburb of West Bloomfield.

Award-winning Brooklyn ensemble the TEAM will present PRIMER FOR A FAILED SUPERPOWER, a two-night-only concert event featuring a multigenerational band of teenagers, TEAM performers, and Baby Boomers, directed by the TEAM's Artistic Director and Tony Award nominee Rachel Chavkin (Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812).

Author T. Geronimo Johnson will visit Seattle during the run of Book-It Repertory Theatre's stage adaptation of his 2015 novel Welcome to Braggsville. Co-Adapter and Director Josh Aaseng and Co-Adapter Daemond Arrindell will chat with the author about the topics in the razor-sharp satire on Saturday, June 24 from 5:00-6:00pm in The Center Theatre at the Armory. Tickets are $15 and available at book-it.org.

Book-It presents a darkly funny, world-premiere adaptation of Welcome to Braggsville by T. Geronimo Johnson. When good ol' boy D'aron Davenport lets it slip that his hometown in Georgia hosts an annual Civil War reenactment, his new friends at UC Berkeley plan to stage a protest in the form of a "performative intervention." Armed with youthful exuberance and misguided ideas of the South, the intervention goes badly awry.

To close out their 27th season, Book-It presents a darkly funny, world-premiere adaptation of Welcome to Braggsville, a novel by T. Geronimo Johnson. When good ol' boy D'aron Davenport lets it slip that his hometown in Georgia hosts an annual Civil War reenactment, his new friends at UC Berkeley plan to stage a protest in the form of a "performative intervention." Armed with youthful exuberance and misguided ideas of the South, the intervention has devastating consequences.

Detroit Public Theatre is set to bring Frank Boyd's solo performance play celebrating American Jazz, The Holler Sessions to its stage February 1-26. Tickets ($20-$45) are on sale now at www.detroitpublictheatre.org or in person at the Detroit Symphony Orchestra box office.

The Guthrie Theater today announced it has been awarded a $1 million grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to underwrite a groundbreaking initiative for the theater's entire ninth floor, home to the 200-seat Dowling Studio, the Citizens of Minnesota Overlook - a signature feature of the lobby known as the 'amber box' - and a unique retractable wall that unifies the performance space with its lobby.

COIL is Performance Space 122's annual performance festival that demonstrates the constant vitality of live performance in New York City featuring work created locally, across the US and around the world. The 2016 edition recently announced its lineup, including a new work by NATASHA, PIERRE, AND THE GREAT COMET OF 1812 director Rachel Chavkin. Scroll down for the full list of productions, running today, January 5-17, 2016!

As part of the eleventh edition of the COIL Festival, Performance Space 122, in partnership with Paradise Factory, present the New York premiere of The Holler Sessions, written and performed by Seattle-based performer Frank Boyd in collaboration with the TEAM.

Ed and his three adult sons have gotten together to celebrate Christmas. They enjoy cheerful trash-talking, brotherly pranks and takeout Chinese, but find themselves confronting a problem that even being a happy family can't solve when youngest brother Matt seems upset about something he cannot share with his family. Their unconditional love is what matters when identity and privilege are problematic, for what is the value of being a straight white man if you have no real purpose or goals in life?

Performance Space 122's annual performance festival, COIL, returns for its eleventh edition with sixteen individual events, making it the largest COIL to date. The festival demonstrates the constant vitality of live performance in New York City and features work created locally, across the U.S., and around the world. Known for its groundbreaking contemporary performance, this year's COIL festival spans interdisciplinary art, working with new technologies and forms. Through installations, live and virtual practices, PS122 is committed to redefining how, where and when performance is experienced.

STRAIGHT WHITE MEN written and directed by Young Jean Lee, opened last Sunday, November 22 at 6:30 p.m. at the Center Theatre Group/Kirk Douglas Theatre. The West Coast premiere of the production, presented in collaboration with Center for the Art of Performance at UCLA, will run through December 20, 2015. BroadwayWorld has photos from the opening night festivities below!

Young Jean Lee's STRAIGHT WHITE MEN will have its West Coast premiere November 20 - December 20, 2015, at the Center Theatre Group/Kirk Douglas Theatre, directed by Lee and presented in collaboration with the Center for the Art of Performance at UCLA. The first U.S. performances of the play since The Public Theater presented its New York premiere last fall will feature a cast of Frank Boyd, Richard Riehle, Brian Slaten and Gary Wilmes.