Leah C. Gardiner News

Get a first look at Ntozake Shange's FOR COLORED GIRLS WHO HAVE CONSIDERED SUICIDE/WHEN THE RAINBOW IS ENUF, directed by Obie Award winner Leah C. Gardiner with choreography by Tony Award nominee Camille A. Brown. Performances runs through Sunday, December 1, with an official press opening on Tuesday, October 22.

The Public Theater announced a second extension today for the major New York revival of FOR COLORED GIRLS WHO HAVE CONSIDERED SUICIDE/WHEN THE RAINBOW IS ENUF, written by legendary playwright/poet Ntozake Shange.

Get a peek at the company in rehearsal for Ntozake Shange's FOR COLORED GIRLS WHO HAVE CONSIDERED SUICIDE/WHEN THE RAINBOW IS ENUF, directed by Obie Award winner Leah C. Gardiner with choreography by Tony Award nominee Camille A. Brown. Performances begin on Tuesday, October 8 and run through Sunday, November 24, with an official press opening on Tuesday, October 22.

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The Public Theater announced an extension today for the major New York revival of FOR COLORED GIRLS WHO HAVE CONSIDERED SUICIDE/WHEN THE RAINBOW IS ENUF, written by legendary playwright/poet Ntozake Shange. Directed by Obie Award winner Leah C. Gardiner with choreography by Camille A. Brown, FOR COLORED GIRLS begins performances on Tuesday, October 8 in The Public's Martinson Hall, with a Joseph Papp Free Preview performance on Thursday, October 10 and an official press opening on Tuesday, October 22. This powerful revival has been extended one week and will now run through Sunday, November 24.

The Public Theater announced complete casting today for the major New York revival of FOR COLORED GIRLS WHO HAVE CONSIDERED SUICIDE/WHEN THE RAINBOW IS ENUF, written by legendary playwright/poet Ntozake Shange.

Public Theater announced the line-up today for The Public's 2019-20 Season 

Play On Shakespeare today announces an expansive list of compelling actors and dynamic directors confirmed to participate in the Play on! Festival, presented in association with Classic Stage Company (CSC) and Oregon Shakespeare Festival (OSF). Play on! features 39 readings of new, work-in-progress translations of Shakespeare's plays into contemporary modern English by some of today's most exciting playwrights-May 29-June 30 at the Lynn F. Angelson Theater at CSC (136 E. 13th Street). In 2015, Oregon Shakespeare Festival launched an ambitious 39-play, three-year commissioning project, Play on!, tasking 36 playwrights-more than half of whom were women and playwrights of color, each paired with a dramaturg-to translate Shakespeare's canon in celebration of the enduring impact of the Bard's work. Supported by a generous grant from the Hitz Foundation and inspired by long-time patron Dave Hitz's passion for Shakespeare, the project was and continues to be led by Lue Morgan Douthit. For more information, visit playonfestival.org.

In playwright Kevin Artigue's riveting and thought-provoking new two-person play SHEEPDOG---which finishes up its World Premiere run at Orange County's South Coast Repertory through May 5, 2019 as part of the theater's annual Pacific Playwrights Festival---the ripped-from-the-headlines plot point that finds a young black man being fatally shot by a white police officer becomes an added layer of troubling complication to an already shaky relationship between two genuinely good, aspirational people who are deeply in love---who also happen to be an interracial couple both employed as police officers. A love story rattled by external forces, the play posits the question of whether it is even possible for two people---or at least these two specific people---to carry on a successful romantic relationship while having this specific kind of a job and also while each identifies with one of two separate communities with a long tragic history between them. SHEEPDOG tackles the subject with grace and open-mindedness and therefore makes it one of the most powerful and provocative new plays to come out this season.

Playwrights Horizons has extended the world premiere of If Pretty Hurts Ugly Must Be a Muhf**ka, written by Tori Sampson

Playwrights Horizons is currently staging Tori Sampson's If Pretty Hurts Ugly Must Be a Muhf**ka. Let's find out what the critics had to say.

Playwrights Horizons (Artistic Director Tim Sanford, Managing Director Leslie Marcus) has announced that Carla R. Stewart (Broadway, National Tour, and Regional: The Color Purple) will play The Voice of the River in the world premiere production of Tori Sampson's If Pretty Hurts Ugly Must Be a Muhf**ka, directed by Obie winner Leah C. Gardiner (Born Bad) and choreographed by Raja Feather Kelly. Performances begin Today, February 15, and continue through March 31 in the Mainstage Theater at Playwrights Horizons (416 W 42nd St, New York, NY 10036). The production opens officially on the evening of Sunday, March 10.

Playwrights Horizons (Artistic Director Tim Sanford, Managing Director Leslie Marcus) has announced that Carla R. Stewart (Broadway, National Tour, and Regional: The Color Purple) will play The Voice of the River in the world premiere production of Tori Sampson's If Pretty Hurts Ugly Must Be a Muhf**ka, directed by Obie winner Leah C. Gardiner (Born Bad) and choreographed by Raja Feather Kelly. Performances begin Friday, February 15, and continue through March 31 in the Mainstage Theater at Playwrights Horizons (416 W 42nd St, New York, NY 10036). The production opens officially on the evening of Sunday, March 10.

South Coast Repertory Artistic Director David Ivers and Managing Director Paula Tomei today announced the lineup for the 2019 Pacific Playwrights Festival (PPF). The annual showcase of new works kicks off on April 26 with a concert reading of a new musical adaptation of Prelude to a Kiss, directed by Ivers in his directorial debut as SCR's artistic director.

Playwrights Horizons Opens Live for Five Lottery, February 4-7, for the World Premiere of Tori Sampson's If Pretty Hurts Ugly Must Be a Muhf**ka, Directed by Leah C. Gardiner and Choreographed by Raja Feather Kelly (February 15-March 31, 2019)

Today, influencer and talent manager ChiChi Anyanwu of the NYC Black Theater Network, Marcia Pendelton, President of Walk Tall Girl Productions/Black Theater Online, and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture (Kevin Young, Director, Schomburg Center) announced BLACK PLAYWRIGHTS: THEY SPEAK. WHO LISTENS? A Black Theater Winter Preview: Broadway and Off-Broadway Edition. The event is scheduled at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture (515 Malcolm X Blvd) on Monday, January 28, 2019 at 6:30 p.m. Four-time Tony Award-winning producer Ron Simons of SimonSays Entertainment (A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder, Porgy & Bess, Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, Jitney) will host the program whose purpose is to bring attention to the unprecedented number of plays by black playwrights being produced on Broadway and Off-Broadway this season.

Playwrights Horizons presents the world premiere of If Pretty Hurts Ugly Must Be a Muhf**ka, written by Tori Sampson, directed by Leah C. Gardiner, and choreographed by Raja Feather Kelly, February 15-March 31, 2019 in the Mainstage Theater at Playwrights Horizons

Playwrights Horizons (Artistic Director Tim Sanford, Managing Director Leslie Marcus) will, from today, November 12, through Thursday, November 15, accept entries for the Live for Five online lottery, giving out $5 tickets to the New York premiere production of Noura, from 9 Parts of Desire playwright and actor Heather Raffo and director Joanna Settle. The Washington Post deemed this "epic-feeling, nearly searing portrait of a woman torn between cultures and family" the "best premiere of the Women's Voices Theater Festival" when it made its world premiere in Washington, D.C. earlier this year. Produced in association with Shakespeare Theatre Company, it will be performed at Playwrights Horizons from November 27 to December 30. Playwrights Horizons created Live for Five in 2007 as part of their Arts Access program to reach out to those who may not be able to afford the cost of a full-price theater ticket. Since its inception, over 3,000 theatergoers have been able to attend the theater thanks to the initiative.

Noor Theatre is thrilled to announce initial casting for its upcoming workshop production of Dead Are My People, a play with music by Ismail Khalidi (Tennis In Nablus).  Obie-Award winning direc

Playwrights Horizons will, from today, October 1, through Thursday, October 4, accept entries for the Live for Five online lottery, giving out $5 tickets to the world premiere production of Larissa FastHorse's The Thanksgiving Play. Directed by Moritz von Stuelpnagel (Hand to God and Present Laughter on Broadway), this side-splitting comedy satirizing the performance of contemporary white liberalism begins October 12 and runs through November 25.