Craig Johnson News

Minnesota Jewish Theatre Company (MJTC) continues its 24th season with The Chanukah Guest by Jenna Zark, based off the book by Eric A. Kimmel- a play commissioned by MJTC.

Actors Co-op Theatre Company (Ovation Award-Winner 2017 Best Play, Intimate Theatre for 33 Variations) presents the first show in its 27th Season with the thriller ROPE, written by Patrick Hamilton, directed by Ken Sawyer, produced by Kevin Shewey.  ROPE will preview on Thursday, September 20 at 8pm and will open Friday, September 21 at 8pm and run through Sunday, October 29 at the Actors Co-op Crossley Theatre, 1760 N. Gower St. 90028 (on the campus of the First Presbyterian Church of Hollywood) in Hollywood.

Minnesota Jewish Theatre Company (MJTC) is pleased to announce its 24th season of staging stories about Jewish history and culture with themes universal to people of all backgrounds. MJTC is led by Producing Artistic Director Barbara Brooks.

The Tony Award-winning SPRING AWAKENING begs the question: 'How will we know what to do if our parents won't tell us?' The provocative show, which opened June 1st, closes out North Raleigh Arts and Creative Theatre's (NRACT) 2017-2018 season. Adapted from Frank Wedekind's 1890 play 'Spring's Awakening A Children's Tragedy,' the musical tells the story of a group of teenagers coming of age and sexual awakening amid a repressive German society. More than a century after Wedekind's play was first performed, the themes of SPRING AWAKENING, including that of sexuality, rape, abuse, incest, abortion, homosexuality, and suicide, are as relevant today as ever, which is why NRACT's Director Tim Locklear felt this was an important story to tell. Billed for mature audiences due to content and brief nudity, NRACT's SPRING AWAKENING holds a mirror up to the way in which we communicate with and listen to each other, especially our children, a haunting lesson that will linger long after the final bow.

The Found Theatre of Long Beach presents 'The Lover' by renowned British playwright, director, actor and political activist Harold Pinter, the winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2005. First produced on the London stage in 1963, 'The Lover' explores the private intricacies of a modern marriage in a way that is as fresh and shocking today as it was more than 50 years ago.

On Friday, April 6, The Music Hall welcomes to the stage #1 New York Times bestselling author C.J. Box, who has sold more than 10 million novels in the U.S. alone. He'll talk about THE DISAPPEARED, his latest western mystery featuring Joe Pickett, as part of The Music Hall's Writers in the Loft series.

Netflix announces five features and one short premiering at SFFILM 2018 (April 4-17 in San Francisco, CA).

Netflix Announces Films, Documentaries and Doc Shorts at SFFILM 2018: Feature Films Kodachrome, Alex Strangelove and Manhunt;  Original Documentary Features Mercury 13 and Shirkers; Original Documentary Short End Game. All titles will launch globally on Netflix in 2018.

On Friday, April 6, The Music Hall welcomes to the stage #1 New York Times bestselling author C.J. Box, who has sold more than 10 million novels in the U.S. alone. He'll talk about THE DISAPPEARED, his latest western mystery featuring Joe Pickett, as part of The Music Hall's Writers in the Loft series.

FLY BY NIGHT is a musical that may have a name that implies something that is rushed together to get it done, but that is not is a case in this charming and well put together production playing through December 10th at the Coronado Playhouse.

As chilly weather settles into Minnesota, local playwright Kira Obolensky has a wintery new musical to share. 'The Overcoat: A Low-Fi Musical' is the first play in the Playwrights' Center's 2017-18 Ruth Easton New Play Series, a long-running series offering Playwrights' Center Core Writers 20 hours of workshop time to develop a new play and giving theater fans a chance to see free public readings of the plays in progress.

Casey Stangl (Fully Committed) returns to the Jungle from Los Angeles to direct Jennifer Haley's award-winning The Nether opening September 16 and on stage through October 15 at the Lyn-Lake neighborhood theater, 2951 Lyndale Ave. S. in Minneapolis. A smart and tightly wound drama, The Nether is both serpentine crime story and haunting sci-fi thriller exploring the consequences of living out private dreams in a world of ever-advancing technology.

IDIOT'S DELIGHT is one of those deceptive plays that makes you think it's a light and fun romp through the past, until you begin to see the seriousness behind the beautiful clothes and pretty music. WWI vet Robert E. Sherwood's play premiered in 1936 and is eerily prescient about the impending war in Europe. Or maybe not; maybe it was obvious at the time that the world was heading to another Great War, only 20 years after the first one. But even now, 80 years after it was written, the themes of nationalism, loyalty, changing borders, and a great sadness at the cost of war on all sides ring true. This one left me feeling a little depressed, but with much to contemplate, and also thoroughly entertained, as always, by Girl Friday Productions' biennial contribution to the #TCTheater world. Girl Friday specializes in 'larger scale American plays of exceptional literary merit that are less frequently produced today,' and IDIOT'S DELIGHT is indeed a delight, but one that is most certainly not for idiots.

The Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts (The Wallis) and the Broadway Dreams Foundation (BDF) have announced the return of the annual Broadway Dreams Summer Intensive being held June 18 - 25, 2017 at The Wallis in Beverly Hills, as well as its talented musical theater faculty lineup comprised of Broadway performers, directors and casting directors.

A romantic commentary on idealism, greed and the realities of war, Robert E. Sherwood's IDIOT'S DELIGHT, produced by Girl Friday Productions and directed by Craig Johnson, opens June 30, 2017 on the Andy Boss Thrust Stage at Park Square Theatre. Girl Friday Productions brings its signature large ensemble cast to this dramatic comedy with musical accents, set in a world on the brink.

RLT's Women and War series explores the changing role of women in modern warfare. "Downrange: Voices from the Homefront" and "Grounded" close out the series on Memorial Day weekend, running in repertory from Friday night through Sunday evening.

St. Ann's Warehouse welcomes back Kneehigh, Cornwall's beloved theatrical alchemists, and their former Co-Artistic Director Emma Rice - now the Artistic Director of Shakespeare's Globe - for the New York Premiere of the acclaimed production 946: The Amazing Story of Adolphus Tips.

St. Ann's Warehouse will welcome back Kneehigh, Cornwall's beloved theatrical alchemists, and their former Co-Artistic Director Emma Rice - now the Artistic Director of Shakespeare's Globe - for the New York Premiere of the acclaimed production 946: The Amazing Story of Adolphus Tips.

The brilliant theatricality of Kneehigh, the innovative United Kingdom-based theater company, will be on display at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts once again when 946: The Amazing Story of Adolphus Tips has its Los Angeles premiere.  Based on the beloved book by War Horse author Michael Morpurgo, 946 explores everything we thought we knew about the D-Day landings in this tender musical tale of love and war. Adapted by Morpurgo and Emma Rice, who also directs, 946 is a Kneehigh production presented in association with Birmingham Repertory and Berkeley Repertory Theatres. Performances begin February 9 with the opening on February 10.