John Leonard News

Performances begin tomorrow, Saturday, January 4, for the American premiere of the London Theatre Company (Nicholas Hytner and Nick Starr) production of My Name is Lucy Barton starring Laura Linney (Lillian Hellman's The Little Foxes, 'Ozark'), by Elizabeth Strout (Olive Kitteridge), adapted by Rona Munro (The James Trilogy), and directed by Richard Eyre (The Crucible, Notes on a Scandal). The New York production is produced in association with Penguin Random House Audio.

The London Theatre Company's production of My Name is Lucy Barton starring Laura Linney will start previews on Saturday, January 4 at 8pm. My Name is Lucy Barton will open January 15, 2020 at Manhattan Theatre Club's Samuel J. Friedman Theatre (261 West 47th Street). Tickets are available via Telecharge.com or by phone at 212-239-6200, or at The Friedman Theatre box office.

Manhattan Theatre Club's American premiere of The London Theatre Company's production of My Name is Lucy Barton starring Laura Linney will start previews ahead of schedule.

Laura Linney was a guest on Tuesday's episode of Live with Kelly and Ryan to talk about her one-woman play My Name Is Lucy Barton.

Manhattan Theatre Club has announced ticketing information today for the upcoming American premiere of the London Theatre Company production of My Name is Lucy Barton starring Laura Linney, by Elizabeth Strout, adapted by Rona Munro, and directed by Richard Eyre. The New York production is produced in association with Penguin Random House Audio.

Noël Coward's classic comedy Blithe Spirit, directed by Sir Richard Eyre and starring Jennifer Saunders, will return next year for a UK tour followed by a strictly limited 6-week engagement at the West End's Duke of York's Theatre following a celebrated reception in Bath earlier this summer.

Godfrey Johnson & Nicholas McDiarmid combine their dazzling pianistic skills with irresistible punches of humour and wit. The two virtuosos, each at their own piano bring you a show that excites, titillates and entertains. PianoMania debuted this May at Durban's Rhumbelow Theatre. Arts Critic, Billy Suter, wrote in his review 'Together, with minimal fuss or fanfare, they launch straight into a merry mix of entertainment that has them tipping hats to classical music as well as everyone from Elton John, Leonard Cohen, Gloria Gaynor and Bronski Beat to Billy Joel, Mary Hopkins, Boomtown Rats and Soft Cell.'

The drama works because of the intriguing way the characters' ideas about how to act in response to Marian Anderson's two provocative exclusions (first from Nassau Inn and then from Constitution Hall) shift repeatedly in response to new information, so that consensus is almost impossible to achieve, at least until the play's very end. Anderson seeks progress through song, unimpeachable behavior and an avoidance of politics; Albert Einstein wants an end to both racism and antisemitism, and by the end is very worried about the Bomb; Mary Church Terrell embraces confrontation because all else seems to fail; and Abraham Flexner tries hard to protect the Institute as a means of keeping the Holocaust from consuming absolutely all Jews, even though he can save only a few.

Pandora Colin, Ben Cura, Tory Kittles and Emma Paetz will make their Chichester debuts in Nicholas Wright's new play 8 Hotels, which Richard Eyre directs at the Minerva Theatre from 1 - 24 August (press night: 7 August).

With a picnic hosted by the Board of Trustees, the Contemporary American Theater Festival at Shepherd University welcomes 2019 company members. Attended by CATF partners, donors, and community members, this annual event is the first time CATF's 2019 company comes to celebrate the six new plays they are about to create. These artists, from around the country, including cities such as New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles, gather in historic Shepherdstown to create the future of American theater.

Manhattan Theatre Club, Lynne Meadow (Artistic Director) and Barry Grove (Executive Producer) have just announced the American premiere of the London Theatre Company (Nicholas Hytner and Nick Starr) production of My Name is Lucy Barton starring Laura Linney (Lillian Hellman's The Little Foxes, 'Ozark'), by Elizabeth Strout (Olive Kitteridge), adapted by Rona Munro (The James Trilogy), and directed by Richard Eyre (The Crucible, Notes on a Scandal) as part of Manhattan Theatre Club's upcoming 2019-2020 season. The New York production will be produced in association with Penguin Random House Audio.

Following on from the successful tour in 2017, Lee Dean and Daniel Schumann are extending the UK Tour of Tom Kempinski's award-winning play DUET FOR ONE, directed by Robin Lefevre, with Belinda Lang reprising her acclaimed performance as Stephanie Abrahams and joined on this tour by Jonathan Coy as Dr Feldmann. The tour will begin at Oxford Playhouse on Tuesday 28 August 2018.

The National Theatre announces new information, and recaps its upcoming season.

Sonia Friedman Productions and the National Theatre present the West End production of Nina Raine's Consent following the 2017 critically acclaimed sell-out run at the Dorfman Theatre. Directed by Roger Michell and originally co-produced and commissioned by Out of Joint, Consent will playthrough 18 May for a strictly limited 12-week run. 

The West End production of Nina Raine's Consent continues previews at the Harold Pinter Theatre with its opening night on 29 May 2018. Directed by Roger Michell and originally co-produced and commissioned by Out of Joint, this strictly limited 12-week run is booking through to 11 August 2018 following the 2017 critically acclaimed sell-out run at the National Theatre.

Eugene O'Neill's Pulitzer Prize-winning masterpiece Long Day's Journey Into Night  comes to the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts for a limited three-week engagement from Friday, June 8 through Sunday, July 1. Richard Eyre's acclaimed Bristol Old Vic production stars Academy Award winner Jeremy Irons(Brideshead Revisited, Reversal of Fortune,  'The Borgias') and Olivier Award winner and Oscar nominee Lesley Manville(Another Year,  'Harlots,' Phantom Thread). Matthew Beard (The Imitation Game, The Riot Club), Rory Keenan (BBC's 'War & Peace,' 'Peaky Blinders') and Jessica Regan (reprising the role as Cathleen from the 2016 Bristol Old Vic production) round out the ensemble cast.  

Why did a teenage boy who literally worships horses commit the unspeakable act of blinding six of them? That is the mystery psychiatrist Martin Dysart must unravel in order to help his disturbed young patient in Peter Shaffer's Tony Award-winning Equus . The psychological thriller opens at Palm Beach Dramaworks on May 18 and continues through June 3, with specially priced previews on May 16 and 17.

The UK revival of Beirut by American playwright and author Alan Bowne is set to be performed at Park Theatre from 12th June to 7th July 2018. Written in the 1980s at the height of the AIDS crisis (which the playwright died of at 44 years old), Beirut is a cutting examination of a society ravaged by a nameless disease. Although written at a particular moment in history, the play transcends the issues of its time, and at its heart is a dark love story, questioning how society deals with the 'abnormal' in a society gone mad with fear and ignorance.

The West End production of Nina Raine's Consent will begin previews next week at the Harold Pinter Theatre on 18 May with its opening night on 29 May 2018. Directed by Roger Michell and originally co-produced and commissioned by Out of Joint, this strictly limited 12-week run is booking through to 11 August 2018 following the 2017 critically acclaimed sell-out run at the National Theatre.

Why did a teenage boy who literally worships horses commit the unspeakable act of blinding six of them? That is the mystery psychiatrist Martin Dysart must unravel in order to help his disturbed young patient in Peter Shaffer's Tony Award-winning Equus. The psychological thriller opens at Palm Beach Dramaworks on May 18 and continues through June 3, with specially priced previews on May 16 and 17.