Lynn Nottage: Last News

MJ, the hit Broadway musical about Michael Jackson and featuring many of his most popular songs, will open in London in March 2024, producers announced today.

Martin Benson, the co-founder and longtime artistic director of the Tony Award-winning South Coast Repertory regional theater in Costa Mesa, California, died November 30 of a probable heart attack at his home in Huntington Beach, California. He was 87.

EXCLUSIVE: Calvin Leon Smith, who appeared in the Tony-nominated comedy Fat Ham, will return to Broadway this fall when he takes over the role of Cabaret‘s Clifford Bradshaw from Ato Blankson-Wood.

Naman Ramachandran Tim Sheader, the new artistic director of London’s Donmar Warehouse, has announced his inaugural season, featuring two world premieres, a U.K. premiere and a revival. The season opens with “The Fear of 13,” a world premiere by Lindsey Ferrentino, based on the documentary film by David Sington that tells the true story of Nick Yarris, who spent 22 years on Death Row.

William Jackson Harper has had plenty of good years in his acting career. He was Emmy-nominated in 2020 for his acclaimed performance as Chidi Anagonye in NBC’s comedy series The Good Place. In 2009 he became a main cast member on The Electric Company, and that same year was cast in an Off Broadway production of Lynn Nottage’s Ruined, a play that would soon win the Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

Lynda Gravátt, a mainstay of the New York stage, a seminal figure in the Washington D.C. theater community and a familiar presence on television through appearances in the Law & Order franchise shows, The Good Wife and the 1999 Showtime series The Hoop Life, died February 23 at a hospital in New Jersey. She was 77.

Jaden Thompson Shirley Jo Finney, a theater director and actor known for the 1975 TV biopic “Wilma,” died on Oct. 10 following an eight-month battle with cancer. She was 74.

Carole Rothman, co-founder of the renowned New York theater company Second Stage responsible for such acclaimed productions as Dear Evan Hansen, Next To Normal, This Is Our Youth and The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, is leaving the company she started in 1979.

Sweat (★★★☆☆), staged to duly tense effect by Angelisa Gillyard at Keegan Theatre.Friends Tracey (Susan Marie Rhea) and Cynthia (Lolita Marie), coworkers for decades at a steel plant in Reading, Pennsylvania, are breadwinners for their families — wives and mothers who pull their weight on the line, and at home. Yet, for all their diligence and dedication, they can’t be responsible for a husband’s addictions or a son’s violent impulses.

Marc Malkin Senior Film Awards, Events & Lifestyle Editor Seth MacFarlane has donated $1 million to The Entertainment Community Fund to help provide financial assistance for industry workers during the SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes. The organization, formerly known as The Actors Fund, also exclusively tells me that recent donors include The Katie McGrath & JJ Abrams Family Foundation, Stacey Abrams, Annette Bening, Tom Bergeron, Greg Berlanti, Rachel Bloom, Rosanne Cash in memory of Johnny Cash, Suzanne Collins and Cap Pryor, Vince Gilligan, Lynn Nottage, Michelle Pfeiffer and David E.

A stage musical adaptation of the Fannie Hurst novel Imitation of Life and its film versions is under development at Universal Theatrical Group, with Lynn Nottage writing the book and John Legend handling the music and lyrics. Liesl Tommy is attached to direct.

MJ, the Broadway musical about Michael Jackson and featuring his many hits, has recouped its initial investment, producers announced today.

David Tennant will take on the lead role in Macbeth at the end of the year for a new Donmar Warehouse production of the William Shakespeare play.

Katie Reul editor “Company,” “MJ” and “The Wiz” are among seven shows coming to the Pantages Theatre in Los Angeles for the 2023-2024 season, Broadway in Hollywood revealed Wednesday morning. The newly announced lineup consists of five L.A. premieres, one pre-Broadway L.A. premiere and the revival of a retired production. “MJ” will commence the season Dec. 20, marking the Tony Award-winning musical’s Los Angeles debut. Directed and choreographed by Christopher Wheeldon and Pulitzer Prize winner Lynn Nottage, the show centers its narrative around the creative legacy and unique sound of Michael Jackson.

Barry Grove will step down as the Executive Producer of Manhattan Theatre Club, a major Broadway and Off Broadway institution, at the conclusion of the 2022-2023 season.

Angelique Jackson Emmy nominee Jovan Adepo and Juliana Canfield have signed on to star as abolitionists William and Ellen Craft in the upcoming movie “Everlasting Yea!” Co-written and co-directed by Lynn Nottage and Tony Gerber, the feature follows the “epic and deeply human” love story of the Crafts, as the couple rise to fame in the Abolitionist movement following their bold and perilous escape from slavery.Set in the “free” North before the Civil War, “Everlasting Yea!” unveils the incredible untold true story as the Crafts “must negotiate their unwanted celebrity, their young marriage, and their safety as the news of their singular escape — with Ellen disguised as a white Southern gentleman, and William in the role of her obedient slave — becomes the most sensational and subversive news story of the day further dividing an already fractured nation.” “Our film centers the complex reality of free Blacks in the antebellum North, posing the question, what is freedom, and what price must one pay in order to maintain it?” Nottage observed in a statement about the project, which marks her feature directorial debut.With Nottage, a two-time Pulitzer winner, and Emmy and PGA award-winner Gerber, who has directed the documentaries “Full Battle Rattle” and “The Notorious Mr. Bout” at the helm, “Everlasting Yea!” will be produced by “Pachinko” showrunner Soo Hugh as well as Curate founder Britton Rizzio (“The Act”), with Ellen Craft’s great, great granddaughter, Julia Ellen Craft, serving as a consultant on the film.“I’m incredibly excited to be working with Tony and Lynn to bring this piece of history to film,” stated Adepo stated, who in addition to starring as William Craft, is billed as an executive producer.

EXCLUSIVE: Myles Frost, the moonwalking star of Broadway’s MJ The Musical who recently, at age 22, became the youngest-ever recipient of the Tony Award for Best Leading Actor in a Musical, has signed with UTA in all areas.

Wilson Chapman editorLos Angeles’ Center Theater Group will host two world premieres, a West Coast bow, a U.S. launch and several classics and modern hits for its 2022-23 season.The initial programming lineup for the next season of the theater group, which operates the Ahmanson and the Mark Taper Forum, was announced on Thursday by managing director and CEO Meghan Pressman, producing director Douglas C. Baker and associate artistic directors Luis Alfaro, Lindsay Allbaugh, Tyrone Davis, Neel Keller and Kelley Kirkpatrick.The Taper’s season will open with “The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe,” a one-woman play written by Jane Wagner that originally starred Lily Tomlin in 1991.

a glamorous event. However, it can be tricky to decide how to accessorise in order to avoid a clashing of lines. Clearly a choker is a no-no, and if your hair is scraped back in an updo to focus on the neckline you might be inclined to go for a statement drop earring, but how on earth to navigate the necklace?Luckily, Hello! Fashion has looked to some of our favourite celebrity style moments in order to inspire you on how to accessorise a high neck dress.

Gordon Cox Theater EditorThe Tony Awards Landmarks on This Year’s Nominations ListIn a Broadway season that was the first after the devastating 15-month shutdown caused by the pandemic, the Tony nominations list encompassed some notable landmarks of its own.L Morgan Lee, up for featured actress in “A Strange Loop,” became the first openly transgender artist ever to be nominated for a Tony Award. “Six” composer Toby Marlow is the first non-binary person to get a nom. Lynn Nottage became the first writer to be nominated for play (“Clyde’s”) and musical (“MJ”) in the same year.

As a child, Christopher Wheeldon was a ballet and musical theater kid, like as not listening to Tchaikovsky while his brothers had Michael Jackson’s Thriller on the turntable. His idea of an afternoon’s art project was reimagining the Victorian toy theater his father had built him into a Starlight Express set for his little electric cars. “I was that kid,” he says with a laugh.