National Theatre: Last News

Hill Rag in 1984, as a wide-eyed novice to the local performing arts scene, I remember thinking, “How much theater could there be to fill a weekly column?” A lot, it turned out.I still mourn the loss of the companies I once frequented, among them Leslie Jacobson’s Horizons and Bart Whiteman’s Source, where the work was always challenging, insightful, and fueled by passion and purpose.By the same token, I marveled at the slow but steady growth of companies like Woolly Mammoth, who went from performing in a church on G Street to operating their own gorgeous downtown space.And I was frequently left in awe by the soaring works of legendary directors like Joy Zinoman, Zelda Fitzgerald, and Michael Kahn.There was even a point in my reviewing career that I was at the Kennedy Center so often — back in the days when Peter Sellars turned the nation’s performing arts center into a mind-warping experimental playground — I used to joke it was my second home.In 40 years, I’ve watched the D.C. theater landscape evolve and only get bigger and more consequential.

Oscar-nominated Rosamund Pike (Gone Girl, Saltburn, Wheel of Time) will make her debut at London’s National Theatre in 2025, and they’ve given her the starring role in the world premiere of a new work by Suzie Miller, the playwright who created Prima Facie, the legal drama that catapulted Jodie Comer to Olivier and Tony Award trophies.

Ncuti Gatwa is set to make his National Theatre debut in a new production of Oscar Wilde’s comedy The Importance Of Being Earnest.

Hurricane Diane at Avant Bard, a staging of Tony Kushner’s extraordinary Angels in America, Part 1 at Arena, featuring Ed Gero as Roy Cohn in a role that seems custom-made for the powerhouse actor, and a production of 1776 at the Kennedy Center that includes a cast replete with performers who identify as female, non-binary, and trans. Founding fathers, indeed!The sad news, however, is that after 29 years, Rep Stage is shutting its doors. The theater, on the campus of Howard Community College in Maryland, is being closed by the university.

K.J. Yossman “Aftersun” star Paul Mescal and “Killing Eve’s” Jodie Comer are among those nominated for Olivier Awards, the U.K.’s top theater awards. Mescal has been nominated for Best Actor for his role in “A Streetcar Named Desire” while Comer is up for “Best Actress” for her turn in legal drama “Prima Facie.” “My Neighbour Totoro,” the stage adaptation of Studio Ghibli’s animated classic, received the most noms, scoring nine, including for Best Director and Best Actress. The awards, which will be hosted by “Ted Lasso” star Hannah Waddingham, are set to take place on April 2 at the Royal Albert Hall in London. They will be broadcast on ITV.

Joseph Fiennes (The Handmaid’s Tale) is set to portray England Men’s soccer coach Gareth Southgate in a new play at the National Theatre in London.

Tina: The Tina Turner Musical (★★★☆☆), which just shimmied into the National Theatre, three stops into a 30-city national tour.But the show’s creators, including book writer Katori Hall, a Pulitzer winner for her drama The Hot Wing King, don’t seem to have been too sure what to do with Turner’s cache of classics, succeeding only half the time at persuasively reimagining the songs within the context of the singer’s tumultuous life story.You know the story, told via Turner’s multiple memoirs, plus the beloved 1993 biopic What’s Love Got to Do with It and the stellar 2021 documentary Tina, not to mention semi-autobiographical songs like “Nutbush City Limits.”Tina the musical turns “Nutbush City Limits” into a rousing spiritual, dominated by the gospel wail of Ann Nesby portraying Tina’s Gran Georgeanna. One of the savvier uses of Turner’s catalog, the number introduces young Anna-Mae Bullock (a delightful Ayvah Johnson), a little girl with a big voice, from a broken home in rural Tennessee.In another crafty use of an early hit, teenage Anna-Mae, played on press night by the equally big-voiced Naomi Rodgers (the role is played on select nights by Zurin Villanueva), is introduced by sister Alline (Parris Lewis) to the faster scene in St.

Tempest for the ages.We’re excited for almost every season offering, but the one thing that fills us with an embarrassment of joy? The return of the Broadway Center Stage series to the Kennedy Center. Prior to the pandemic, the series routinely blew the roof off the national arts center with its extraordinary staged concerts that, in some cases, felt Broadway-ready.Other highlights of the 2022-2023 season include the returns of Les Miserables, Chicago, Wicked and — why not? — Cats; an Olney Kinky Boots; a Bountiful moment with Nancy Robinette at Ford’s; the return of Michael Urie and husband Ryan Spahn to the (boldly, beautifully rebranded) Shakespeare Theatre; Arena Stage tackling Tony Kushner’s gay masterpiece Angels in America; and the long-anticipated “Till Trilogy” at Mosaic. Buy stock in Kleenex now.1524 Spring Hill Rd.

EXCLUSIVE: The rollicking Broadway musical Guys & Dolls is to be revived at London’s The Bridge Theatre next year with 420 members of the audience able to “party” with the cast, as the show’s director Nicholas Hytner (The History Boys) told Deadline, in an immersive production that’s set to begin preview performances from February 27.

John Waters‘s lovable 1988 indie film about a big girl with big dreams in ’60s-era Baltimore danced its way to wild success on Broadway, courtesy of the savvy, perfectly realized musical adaptation by Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman.The life and creative partners won the 2003 Tony Award for Best Original Score, just one of eight total trophies racked up by the heart-warming Hairspray, including the top trophy as Best Musical and wins for the show’s director Jack O’Brien, book writers Mark O’Donnell and Thomas Meehan, and three members of the original cast, led by Harvey Fierstein, who donned drag to play the show’s leading matriarch Edna Turnblad.“There was no gay agenda behind Edna being played by a man,” Shaiman told Metro Weekly in 2005. “First of all, it’s just there because that’s the way it was in the movie.

A patronage previously belonging to Meghan Markle has been given to Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall. The National Theatre took to Twitter on Friday and announced that Prince Charles' wife now holds the title as its Royal Patron.

The Queen has decided who will take over patronages from Prince Harry and his wife Meghan and it is thought she will announce her choices to the Royal Family in the coming weeks.