Extended Runs
Jonathan Burke Takes Over Lead Role in Choir Boy — Final Two Weeks!
Jonathan Burke Photo by Drew Shade
Manhattan Theatre Club’s Broadway premiere of Choir Boy, by Academy Award winner Tarell Alvin McCraney (Moonlight, The Brother/Sister Plays, High Flying Bird) will begin its final two weeks of performances. After being extended twice, the play must close on Sunday, March 10.
PHOTOS: Opening Night of Tarell Alvin McCraney’s Choir Boy on Broadway
Jeremy Pope departed the production on Sunday, February 24 to join the cast of Ain’t Too Proud — The Life and Times of The Temptations on Broadway. Jonathan Burke will take over the role of “Pharus Jonathan Young” for the remaining two weeks of the run. Ryan Jamaal Swain will join the cast as an ensemble member and Pharus cover.
For half a century, the Charles R. Drew Prep School for Boys has been dedicated to the education of strong, ethical black men. One talented student has been waiting for years to take his rightful place as the leader of the legendary gospel choir. But can he make his way through the hallowed halls of this institution if he sings in his own key?
So the cast now features Nicholas L. Ashe (Junior Blake), Daniel Bellomy (Ensemble), Jonathan Burke (Pharus Jonathan Young), Gerald Caesar(Ensemble), John Clay III (Anthony Justin “AJ” James), Chuck Cooper (Headmaster Marrow), Caleb Eberhardt (David Heard), Marcus Gladney (Ensemble), J. Quinton Johnson (Bobby Marrow), Austin Pendleton (Mr. Pendleton) and Ryan Jamaal Swain (Ensemble).
Choir Boy marks Tarell Alvin McCraney’s Broadway debut as well as the second production that transfers to Broadway following a premiere at MTC’s The Studio at Stage II – Harold and Mimi Steinberg New Play Series, where it debuted in the summer of 2013 to rave reviews and sold-out audiences, also extending twice during its run.
Now extended through March 10th, the world premiere of Behind The Sheet by Charly Evon Simpson will continue its performances at the Ensemble Studio Theater which began January 9th.
Charly Evon Simpson confronts the history of a great medical breakthrough by telling the forgotten story of a community of enslaved black women who involuntarily enabled the discovery. In 1840s Alabama, Philomena assists a doctor – her owner – as he performs experimental surgeries on her fellow slave women, trying to find a treatment for the painful post-childbirth complications known as fistulas. Reframing the origin story of modern gynecology, Behind the Sheet tells how these women supported each other, and questions who, and what, history remembers.
The cast includes Nia Calloway, Naomi Lorrain, Cristina Pitter, Amber Reauchean Williams, Jehan O. Young, Shawn Randall, Joel Ripka, Megan Tusing, and Stephen James Anthony under the direction of Collette Robert.
Behind The Sheet is part of the EST/Sloan Science & Technology project.
Lawrence E. Moten III (set), Sarah Woodham (costumes), Adam Honoré (lighting) and Fan Zhang (sound) round out the creative team. Please be aware that this performance includes explicit depictions of medical procedures and theatrical haze/fog.
Ars Nova has announced an international tour of their critically acclaimed Off-Broadway hit, Underground Railroad Game, created by and starring Jennifer Kidwell and Scott R. Sheppard.
The tour will begin in Theater Der Welt in Hamburg, Germany, in June 2017, followed by a 3-week run in Washington, D.C., at Woolly Mammoth in April 2018. Additional tour dates to be announced.
Tamara Rodriguez Reichberg
Underground Railroad Game began in Philadelphia’s FringeArts Festival. The entire run of 10 performances sold out and over 1,200 people attended. As a result of overwhelming sales and demand, FringeArts remounted URG in May of 2016. In the fall, URG made it’s New York premiere in Ars Nova’s 2016 season.
Underground Railroad Game welcomes audiences (as fifth-grade students) to Hanover Middle School, where a pair of teachers get down and dirty with the day’s lesson. The nimble duo goes round after round on the mat of our nation’s history, tackling race, sex, and power in this R-rated, kaleidoscopic and fearless comedy. Forget everything you thought you knew about history. They take history off the page and make it real again.
Check out arsnovanyc.com for more information.