Theatre News

News

Playwriting alumnus Julián Mesri ’20 and Dramaturg alumna Meropi Peponides ’13 join the team behind Radical Evolution’s world premiere of Songs About Trains. A co-production between Working Theater and New Ohio Theater, Songs About Trains runs through April 23, 2022.

Concentration Head and Associate Professor of Playwriting David Henry Hwang will lead the screenplay for a new Anna May Wong biopic starring Gemma Chan, who is also a producer on the project. The project is an adaptation of Graham Russell Gao Hodges's biography of the early Hollywood star, Anna May Wong: From Laundrywoman's Daughter to Hollywood Legend. Wong’s career in Hollywood was often plagued by industry prejudice and discrimination. In response to her limited opportunities in Hollywood, she went overseas to perform in Europe. There, she dedicated much of her career to…

Poetry alumna Antoinette Cooper '20 and Theatre alumna C. Quintana '13 were recently awarded 2022 Winter Literature Grants from The Café Royal Cultural Foundation NYC to support their current projects.

What You Are Now, a new play by alumna Sam Chanse ’12, has enjoyed a successful world premiere at Manhattan’s Ensemble Studio Theater.

Directing alumnus Marc Atkinson Borrull ’16 will direct the Irish premiere of Nick Payne’s Constellations at Dublin’s historic Gate Theatre. 

Acting alumnus Marcel Spears '15 will star in an upcoming co-production of Fat Ham by James Ijames, produced by The Public Theater and National Black Theatre and directed by Saheem Ali '07. Starring alongside Spears in the production is Nikki Crawford as Tedra, Chris Herbie Holland as Tio, Billy Eugene Jones as Rev/Papp, Adrianna Mitchell as Opal, Calvin Leon Smith as Larry, and Benja Kay Thomas as Rabby. Marcel Spears will be playing the character of Juicy. 

Several Columbia University alumni have teamed up to create a new original series of digital shorts, entitled Marta Nesspek Presents. They are: Logan Reed ’21 (director), Kate Pressman ’20 (writer, illustrator, and hands performer), Elizagrace Madrone ’20 (producer and dramaturg), and Josh Brown ’20 (soundtrack composer). 

Acting student Anita Abdinezhad ’22 will make her Broadway debut this spring in Selina Fillinger’s new play, POTUS: Or, Behind Every Great Dumbass are Seven Women Trying to Keep Him Alive.

Adjunct Associate Professor Deborah Brevoort’s new opera Quamino’s Map had its world premiere at the Chicago Opera Theater on April 24, 2022.

Alumna Tamera Tomakili ’19 stars in the new sports drama Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty currently streaming on HBO Max. 

New work by alumnae Zizi Majid ’20Daaimah Mubashshir ’15Katherine Wilkinson ’19, and Gethsemane Herron-Coward ’19 join the billing for the 2022 Pipeline Festival. 

You might say that the show really begins with the ushers encouraging people to go to the bathroom and get water because the only intermission is around hour seven. Audiences are handed programs which indicate that the performance they’re about to see is Richard Wagner’s entire fifteen-hour, four-opera Ring Cycle.

Student Series

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Dramatic Influences

by Lillian Mottern

This series asks Columbia Theatre artists about their artistic obsessions—what drives these individuals, even as it drives them crazy?

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This is Who We Are

by Carlos Barragán

A series featuring Columbia School of the Arts’ professors, covering careers, pedagogy, and art-making.

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Theatre in Motion

by Anastasia Ellis

A series featuring Columbia theatre makers, discussing theatre's movement across stages, through time, and within communities.