Two FSU/Asolo Conservatory grads are co-founding and co-artistic directing a new Urbanite Theater, bringing “contemporary playgoing opportunities” to downtown Sarasota . What makes Summer Wallace and Brendan Ragan's venture so different? A real estate developer is constructing a theater for them to show actor-driven exciting, fresh work.

By April 2015, the building should be up. The black box theater has been rented for $1 a year for 5 years. Fund-raising will equip it in time, it is hoped, for a fall 2015 opening.

With a nod to New York theater critic Charles Isherwood, the older you get, the sooner it seems you are faced with the prospect of listing the best productions of the year. This is an overwhelming task in New York, with literally hundreds of shows opening on Broadway, Off-Broadway and Off-Off. But doing the same is a challenge even in a city the size of Milwaukee. There is more theater happening in this culturally rich city than most people know. And when you are asked to rate the Top 5 productions instead of the Top 10 — well, one can imagine the anxiety this produces.

Marian Seldes, who passed away after a three-year slide into darkness, told me once: "One of the most enthralling moments for me in every play I do is crossing from Stage Left to Stage Right, or vice versa, depending on where the stage door is, and ravishing a moment there – just me and the ghost light."

Some in the professional theater community view critics as their natural enemy out to destroy or trivialize the efforts of all theatrical companies. Over time, a tradition of sorts began – something akin to the bridegroom not seeing his bride before the ceremony; in other words, bad luck or a doomed marriage. Bull. I’ve never met a fellow critic who walked into a theater hoping the production would be bad, boring or worse in order to write a clever, witty review that denigrates the production as a way of elevating their own importance.

During an early phase of rehearsals for Dancing Lessons,a new play for Barrington Stage Company, we met with playwright Mark St. Germain at Dottie’s for breakfast. It has become an annual ritual to discuss the development of his plays. Mark has become a mentor and friend. He is a rich and knowledgeable primary resource both for understanding theater as well as many unique insights of the challenges of a life in the arts.

In a January 10, 2013 review in the New York Times Charles Isherwood wrote, “As you watch The Other Place,a slick, potently acted drama by Sharr White that opened on Broadway on Thursday night at the Samuel J. Friedman Theater, it may strike you now and then that your mind is playing tricks on you. Facts that seem firmly established in one scene melt into vapor a few scenes later, leaving you with a vague itch to press pause to sort things out, or maybe rewind. Or both.”

Since joining the America Theater Critics Association, we have attended conferences in Chicago, Indianapolis, Shepherdstown, West Virginia and, most recently, the 38th Humana Festival of New American Plays in Louisville, Kentucky. Through ATCA we are getting an overview of regional American theater. The well-organized conferences comprise intense experiences with meetings, panel discussions and major keynote speakers. (This time: Steinberg Award winning playwright Lauren Gunderson, who was also the keynote speaker for the conference. Also, longtime New York critic Ira J.

Janet Carl Smith, newly retired Deputy Commissioner of Chicago's Department of Cultural Affairs, advised leaders and members of the Arts and Cultural Alliance of Sarasota County to collaborate among themselves and others in an address on February 20, 2014. She shared experiences and ideas to the Alliance and is currently pushing for a renewal of a tax to benefit education in Sarasota, especially in the arts.

Tracy Letts has been known to get excited when honing and honing and honing his work “to make what I’m working on the very piece.” When things didn’t necessarily please him, there are rumors that he screamed, called people names, and wrote exhaustively long e-mails. In writing the screenplay for his Pulitzer Prize, Joseph Jefferson-, Tony-, and Drama Desk Award winning August: Osage County,which played Broadway in December 2007 for 18 months after premiering in his Chicago hometown’s Steppenwolf, he was probably just as vocal, but to himself.

It’s been said that Margo Martindale has gone from being an actress whose face moviegoers and TV viewers know to one who now has a brand name. “It’s nice when people come up to me and actually know my name! Usually it’s ‘Aren’t you -- ?’ or ‘Weren’t you in -- ?’ or ‘Hi, you’re the lady at my bank!’” Now, thanks to capturing the coveted role of Mattie Fae in the film adaptation of Tracy Letts’ Pulitzer Prize-winning August: Osage County[The Weinstein Company] and her boisterous and blistering performance, everyone’ll know her name.

PBS Great Performances and THIRTEEN have classic treats in store to ring in the holidays. First, on Friday, November 29, 2013: “Barbra Streisand: Back to Brooklyn,” a telecast of the diva's historic Brooklyn homecoming to christen the 19,000-seat, $1-billion Barclays Center, which marked her "home" concert since her childhood (and her first concert in six years). She performs 27 tunes from her five-decade career, joined by guests Il Volo, Chris Botti, a 60-piece orchestra led by William Ross, and, in quite a touching segment, her son Jason Gould.

The 17-week limited engagement of John Tiffany's critically acclaimed revival of Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie officially opens at the Booth Theater on September 26, 2013. The production marks the return to the stage of Tony, Drama Desk, and Emmy winner Cherry Jones, who costars as one of Williams' most memorable creations, Amanda Wingfield, the mother of crippled and shy Laura, played by Celia Keenan-Bolger (Peter and the Starcatcher) and Tom, portrayed by Zachary Quinto (Angels in America). Brian J.

The third season for Jenny Gersten, artistic director of the Williamstown Theater Festival, ends August 18, 2013 with the final performance of the Broadway-bound musical, The Bridges of Madison County on the Main Stage and the controversial Blood Playon the Nikos stage.

Some 23 years ago, Ed Herendeen, then with the Williamstown Theater Festival in an administrative position, was invited by the president of Shepherd University, in Shepherdstown, West Virginia, to organize an annual, summer Contemporary American Theatre Festival. Since then, CATF, with Herendeen as producing director, has presented 100 new plays either as premieres or second productions of works in development.

Remember the old M-G-M axiom: "More stars than there are in the heavens!" The 2013 Tony Awards, the 67th annual, telecast by CBS live from Radio City Music Hall on Sunday from 8-11 PM, has that beat. There'll be more stars than there are in the galaxy! Minus one, and more about that later.

The stars are aligning! Tony fav, six-time Emmy nominee and two-time winner and four-time Golden Globe nominee Neil Patrick Harris returns as the host with the mostest. Expect humorous barbs and songs.

Do you know the way to off-Broadway, where this has been one of the best seasons ever? Theaters are easy to find, and off-Broadway has everything Broadway has, including (as a rule, but not always) uncomfortable seats and stages that are (often but not always) smaller. However, OB also offers tickets that are definitely cheaper. Two of the best and most nominated shows are big hits, and two potential hits have just arrived.

Sue Mengers was a trailblazer as the first female super-agent. She was powerful, revengeful, and witheringly sarcastic, but to those she loved, and vice versa, she was a mensch. Ms. Mengers passed away in 2011 at age 79 after a series of chronic illnesses and tiny strokes. In John Logan's play currently running on Broadway, I'll Eat You Last: A Chat with Sue Mengers,she is channeled brilliantly by Bette Midler.

Charles Giuliano recently interviewed Massachusetts’ Barrington Stage Company artistic director Julianne Boyd about the homogenization of regional-theater programming.

Triple-threat Shonn Wiley has done lots of shows in all sorts of venues, but even if you were to chart his career only in terms of his participation in the City Center Encores! series of staged concert musicals, you'd see clearly that he's a rising star. His first Encores!