Updated: Wed, May 8, 2013

NEW YORK (AP) — The cast members of the Tony Award-nominated "Matilda" are arguably all stars. This week, they chatted with a man closer to the actual cosmic ones. About three dozen cast members — including many children — packed a small room near Times Square on Tuesday to speak to an...

Updated: Tue, May 7, 2013

NEW YORK (AP) — Scottish author and playwright J.M. Barrie, creator of Peter Pan and Neverland, also wrote intelligent comedies for adults confounded by the fast-changing Edwardian era. The Pearl Theatre is closing out its 29th season with a lighthearted pair of Barrie's plays, combined in...

Updated: Tue, May 7, 2013

NEW YORK (AP) — A 17-year-old from Pittsburgh has won the fifth annual August Wilson Monologue Competition, performing a section of the playwright's "King Hedley II" with powerful skill. Tambi Gxuluwe, who attends West Mifflin Area High School, took the first place trophy Monday night by...

Updated: Tue, May 7, 2013

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Oscar-winning actress Whoopi Goldberg has joined the artist lineup for the Guthrie Theater's 50th anniversary celebration. Goldberg will appear in "BEHOLD: A Gala Performance" on June 22. It's Goldberg's first time back on the Guthrie stage since her five-night engagement...

Updated: Mon, May 6, 2013

NEW YORK (AP) — What a thrill it must have been to be present during artistic collaborations between performing arts legends like George Balanchine and Igor Stravinsky. Richard Nelson's intimate, bittersweet new drama, "Nikolai and the Others," about the immortality of art, showcases a purely...

Updated: Mon, May 6, 2013

NEW YORK (AP) — Tony Award nominations often mean a big bump at the box office, but not this year so far. "Kinky Boots," ''Matilda: The Musical," ''Pippin" and "Rodgers + Hammerstein's Cinderella" — the four shows that got the most nominations Tuesday — either lost money or saw only small...

Updated: Mon, May 6, 2013

NEW YORK (AP) — The play "Orphans" has been orphaned on Broadway. Producers said Monday that Lyle Kessler's play starring Alec Baldwin will close May 19 after 27 previews and 37 regular performances at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre. The play earned Tom Sturridge a best lead actor Tony Award...

Updated: Mon, May 6, 2013

NEW YORK (AP) — Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart will get some high-caliber help onstage this fall — Tony Award winners Billy Crudup and Shuler Hensley. Producers of the upcoming Broadway revivals of Harold Pinter's "No Man's Land" and Samuel Beckett's "Waiting for Godot" said Monday that...

Updated: Sun, May 5, 2013

NEW YORK (AP) — Frederic Franklin, a British-born dancer who helped popularize modern ballet in the United States and performed until his mid-90s, has died. He was 98. Franklin succumbed to complications from pneumonia on Saturday at a Manhattan hospital, according to his lifelong partner,...

Barbara Mackay

Published: Sun, May 5, 2013

The final production of Arena Stage's 2012-2013 season is an intense, funny drama about generational conflict, political turmoil and familial survival. Jon Robin Baitz's "Other Desert Cities" takes place in the well-appointed Palm Springs home of a conservative, wealthy ex-actor, ex-politician...