Tagged: theater

On our audio diary series The Big Break, our apprentices gear up for audition season. Louisville Ballet trainee Claire Horrocks explains why January kicks off her least favorite time of year, while Actors Theatre of Louisville apprentice Samantha Beach explains the audition showcase the apprentices host for casting directors and agents during the Humana Festival. 

Broadway has seen no shortage of iconic, music-fueled films adapted for the stage in recent years, to varying degrees of success. “Sister Act” and “Footloose” met with mixed critical responses, but “Hairspray” knocked the ball out of the park, winning eight Tony Awards.  “Flashdance” is the latest Eighties film to get the Broadway musical treatment, and the musical is previewing with a national tour before it makes its way to New York later this year.

Every year, Actors Theatre of Louisville produces a slate of ten-minute plays featuring the members of the acting apprentice company. Many of the plays are directed by directing interns, and literary interns serve as dramaturgs, too. The plays are selected from submissions to the annual National Ten-Minute Play Contest, some of which go on to be produced for the final weekend of the Humana Festival of New American Plays. 

Actor's Choice opened Suzan-Lori Parks' Pulitzer Prize-winning drama "Topdog/Underdog" Thursday in the Henry Clay Theatre. Directed by Kathi E.B. Ellis, this tense, finely-acted two-hander explores the relationship between two adult brothers, Lincoln and Booth, as they struggle with a legacy of abandonment by their parents, masculine identity, racism and the lure of a life of crime.