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Before you license a musical, there is a months-long (or even years-long) process to creating the score for your show – and we’re not just talking about when the composer creates the music.

Theatre has always provided a wealth of great roles for women of all ages, but especially for those who’ve outgrown the role of ingénue.

The 17th annual Master Playwright Festival celebrated the life and work of the best-selling novelist of all time, Agatha Christie. Her name and legacy brought in over 16,000 people.

Jack Cannon examines Audrey Cefaly’s gritty reality of the modern South and the universality of the Southern experience.

On January 19, 2017, The Ghostlight Project encouraged theaters across the nation to shine a light for unity. Educator Phillip Goodchild took heart in the initiative and set out to bring it to his school. Here’s how he did it.

Nearly 18 years ago when Frank Haney, Carol Kimball, and Dave Stratton got together to write a country-western musical set in a trailer park, they knew that the loss of jobs due to corporate outsourcing had to be central to the story.

From the start, Rosary envisioned this play as a tour de force of obsession, rooted in the real life of the famous first great American novelist, based on detailed and shocking facts from her life.

According to Murphy, the Off-Broadway version was R-rated, “If we wanted Heathers to work for high schools, we’d have to find new ways to tell the same story in a PG-13 context. So we wrote and workshopped a brand new draft with the fantastic support of Samuel French and iTheatrics, and were surprised to discover that many of the changes turned out to be improvements.”

Beautiful address to playwrights from LEAP Playwright Program’s address in at November 2016.

Paddy Briggs writes about the new production of Present Laughter including reporting on extended interviews he had with the Director Stephen Unwin prior to the first rehearsals, at the first night and later in the run when it arrived in Richmond.

The Waverly Gallery revolves around a family’s experience as their matriarch slips further and further into dementia. Despite the gravity of the subject matter, the play is filled with comedy and delightful characters.

This season, The Playhouse San Antonio is mounting the classic THE SECRET GARDEN but with a beautiful, modern twist. Learn more here.

A high school student’s perspective on the joy and purpose of performing Heathers The Musical.

How do people change? Can they transform themselves? Or does change occur as a series of events? Learn more in this piece about Jen Silverman’s THE ROOMMATE.

In many plays written about young people, some by writers I admire, one can feel the adult hand shaping a moral universe for the characters to inhabit. I chose to avoid this when writing Hazelwood Jr. High. I wanted the play to feel as if it were written by a junior high school student.

At its core, Caddie Woodlawn is about family. It tells the story of a year in the life of a young pioneer girl, growing up in Wisconsin. Her tomboyish struggles with her strictly traditional mother and her devotion to her more indulgent father are at the heart of this coming-of-age tale. 

The four-time Emmy nominated, Writer’s Guild Award nominated, and Peabody Award winning writer, Erik Weiner, documents the explosive rise of his college project, The Bomb-itty of Errors.

Harold Pinter was a playwright entrenched in politics, who held a firm view of truth and falsehoods. Knowing that, how do his plays hold up in today’s society?

Photo journey of Pittsburgh’s DANI GIRL time at The Edinburgh Fringe Festival!

What happens when an actress takes on a one-woman show about America’s beloved humorist who championed women’s lives with wit and truth? Learn about her journey.

When famous superhero Blackjack the Bold is kidnapped by an evil sorcerer, it’s up to his assistant Inky to step up and save the day!

Simple enough for young audience members but witty enough for their parents, this bighearted adventure will thrill the entire family. Plus, there are ninja koalas.

Amanda dreamed of being a famous composer – not the daughter of an almost-divorce, the fiancée of an almost-celebrity, the ex of an almost-lover, and the writer of mediocre jingles. Maybe it’s a ridiculous dream – after all, how many brilliant female composers are there?

A bit period costume, a little bit Russian, and a lot gypsy punk. Learn more about GREAT COMET’s costume design here.

A story of a man’s final dream to put on a play. He chose Samuel Beckett’s Happy Days.

Samuel French’s Literary Associate Garrett Anderson discusses Bathsheba Doran’s The Mystery of Love and Sex.

Topher Payne is a playwright with complex truths that are often wrapped inside the crackling wit and slicing humor. Learn more about his style, work and 100-year-old house here.

This past summer, Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival produced Our Town with a company of 3 professional actors and 36 citizen actors from towns dotted around the theater’s performance-space home. Learn more in this feature.

This past fall, Samuel French launched Playwrights Welcome, a national initiative for Dramatists Guild Members that asks theaters to offer unsold tickets to professional playwrights on the day of a performance. Learn more here!

The fourth article in our feature on American Stage’s Century Cycle by August Wilson.

The third article in our feature on American Stage’s Century Cycle by August Wilson.

The second article in our feature on American Stage’s Century Cycle by August Wilson.