Members of The Actors Center gathered Sunday, November 21 to share stories and remember our colleague and friend Ira Hawkins, a company member since 2006.
Quinta Brunson’s new workplace comedy Abbott Elementary comes to ABC in 2022. Company member Chris Perfetti joins the cast. Watch the pilot episode, now available in a special early premiere. New episodes will air starting Tuesday, January 4th, 2022.
“I don’t think I’ve ever been involved in a play that spoke so directly to a human crisis that is alive in the audience’s psyche,” says company member Marjan Neshat about her recent play Selling Kabul. “It feels essential to tell this story. It feels essential that people don’t get their news feed and forget. Our foreign policy has consequences and unfortunately, right now the consequences for the people in Afghanistan are beyond dire. It is really important to me that this play is made about a family, there are no dialects, they are not otherised. I would love people to be moved beyond just empathy but feel the desire to help.”
As the theater community mourns the passing of Stephen Sondheim and celebrates his legacy, The New York Times has compiled a list of moving performances of his songs, including work from Actors Center company members, Judy Kuhn and Patrick Mulryan.
Plays For Us, a reading series curated by company members Kathryn Markey and Dee Pelletier continues on Thursday, December 16 at 7pm ET, reading Ellen Wittlinger’s play Leftovers. Plays For Us is devoted to featuring new work with substantial roles for women in middle age and up.
Bree Elrod’s new film Red Rocket is now in theaters. Simon Rex plays Mikey Saber, a washed-up porn star who returns to his small Texas hometown, even though no one there really wants him back. Bree plays his estranged wife Lexi. Directed by Sean Baker from a screenplay by Baker and Chris Bergoch, Red Rocket debuted at the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year.
Red Pill, the feature film directorial debut from company member Tonya Pinkins, is now available to rent and stream. A progressive dystopian nightmare that takes place Halloween weekend before the 2020 election, six old friends ride into red country armed with humor and naiveté. When they meet an immovable force, their plans are thwarted and their fight to win the election becomes a fight for their lives.
Rachel Pickup plays Miranda opposite Michael Pennington in the London Jermyn Street Theatre production of Shakespeare’s The Tempest, running now through December 22. The cast includes Peter Bramhill, Richard Derrington, Lynn Farleigh, Jim Findley, Whitney Kehinde, and Tam Williams. Directed by Tom Littler
Company member Ben Beckley is in the Broadway tour production of A Christmas Carol in San Francisco. The 2020 Tony Award-winning interpretation of Charles Dickens’s classic is remounted from playwright Jack Throne and director Matthew Warchus and with Francois Battiste as Scrooge. The production runs through December 26.