Best of Off Broadway Blog, News, New York, Tickets, Plays, Musicals

Designers Announced for Blank and Thompson's Liberty City Off-Broadway at NYTW

The design team for the upcoming New York Theatre Workshop production of Jessica Blank and April Yvette Thompson's Liberty City has been announced.

As previously reported, Liberty City will begin performances Feb. 15 and open March 4 for a run through March 16. Blank directs the solo show featuring Thompson.

The design team will include Anjte Ellerman (scenic), David Lander (lighting) and Jane Shaw (sound).

The new work is set in Liberty City, "a place where people of the African Diaspora have settled; where urban and island cultures rub up against each other, and the site of Miami's infamous 1980 riots," according to show notes. Billed as "part history, part imagination," the work centers on the personal story of its star: "a child of children of the 60's, the daughter of a Bahamian and Cuban father and an African American mother: free thinkers, movement people, and sometimes just plain poor. As the hope of the 60's and 70's gave way to the disintegration of the 80's, April's family struggled to survive and stay together."

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Off-Broadway Reviews and Ticket Availability

Click here to view Off-Broadway ticket availability and capsule reviews of selected shows as of Dec. 17. Unless otherwise noted, tickets are available at the theaters' box offices for the shows listed. Details about how to obtain tickets — including by calling the box office, Telecharge or Ticketmaster — appear at the end.

Off-Broadway Goes On

The off-Broadway production of Horton Foote's "Dividing the Estate," directed by Hartford Stage's Michael Wilson, is aiming to transfer to Broadway in the fall, Playbill reports.

The production, which has a sold-out run at Primary Stages in September, is now looking to go to a Shubert theater in November.

The production starred Elizabeth Ashley, Hallie Foote, Penny Fuller, Gerald McRaney, Arthur French and Devon Abner. Also featured were James DeMarse, Lynda Gravatt, Virginia Kull, Maggie Lacey, Nicole Lowrance, Jenny Dare Paulin and Keiana Richard.

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How to Get Tickets to Broadway and Off-Broadway Shows

The TKTS booth in Times Square is currently in a temporary location just outside the New York Marriott Marquis hotel on West 46th St., between Broadway and Eighth Avenue. It sells same-day discount tickets to Broadway, off-Broadway, music and dance productions. There is a $4 service charge per ticket. Cash or travelers checks only. Hours of operation are Monday through Saturday evening performances, 3 p.m.-8 p.m.; matinees Wednesday and Saturday, 10 a.m.-2 p.m.; Sunday 11 a.m.-7 p.m.

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Doubling up Off Broadway

Timesharing is turning into a trend Off Broadway.

Solo show "Dai (enough)" and tuner spoof "Forbidden Broadway," for instance, both play full skeds of seven or eight perfs per week -- and they both do it on the same stage at the 47th Street Theater. Showtimes are staggered, with "Dai" curtain at 6:30 p.m. and "Forbidden" at 8:15 p.m. on a typical evening.

The two offerings are following an example set by prior productions that found a way to make the tough economics of Off Broadway more bearable by sharing a venue. Two spaces at legit multiplex New World Stages currently host two shows each, with "Altar Boyz" and "Naked Boys Singing" both on Stage 4 and "Make Me a Song" and "My First Time" trading off on Stage 5.

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Acts of Love Extends

Dangerous Arrangement, Inc. presentation of Acts of Love, by Kathryn Chetkovich, has extended its off-Broadway engagement for a second time and will now play through to 6 Jan 2008 at Theatre Row's Lion Theatre.

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