Latest news with #HeddaGabler
Daily Mail
03-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Lily Allen gets ready for her return to the West End as she shares glimpse at her preparations to take on iconic role of tragic heroine Hedda Gabler
Lily Allen is hard at work preparing to make her return to the West End, as she shared a slew of snaps from her rehearsals to play the famous role of Hedda Gabler. The singer, 40, is set to star in a new re-imagining of Henrik Ibsen's iconic play, Hedda, at the end of this month at the Theatre Royal Bath's Ustinov Studio. The production is being adapted and directed by Matthew Dunster, who also directed both of Lily's previous West End shows, and will run from 25 July to 23 August. And the Not Fair star gave fans a glimpse into her preparation process, as she shared selfies of her learning her lines in a rehearsal space. She also snapped a shot of her legs as she lounged on a sofa, with her hefty script open on her lap and her lines highlighted. Captioning the post, Lily teased her excitement at returning to the stage, as she wrote: 'WEST END GIRL'. Lily Allen is hard at work preparing to make her return to the West End, as she shared a slew of snaps from her rehearsals to play the famous role of Hedda Gabler The BRIT Award winner will star in Hedda opposite Imogen Stubbs, Ciaran Owens, Julia Chan and Tom Austen. A synopsis of the production reads: 'Returning from her honeymoon and already bored with her marriage, Hedda finds herself shattered by a destructive attraction to a seemingly brilliant but dissolute writer and blackmailed by an older predatory man. 'Suffocated and betrayed by these violent forces, there is only one choice left to her…' Lily's casting was announced in May last year, with her gushing she was thrilled to be playing the tragic heroine in a the intimate Ustinov Studio, which has a maximum capacity of just 126. While director Matthew explained at the time: 'Lily and I were talking about women we knew that were trapped in relationships where men had all the power, and how these 21st-century women were still being controlled and destroyed. 'The conversation turned to plays where we could explore those ideas. We thought of Hedda Gabler and the connections were obvious, exciting and devastating.' He added that their version of the famous Norwegian tragedy, would be 'absolutely for now'. It marks Lily's third turn at treading the boards, after making her West End debut in the summer of 2021, in supernatural thriller, 2:22 A Ghost Story. She was the first to play the character of Jenny - a part that has since been played by the likes of Cheryl, Constance Wu, and Stacey Dooley - and received rave reviews for her 'terrific stage presence'. Critics praised her as 'magnetic' and 'superb' and declared she gave 'a notably confident performance that belies her newcomer status.' She bagged her first Oliver Award nomination for the role and won the Best Actress gong at the WhatsOnStage Awards in 2022. The mother-of-two came back to the stage in 2023, starring in Martin McDonagh's production of The Pillowman opposite Steve Pemberton. She played Katurian in the revival of the 2003 play, which follows the fiction writer as she is imprisoned by a totalitarian state. She was the first woman to take on the role, after David Tennant portrayed the leading character in the original 2003 Olivier award-winning play. Speaking about the decision to cast a woman in the role, Lily told The Telegraph: 'I think it will add an extra layer of horror, because we're not used to seeing women being beaten up. 'It will be shocking, in that sense. I also feel that men don't necessarily get the same c**p for their artistic output that women do.'
Chicago Tribune
24-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Chicago Tribune
Elgin News Digest: Park district adds pre-concert demos to summer concerts; U-46's production of ‘Man of La Mancha' opens Thursday
Dundee Township Park District will offer demonstrations of two of the programs it offers prior to its 7 p.m. Tuesday summer concerts in July. Each will start at 6 p.m. and last 45 minutes. They include: For the full schedule of concerts, go to The School District U-46 summer theater production of 'Man of La Mancha' will run Thursday through Saturday, June 26-28, at the Streamwood High School auditorium, 701 W. Schaumburg Road. More than 75 students and employees from across the district's five high schools make up the cast, musicians and technical crew for the musical, according to a U-46 newsletter. Showtimes are 7 p.m. Thursday and Friday and noon Saturday. Tickets are $10 and can be purchased online through Booktix or at the door. The Janus Theatre Company opens its 27th season with 'The Ibsen Project: Hedda,' running Friday through Sunday, June 27-29, at the Elgin Arts Showcase, 164 Division St. Actors will perform Ibsen's 'Hedda Gabler' with scripts in hand, according to the Janus website. For an added twist, each performance will feature a different translation of the Norwegian playwright's work. The production is part of this year's 'Season of Outsiders' and features classic stories from the past brought to life for today's audiences, the website said. It is sponsored in part by the city of Elgin and Elgin Cultural Arts Commission. Showtimes are 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday and 6 p.m. Sunday. Tickets are $10. For tickets, go to For more about Janus' season, go to Duke's Blues Fest will be held from 5 to 11 p.m. Friday, June 27, and noon to 11 p.m. Saturday, June 28, in Carpenter Park, 275 Maple Ave., Carpentersville. In addition to live music music, the annual free festival will feature various food vendors, including southern cuisine, according to the event's social media post. Money raised goes to benefit nonprofit Taste the Love. Acts scheduled to perform Friday are Guitar Tony, Topeka Smith, The Johnsons, Michael Charles, Gloria and Ruth Ward and Tammy's Blues & Soul. Saturday's lineup will feature Blues Hart, The Cat Gaddis Project, Luke RePass, Carlisle Guy, the NuBlu Band and Sharay Reed. For more information, call 224-699-9030. Illinois' prairie ecosystems will be the topic of a Geneva Natural Resources Committee lecture at 2 p.m. Saturday, June 28, at the Geneva Public Library, 227 S. Seventh St. A Geneva Park District naturalist from Peck Farm Park will discuss the common characteristics of Illinois prairies and examine the different plants and animals found in prairies and methods land managers use to preserve them, event organizers said. The program is free but registration is recommended. For more information, go to the Geneva Public Library District's website,
Scotsman
20-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Scotsman
Gordon Barr on the Bard in the Botanics festival in Glasgow: 'we're very vulnerable to the weather'
Sign up to our Arts and Culture newsletter, get the latest news and reviews from our specialist arts writers Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... When Gordon Barr stepped up earlier this month to accept the Best Production of the Year Award at this year's Critic's Awards for Theatre in Scotland, few people in the world of Scottish theatre were surprised. As artistic director of Bard In The Botanics - the company that presents a powerful season of Shakespeare and other classics in Glasgow's Botanic Gardens every summer - Barr may be running a shoestring operation, compared with many of his colleagues. Yet the combination of brilliant classic texts, two magical midsummer settings outdoors in the gardens and in the Kibble Palace, and the gradual development, over more than 20 years, of an acting company whose skills have been honed by contact with some of the greatest dramatic poetry ever written, never fails to produce some breathtaking moments. And Barr's short but overwhelmingly intense 2024 version of Ibsen's Hedda Gabler, staged in the Kibble Palace and starring Nicole Cooper, overtook some spectacular competition to win the CATS premier award for the 2024-25 season. Gordon Barr | Contributed 'We don't really receive any direct public funding,' says Barr, in a break from rehearsals, 'although we depend on massive in-kind support from Glasgow City Council, who give us a very generous deal for the use of the Botanics, and for some storage space there. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad 'But apart from that - well there are some donations and so on, but 80 per cent of our income is from the box office, and that of course makes us very vulnerable to he vagaries of the Glasgow weather. Last year wasn't a great summer, and that meant we had to think in terms of a good, popular programme for this year, to try and boost our ticket income again.' The result is a four-show programme that features outdoor productions - directed by Barr himself - of two of the most popular Shakespeare plays in the canon, A Midsummer Night's Dream and Romeo And Juliet; alongside Kibble Palace versions, by Barr's associate director Jennifer Dick, of Christopher Marlowe's Faustus, and her own play Sherlock Holmes: A Scandal In Bohemia, adapted from three of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's most famous Holmes stories. 'All of these plays involve titles that audiences will recognise,' says Barr, 'and that they'll enjoy seeing in new versions. For me, though,' adds Barr, who is famous for his radical gender-shifting approach to Shakespeare's texts, 'this season marks a really interesting return to the first two plays I ever directed in the Botanics, when I arrived in 2004. For Romeo And Juliet, in the second half of the season, I'm looking at quite a modern dress approach. Sam Stopford is playing Romeo, with Lola Aluko as Juliet, and I'm hoping to foreground the young people in the story, and explore how they feel they have been failed by the older generation, and left to live with the broken society they have created. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Rehearsals for A Midsummer Night's Dream at Bard in the Botnics | Contributed 'And for A Midsummer Night's Dream - well I think I'm taking a relatively conventional approach this year. At any rate, all four of the lovers will be as written by Shakespeare, in terms of gender; and I'm focusing very much on the play's relationship with nature. Titania's fairies will be real magical creatures, spirits of the natural world. 'One thing I have changed, though,' says Barr, 'is the relationship between Oberon and Titania, the fairy king and queen. What happens in the original - with Oberon doing Titania wrong, and then using his magic to trick and mock her into accepting it - just seemed too patriarchal, to me. 'So in this version, it will be Oberon who is put under a spell, and who falls in love with an ass. With Allan Steele playing Bottom, that should be fun. And that will be out on our glorious garden stage, of course; where there's no avoiding the sheer power of the natural world, for better or worse, and whether it smiles on us or not."
Yahoo
12-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Harris Yulin, prolific stage and screen actor of ‘Ghostbusters II' fame, dead at 87
Actor Harris Yulin, an Emmy-nominated actor who appeared in projects including 'Frasier' and 'Ghostbusters II,' has died. He was 87. The news was confirmed by Yulin's manager Sue Leibman, who said in an email to CNN that he passed away June 10 in New York City from a cardiac arrest. Yulin was a decorated theater actor, playing Hamlet three times off-Broadway and appearing in plays on Broadway including 'Hedda Gabler,' 'The Price' and 'The Visit.' He also taught at NYC's prestigious Juilliard School for eight years. Leibman's email said Yulin was working on new projects with actor and longtime collaborator Stacy Keach up until the time of his death. The actor brought his theatrical stage presence into his film work, appearing in 'Looking for Richard' with Al Pacino in 1996. Yulin is perhaps best known to audiences as the angry judge in 1989's 'Ghostbusters II' who unwittingly causes the supernatural goo to boil over and ghosts to wreak havoc in the courtroom. His other notable film roles included parts in 'Scarface,' 'Clear and Present Danger,' 'Training Day' and 'Multiplicity.' On the small screen, Yulin scored an Emmy nomination for his work on 'Frasier' in 1996. He also appeared on 'Veep,' 'The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt,' 'And Just Like That…,' 'Billions' and 'Divorce.' Recently, Yulin had a major arc on the hit Netflix series 'Ozark' opposite Jason Bateman and Laura Linney. In the weeks prior to his death, Yulin was preparing to work on a new TV series costarring Linney along with Kevin Kline titled 'American Classic.' The director of that series, Michael Hoffman, called Yulin 'very simply one of the greatest artists I have ever encountered,' according to a statement provided by Leibman. 'And what he was as an actor, he was as a man, the grace, the humility, the generosity. All of us at 'American Classic' have been blessed by our experience with him,' Hoffman added. Yulin is survived by his wife Kristen Lowman, a son-in-law, a nephew and godchildren. He was predeceased by his daughter, actress Claire Lucido, Leibman said.
Express Tribune
11-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Express Tribune
Veteran actor Harris Yulin dies at 87 due to cardiac arrest
Acclaimed stage and screen actor Harris Yulin died on June 10, 2025, in New York City from cardiac arrest. He was 87. The news was confirmed by his family and longtime manager Sue Leibman. Born on November 5, 1937, in Los Angeles, Yulin enjoyed a prolific career across theater, television, and film. He made his New York stage debut in 1963 and his Broadway debut in 1980 in Watch on the Rhine. His Broadway credits include The Visit, The Price, The Diary of Anne Frank, and Hedda Gabler. Yulin's film appearances include Scarface, Clear and Present Danger, Ghostbusters, Training Day, and Multiplicity. He also played prominent roles on television, including arcs on Ozark, Veep, Frasier (earning him an Emmy nomination in 1996), and The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. Off-Broadway and regional theater were also central to his career. Yulin starred in Death of a Salesman in Dublin and directed plays like The Glass Menagerie and The Trip to Bountiful, the latter winning four Lucille Lortel Awards. In recent years, he taught acting at Juilliard, Columbia University, and HB Studios. Before his death, Yulin was preparing to film American Classic with Kevin Kline and Laura Linney, directed by Michael Hoffman. Director Hoffman praised Yulin as 'one of the greatest artists' he had ever worked with, noting his 'immense technique' and 'humility.' Harris Yulin is survived by his wife Kristen Lowman, son-in-law Ted Mineo, nephew Martin Crane, and godchildren Marco and Lara Greenberg. He was predeceased by his daughter, actress Claire Lucido. A memorial will be held at a later date.
