The fabulous movie and stage star Sigourney Weaver (pictured left) was recently quoted as saying “I used to play the girl, now I play the grandmother.” Weaver, who turned 65 in October, stars in the recently released Bible epic film Exodus: Gods and Kings. She has enjoyed huge box office hits with Alien (and its three sequels), Working Girl, Gorillas in the Mist, Avatar, and Ghostbusters, which this year celebrated its 30th anniversary. A close friend of playwright Christopher Durang (they attended the Yale School of Drama at the same time), Weaver returned to Broadway in 2013 to star in his play Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike. Before that, she was seen in 1996 in Durang’s shortly-lived Sex and Longing. Her first Broadway gig was as an understudy in the 1975 revival of The Constant Wife that starred Ingrid Bergman.

2015 is starting to look like a good year for British playwright Alan Ayckbourn’s fans. Red Thread Theatre will present his 2002 play Snake in the Grass, January 8th-February 1st at the Marie Maday Theatre on the Canisius College campus. Co-directed by Eileen Dugan and Josephine Hogan, the production stars Dugan, Pamela Rose Mangus, and Adria Ryan. The prolific Ayckbourn is set to premiere his play number 79, Hero’s Welcome, in September 2015 in England.

The Kavinoky will present Ayckbourn’s 2013 play, Arrivals & Departures, March 6th-29th, directed by David Lamb. The play had a successful run in New York this past summer. The local production will star Guy Balotine, Aleks Malejs, Gerry Maher, Christopher Brandjes, Joe Liolos, Lisa Ludwig and Eileen Dugan. The company’s annual fundraising event the Kavinoky Kavalkade will be held on Saturday, April 11th at the Saturn Club.

Fearless Players will present the parody of sexual repression 5 Lesbians Eating a Quiche, written by Evan Linder and Andrew Hobgood. Directed by Todd Fuller, the production will star Sarah Gitenstein, Mary Hollis Inboden, Meg Johns, Thea Lux, Beth Stelling, and Maari Suorsa. It runs January 15th-31st at ART in the Box on Linwood Ave.

Buffalo Chrysalis Theatre’s production of The Importance of Being Earnest will star Phil Weiss, A. Peter Snodgrass, David Poole, Thomas Wilger, Jennifer Fitzery, Lauren McGowan, Leanne Troutman, and Elizabeth Oddy. Under the direction of Melissa Leventhal, the production will run February 13-March 1 at the Grange Theatre in Hamburg.

Torn Space Theater will open its twelfth season in March with a new take on Eugene O’Neill’s The Hairy Ape, directed by Dan Shanahan. Nora, Ingmar Bergman’s adaptation of Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House will be presented in November, directed by Robert Waterhouse. The company returns to Silo City in August with another original site-specific work by Shanahan, the western themed They Kill Things.

In March, Road Less Traveled will present the one new play by a local playwright in its line-up this season, Jon Elston’s After America: Wasteland 2015. Directed by Scott Behrend, the production will star Peter Palmisano, Lisa Vitrano, Danica Riddick, Steve Brachmann, Kelsey Mogensen, Monish Bhattacharyya, and Arlynn Knauff. Palmisano and Vitrano co-starred in Elston’s last sic-fi thriller Private Viewing in 2005.

In April, American Repertory Theater of WNY will present Rust Belt Grotesque, “an evening of one acts recounting the other side of regional history.” The featured plays are Mr. Pussy written by Matthew LaChiusa, starring Michael J. Starzynksi as a former Vaudeville star; Killing Simone written and directed by Mark. C Lloyd; It’s Because We Feel Deserted that We Wish to Bash Buffalo’s Brains In by Justin Karcher, directed by LaChiusa; and No One Will See by Jim Marzo, directed by Gail Golden.

Updates! Loraine O’Donnell has joined the cast of O’Connell & Company’s Songs for a New World, taking over for Katy Miner. Nathan Matthews will assume the direction of the UB Department of Theatre & Dance production of Spring Awakening.

Michael Seitz, Stefanos Psorakis, Brian Riggs, and Anne Hartley Pfohl (pictured above right, photo by Cheryl Gorski) will star in BUA’s upcoming production of Terrence McNally’s Mothers and Sons, directed by Jessica Rasp. The show opens February 20th at the Alleyway Theatre.