Home of the FREE weekly email Update

Bulletin: Arena's Open House At The Lincoln Postponed To May 30

The open house at the Lincoln Theatre which we reported this week would take place tonight will, in fact, be held on May 30. It will be a combed open house and season preview.

Arena Selects 10 Ten-Minute Student-Written Plays Out Of 700

Each year, Arena Stage solicits entries from Potomac Region students for a ten-minute play competition. This year they received almost 700 entries from students in 67 middle and high schools. Ten have been selected for development and presentation under professional directors with professional actors in two evenings later this month. On May 21 the middle school student plays will be performed and on May 22 it will be the high school student plays. Admission is free but the theater requests that people make reservations by calling 202-488-3300.The ten winning playwrights are: Emma Bergman (Eastern Middle School, Silver Spring), Gabriel Brehm (Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, Alexandria), Shekinah Ceasar (Kingsbury Day School, Washington), Katharine Nowell Keating (Belle View Elementary School, Alexandria), Stephen Miller (Central High School, Capitol Heights), Anthony Pape-Calabrese (Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School, Bethesda), Forrest Penrod (The Sitar Center for the Arts, Washington), Thomas Frederick Smilack (Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, Alexandria), Emily Wolfteich (Thomas Edison High School, Alexandria) and Samantha Eunmi Yi (Fairfax High School, Fairfax).

Synetic Tops The List: 14 Shows at 8 Theaters Share Helen Hayes Awards in 24 Categories

The Helen Hayes Awards for outstanding achievement in the Washington professional theater community in 2007 were announced at a gala ceremony last night at the Warner Theater. Synetic Theatre led the field, winning a total of six awards for work on two of its shows, Macbeth (5 awards) and Hamlet … the rest is silence (1). Three other companies received five awards each, Signature Theatre for work on three shows, Merrily We Roll Along (2) The Witches of Eastwick (2) and Saving Aimee (1), Studio Theatre for two shows, Souvenir, A Fantasia on the Life of Florence Foster Jenkins (3) and Reefer Madness: The Musical (2) and Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company for two shows, Dead Man's Cell Phone (3) and She Stoops to Comedy (2). Click here to see the full list of nominees and recipients.

Arena Adds Lincoln Theatre As A Venue For 2008-09 Season

While their campus in Southwest Washington undergoes construction to become the Mead Center for the American Theatre, Arena Stage will be producing their 2008-09 season at two venues, the Crystal City facility in Arlington, Virginia and Lincoln Theatre on U Street NW. The company will host a free season preview in the Lincoln this Wednesday evening which will give Potomac Region theatergoers a chance to check out the new venue. Reservations can be made by calling 202-488-3300. Click here to see Arena's 2008-09 season.

City In A Swamp Opens New Show In Adams Morgan

The company that mounted the election-cycle comedy revue Primary Urges at the Warehouse last year now present a new show on the topic of ecological politics in the age of global warming, Some Make It Hot. The new revue by the same team, composer Howard Bennett and lyricist Nicholas Zill, will be performed in the Sitar Arts Center, a youth arts facility on Kalorama Road in Adams Morgan, for three weekends running Friday and Saturday at 8 pm and Sunday afternoons at 3. The cast includes Gerry Browning, Mary Jean Bruno, Michael Bruno, Rachael Goldman and Doug Smith. Tickets are $25 and can be reserved at 202-364-8644.

Ten-Minute Plays For Source Festival Announced

Three sets of eight or nine playlets, each lasting under ten minutes, have been set for the first week of the Source Festival which will mark the return to full programming for the renovated Source Theatre on 14th Street NW. All plays will be world premieres and each will be directed by a noted local director. The festival kicks off June 23 with a set hosted by magician Matthew Holtzlaw. On the 24th the second set will be hosted by spoken word artist Regie Cabico. Finally, on the 25th, hip hop DJ Nick the 1 Da acts as master of ceremonies for the third set. Each set will be repeated three more times during the week. Click here to see the full schedule.

Round The World Children's' Theaters Perform The Bard On His Birthday

Today in New Zealand, as the clock reached 7 pm, the first of a round-the-world series of productions of abridged versions of Shakespeare's plays will be performed by youngsters in the Kristin School in the northern fringe of Aukland. They will be performing an abbreviated version of Romeo and Juliet at the same time that students of the International School, Nadi on Fiji perform a shortened A Midsummer Night's Dream. These are the two locations in the Greenwich Mean Time + 12 zone participating in the worldwide Shakespeare 24 celebration. As 7 pm arrives in each time zone around the globe, students will be performing in 65 locations one of 15 shortened versions of Shakespeare's plays to mark the 444th anniversary of his birth. When 7 pm arrives here in Greenwich - 4, performers in Ontario, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia take to the stage. The Maryland participants are the Junior & Senior Shakespeare Ensembles of Imagination Stage in Bethesda. Their Virginia counterparts will be the students in StagePlay, a youth group which will perform the abbreviated A Midsummer Night's Dream in the George Washington Masonic Memorial in Alexandria. Both performances are free of charge. For information on the Virginia event, call 703-619-5206. For information on Imagination Stage's performance for which reservations are required, call 301-280-1660.

Damage to Bethesda Theatre Causes Cancellation Of Entire Run of Smokey Joe's Café

As we reported yesterday, the Bethesda Theatre suffered water damage from a leak in the building above the theater. The theater management assessed the extent of the damage on Monday and determined that it was severe enough to require the cancellation of the rest of the run of the show that opened there just over three weeks ago. Smokey Joe's Café was scheduled to run through May 11.

Bethesda Theatre Suffers Water Damage - Shows May Be Cancelled

A plumbing problem in the building above the Bethesda Theatre caused the cancellation of the shows over this past weekend, and it is not yet certain when performances of Smokey Joe's Café will resume. Ticket holders should call 301-657-7827 before going to the theater. The water has damaged portions of the theater's ceiling and some of the electrical system got wet. Workers will be repairing and assessing the damage on Monday. The theater is scheduled to be dark on Monday and Tuesday.

Hunter Foster & Jennifer Cody Visit ArtSpeak Monday

ArtSpeak, the free program that brings top talent from Broadway and local stages to meet, answer questions from and sing for children and families at Poe Middle School in Annandale, Virginia, will host the married couple Hunter Foster and Jennifer Cody, who each have earned names for themselves in musical theater, at a joint appearance this Monday, April 21 at 7 pm. Foster wraps up a five week run in the superb Signature Theatre production of Kiss of the Spider Woman this weekend. His Broadway credits include originating the role of Bobby Strong in Urinetown. He was nominated for a Tony Award for his performance as "Seymour" in the 2003 production of Little Shop of Horrors. His wife Jennifer Cody was "Poopsie" in the recent Broadway revival of The Pajama Game and "Little Becky Two Shoes" in Urinetown.

Kennedy Center Slates Free Junior All-Stars Show For Saturday

Millennium Stage, the Kennedy Center series of free performances every evening of the year at 6 o'clock, will have the ten to fourteen year old students of The Broadway Junior All-Stars performing The Musical Adventures of Flat Stanley in the Concert Hall this Saturday. With music and lyrics by Bryan Louiselle and book by director Timothy A. McDonald based on the Flat Stanley books, the show will be performed by the Broadway Junior All-Stars, a group of students from the greater New York area. No tickets are required.

CENTERSTAGE 2008-09 Season Announced

A six-show season for Baltimore's CENTERSTAGE has been announced. It will include productions of well known plays such as The Matchmaker, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and the musical Caroline, or Change as well as new works: Lynn Nottage's Fabulation, or The Re-education of Undine and Theresa Rebeck's The Understudy.  The 17th Century revenge tragedy ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore rounds out the season.

Special Awards At Helen Hayes Ceremony Announced

On April 28, when the Potomac Region professional theater community gathers for the Helen Hayes Awards at a ceremony that is usually referred to as Washington's Greatest Cast Party, there will be four special awards presented. For the first time, there will be the presentation of the John Aniello Award for Outstanding Emerging Theatre Company. It will go to the Taffety Punk Theatre Company. The Washington Post Award for Innovative Leadership in the Theatre Community will go to the alliance responsible for the temporary relocation of Arena Stage during the expansion of their campus in South East Washington into the Mead Center for the American Theater. That alliance includes Arlington County, the Crystal City Business Improvement District, Vornado/Charles E. Smith and Marriott, as well as Arena itself. The Governors' Award is an honor not often bestowed. In fact, it has been given but twice before: to Zelda Fichandler and Roger Meersman. This year, the third award will be given. It goes to Bob Davis and Henry Schalizki who have rarely missed an opening night in nearly half a century. The Helen Hayes Tribute sponsored by Gilbert and Jaylee Mead will be presented to British actor/director Sir Derek Jacobi.

Two Free Events Tonight: Ford's / Portrait Gallery Lincoln Program & Taffety Punk's Readings

Theatergoers have two free programs to choose from this evening. After the success of the performance last February at the National Portrait Gallery of a presentation based on the personal photograph collection of Abraham and Mary Lincoln, Ford's Theatre and the Gallery again team for a Lincoln-themed presentation as James L. Swanson, author of the book Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln's Killer, takes the stage on this anniversary of the assassination. He will attempt to "re-create the atmosphere of chaos and mourning that befell Washington 1865." The performance at the National Portrait Gallery at Eighth and G Streets NW begins at 7. Admission is free but reservations are desirable. They can be made by calling 202-633-8520. Just four blocks from there, at the Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company on D Street NW, Taffety Punk offers a free staged reading of The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail at 8, but it will be preceded at 7 by free "concert readings" of the winners of two playwriting competitions, also for free.

National Press Club Mounts Staged Reading Tonight  (Friday, April 11)

Anthony E. Gallo's play Eugenio will receive a staged reading tonight at the National Press Club on 14th Street, NW, under the direction of Roland Brandford Gomez. The play is a dramatization of the true story of a Jewish Rabbi in Rome who, at the height of World War II and against the background of the Holocaust, takes asylum in the Vatican and eventually converts to Catholicism. Eddie Page will narrate while the cast will include Mark Adams, Mary Ayala-Bush, Marcus Dunn, Ron Field, Bonnie Jourdan, Albert Patrasek and John Shackelford. The event is free but reservations are required. Call 202-662-7501.

Two New Theater Companies Launch in Silver Spring Tonight

The Potomac Region theater community becomes richer this evening when two new theater companies open their inaugural productions. Troika begins three weeks of performances  of The Elephant Man in the Back Room of Jackie's Restaurant, 8081 Georgia Avenue, and dog & pony dc opens a three week run of Shakespeare's Cymbeline at the Round House Silver Spring facility on Colesville Road. Troika is a joint effort of Roman S. Gusso, who will play the title role, and Roselie Vasquez-Yetter, who will direct the production which will capitalize on the non-traditional space for a serious drama with a live musical accompaniment by cellist Tom Zebo. A package deal for dinner before the evening performances or brunch before the Sunday matinee is available, although show-only seats will also be available at $18.50. Reservations can be made by calling 301-445-0145. The production of Cymbeline will have an ensemble of seven under the auspices of dog & pony dc which is an effort of Wyckham Avery, Lorraine Ressegger and Rachel Grossman. Tickets will be $15 and can be purchased online at www.dogandponydc.org or at the door.

A Thought To Ponder - Couldn't The Library of Congress Find More Theater Living Legends?

The Library of Congress has announced the newest seven "Living Legends" in their series honoring notable Americans. The list includes a race car driver, an athlete, a musician, an activist, an historian and two journalists, but no one notable for accomplishments on or about the stage. This wouldn't be surprising if it were just this seven. But they join a list of ninety, and one would think that the theatrical arts would be more significantly represented among the now ninety-seven. One would be wrong. Only two were selected on the basis of theatrical credentials - Gwen Verdon and Stephen Sondheim. While no one would question whether the likes of Cal Ripkin, Jr.,  Tiger Woods or Walter Cronkite qualify as "Living Legends," there must be room for more of the greats of American theater while they are still living. How about adding John Kander or Jerry Herman to the list alongside Mr. Sondheim? Or wouldn't Julie Andrews, Angela Lansbury, Barbara Cook, Chita Rivera or Carol Channing (yes, she's still a living legend) belong alongside Ms. Verdon? How about Terrence McNally or Edward Albee? Why no Harold Prince? The list could go on, but the point is already made.

Folger's Macbeth And Signature's Spider Woman Share Ushers' Favorite Show Award

The Ushers who volunteer at theaters throughout the Potomac Region and who participate in Potomac Stages' Ushers Favorite Show Award program have selected two shows as their favorites among all the shows they saw during March: Folger Theatre's atmospheric version of Shakespeare's Macbeth using illusion as well as emotion in a production co-directed by Teller and Aaron Posner and Signature Theatre's equally atmospheric production of the Kander and Ebb musical version of the novel by Manuel Puig, Kiss of the Spider Woman, with a book by Terrence McNally. Both shows are still playing. Macbeth has extended through April 13 and Kiss of the Spider Woman runs through April 20.

Local & Atlanta Students Compete Reading August Wilson Monologues At Kennedy Center Tonight

The free Millennium Stage presentation tonight will be an unusual one. Every night at 6 o'clock the Kennedy Center has a free performance which is usually a musical group or a dance piece. At times it will be a theater piece. Tonight it will be a competition between local high school students and the winners of a similar competition in Atlanta delivering monologues from the plays of August Wilson as the Center's unprecedented month-long presentation of staged readings of all ten of his Hill District Cycle, August Wilson's 20th Century, comes to a close. Judging the competition will be Kenny Leon, the Atlanta-based artistic director of the Center's staged readings, Todd Kriedler who served as dramaturg for the two Broadway productions of August Wilson plays which Leon directed, and at least one celebrity judge. The local students were selected in a preliminary round of students from the Duke Ellington School of the Arts, the Friendship Public Charter School and the School Without Walls. They are: Mayaa Boateng, Darelle Doleman, Emily Gilson, Chelsea Harrison, Kalon Hayward, Thandiwe Hunter, Anine Iverson, Trevor Joyner, LeAsha Julius and Antonio Tillman. The winners will receive scholarships. The competition will be in the Centers Family Theater and no tickets are required.

Cast Members' Surgery Forces Cancellation Of This Weekend's Performances Of Eccentricities of a Nightingale

The American Century Theater has cancelled this weekend's performances of the rarely seen Tennessee Williams play The Eccentricities of a Nightingale due to the emergency surgery that one of the cast members underwent earlier this week. The new opening night will be Wednesday, April 9.

Arts Club of Washington's Play Writing Contest Seeks Applicants

A new play writing contest sponsored by the Arts Club of Washington is now accepting scripts in two categories, One-Act Plays and First Act of Multi-Act Plays. The authors of the winning entries each receive a $500 prize and the Arts Club will mount either a reading or small scale production of the winners later this year. Each entry must be of an un-published/un-produced stage play. Movie or television scripts are not eligible. The winners will be announced in June. There is a $10 application fee. More information and the application form are available online at www.artsclubofwashington.org.

West Virginia Festival Sets Five Contemporary Plays For Summer '08

The Contemporary American Theater Festival has announced this summer's crop of plays at Shepherd University in West Virginia. The festival will offer plays by the author of Urinetown, Greg Kotis, as well as by Lydia R. Diamond,  Neil LaBute, J.T. Rogers and the final comedy in Richard Dresser's Happiness Trilogy; and will run from July 9 to August 3.  While there are five instead of the usual four shows, the schedule has been laid out to make it possible to see all of them in a single over-night trip. Of course, you can drive up for selected shows as well. Shepherdstown is just 65 miles from the Beltway. Click here to see the line up.

Arena's 33 Variations Takes Theatre Critics Association Prize For Best New Play

33 Variations, Moises Kaufman's drama of Beethoven's creation of the Diabelli Variations, which received its world premiere at Arena Stage last August, has won the American Theatre Critics Association / Steinberg Award for best new play of 2007. The competition is open to any play receiving its professional debut outside of New York City during the year. The award carries a $25,000 cash prize. At the same time, two plays received citations and $7,500 prizes including one that premiered at Woolly Mammoth Theatre, Sarah Ruhl's Dead Man's Cell Phone. The other citation went to End Days by Deborah Zoe Laufer which premiered at Florida Stage in Manalapan in southern Florida.