New Capitol Hill Theater Effort Mounts Godspell Starting Tonight

A new production of the musical Godspell will open tonight in a coffee house on Capitol Hill. Ebenezers Coffee House is a community outreach activity of National Community Church. It is a renovated 1908 diner a block from Union Station at 2nd and F Streets NE.  It opened as a coffee house last year and has hosted concerts and events, but this is the first excursion into producing theater. Godspell will be directed by Kacey McGowan and choreographed by Tiffani Hampton and Renee Vogel. Musical direction is by by Sarah Chilcote and Ellen Auer. The role of Jesus will be played by Nathan Spiwak, John the Baptist/Judas by Dan Cummins. Tonight's opening  has sold out but the show continues for six more performances through Easter Sunday, April 8. Tickets are $10. For information, call 202-558-6900.

Whiddon Narrates Loesser Documentary on PBS Tonight

Heart & Soul: The Life and Music of Frank Loesser, the man who composed the scores for Where’s Charlie?, Guys & Dolls,  The Most Happy Fella, Greenwillow and How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, will be aired on Maryland Public Television, station 22, at 10 o’clock tonight. Narrated by former Round House Theatre artistic director Jerry Whiddon, the program includes scenes from a roduction of Guys & Dolls at Silver Spring’s Blair High School when detailing the success of that show in school productions. Also included are glimpses into the rehearsals and performances of the world premiere of Loesser’s Señor Discretion Himself at Arena Stage in 2004. The documentary was directed by Silver Spring Media Arts’ Walter Gottlieb.

Thomas Jefferson and William Shakespeare - And Lodging On The Lawn!

If you've ever wanted to live "on the lawn" at the University of Virginia in the rooms that Thomas Jefferson designed for his "academical village," or wanted to study the works of Shakespeare, here's your chance to do both. The University of Virginia's program of summer offerings of the School of Continuing and Professional Studies includes a four-night program titled "The Play's the Thing," with lodging in the student rooms designed by Mr. Jefferson, classes, workshops and lectures on Shakespeare's work on the campus at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville and performances of Romeo and Juliet, Love's Labour's Lost and The Winter's Tale at the Blackfriars Playhouse of Shenandoah Shakespeare in Staunton, Virginia. The program is slated for June 27 to July 1. (And, no,  Mr. Jefferson didn't foresee the need for air-conditioning when he designed the accommodations on the lawn.) The fee is $1,295 per person. For information and registration, call 800-346-5252.

Woolly's Playwright Takes Questions Tonight

David Greenspan, who wrote She Stoops To Comedy which has just begun performances at Woolly Mammoth, will participate in a question and answer session following tonight's pay-what-you-can performance of the gender-bender which is set in a summer stock company doing As You Like It. Greenspan, who is currently appearing in Terrence McNally's latest play at Second Stage in New York, is traveling to Washington specifically to participate in the session.

Signature Kicks Off Free Series On Working On A New Musical Tonight

Harry A. Winter, a frequent cast member at Signature Theatre with Helen Hayes Award nominations for Pacific Overtures, 110 in the Shade and Allegro on their stage, will take a break from rehearsing the new musical Saving Aimee this evening at 7 o'clock to discuss the process of bringing a new musical to the stage. This is one of a series of presentations in cooperation with the Arlington County Public Library system. While Signature occupies two stories of the building above the new library in Shirlington, this first presentation will be at the Arlington Central Library at 1015 North Quincy Street. No reservation for the free event is required.

International Theatre Festival For Families and Teens Set For Imagination Stage

EDGEfest, a theater festival featuring international performing companies which will be held at Bethesda's Imagination Stage from March 31 to April 7, will include companies from Canada, Ireland and Russia. The Russian contribution will be a four actor-mime company, TOYS Theater of St. Petersburg. Their show is recommended for ages four and up. From Montreal comes DynamO Theatre, a troupe of acrobatic actors who will perform material recommended for ages seven and up. A company from Belfast, Northern Ireland, will perform Cuchulain: The Hound of Ulster for children ages 6 and up.

Baltimore's Everyman Picks Architect For Its New Theater

Everyman Theatre has picked Baltimore based firm Cho Benn Holback and Associates to design is future home, the renovated Town Theatre on West Fayette Street less than two miles south of their current home on North Charles. The project, to be completed in time for the 2009-10 season, will involve a complete demolition of the interior of the Town Theatre, a house that began life as a vaudeville venue, became a Yiddish theater, a burlesque house and even a parking garage before being remodeled as a 1,550 seat movie theatre. It closed in 1990 and has sat deserted for the past sixteen years. Now, it is to become a new home for Everyman with a 250 to 300 seat performance space and also rehearsal rooms, costume and scenery shops, administrative offices and dressing rooms. The project is tentatively budgeted at $11.5 million. Among Cho Benn Holback's prior projects are the renovation of Camden Station and Foundry on Fort at Locust Point, the Eubie Blake Jazz Museum and the Patterson Center for the Arts in Baltimore's Highlandtown area.

Hathaway & Levine's Just Theater For March Available Online

The television show Just Theater on which Potomac Stages' Brad Hathaway and Access Montgomery theater critic Faiga Levine discuss current offerings on local stages has been made available online at Google Video. This month, the pair discuss George M! currently playing at Toby's Dinner Theatre in Columbia, Family Secrets at Theater J, Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune at Arena Stage and Shaw's Shorts at the Washington Stage Guild. In addition, there is a short discussion of Doubt at National Theatre. The program can be viewed by going to http://video.google.com and entering the search term "Brad Hathaway" or by entering "http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-247121209383324584&hl=en." into your browser.

Kaiser, Kahn, Muse & The Fringe Take Theater Honors At Mayor's Arts Awards

The District's new mayor, Adrian Fenty, continued the two-decade tradition of sponsoring the Mayor's Arts Awards with a celebration at the Kennedy Center last night. Among the theater related awards handed out were a special recognition award to Michael Kahn of the Shakespeare Theatre Company and Michael Kaiser of the Kennedy Center for the Shakespeare in Washington festival, an Outstanding Emerging Artists award to director David Muse (Frankie & Johnny in the Clair de Lune, The Bluest Eye, Frozen and The Intelligent Design of Jenny Chow) and Capital Fringe, the organization which mounted the Capital Fringe Festival. Also honored was Arch Campbell, long time television critic whose reviews and interviews often included theater productions. The entire ceremony, including performances by Geraint Wyn Davies, AirBorne DC, and Sweet Honey In The Rock can be viewed online as part of the Kennedy Center's Millennium Stage program at www.kennedy-center.org.

The Ghosts of Edwin Booth Solo Play Performed Free At Smithsonian Starting Tonight

The auditorium of the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery will be the venue for free performances of a solo play featuring Gary Sloan as an actor who happens to look a lot like the famous nineteenth century Shakespearean actor, Edwin Booth, researching the history of his look-alike predecessor. Sloan, who happens to be an actor who looks a lot like Edwin Booth, has worked on stages throughout the Potomac Region and also spent several years living and working at Tudor Hall in Bel Air, Maryland, where both Edwin and his brother John Wilkes Booth were born. The Haunted Prince: The Ghosts of Edwin Booth, which features glimpses of Booth's great roles including Brutus, Romeo, Macbeth and Hamlet, will be performed at 7 pm every Monday night for the next five weeks. Admission is free. The Portrait Gallery is at Eighth and F Streets, NW, above the Gallery Place-Chinatown Metro station.

Solas Nua Distributes Thousands Of Free Irish Books On  Saint Patrick's Day

Tomorrow is Saint Patrick's Day and Solas Nua, the Washington based theater company devoted to contemporary Irish arts and culture, will mark the occasion with an Irish Book Day by distributing 4,000 volumes free to the public at seven locations throughout the region. The books have been contributed by Black Staff Press, Guildhall Press, Lagan Press, Summer Palace Press, and The Arts Council of Northern Ireland. They will be available at the following locations:

• Bethesda Row Cinema, 7235 Woodmont Avenue in Bethesda from 11 am to 3 pm
• Church Street Theatre, 1742 Church Street NW following the matinee and evening performances of Journeymen Theater's production of After Darwin
• Eamonn's - A Dublin Chipper, 728 King Street in Alexandria from noon to 7 pm
• Landmark's E Street Cinema, 555 11th Street, NW from 11 am to 8 pm
• Playbill Café, 1409 14th Street NW from 5 pm to 11 pm
• TICKETplace, 407 7th Street NW from 10:30 am to 5 pm
• Warehouse Theatre and Art Complex, 1021 7th Street NW from noon to midnight

First Light Readings Of Plays By Students And Professionals In Fairfax This Weekend

For the seventh year, Theater of the First Amendment at George Mason University's Center for the Arts presents a weekend of readings and workshops of new works by high school and college students and professional playwrights. This Saturday at 11:30 am there will be a presentation of a work, These are the Days (of Our Lives), by members of the on-campus Osher Lifelong Learning Institute Drama Club. At 1 pm there will be a reading of Five Variations on the Art of Aphrodite by Hayley Rushing, winner of the High School Playwriting Competition. At 3 pm it will be the winner of the collegiate level competition, Season with Sentiment by Harriet Lawrence. On Sunday the schedule includes plays by Karen Zacarías (El Virgen, directed by Kristin Johnsen-Neshati at 1 pm) Jack Gilhooley (The Warrior, directed by Lee Mikeska Gardner at 3 pm) and Gwydion Suilebhan (The Faithkiller, directed by Jeremy Skidmore at 5 pm.) Admission is free.

Theater Scholarships For High School Seniors Available

Again this year, NVTA -  an organization of community theaters in the Potomac Region - will offer $1,000 scholarships to high school seniors interested in pursuing their studies in performance or theater design. NVTA, which used to simply be the Northern Virginia Theatre Alliance, has grown to include 21 member companies in Virginia, four in Washington and two in Maryland. Each year they sponsor the One Act Play Festival. Information on the scholarship program is available from Anita Gardner at 703-978-7650.

Teatro de la Luna Offers Hansel & Gretel For Kids This Saturday

A Spanish language performance of the fairy tale Hansel & Gretel, adapted and directed by Jacqueline Briceño, will be presented at the Spectrum in Rosslyn this Saturday afternoon. The production is part of Teatro de la Luna's Experience Theater for children. Admission is $10 but tickets for children 12 and under are $5.

YPT's Snyder Replaces Woolly's Moore At The League of Washington Theatres

David Andrew Snyder, the Producing Artistic Director of Young Playwrights' Theater has assumed the leadership of the Washington League of Theatres after the departure of former President Kevin Moore. Snyder joined YPT after five seasons as the School Programs Administrator for the Shakespeare Theatre Company where he was also Director of the Camp Shakespeare program for young people.  Moore left the post as a result of his relocation when he resigned from Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company to become the new Managing Director of the Cleveland Playhouse in Ohio.

New Potomac Stages Server May Require Resetting Your "Home Page" and "Favorites" Settings

The demand for access to the pages of Potomac Stages on the internet has grown so much that the entire website had to be transferred to a bigger and better server. We hope the result is quicker, more reliable access, but the switch may require users who bookmark one or more of the pages at Potomac Stages as either "favorites" or even their "home page" to reset their selection. While the "url" or "uniform resource locator" for the site remains the familiar "www.PotomacStages.com" the extension ".html" or ".htm" may be required in some browsers. In most browsers, the simplest way to set a page as one of your favorites (and, thus, find it again easily) is to open the page and then click "add to favorites." To set either the site's welcome page or one of the other pages as your browser's home page, go to the page you want and then select "Internet Options" from the drop down menu under "Tools," then click "use current" under "home page," and then press "apply."  Anyone having difficulty with this process can email webmaster@PotomacStages.com for assistance.

Second Trilogy Of The Blues Play Premieres Tonight

The second play in a trilogy looking at the strengths of the African American family will debut tonight in a two-week run at THEARC Theatre, 1901 Mississippi Avenue SE. The first in the trilogy, Don't Sing No Blues For Me was produced at the Aldridge Theatre at Howard University in 2003. This second installment, titled The Blues of Lula Mae Jenkins, will be directed by Serenity Players Artistic Director Cody Jones. Both productions featured music by bassists B.T. Richardson. Tickets are $22.50 - $26.50.

Shakespeare in Tlingit Too

While Signature Theatre is presenting the Hebrew Macbeth (see today's review) another non-English production of a Shakespeare play comes to Washington. The Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian is presenting Alaska's Perseverance Theatre's production of Macbeth in a translation into Tlingit, the language of the people native to the southern extreme of Alaska. The language is noted for sounds not heard in many others. The production with its all-Alaska native cast uses the Tlingit culture's music, dance and design themes. It will run tomorrow through March 18 in the museum's Rasmuson Theatre. Tickets are $25. Call 202-357-3030.

Synetic's Macbeth Named Ushers' Favorite Show For February

The theater enthusiasts who usher in the region's theaters and participate in Potomac Stages Ushers' Favorite Show Award program have named Synetic Theater's production of  Paata Tsikurishvili and Nathan Weinberger's adaptation of Shakespeare's Macbeth their favorite out of all the shows they saw in February. The production was the first of Synetic's distinctive shows to be selected for the honor. At the end of the year, the participating ushers will be asked to select their favorite show from all the shows that won the monthly awards during 2007. To be eligible to participate in the Ushers' Favorite Show Award program, a theater lover must regularly usher at live theater events and also regularly see shows at a number of theaters. To sign up to be an Ushers Judge, send an email message to Ushers@PotomacStages.com.

Blood Brothers & Coyote on a Fence Capture Top WATCH Awards

The Elden Street Players production of Blood Brothers walked away with Outstanding Musical as well as Outstanding Director, Lead Actress and Lead Actor in a Musical awards, and the Silver Spring Stage production of Coyote on a Fence won the Outstanding Play trophy at last night's Washington Area Theatre Community Honors (WATCH) ceremony at the Birchmere in Alexandria. It was the seventh annual WATCH award ceremony. This year ninety-six productions were adjudicated (25 musicals and 71 plays) from a total of twenty-six community theater companies in Washington, Maryland and Virginia. Work at the Port Tobacco Players in Maryland won the most awards (8) with Virginia's Elden Street Players just behind with seven. The Arlington Players walked away with five awards. Click here to see the complete results.

WATCH Award Ceremony At The Birchmere This Sunday

This Sunday the Washington Area Theatre Community Honors (WATCH) Awards will be given out at the biggest community theater gala of the year. The seventh annual ceremony starts at 7 pm at the Birchmere in Alexandria where dinner and drinks will be available. The doors open at 5:30 and food service begins at 6. Admission is $15.50 (not including food or drinks).

Charter Starts Shows for Kids This Month

The theater company that specializes in presenting new works will now have new works for children in a new series of Saturday morning performances at Arlington's Theater on the Run. Charter Theater intends to mount three new shows a year written specifically for audiences who haven't yet reached their teens. The first is a musical version of The Princess and the Pea written by Sean Fri and Charter vice-president Ray Ficca. The cast will include recent graduates of the National Conservatory of Dramatic Arts where Ficca is President. The musical will be offered at 11 am on the last three Saturday's in March.