CENTERSTAGE Launches Three-Reading New Play Series Tonight

A new cycle of readings under CENTERSTAGE's First Look: Special Edition series of new plays kicks off tonight with a reading of The North Pool, Rajiv Joseph's play dealing with suspicions and accusations confronting a Syrian-born student at a U.S. high school. Next Monday, April 7th, the series continues with a reading of Putty Tat by Lynn Rosen. The final reading will be on April 21 when Lynn Nottage's By the Way, Meet Vera Stark will be read. Admission is $5 for each reading or $12 for a three-play pass.

One-Act Plays for Source Festival Announced

Jeremy Skidmore, the producer of the Source Festival, has announced the one-act plays which will be featured in the festival's last week, July 9 - 13. John Vreeke will direct Chris Stezin's This Perfect World. Stezin, of course, is a frequent contributor to local theater groups, most frequently Charter Theatre where he is an artistic associate. He is the only locally produced playwright to have a piece selected for the festival. Dorothy Neumann will helm Julian Sheppard's Sunday Night while J. T. Rogers' Murmuring in a Dead Tongue will be directed by Jennifer Nelson. Steven Mazzola will direct Graeme Gillis' Catch and Julia Cho's The Mnemonist will be staged by David Muse.

Schaeffer Takes Signature's Cast Of Glory Days To Broadway

The Broadway premiere of Nick Blaemire and James Gardiner's musical Glory Days will feature the same four member cast that appeared in the world premiere of the musical at Signature Theatre in January and February this year. Steven Booth, Andrew C. Call, Adam Halpin and Jesse JP Johnson will again be directed by Schaeffer with the set, costume and lighting design team adapting their work for the Circle in the Square Theatre on New York's West 50th Street. Built in 1972, the theater accommodates a three-sided staging similar to that which the show had at Signature's flexible house known as The Max. The Max, however, can seat only 250 patrons while Circle in the Square's capacity is approximately 776. Most recently it has hosted such well known Broadway shows as The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, The Rocky Horror Show and Mary Zimmerman's Metamorphosis. The top ticket price will be $97.50. Previews will begin April 22 in preparation for an official opening night of May 6 which will be in time for the deadline for eligibility for the Tony Awards for the season. The production will not, however, open in time to be eligible for either the Drama Desk or Outer Critics Circle awards for the season.

Toby Orenstein Inducted Into Maryland Women's Hall of Fame

Toby Orenstein, founder and artistic director of Toby's Dinner Theaters of Baltimore and Columbia, and creator of the Columbia Center for the Theatrical Arts, was one of five women inducted into the Maryland Women's Hall of Fame this month at a ceremony in the Senate Office Building in the State Capitol Complex in Annapolis. Orenstein has been nominated for the Helen Hayes Award for Outstanding Direction of a Musical seven times, winning the award for her 2003 production of Jekyll & Hyde at her dinner theater in Columbia. She is again a nominee this year for her direction of Titanic. Click here to read Potomac Stages profile on Orenstein.

Theater J Workshops Shawn Northrip's Playdoh Golem Saturday March 22

The newest rock musical by the creator of Titus, The Musical, Shawn Northrip, is being workshoped at Theater J and will be presented in one performance this Saturday evening at 9 o'clock. Admission of $10 will include a free alcoholic beverage to put you in the mood. The Playdoh Golem tells the story of three girls who create a female "golem" (an artificial creature) to eliminate the competition for the affection of their Hebrew school crushes. Shirley Serotsky directs.

Play About The Impeachment of President Bush Gets Reading On Anniversary of Iraq Invasion

 Taffety Punk Theatre Company will present a reading of the play Truth or Consequences tonight at The Corner Store on Capitol Hill to mark the fifth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq. The play envisions the impeachment of George W. Bush on charges of misleading the Congress and the American people in the proposal to launch the invasion. Lisa Bruneau directs a cast including Marcus Kyd, Dan Crane, Sabrida Mendell, Kip Pierson and Mark Ross.

Ray Ficca Takes On New Duties Out Of Town

While retaining his positions with Charter Theatre and The National Conservatory of Dramatic Arts within the Potomac Region, Ray Ficca will be taking on new duties as the Artistic Director of Fayetteville, Pennsylvania's Totem Pole Playhouse next fall. Totem Pole is a summer stock theater with a six show/twelve week season each year. Ficca will appear in Totem Pole's shows this summer while "shadowing" the outgoing artistic directors Carl Shurr and Wil Love. Fayeteville is seventeen miles west of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania and has hosted the Totem Pole Playhouse since 1950. The playhouse maintains a resident company of actors for each summer season. Members of the company in the past have included Sada Thompson, John Ritter, Sandy Dennis and Jean Stapleton, who is married to the playhouse's founder, William H. Putch.

Banneker High's Shelby Coley Wins Regional Shakespeare Competition

The English Speaking Union's Nation's Capital Branch and the Shakespeare Theatre Company hosted this year's Regional Shakespeare Competition at the Harman Center on March 10. Twenty six students from local high schools performed monologues and sonnets by the Bard in pursuit of monetary prizes. First prize went to Shelby Coley of Benjamin Banneker High School, who performed Lady Macbeth's sleepwalking scene as well as Sonnet 116. Second place went to Katie LeDain of Stone Ridge School in Bethesda, and third place to Noah Shechter of Pikesville High in Baltimore.

Catalyst, Studio, Theater J Are Finalists For Mayor's Arts Awards - Ceremony On Monday

This year's ceremony to announce the recipients of the Mayor's Arts Awards will be a free event in the Concert Hall of the Kennedy Center on Monday, March 17. Three Washington theater companies are among the finalists in three of the five categories of the awards. Catalyst Theatre Company is one of five finalists in each of two categories "Outstanding Emerging Artist" and "Innovation in the Arts." The Studio Theatre and Theatre J are both finalists in the category "Excellence in an Artistic Discipline." Jim Vance of Channel 4 will be the Master of Ceremonies and the program will feature an appearance by Robert Prosky. The ceremony is at 6 PM.

Dirt Performed Tonight at George Washington University

The solo show about the life of an illegal immigrant from Iraq, Dirt, will be performed tonight at the Marvin Center at George Washington University before additional engagements at the Ernst Theater in Virginia on March 21 and the BlackRock Center for the Arts in Maryland on April 5. Iranian-born American citizen Shahin Shakibi performs the piece written by Robert Schneider. Tickets to tonight's performance can be ordered by calling 800-551-7328.

Ragtime, Concerts & Tours Featured In 2008-09 Kennedy Center Theater Lineup

The Kennedy Center will offer a new production of Ragtime, bring the tours of the musicals Spring Awakening, The Color Purple and Legally Blond to the Opera House, reopen the Eisenhower Theater with an evening of three abbreviated Broadway scores in concert (Girl Crazy, Fiddler on the Roof and Side Show), host five more cabarets in the Barbara Cook's Spotlight series, and salute Judy Garland in an NSO Pops Concert with Linda Eder during the 2008-09 season. Other newly announced programs include Richard Thomas in another evening of Tennessee Williams correspondence, the Druid Theater of Ireland and the national tour of Frost/Nixon starring Stacey Keach. Check our pages for the Concert Hall, Eisenhower Theater, Opera House and Terrace Theater for the newly announced schedules.

Woolly's Free Reading Series Offers Plays The Next Three Wednesdays

Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company's Playground Playwrights Group reading series kicks off a three-Wednesday series of free readings tomorrow night with D.W. Gregory's Dirty Pictures. Next week it will be About Some Baby by Kristen DeWulf and then on March 26, three of Michael Merino's one-act plays will be read under the title Three - comic shorts. Each event will be in the Melton Rehearsal Hall at Woolly Mammoth at 7 pm.

Helen Hedman Stars In Tonight's Katherine Hepburn Program At The Portrait Gallery

Jewell Robinson will act as an interviewer for Helen Hedman who will play the role of Katherine Hepburn in a program compiled from quotations from the stage and screen star in the latest Cultures in Motion program of the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery tonight. The program begins at 7 and admission is free. Seating is limited so reservations are suggested. Call 202 633-8520 or send an email to NPGPublicPrograms@Si.EDU.

Two of Six Nominees For The American Theatre Critics' Steinberg Award For Outstanding New Play In The Nation Are From Our Region

Sarah Ruhl's Dead Man's Cell Phone, which premiered at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, and Moises Kaufman's 33 Variations, which premiered at Arena Stage, are two of the six finalists for the American Theatre Critics Association / Steinberg award for the outstanding new play of 2007. The award carries a $25,000 prize for the winner and two $7,500 prizes for honorable mention. The winner will be announced at the Humana Festival of New American Plays at the Actors Theatre in Louisville, Kentucky, on March 29. The other four nominees are The Crowd You're in With by Rebecca Gilman, End Days by Deborah Zoe Laufer, The English Channel by Robert Brustein and Strike-Slip by Naomi Iizuka. Last year's winner was Michael Hollinger's Opus. Previous winners include Lanford Wilson, Marsha Norman, August Wilson, Arthur Miller, Mac Wellman, Donald Margulies, Lee Blessing, Lynn Nottage, Horton Foote and Craig Lucas.

Program Again Offers Free Tickets for Young People

The League of Washington Theatres again this year sponsors Stages for All Ages, a program that for nine years has provided a free ticket for a young person age 17 or under with each full price adult ticket purchased for selected performances at participating theaters. The tickets will be for performances between March and May this year at twenty different theaters throughout the region and can be purchased directly from the participating theaters. They include: The American Century Theater (Happy Birthday, Wanda June and Eccentricities of a Nightmare), Arena Stage at Crystal City (Death of a Salesman and A View from the Bridge), Charter Theatre (Am I Black Enough? and The Chicken of the Family), Folger Theatre (Highland Ayers and The School for Scandal), GALA Hispanic Theatre (Oyelo Out Loud! and Blood Wedding / Bodas de sangre), Imagination Stage (Looking for Reberto Clemente), The Kennedy Center (Kite on the Wind and the National Symphony Orchestra's All in the Musical Family), The Keegan Theatre (Last Days of the Killone Players and Translations) MetroStage (The Stephen Schwartz Project), Olney Theatre Center (1776), Quotidian Theatre (The Mollusc), Round House Theatre (Lord of the Flies) The Studio Theatre (The History Boys and The New Absurd: Rainpan 43), Teatro de la Luna (Volvio una Noche / She Returned One Night), Theater J (The Price), Washington Savoyards (Pirates of Penzance and Man of La Mancha), Washington Shakespeare Company (Hedda Gabler) and Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company (Stunning).

Ace & Giant World Premieres Mark Signature's 08-09 Season

The 2008-09 season for Signature Theatre will include the world premieres of musicals by Richard Oberacker (The Gospel According to Fishman) and Michael John Lachiusa (The Highest Yellow) as well as the local premieres of Martin McDonagh's The Lieutenant of Inishmore directed by Jeremy Skidmore, and Douglas Carter Beane's The Little Dog Laughed which will star Holly Twyford. The new work by Oberacker is Ace, a musical on which he has collaborated with Robert Taylor. It will be directed by Eric Schaeffer in what is billed as a Broadway-Bound Premiere. LaChiusa's new work will be a musical based on Edna Ferber's novel Giant, which will be part of a festival of the work of LaChiusa funded by the Shen Family Foundation as part of the American Musical Voice Project. The festival will see the Potomac Region premiere of LaChiusa's See What I Wanna See under the direction of Matthew Gardiner. The season will also include a one-night only piece of Sondheim, a concert version of Anyone Can Whistle which will be performed in the Schlesinger Concert Hall on the Alexandria campus of the Northern Virginia Community College.

Ushers Name Synetic's Romeo and Juliet Their Favorite Show of February

There are only three more performances slated for February's Ushers' Favorite Show Award winner, Synetic Theater's production of Romeo and Juliet, directed by Paata Tsikurishvili and choreographed by Irina Tsikurishvili. Don't miss your chance to see this fabulous production -  this Thursday - Saturday evenings at the Rosslyn Spectrum. If you usher at local theaters and would like to participate in the Ushers' Favorite Show Award program, send an email message to Ushers@PotomacStages.com.

Arlington Players, Kensington Arts Theatre & Silver Spring Stage Share Top WATCH Awards

The Washington Area Theatre Community Honors (WATCH) awards for 2007 were announced at a gala ceremony at the Birchmere in Alexandria last night with the Silver Spring Stage production of Never the Sinner taking home the Outstanding Play trophy and a tie resulting in The Arlington Players' Thoroughly Modern Millie and the Kensington Arts Theatre's Nevermore sharing the Outstanding Musical honors. In all, work on fourteen shows at eleven theater companies garnered awards in twenty-eight categories. The company with the highest number of awards was the Providence Players of Falls Church with five technical awards for their production of Saturday Sunday Monday (properties, set design, construction, decoration and painting). The Arlington Players, the Rockville Musical Theatre and Silver Spring Stage each had four winners while the Elden Street Players and the Reston Community Theater had three. Top individual shows included Saturday Sunday Monday's five, Thoroughly Modern Millie and Rockville Musical Theatre's Into the Woods with four each, and Never the Sinner and the Reston Community Players' Seussical with three. Click here for the full list of nominees and winners.