Page-to-Stage Festival Guide

We hope you can join us for this first look at what you are likely to see in the next season or two. It’s free. And it’s a great chance to meet directors, actors and playwrights.

DCTS will have continuous coverage throughout the weekend.

Your Guide to Page-to-Stage

The following schedule is subject to change.

Saturday, August 30

Washington Stage Guild, 2:00 – 4:00 p.m.

Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime, a witty comedy of criminal intent adapted from Oscar Wilde by and directed by Bill Largess, is Wilde’s story of a young man-about-town who is determined to get his sordid future behind him before he weds.   Millennium Stage South

Catalyst Theater Company, 2:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.

In Dan LeFranc’s Bruise Easy, a mother’s mysterious disappearance pitches an estranged brother and sister against each other. As things spin wildly out of control, they realize that the only way to save themselves is to bruise the other in unimaginable ways. South Atrium Foyer

7^th Street Playhouse Productions, 2:00 – 3:30 p.m.

Anthony E. Gallo’s two-act historic comedy Vandergrift! follows steel tycoon George McMurtry in the early 1890’s as he tries to produce a unique marriage between architecture and industrialism to build a workingman’s paradise in southwestern Pennsylvania. He hires Frederick Law Olmsted, the Nation’s preeminent architect, to design the town of Vandergrift, named after his partner Captain Jacob J. Vandergrift.  The Vandergrift plant becomes the largest steel mill in the world. Ida Tarbell, who will someday expose J. D. Rockefeller, visits the town four times over the next half a century, each time reexamining her own and McMurtry’s ideals as the Nation goes through wars, depressions, the New Deal, the Union movement, and the final collapse of the steel industry.  North Atrium Foyer

Taffety Punk Theatre Company, 2:00 – 4:30 p.m.

Taffety Punk Theatre Company presents James Lawry’s Alighieri’s Assent, directed by Lise Bruneau.  Theater Lab

Charter Theatre, 2:00 – 4:00 p.m.

In his play Quartet, directed by Leslie Kobylinsky, Richard Washer questions “Is it possible to say the things that should have been said years ago? Are we forever tied to the friends and the music of our youth? And the secrets that we keep – who do they hurt in the end?” Quartet is a poetic, haunting look at old friends coming to terms with the music they thought they had silenced.  Terrace Gallery

Journeymen Theatre Ensemble, 5:00 – 7:30 p.m.

In Scott Organ’s The Faithful, by Scott Organ, directed by Andy Wassenich, David is a former minister who tells people his wife is dead.  Kate was a child bride who is leaving the safety of her “family” behind.  Alan took a fall and thinks he’s seen God.  The Faithful is a play about life and love and the loss of both, and the walls and shelters, both real and imagined, we build to protect ourselves. What happens when something, or someone knocks the walls down?  Terrace Gallery

Actors Theatre of Louisville in association with Source Theatre Festival, 6:00 – 7:00 p.m.

Match Games, directed by Michael Bigelow Dixon, features Flaim, Kimberly Gilbert, James Konicek, Susan Lynskey, and Bruce Nelson. Whether love is found, lost, botched or misunderstood, this seductive and funny collection of short plays explores the tempestuous territory of attraction. The plays selected represent some of the best of nearly 20,000 short scripts read by Actors Theatre since the National Ten-Minute Play Contest began in 1989. Family Theater

Women’s Work Writers Group, 7:00 – 9:00 p.m.

In Judith Brussell’s Mussolini’s Ghost, former President Busholini and top-ranking members of his administration defend themselves in an international criminal court of law. The play is in three parts: Part I: Lessons in Consolidation of Power; Part II: War Crimes Tribunal; Part III: Crimes Against Humanity & Conspiracy to Commit Treason.  Terrace Theater

Prison Foundation, 7:30 – 10:00 p.m.

In From Prison to the Stage, ex-prisoners and other talented singers and actors perform prison songs and sketches.  Millennium Stage South

Forum Theatre, 7:30 – 9:00 p.m.

Carlos Murillo’s  Mimesophobia (Or Before and After), directed by Michael Dove, tells the story of what seemed like the perfect couple-affluent, attractive, and well-educated. Why did the husband brutally murder his wife and then take his own life? A desperate screenwriting duo struggles with severe writer’s block to unearth the answer. The murder victim’s sister reconstructs from the ashes a diary that may or may not contain the secrets. And a deranged academic, haunted by her own possible involvement, meditates on the American obsession with violence. In the face of inexplicable violence, whose myth will most closely resemble the truth of what happened?  North Atrium Foyer

Journeymen Theater Ensemble, 7:30 – 9:00 p.m.

Jacqueline E. Lawton’s A Delicate People, directed by Deborah Kirby, is the provocative story of Jasmine, a sultry Atheist Flamenco dancer, and her sister Alexis, a homophobic Christian minister, who are forced together after a ten year bitter estrangement to plan their mother’s 60th birthday party. As the play opens, Jasmine finds herself being romantically pursued by a strident Christian man and is forced to deal with her faith and heartbreak when deciding to accept his love.  When Alexis discovers that her husband Billy is homosexual and has been in a long-term relationship with his work colleague Frank, her life is sent into a whirlwind of chaos and despair. These two sisters find that the only person in the world they can talk to and depend on is the other, but will they have the humility, patience, and understanding to set aside their past? Terrace Gallery

Women’s Work Writers Group, 9:00 – 11:00 p.m.

In Patricia Connelly’s Princess Margaret, set in a 1960’s Catholic school, Sister Helen confronts the alcoholic mother of Margaret-a struggling, needy young girl-in an effort to help her. In the end, Sister Helen must decide whether winning the battle with the mother and maintaining control of her perfect classroom are worth  potentially destroying Margaret’s life. Terrace Theater

George Mason University Showcase, 7:30 – 10:00 p.m.

In Danielle Snyder’s contemporary comedy, Giving a Troll a Green Card, directed by Kimberly Cetron, a green card marriage becomes something more-a web of tangled relationships, an exploration of the nature of art, and a world where people make a living with words but can’t find them in their personal lives. South Atrium Foyer

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Sunday August 31

Synetic Theater, 2:00 – 4:30 p.m.

Synetic Theater presents an open rehearsal of Host & Guest, based on Vazha Pshavela’s epic poem written around the turn of the 20th century, and written by Roland Reed. Directed by Paata Tsikurishvili with choreography by Irina Tsikurishvili, Host and Guest centers around two men, one Muslim and one Christian, who befriend each other despite their cultures’ long-standing hatred. The residents from both the men’s villages in Georgia punish them violently for their friendship, and the entire community is shattered by war. [For our recent interview about this production, click here.] Millennium Stage South

Washington Shakespeare Company, 2:00 – 3:00 p.m.

In Callie Kimball’s Sofonisba, directed by Dorothy Neumann, Sofonisba Anguissola, the eldest of several motherless but wealthy children, is celebrating her 18th birthday. Her painting instructor is moving away, she’s being shopped around to suitors by her father, and her puppy keeps destroying her canvases. Undeterred by the limitations of gender, she uses her talent and independence to land in Spain as court painter to the royal family. At 39, she’s married off to a prince’s son. Once widowed, she marries again, for love.  Supported by a grant from the Ludwig Vogelstein Foundation. South Atrium Foyer

Bowie State University, 2:00 – 4:30 p.m.

t. tara turk’s Indigos, directed by Renee’ Charlow, is set in 1963 and Lord and Lady Major, jazz’s royal couple, have lost their baby, Alice. But Alice still makes a life-changing appearance. North Atrium Foyer

Playwrights Forum, 2:00 – 5:00 p.m.

For Bridging Generations, the 10-member 6th grade class at Hebrew Day Institute in Silver Spring interviewed ten participants in the Temple Har Tzeon luncheon program for senior citizens about “a decisive event” in the life of each senior interviewee. These ten short plays are the younger generation’s attempts to understand the Holocaust, World War II, the Depression, courtship and marriage, and the beginnings of careers. Terrace Gallery

Florida Stage with the Guthrie Theater, in  partnership with Woolly Mammoth, 2:00 – 5:00[1] p.m.

Hear a reading of G. I. Gay and Other Plays by Jeffrey Hatcher, a series of short plays about the home front during a war that seems very far away now. Family Theater

Catholic University of America MFA Playwrights, 2:00 – 10:00 p.m.

2 p.m. – 4 p.m., The Tall Tales of the Sisters of Ellery Hollow by Stephen Spotswood
4 p.m. – 5 p.m., Death and Chamomile by Steve Lewis
5 p.m. – 6 p.m., This Is Not My Life, music by John Maggi, book by Steve Lewis
–  all in the Opera House Rehearsal Room 1

Washington Shakespeare Company, 3:30 – 5:00 p.m.

When Americans Jim and Jane arrive in the South African bush for a private safari with their ranger Bobby and his mystical tracker named Tshonga, things aren’t what they seem in Emily Solomon’s Ngala Muti, directed by Gaurav Gopolan.  The local birds advise them to “G’waaay!”  Jim’s desire to experience the real Africa puts the group at risk as they confront the true ruler of the land.   South Atrium Foyer

Salt Lake Acting Company in partnership with Theater Alliance, 4:00 – 6:00 p.m.

Julie Jensen’s She Was My Brother, based loosely on historical events, tells the story of a male and    female ethnographer, fierce rivals, who visited Zuni at the end of the nineteenth century.  There they met a Zuni transvestite, whom they took to Washington, D.C. as a cultural ambassador.  This is an exploration of what might have happened. Family Theater

Adventure Theatre, 6:00 – 7:00 p.m.

The kid-friendly musical Harold and the Purple Crayon, based on the book by Crockett Johnson, with book, music, and lyrics by Adam W. Roberts, and directed by Michael J. Bobbitt, follows our hero Harold who sets out to conquer the world-armed only with an oversized purple crayon, ready to draw himself out of any dilemma. Millennium Stage North

Catholic University of America MFA Playwrights, 6:00 – 8:00 p.m.

Hunter Rising by Bob Bartlett  Opera House Rehearsal Room 1

Doorway Arts Ensemble, 7:30 p.m. – 10 p.m.

Callie Kimball’s M39, directed by Cristy Denny, is a voyeuristic peek at dating in the year 3008 where two people navigate the morning after their first date. Sam offers Louisa everything she wants, and a few things she hadn’t bargained for.

Directed by Joe Calarco, The Last Days of Cleopatra is a new musical with original book, music and, lyrics by Charlie Barnett, and reworked book by Joe Calarco. It details the infamous love affair between Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton on the set of the 60’s film fiasco where Liz and Dick curse and caress their way into history. Both at Millennium Stage South

Venus Theatre of the Venus Theatre Play Shack, 7:30 – 9:00 p.m.

Homokays Medea takes place in today’s Hollywood where the title character of Medea is replaced by a trophy wife. Graphic, horrifying, and hilarious.  Contains adult content and language; not recommended for children. South Atrium Foyer

Scena Theatre, 7:30 – 9:00 p.m.

The Irish play Little Criminals, set in a girls remand school in the 1980’s, follows a teacher’s attempt to better her charges’ lives. North Atrium Foyer

Theater J, 7:30-10:00 p.m.

Honey Brown Eyes, by Stefanie Zadravec and directed by Jessica Lefkow, is set in Bosnia 1992. In two kitchens, two soldiers recover a little of what they’ve lost during the war. A Serbian paramilitary must face the consequences of his own brutality, while a Bosnian resistance fighter, crippled by the limits of his own courage, seeks refuge with a kindred soul. Unlikely partnerships emerge in this play of horror, humanity, and relevance. Terrace Theater

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Monday, Sept 1

Baltimore Playwrights Festival, 2:00 – 5:00 p.m.

Baltimore Playwrights Festival presents excerpts from all of the winning entries of the Festival’s 27^th Season. South Atrium Foyer

Inkwell, starts at 2 pm

Showcase readings of Hercule de Begerac by Adam Jonas Segaller, directed by Lee
Liebeskind; Lullabye by Kristen DeWulf, directed by Andy Wassenich; Coma, Patient by Shaun Raviv, directed by James Hesla; Seven Dreams of Her by Sarah Sander, directed by Christopher Niebling; The F Word by Melissa Blackall, directed by Patrick Torres Opera House Rehearsal Room 1

Theater J, 2:00 – 4:00 p.m.

Theodore Bikel’s one man show, Sholom Aleichem: Laughter Through Tears, directed by Derek Goldman with musical direction by Tamara Brooks, is a moving portrait of the pioneering 19th Century author Sholom Aleichem. Told with warmth, humor, and a rich catalogue of Yiddish songs performed with Grammy-nominated Tamara Brooks on piano, the show features Bikel in the title role.   Terrace Theater

African Continuum Theatre Company and the Hegira, 2:00 – 4:00 p.m.

Director Danielle A. Drakes presents a first look at Daughter/Concubine -her and Danielle Martin’s stage adaptation of Gayl Jones’ novel Corregidora-unearthing the correlatives of mother, memory, and history. Blues singer Ursa Corregidora is haunted by her ancestry and its sordid history.  As she  sifts through the remains from her past, she cultivates her own strength.  Terrace Gallery

Bouncing Ball Theatrical Productions, 2:00 – 4:30 p.m.

Shirley Sirotsky directs Shawn Northrip’s The Playdoh Golem, commissioned by Theater J, a klezmer-punk musical about a Jewish teenage girl trying to win her crush. Millennium Stage South

Arena Stage in conjunction with Mixed Blood Theatre, 2:00 – 4:45 p.m.

In Alex Lewin The Near East, an American archaeologist teams up with an Arab activist to unearth “Mother of Books,” the oldest scripture, from its resting place in the desert between Mecca and Medina. But their controversial mission affects a number of other characters, including a secretly gay Arab radical, a British spy, and the ghost of a precocious 13-year-old boy. This piece is from the O’Neill Playwrights Conference.  Theater Lab

Charter Theatre’s New Plays for Young Audiences, 2:00 – 3:30 p.m.

When the Prince’s Troubadour is kidnapped by the Witch in The Prince and Troubadour, he must enlist the help of the Princess who scorned him, in order to save his friend.  But with trolls and bandits blocking the path, will they make it in time before the Troubadour is served for dinner?  An adventure-filled musical for all ages!  Family Theater

AccokeekCreek Theatreco, 3:00 – 5:00 p.m.

ShortStack v4: The Lunchbox Diner Plays is a series of short plays set in a standard American diner at Christmas by playwrights residing in Washington, D.C., Maryland, and Virginia, including: Renee Calarco, Audrey Cefaly, Joe Dennison, Deborah Finkelstein, Lynne Lerych, Mark Harvey Levine, Steve Lewis, John Shanahan, Gwydion Suilebhan, Jeffery Sweet, and Walter Thinnes.  North Atrium Foyer

The Georgetown Theater Company, 4:30 – 7:00 p.m.

R.L. Nesvet’s The Mystery Prince, directed by Catherine Aselford, is adapted from a Mary Shelley novel and based on a still-unsolved historical enigma.  Shakespeare’s nastiest villain, Richard III, murdered his nephews, the “princes in the Tower,” or did he? A mysterious young man called Perkin Warbeck claims that he is one of the lost princes, grown up, and is ready to depose the tyrannical Henry VII. Was Perkin the child he says he was? In an age of exploration and Inquisition, the world is soon violently divided between Perkin’s believers and skeptics, in a battle over more than his identity.  North Atrium Foyer

Rorschach Theatre Company, 4:00 – 6:00 p.m.

Anna Ziegler’s Minotaur is a loose adaptation of the myth in which Theseus kills the Minotaur and steals Ariadne away from Crete and into an uncertain future. A poetic and quirky exploration of the vagaries of storytelling, The Minotaur is set in a timeless present where its themes of love, loss, and primal longings are startlingly relevant.  Family Theater

Inkwell, starts at 6 pm

Panel Discussion: Playwrights: Pampered? Patronized? Pushed Aside?
A provocative discussion on how the trend to coddle new work may help it flourish or falter. With playwright Callie Kimball, Washington Post Theatre Critic Nelson Pressley, Round House Theatre Artistic Director Blake Robison and Theater J Artistic Director and playwright Ari Roth. Opera House Rehearsal Room 1

Signature Theatre, 6:00 – 7:00 p.m.

Signature Theater presents a showcase of three new musicals by one of The Next Generation-commissioned artists, composer Matt Conner-Crossing, Senior Moments, and Sleepy Hollow (with book writer Hunter Foster).  Millennium Stage North

Catholic University Benjamin T. Rome School of Music, 7:30 – 8:30 p.m.

Gregg Martin’s one act opera Life in Death, directed by Jay Brock, is based on Edgar Allen Poe’s The Oval Portrait-a tale of a painter obsessed with his art.  When he convinces his new bride to be his model, the painter neglects her for the sake of his painting, not realizing that she’s wasting away as he paints her.  Millennium Stage South

Baltimore Playwrights Group, 8:00 – 10:00 p.m.

The Lock and Key Plays, a series of eight to ten minute plays, share the common thread of a lock and key somewhere in each play. In the past, plays written by PGB members for events like Page-to-Stage have gone on to have full productions throughout the country. South Atrium Foyer

Quotidian Theatre Company, 7:30 – 10:00 p.m.

A father’s painful good-bye with his only daughter, prior to her departure with the Army during World War II is the focus of Steve LaRocque’s Monday Evening 1942.  The farewell is set against the backdrop of the 1942 All-Star baseball game, and a city-wide air raid drill that included a complete blackout of New York City.  North Atrium Foyer

500 Clown in association with the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center and the University of Maryland Department of Theatre, 7:30 – 9:00 p.m.

See an open rehearsal of 500 Clown’s The Elephant Deal.  Commissioned by the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center, this premiere original music-theater-clown production brings the wildly physical antics of 500 Clown back to the D.C. area for their third residency with the University of Maryland. With a full band, an acrobatic stage crew, and an enthusiastic Madame of Ceremonies, 500 Clown brings spontaneous theater, standing on the shoulders of Brecht, The Fratellini clowns, and the notion that identity comes through relationship.  Impulsive play, transformation and raucous singing are part of the bargain as the Clowns and University of Maryland students explore identity and the borders between self and character. Theater Lab

Perseverance Theater in partnership with the National Museum of the American Indian, 7:30 – 10:00 p.m.

Watch a workshop of David Hunsaker’s Battles of Fire and Water.  In the early years of the 19th century, the Tlingits and the Russians engaged in a long series of battles, negotiations, intrigues, blows and counter-blows, which would ultimately determine the future of Russian America, and the relationship between distant cultures. The Russians say they won. The Tlingit say they never surrendered. Based on oral and written narratives compiled in a book by Richard and Nora Dauenhauer, David Hunsaker intertwines, in Tlingit, Russian and English, the differing accounts to tell both sides of this major piece of Alaskan History. Terrace Gallery

The Inkwell, 7:30 p.m.- 10 p.m.

A Time Upon by Greg Beuthin, directed by Jessica Burgess. Two old women, Gran and Mum, eke out their lives in a forgotten corner of a giant futuristic metropolis. They are barely aware of the passing days until a young woman and her strange traveling companion-cum-pet enter their lives. The young woman, Fillette, is somehow related to the family, but is cagey about her answers. The pet, only known as Once, doesn’t speak – but even he can smell that something else is afoot. For the entire group is being watched by an evil shadow and his crony, who want to get at what lies beneath
the decrepit courtyard in which the old women have made their home. Perhaps a fairy tale told in the era of Blade-Runner, the play features shadow puppetry, physical theatre, and lyrical language, all hallmarks of Greg Beuthin’s future folkloric style.

Page-to-Stage Inkwell readings include Wyckham Avery, Frank Britton, Valerie Fenton, James Flanagan, John Geffrion, Lindsay Haynes, Lisa Hill-Corley, Q. Terah Jackson, Hilary Kacser, Amy Kellet, Lee Liebeskind, Eric Messner, Wendy Nogales, Alex Perez, Kevin Pierson. Staged Reading.   Opera House Rehearsal Room 1

Baltimore Playwrights Group, 8:00 – 10:00 p.m.

The Lock and Key Plays, a series of eight to ten minute plays, share the common thread of a lock and key somewhere in each play. In the past, plays written by PGB members for events like Page-to-Stage have gone on to have full productions throughout the country.  South Atrium Forum

Taffety Punk Theatre Company, 8:00 – 10:00 p.m.

See this sonic adaptation of Shakespeare’s epic poem The Rape of Lucrece, directed by Christopher Marino-part radio play, part rock concert. one of Shakespeare’s lesser-known works – a poem that retells Ovid’s classical tale of Roman tyrant prince Tarquin’s rape of Lucrece, the wife of his loyal lieutenant, Collatine.  The poem is a powerful evocation of the shockwaves – private and public – created by rape. Using monologues and descriptive verse, Shakespeare creates powerful psychological portraits of the rapist and his victims – their rationalizations, humiliation, self-blame, thirst for vengeance. Tarquin blames Lucrece for her own violation – telling her she is too beautiful. Lucrece feels guilty, spoiled, and unredeemable. Collatine seeks vengeance on both victimizer and victim.  Featuring Lise Bruneau, Kimberly Gilbert and Marcus Kyd. Music and live sound design by Sean Peoples.  Family Theater

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