Baltimore Center Stage’s season starts Jan 2021 with new plays and remodeled Head Theatre

Will the disruptions we are experiencing in this annus horribilis catapult us into a new world next year? If so, Baltimore Center Stage will be ready for it, with three world premieres and a new take on the play most associated with traditional Americana slated for the first half of calendar year 2021.

Baltimore Center Stage will lead off with the latest from Noah Diaz, The Swindlers. This is the story of a notorious con man and his down-on-her-uppers daughter, who resolves to grab her old man before the FBI does, and haul him cross-country for a debt-paying trip – before her own house gets foreclosed. Diaz, whose Richard & Jane & Dick & Sally received strong critical reviews and who has received five Kennedy Center awards for playwriting. Will Davis directs; from January 28 to February 28.

Miranda Rose Hall’s world premiere A Play for the Living in a Time of Extinction is up next with a scheduled March 25-April 25 run. Hall, who once reviewed theater for DC Theatre Scene, has crafted a story about a theater company with a commitment to making its audience aware of climate change. Things don’t go according to plan, and it’s up to the stage manager – who is also the lightboard operator and the dramaturg – to retell their story in a way which has an impact. Hall won the San Diego Critics Circle Award for Outstanding New Play for The Hour of Great Mercy in 2019. Taibi Magar directs.

The stage manager also plays a big role in the next play on the Baltimore Center Stage agenda, Thornton Wilder’s Our Town. This classic play tells the story of the interconnected lives in Grover’s Corners, New Hampshire – but under the hand of Director Stevie Walker-Webb, Baltimore Center Stage promises that the production will ”draw inspiration from…Baltimore.”  From April 29 to May 23

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2021 Mainstage

The Swindler
by Noah Diaz
Jan 28-Feb 28

A Play for the Living in the Time of Extinction
by Amanda Rose Hall
Mar 25-Apr 25

Our Town
by Thornton Wilder
Apr 29-May 23

The Garden
by Charlayne Woodard
May 27-Jun 27

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[/ezcol_1third] [ezcol_2third_end]The company will wrap up the first half of 2021 with a world premiere production of Charlayne Woodard’s The Garden. Woodard, a classical actor who has performed at Shakespeare Theatre (you may remember her as Katherine in Taming of the Shrew), is also an acclaimed playwright (her Pretty Fire won the LA Critics and NAACP  Awards for best playwright and best play). This is a story of a mother and a daughter confronting each other after three years of alienation. It is not, shall we say, ponies and rainbows. Woodard, in addition to being the playwright, will perform in this piece. Patricia McGregor directs. From May 27 to June 27,

The announced schedule assumes that the current plague will be sufficiently under control to permit live theater. Baltimore Center Stage promises it will be prepared to prioritize the health of its audience as well as its staff and artists. “When we do welcome you back, we’ll do so with a remodeled Head Theater for our first two productions, allowing for not only a responsible socially distant audience environment, but also a singular artistic experience.”[/ezcol_2third_end]