DC Metro Spotlight: September 2005

The 2005-2006 season hits the boards in force this month with a wide range of major productions coming to DC’s top theaters.

Arena Stage begins their season with the world premiere of Passion Play, a cycle (previews begin September 2). This ambitious epic by Sarah Ruhl, the fast-rising playwright whose tart, absurdist comedy The Clean House was an unexpected hit in D.C. this summer for Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, is described as a darkly comic trilogy of plays, told through the eyes of actors performing The Passion of Christ at three time periods over a range of 400 years. Molly Smith, Arena’s artistic director, helms the production.

Our own Ken Ludwig has come up with yet another play about down-at-the-heels theater folks. Leading Ladies arrives at the Ford’s Theatre (previews begin September 23) with a star-laden cast headed by Tony Award nominee Charlotte Rae, John Astin (Gomez in TV’s The Addams Family), Tony Award-winner Karen Ziemba, and Patrick Kerr (from HBO’s Curb Your Enthusiasm) under the direction of Mark Rucker.

Another theater luminary, Theodore Bikel, is in town to star with a top-notch local cast in Theater J’s production of The Disputation, Hyam Maccoby’s absorbing look at what happens when Christians try to convert Jews in 13th-Century Spain. The Shakespeare Theatre also has a very distinguished artist onstage, the great Avery Brooks, who takes on the title role in Othello, with Patrick Page as his Iago (through October 30).

Two other recent New York successes also come to town this month: Gina Gionfriddo’s biting comic satire about the media, After Ashley, comes to Woolly Mammoth (previews begin September 5), while Caryl Churchill’s disturbing A Number opens the season at Studio Theatre (previews begin September 7). Joy Zinoman directs local favorite Ted van Griethuysen in this engrossing drama about an unusually complex relationship between a father and son(s).

D.C. will be even more Kafkaesque than usual as Catalyst Theatre has an adaptation of Metamorphosis, the classic tale of a man who transforms into a cockroach (previews begin September 8), and Scena Theatre offers a version of The Trial (previews begin September 10). Other offerings in town include the African Continuum Theatre Company’s production of Sonja Linden’s remarkable I Have Before Me a Remarkable Document Given to Me by a Young Lady from Rwanda (previews begin September 15) and Pearl Cleage’s Flying West about four African-American women trying to build a life for themsveles in 19th-century Kansas.

Heading to Virginia, a wildly enthusiastic critic and audience reception to Signature Theatre’s production of the Tony-winning Urinetown: The Musical has led to an extension for the show until October 16. Director Joe Calarco leads a cast, headed by Will Gartshore, Donna Miglaccio, and Christopher Bloch. Caryl Churchill’s 1980s’ Obie winner Top Girls is being staged at Arlington’s intimate Theatre on the Run by Fountainhead Theatre. This provocative play imagines a festive dinner party hosted by five women from the past, including a transvestite Pope (previews begin September 6). And Theater of the First Amendment, in residence at George Mason University, has the area premiere of Jon Robin Baitz’s Three Hotels about a couple dealing with the ethical issues created when corporations sell substandard baby formula in the third world (previews begin September 15).

Over in Rosslyn, Synetic Theatre, which has been creating much buzz with their unique and sensual mixture of movement and drama, combines old and new with the premiere of the latest work by resident artists Paata and Irina Tsikurishvili: an adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Meanwhile, Landless Theatre Company in Bethesda is also taking a bite of the blood-soaked tale with the world premiere of the new musical Vlad Dracula (Writer’s Center Theater, previews begin September 9). Other Maryland attractions include the Round House Theatre’s dramatic adaptation of the opera Camille (previews begin September 14.) and Toby’s Dinner Theater production of Aida (previews begin September 8).

If you’re looking to take the kids to the theater, consider Imagination Stage’s imaginative production of Cinderella, which is set in 18th-Century Germany (September 24-November 6). And for Retratos: Portraits of Our World at the Smithsonian’s Discovery Theatre on the National Mall, children were asked to write about themselves and their ideas for portraits of the world (September 29-October 21).