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A CurtainUp DC 
Feature
FeatureNew and Noteworthy in DC
Updated March 5, 20010
After three crippling winter storms, Washington is pleased to welcome any and all harbingers of spring such as next season's schedules. If there is one common denominator so far it is the number of world premieres to be performed here. Artistic Directors seem to be saying recession be damned, theatre is after all about risk-taking.
Before we move on to next season though, the Kennedy Center, as part of its Nights at the Opera homage to playwright Terrence McNally, March 12 to April 18, 2010, is producing Golden Age, a backstage drama set at the Théâtre-Italien in Paris as Bellini's opera I Puritani premieres January 24, 1835. The cast include Jeffrey Carlson as Bellini's frenemy Donizetti. The rest of the McNally retrospective includes productions of The Lisbon Traviata and Master Class with Tyne Daly as Maria Callas, as well as a conversation between McNally and Kennedy Center President Michael Kaiser, March 15. www.kennedy-center.org. THe Kennedy Center's Season
January, 2011 marks the 50th anniversary of the Inauguration of John K. Kennedy, the slain President for whom the city's largest performing arts venue is named. The Center's just-announced 2010-2011 season reflects that memory with a recreation by Yo Yo Ma and Denyce Graves of concerts given at the White House among other musical, dance and opera performances.
The British Council (the arts part of the British government) and the Kennedy Center are joining forces to bring to Washington productions from the Edinburgh Festival. Also on the boards, Ireland's Druid theatre's The Cripple of Inishmaan, the Chekhov International Theatre Festival's Three Sisters and Twelfth Night, both in Russian, and Peter Brook's "11 and 12," adapted from Amadou Hampate Ba's novel. Rounding out the season are the New York revivals of South Pacific and Hair. For details, check www.kennedy-center.org.
The Kennedy Center has also announced the appointment of David M. Rubenstein, the co-founder and managing director of the Carlyle Group, to succeed Stephen A. Schwarzman who heads the Blackstone Group as its next Chairman.
In April, 2010, David Ives's translation/adaptation of Corneille's The Liar receives its world premiere at the Shakespeare Theatre. ShakespeareTheatre.org.
Not a world premiere but. . .Neil LaBute's Reasons to by Pretty, opens March 24 at Studio Theatre. www.studiotheatre.org. Storyteller Josh Kornbluth had a very strong reaction to the exhibit Ten Portraits of Jews of the Twentieth Century, silk screened by Andy Warhol. That prompted his one-man show Andy Warhol: Good for the Jews? It will be at Theater J, March 6 to March 21, as will Warhol's portraits of Einstein, Freud, Kafka, the Marx Brothers and so on. www.washingtondcjcc.org/center-for-arts/theater-j
Fall, 2010 is the target date for Arena Stage to return to its renovated digs in Southwest DC. The old Harry Weese building, home to the theater-in-the-round Fichandler and fan-shaped Kreeger theatres were badly in need of repairs. Particularly the Fichandler, built 49 years ago. As part of its $125 million re-do, made possible by the generosity of Jaylee Mead, Arena is getting a third venue with walls that look like a woven basket. Coyly named the Cradle new plays will be "nurtured" in the 200-seat theatre. All three venues, called the Mead Center for American Theater, will be under one roof. The soaring structure with much glass —- contrasts starkly with the monolithic, serviceable buildings in the Southwest neighborhood. While the season begins in the Fich with Oklahoma!, the Cradle opens in November with a new drama by Marcus Gardley, Every Tongue Confess, about church bombings in the South. www.arenastage.org
Signature Theatre, after opening in August with the musical Chess, to be directed by Eric Schaeffer, the theatre presents two world premieres in October: A Fox on the Fairway, a farce set in the milieu of golf country clubs, by Washington resident Ken Ludwig (Lend Me A Tenor, Crazy for You) and writer/director Joe Colarco's Walter Cronkite is Dead, a comedy about the culture wars. http://www.signature-theatre.org.
Mary Zimmerman, whose productions for the Shakespeare Theatre have been brilliant (Pericles) and downright awful (Argonautika), returns with Candide, co-produced by the Shakespeare and Chicago's Goodman Theatre. The Bernstein musical is something of a surprise since the Shakespeare has in the past stuck to plays by the Bard and those he influenced. Perhaps, if you stretch the definition to include Bernstein's take on Voltaire's take on Shakespeare, you end up with Candide. Returning in the Fall are Rebecca Bayla Taichman who will direct Cymbeline and actor Patrick Page as Shylock in The Merchant of Venice. ShakespeareTheatre.org.
Round House Theatre is bringing Chay Yew's Ameriville to its venue in the Washington suburb of Bethesda in October. It's a piece about post-Katrina New Orleansin in which storytelling meets jazz, fospel and hip-hop. In February 2011 the theatre will present the world premiere of Charming Billy, adapted and directed by Round House Artistic Director Blake Robinson from Alice McDermott's novel.
Calendar
The Helen Hayes Awards will be announced April 5 at the Warner Theatre followed by a reception at the JW Marriott Hotel. For tickets and a list of nominees go to www.helenhayes.org.
Signature Theatre will present its first Sondheim Award to Angela Lansbury, at a Gala at the Italian Embassy, April 12. Among those scheduled to perform are Victor Garber, Marin Mazzie and Washington's own super talented Sherri Edelen, currently making pies as Mrs. Lovett in Signature's production of Sweeney Todd. For tickets etc. go to http://www.signature-theatre.org.
Ford's Theatre, at 511 10th Street, NW is known for many things: as the place where President Lincoln was shot and as a venue for shows favored by groups of tourists. But the theatre itself, its museum, and beginning March 24, 2010, History on Foot walking tours set the scene for what was like in Washington during the Civil War. Investigation: Detective McDevitt covers the ground the assassin trod -- there'll be two tours April 15, the anniversary of the assassination —- and A Free Black Woman: Elizabeth Keckly, the former slave who became a friend of First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln. For tickets ($12), go to www.fords.org, or call Ticketmaster as 202-387-SEAT.
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