The Hub Theatre Announces 2017-18 Season

The Hub Theatre announced their 2017-18 season today. Featuring two World Premieres that resonate mightily in our current climate; and the return of their Inaugural production. Season 10 continues Hub's record of staging intricate, honest and magical plays.

Hub Artistic Director, Helen Murray had this to say about the upcoming line up "In the last decade The Hub has become known as a home for new plays that embrace hope. Season 10 doubles down on this message. Anne M. McCaw was commissioned over three years ago to give us a new look at A VERY OLD story. You will be bowled over by the work she has done and how eerily relevant the themes in this World Premiere are today. The ongoing artistic collaboration I have with Marc Acito is one of the great joys in my life. He pitched his new play while we were working on his last one here at The Hub. It gave me chills when he described it and will give audiences even more. And lastly, it is so heartwarming to return to where we started with Craig Wright's play about community and healing. As Hub has grown we have continually honed our aesthetic and this season shows how proud we are of our complete Hub-ness."

THE HUB opens its 2017-2018 season in December with the World Premiere of Anne M. McCaw's PEEKABOO! A NATIVITY PLAY. A daring and hilarious new take on an ancient story, PEEKABOO, tells the story of Mary and Joseph who have just learned that they are to be parents, of the world's savior no less. That's a lot to swallow for a couple of naive kids, and now they find themselves caught in the middle of angels, a paranoid politician and his minions, shepherds, farm animals, and some strange kid following them around with a drum. Is there anywhere to hide... and is there anyway to protect a newborn to which the whole world has pinned its hopes? PEEAKBOO will be directed byHelen Murray with Music Direction by Jonathan Feuer.

Anne M. McCaw is a DC area local and the newest company member of The Hub. She has seen her plays read and produced by The Hub, The Inkwell, Rorschach Theatre, Forum Theatre (Re)Acts, eXtreme eXchange, Theatre Conspiracy, and the Washington Theatre Festival. She received an MFA in playwriting from San Francisco State University, where she helped found the school's play development company, Greenhouse. She has also worked with Cornerstone Theatre Company based in Los Angeles and was a finalist for the Jane Chambers Award. Anne is a founding member of The Inkwell and served as the company's Advising Dramaturg. In this role, she trained directors, actors, and playwrights in various techniques for exploring new plays, led the organization's selection process for identifying plays for development, and supported world premieres and workshop productions, including: Monkey Adoredby Henry Murray (Rogue Machine), You For Me For You by Mia Young (Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company), and a Bid To Save The World by Erin Bregman (Source Festival). She has also served as the coordinating dramaturg for the Source Festival.

The spring brings the return of Hub's inaugural play, THE PAVILION by Craig Wright. Hailed by critics as an "an Our Town for our time," this play is by turns poetic and comic, romantic and philosophical. Peter returns to his twenty-year high-school reunion with dreams of winning back Kari, the girl he left behind after an unexpected pregnancy ended their relationship. Standing in Peter's way is Kari's bitter-as-ever resentment, her husband and the fact that Peter still hasn't grown up. As the night progresses, both Peter and Kari are led, through their interactions with a host of characters all played by a virtuosic Narrator, to face the consequences of choices made long ago and start back into life with newfound strength and bittersweet resolve.

Craig Wright's recent productions: Mistakes Were Made at A Red Orchid Theatre, Hartford Stage and the Barrow Street Theater; Blind at Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre; The Gray Sisters at Third Rail Rep;The Unseen at Actors Theater of Louisville and upcoming at Stages Rep with Lady, which was commissioned by and received its world premiere from the Northlight Theatre and was subsequently produced at Rattlestick and around the country; Grace premiered at Woolly Mammoth theatre (nominated for the Helen Hayes Award for Outstanding New Play); Recent Tragic Events debuted at Woolly, and was produced at Playwrights Horizons (finalist for the American Theatre Critics New Play Award and the Helen Hayes Charles MacArthur Award for Outstanding New Play); and Melissa Arctic, a contemporary adaptation of The Winter's Tale, premiered at the Folger Theatre (2005 Helen Hayes Award for Outstanding New Play). Other productions: Main Street, commissioned and premiered by the Great American History Theatre; Orange Flower Water, produced at the Steppenwolf (Chicago Sun-Times named it one of the Best of the Year); Molly's Delicious, debuted at the Arden Theatre (Barrymore nomination for Best New Play) and at Arizona Theatre Company; The Pavilion, dozens of productions around the country including an extended run at Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre (Drama Desk nomination for Outstanding New Play). Mr. Wright received an Emmy nomination for his Six Feet Under episode Twilight and served as writer and producer for Lost, Brothers & Sisters, United States of Tara, and his own series on ABC, Dirty Sexy Money. His alternative rock band The Tropicals' first release, Live At The Jungle, was named one of the Top 10 local releases by every leading Twin Cities newspaper and weekly. As a member of the band Kangaroo he has released two albums, Phantom and the brand new Skyscraper Spaceship. A graduate of United Theological Seminary, Mr. Wright lives in Los Angeles.

Ending Season 10 is the World Premiere of Marc Acito's newest play, THE SECRETS OF THE UNIVERSE. In 1937 renowned classical singer Marian Anderson was giving a concert at the McCarter Theatre in Princeton. But because she was African-American, Anderson was denied a hotel room. Instead she accepted an invitation to stay at a professor's home. That professor was Albert Einstein. This play with songs is based on the true relationship of these titanic figures, a union of hearts, minds and souls in a quest to unlock the secrets of the cosmos.

Marc Acito is the book writer of the Broadway musical Allegiance which won the Craig Noel Award for Outstanding New Musical for its run at The Old Globe. He won the Helen Hayes Award for Best New Play with his comedy Birds of a Feather, which has received six other productions. Recently he wrote the concert adaptation of Lerner & Loewe's 1951 classic Paint Your Wagon for City Center's Encores series. He also wrote the book to A Room with a View, which played at the 5th Avenue Theatre in Seattle and The Old Globe in San Diego. Marc's one-man musical adaptation of his award-winning novel How I Paid for College debuted at the Hub Theater (the novel won the Ken Kesey Award for Fiction, was a NY Times Editors' Choice, and spawned a sequel, Attack of the Theater People). Other projects in development include Chasing Rainbows, a musical based on the adolescence of Judy Garland, which has its world premiere November 27, 2015 at Flatrock Playhouse; and The Secrets of The Universe, a new play about the relationship between Albert Einstein and Marian Anderson. He recently became the first writer to receive two NAMT grants in one year. Now a regular contributor to Playbill, Marc recorded numerous commentaries for the 12 million listeners of NPR's All Things Considered. He teaches Story Structure to writers of all mediums at NYU.

The Hub Theatre is a professional, 501c3 nonprofit theatre organization, member of Theatre Washington, and is generously supported by the Arts Council of Fairfax, Microsoft, The Kennedy Center's Keenan Fellowship, Fairfax City Commission on the Arts, Virginia Commission for the Arts, Integrity Applications, and Silverwood Associates.

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