Washington Stage Guild's 2024-25 Season Concludes With SOFONISBA

Sofonisba by Callie Kimball will bring The Washington Stage Guild's 2024-2025 season to a close. The play by former DC-Based writer Kimball, focused on portrait painter Sofonisba Anguisola, features Gabriel Alejandro, Peter Boyer, O'Malley Steuerman and Amanda Tudor, directed by director/actor Deidra LaWan Starnes (Associate Artistic Director, 1st Stage). Performances run April 10 to May 4, 2025, with four Pay-What-You-Can previews April 10-12 at the Washington Stage Guild's home, The Undercroft Theatre in the Mount Vernon Place United Methodist Church, 900 Massachusetts Avenue, NW. Opening/Press performance is Sunday, April 13 at 2:30pm.

ABOUT THE PLAY

Sofonisba: She was one of the first known female artists. And one of the first women artists to establish an international reputation. A student of Michelangelo, 27-year-old noblewoman and renowned portrait artist Sofonisba Anguissola travels from Italy to Spain to paint for King Philip II. In her 20 years at the Royal Court, she must play to and against the expectations of the king, friendship with and service to a 14-year-old Queen Isabel, and navigate the tricky waters of court politics as an unmarried woman. A play about the hunger for creation – of birth and of art – and what it costs. Area Premiere.

FROM DIRECTOR Deidra LaWan Starnes: “Working on a piece like Sofonisba is a chance of a lifetime. Not only do I get to work with one of my favorite theatres, but I get to work on a play that stimulates my heart and soul. In Sofonisba, I see a woman who defies her predetermined societal gender role and instead takes a life-long journey to define herself.”

FROM THE PLAYWRIGHT: “The few biographical facts we have of Sofonisba are remarkable on their own. I was taken with the idea of two young women from different countries, cultures, and languages being thrust into the Spanish court with two entirely different directives—one to make art, the other to make heirs. I wrote the first draft of Sofonisba for the 2008 Kennedy Center Page-to-Stage Festival. In the years since, the play has had many readings, development opportunities, workshops, and productions, including its world premiere at Theater of Monmouth in Maine. I've been an ardent fan of Washington Stage Guild since the 1990s, before I was a playwright. Having a theatre with such an overtly literary mission produce the play's DC premiere is incredibly meaningful.”

ABOUT THE PLAYWRIGHT

Callie Kimball is an award-winning, nationally commissioned and internationally produced playwright and former MacDowell Fellow. She earned her MFA under Tina Howe at Hunter College, where she won the Goldberg Award two years in a row. Her plays have been produced and developed in New York, Chicago, LA, and DC, at the Kennedy Center, MCC Theater, Lark Play Development Center, Rep Stage, Project Y, Washington Shakespeare Company, Theater at Monmouth, Greater Boston Stage, Portland Stage, Kitchen Dog, Mad Horse, Echo Theatre, The Brick, The Drama League, and many colleges and festivals across the country. Her work has been anthologized by Tripwire Harlot, The Kilroys, and Theatre Communications Group. Academic articles about her plays have appeared in Borrowers and Lenders: The Journal of Shakespeare and Appropriation, and in Comedia Performance: A Journal of the Association for Hispanic Classical Theater. SOFONISBA won the Clauder Gold Prize, was a finalist for the O'Neill, a semifinalist for the Princess Grace Award, Shakespeare's Sister Award, and Lark Playwrights Week, and was included on The Kilroys' List. Some have described her plays as feminist, which is lovely, but really, she just writes plays where the main characters have jobs and goals and happen to be women. She currently teaches Playwriting at Bates College.

ABOUT THE TEAM

The cast of Sofonisba includes Gabriel Alejandro, Peter Boyer, O'Malley Steuerman, Amanda Tudor.

 

Gabriel Alejandro (King Phillip, Orazio) is a Puerto Rican actor, teacher, and improviser. He has trained and performed in Colombia, Denmark, Greece, Puerto Rico, and Washington DC. Previous credits include locally at Folger Theatre: Romeo & Juliet, Next Stop Theater: Native Gardens; Prologue Theater: Marjorie Prime; Devil's Isle Shakespeare: As You Like It; Chesapeake Shakespeare Company: The Oresteia, As You Like It; Keegan Theater: The Wilting Point; Shakespeare Theatre Company Academy: Macbeth, Measure for Measure, Pericles, Twelfth Night; Worlds Elsewhere Theater Company: The Roaring Girl; Fractal Theater Collective: Untitled Horror Project. In New York, he performed at The Tank: Por Lo Que Soy and internationally in Colombia: Criaturas; Denmark: Barter; Greece: KOMMOS; Puerto Rico: Mujeres del Alba, Sueños de Colores, Drácula, Unmerciful Good Fortune. Education: (MFA) Shakespeare Theater Company Academy. Peter Boyer (Bishop, Don Francisco, Fool) previously appeared at Washington Stage Guild as Mr. Praed in Mrs. Warren's Profession and as Charles Dickens in Discord. He has also been seen locally at Arena Stage (Holiday), Ford's Theatre (1776, Parade, Shenandoah), Shakespeare Theatre Company (Way of the World), Olney Theatre (1776, The Sound of Music), Rep Stage (The Fantasticks), MetroStage (Broadway Christmas Carol, Uprising), Infinity Theatre (The Fantasticks), Imagination Stage (Heidi, Sleeping Beauty), Adventure Theatre (Tinkerbell, How I Became a Pirate), Baltimore Shakespeare Festival (Taming of the Shrew, The Comedy of Errors, Scapin!) and the Alliance for New Music Theatre (Vanek Unleashed). He has also performed in theatres across the country, in shows such as Unnecessary Farce at the Tent Theatre in Springfield MO, My Fair Lady at the Ozark Actors Theatre in Rolla MO, Groucho: A Life in Revue at Wayside Theatre in Middletown VA, Twelfth Night at the Cumberland Theatre in Cumberland MD, as well as several shows in Colorado, Ohio, and much of the mid-West. His plays Captain Hook: My Story, or How I Clawed My Way to the Top and Tofana Bobana have received multiple productions in the Washington-Baltimore area. O'Malley Steuerman (Queen Isabel) is making his WSG debut in Sofonisba. O'Malley graduated from Towson University with their BFA in Acting in May of 2020 and have since solo-traveled the U.S. to complete their research-based performance project entitled, "so, what are you gonna do next?". Upon returning home to Baltimore they've appeared in productions across the DMV: Romeo & Juliet (Folger Theatre), Quilters (1st Stage), R/J (Strand Theater Company), Life is a Dream, Tiny Beautiful Things, and Our Town (Baltimore Center Stage). They made their producing debut in 2023 with R/J at the Strand and this July they will be co-producing Baltimore's first Trans Theater Festival, #T4T4T, in residence at the Voxel. When O'Malley is not treading the theatrical boards, he can be found performing and producing in drag as MANiC!. Amanda Tudor (Sofonisba Anguisola) is making her WSG Debut. During her time in New York City, she performed at Roundabout Theatre in The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore with Olympia Dukakis, directed by Michael Wilson, Boomerang Theater in The Tempest and The Reckless Season, directed by Dominic D'Andrea. She sought out all female productions of Julius Caesar, As You Like It, and Twelfth Night. As for DC and regional productions, she's worked at the Shakespeare Theatre in King Lear with Stacy Keach, directed by Robert Falls, Twelfth Night directed by Rebecca Taichman, and Ion directed by Ethan McSweeney. At Spooky Action Theater she played Ellen/Jenna in Maple and Vine directed by Stevie Zimmerman. During her time at Hartford Stage, she worked on Milk Train… and A Christmas Carol. She studied at Interlochen Arts Academy and The Hartt School, BFA.

 

Sofonisba is directed by Deidra LaWan Starnes, Associate Artistic Director at 1st Stage and an actor, director, writer, and learning facilitator. She is excited to be working with Washington Stage Guild after appearing in their production of Dorothy's Dictionary. Her directing credits include the currently running hang at 1st Stage, Sunset Baby (2024 Helen Hayes Nomination for Outstanding Director and Production 2024), Quilters, The Rainmaker (2023 Helen Hayes Nomination for Most Outstanding Production), Ma Rainey's Black Bottom (nominated for six Helen Hayes Awards), ‘Night, Mother, A Civil War Christmas, For Colored Girls, and The Soul Collector. She was last seen in Romeo and Juliet at Folger Theatre. Other acting credits include Postcards from Ihatov, Shutter Sisters, Mlima's Tale, Wanda's Way, The Mamalogues, The Member of the Wedding, The Good Counselor, The Hula Hoopin' Queen, Passing Strange, Two Trains Running, Radio Golf, Seven Guitars, The Amen Corner, King Lear, Amadeus, Milk Like Sugar, Julius Caesar, Invisible Man, In the Red and Brown Water and Intimate Apparel. Deidra has a BA in Theatre from the UMD, an MA in Producing Film, TV, and Video from AU, and an MFA in Drama from UCONN.

 

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