BWW News: Round House Theatre Announces Updates To 2020-2021 Season

In response to the continually evolving novel coronavirus outbreak, Round House Theatre is updating its previously announced 2020-2021 Season. The upcoming season will now include Cost of Living by Martyna Majok. The previously announced God of Carnage will be postponed until the 2021-2022 Season. All remaining shows are still slated to continue, but the schedule has been updated. The Tempest, which is expected to draw in the largest crowds, will now perform at later dates.

Originally set to open on April 1, 2020, Cost of Living was the first of three Round House productions in the the 2019-2020 Season to be canceled. Cost of Living will now run October 21 - November 8, 2020. To accommodate the addition, the previously announced God of Carnage by Yasmina Reza (originally scheduled to run June 9 - July 3, 2021) will be postponed until the 2021-2022 Season.

Ryan Rilette, Round House Artistic Director and director of the production, states, "We have been working hard to bring back Cost of Living ever since it was unexpectedly canceled. With a story that explores themes of caregiving and the social safety net, Martyna Majok's award-winning drama was highly anticipated, but also incredibly timely. We are pleased to announce that, in an effort to bring this production to audiences sooner, we have been able to work Cost of Living into the upcoming season-with the original cast and creative team intact!"

For all productions in the 2020-2021 Season, Round House will modify its audience experience to make accommodations for social distancing and safety measures as advised by the local government and the CDC. The performance schedule for the season has also been updated. Managing Director Ed Zakreski explains the decision, stating, "As the news develops, we have been altering our plans accordingly with the health of our community as the top priority. For the safety of our patrons, we have decided to rearrange the production schedule of the 2020-2021 Season: we expect extraordinary demand for The Tempest, so it will now perform at later dates when we feel it will be safer and more responsible to gather our largest audiences."

Zakreski adds, "Round House remains committed to creating theatre, and we have been overwhelmed by the generosity of our community as we work together through this difficult time. We can't wait to see everyone at the theatre again, but we encourage patrons to stay engaged in the meantime by exploring our free online offerings."

Round House at Your House is a new slate of free digital programming offered by the theatre that includes the original webseries Homebound, weekly interviews with celebrated playwrights, Theatre Education Challenges for three different age groups, and cocktail-making classes from Round House's Fourth Wall Bar & Café highlighting local products. Round House at Your House is fully funded by new contributions from the Round House Board of Trustees. For more information and updates on additional online content, please visit RoundHouseTheatre.org/YourHouse.

For information and updates as they become available, please visit RoundHouseTheatre.org/COVID-19. Round House patrons can still call the box office at 240.644.1100 with questions about tickets and subscriptions.

UPDATED 2020-2021 SEASON DETAILS

MUSIC-FILLED MODERN FABLE
Quixote Nuevo
By Octavio Solis

SEP 2 - SEP 27, 2020 | Regional Premiere

"Make room for Quixote Nuevo," raves The Boston Globe. This inspired adaptation-set to a spirited soundtrack of Tejano music-reimagines Cervantes' beloved knight Don Quixote as a brilliant, bilingual professor whose fantasies take center stage in a Texas border town. Along with his trusty sidekick, this modern-day Quixote journeys through the desert, tilting at patrol drones instead of windmills as he searches for long-lost love. With humor and pageantry, Quixote Nuevo breathes new life into one of literature's most vibrant characters to ask the classic question: when times are tough, how do we keep dreaming?

PULITZER PRIZE-WINNING DRAMA
Cost of Living
By Martyna Majok

Directed by Ryan Rilette

OCT 21 - NOV 8, 2020

Two parallel narratives intersect as a wealthy graduate student with cerebral palsy and his newest caregiver build an uneasy trust, while a truck driver struggles to reconnect with his estranged wife, recently left paralyzed by a car crash. Though each is wounded, the four continue to fight for the tantalizing possibility of human connection, even in the face of physical, mental, and emotional defeat. Both humorous and heartbreaking, Cost of Living illustrates the redemptive possibilities of reaching out to others despite the sometimes-devastating costs.

ELECTRIFYING NOIR DRAMA
Paradise Blue
By Dominique Morisseau

DEC 2 - DEC 27, 2020 | Regional Premiere

Lies. Love. Jazz. The year is 1949, and one of the last jazz clubs in Detroit's Black Bottom neighborhood threatens to close its doors forever. Gifted trumpeter Blue and his lover Pumpkin face the forces of gentrification encroaching on decades of tradition. When a mysterious woman rolls into town with her own plans, both Pumpkin and Blue must reckon with their past, their future, their music, and their love for each other. Praised by New York Magazine as "powerful and exciting," Paradise Blue is a noir tale of "human suffering, awakening, and transformation" brought to electrifying life.

HILARIOUS & HEARTWARMING ADVENTURE
it's not a trip it's a journey
By Charly Evon Simpson

Directed by Nicole A. Watson

JAN 26 - MAR 7, 2021 | World Premiere

June needs a journey. Like, now. So, she convinces her friends to ditch New York City (and their cellphones) for an impromptu road trip to the Grand Canyon. As the four wildly different women travel through the wondrous and not-so-wondrous sights of the United States, they must come together to contend with being black, female-identifying, and American...all at the same time. An intimate play with vast ambitions, it's not a trip it's a journey is about road trips, friendships, and finding the difference between surviving and thriving.

NAIL-BITING POLITICAL THRILLER
"We declare you a terrorist..."
By Tim J. Lord

Directed by Ryan Rilette & Jared Mezzocchi

FEB 2 - MAR 7, 2021 | World Premiere

Moscow, 2002: halfway through Putin's first official term as President. After he brutally crushes a rebellion in the territory of Chechnya, a group of Chechen insurgents hijack a blockbuster musical and take the entire audience of nearly 800 people-including the playwright-hostage. Based on the real events of the Dubrovka Theater hostage crisis, "We declare you a terrorist..." follows the playwright as he comes to terms with that tragic night at the theatre. This taut political thriller is brought to life through live theatre and film by co-directors Ryan Rilette and Jared Mezzocchi, the team behind the runaway hit The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.

CLASSIC TALE MAGICALLY REIMAGINED
The Tempest
By William Shakespeare

Adapted and Directed by Aaron Posner & Teller

APR 28 - JUN 6, 2021 | Regional Premiere

Shakespeare's tale of betrayal, reconciliation, and love is part fairytale, part romance-and all magic. In this new retelling by Aaron Posner and Teller (of Penn & Teller fame), Prospero's island transforms into a traveling tent show of trickery and amazement. Featuring astonishing feats of live magic and the haunting songs of Tom Waits and Kathleen Brennan, this adaptation "awakens...a sense of pleasurable, almost childlike wonder" (The New York Times). After enjoying sold-out runs across the country, The Tempest makes its regional premiere at Round House Theatre, produced in collaboration with Folger Theatre.

ABOUT ROUND HOUSE THEATRE
Round House Theatre is one of the leading professional theatres in the Washington, D.C. area, producing a season of new plays, modern classics, and musicals for more than 40,000 patrons each year at our theatre in Bethesda. Round House has been nominated for 197 Helen Hayes Awards and has won 37, including four Outstanding Resident Play Awards and the Charles MacArthur Award for Original New Play in 2016. Round House's lifelong learning and education programs serve more than 5,000 students each year at its Education Center in Silver Spring, in schools throughout Montgomery County, and at our Bethesda theatre. Cornerstone programs include Free Play, which provides free tickets for students age 13-college, the Teen Performance Company, which culminates in the student-produced Sarah Metzger Memorial Play, Summer Camp for students in grades K-12, and a full slate of classes for Adults & Youth.

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