Kennedy Center Announces Schedule For 8th Annual Page-To-Stage Festival, Runs 9/5-9/7

On Saturday, September 5, 2009 through Monday, September 7, 2009, the Kennedy Center hosts its eighth annual Page-to-Stage New Play Festival, featuring more than 30 theaters from the D.C. metropolitan area, all with a mission to produce and support new work. The three-day, Center-wide event offers a series of free readings and open rehearsals of plays and musicals being developed by local, regional, and national playwrights, librettists, and composers.

PERFORMANCE CALENDAR*
*Schedule and artists subject to change without notice

Seating for all performances in each of these venues is on a first-come, first-serve basis. Doors open 30 minutes prior to the start of each performance. Seating is limited and subject to availability.

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 2009

MILLENNIUM STAGE SOUTH

Playwrights Group of Baltimore, 2:00 p.m. - 4:00 p.m.

The Eight Ball Plays, a series of ten-minute plays united by the theme of "eight-ball." In the tradition of the "Bulb and Whistle" plays (Page-to-Stage 2007), and the "lock and key" plays (Page-to-Stage 2008), Playwrights Group of Baltimore once again showcases the latest work by some of Charm City's best playwrights. Previous Page-to-Stage works have gone on to full productions in various locations.

Safe Streets Arts Foundation, 7:30 - 10:00 p.m.

In From Prison to the Stage Project, ex-prisoners and other talented actors and singers perform six plays to include: The Love That Divides, One Fine Day in Inferior Court, I Am a Woman on Death Row, Reading Slim, Homeward Bound, and Time In.

MILLENNIUM STAGE NORTH

Adventure Theater, Imagination Stage, and Kennedy Center Theater for Young Audiences, 6:00 - 7:00 p.m.

Adventure Theater and Imagination Stage will perform musical selections. Kennedy Center Theater for Young Audiences (KCTYA) will present a 15 minute excerpt from Living Heirloom.

SOUTH ATRIUM FOYER

The Audible Groups, 2:00 p.m. - 3:30 p.m.

The Listening Room created by the Audible Group is an audio event. Audience members will ‘enter' the ‘room' via speakers and personal MP3 players and eavesdrop on an evocative experience of love, loss, and memory.

Witness, written by Miranda Rose Hall, is a one-act play about a father and daughter struggling to make room for growth despite an overwhelming grief. Grounded in the belief that poems can grow into houses and memories can be aired out and refolded like laundry - the play is a lyrical journey through love release and recollection.

The Essential Theatre, 7:00 - 10:00 p.m.

Blues Theme for Talledega

Written by Cornell Calhoun, III and directed by S. Robert Morgan, Blues Theme for Talledega is set in 1955 in Talledega, Alabama. The operations of the Klu Klux Klan are alive and well. Young colored men have been disappearing. The owner of the local thriving family business has discovered the evidence and the Talladega Klan will get it back at any cost.

NORTH ATRIUM FOYER

Limelight Theatre, 2:00 - 3:00 p.m.

We, Tiresius

Written by Stephen Spotswood and directed by Jay D. Brock, the play is the story of Tiresius, the old, blind prophet that set the wheels turning in one of the stage's oldest stories and led Oedipus to his doom. Tiresius' story is one that makes that tragedy seem like a cakewalk. Born a man who could see the future at a time when only women were allowed the gift of prophecy, Tiresius saw the world from a unique perspective, spending decades as a woman thanks to the retribution of Hera. In We, Tiresius, we hear the prophet's story told by three voices: the boy prophet, the woman Tiresius was forced to become in his middle years, and the old blind man we know so well from Oedipus Rex.

Catholic University, 7:30 - 8:30 p.m.

Magnum Opus

Written by Michael Oberhauser and directed by Jay D. Brock, the one-act opera deals with Robert, a struggling playwright, who undertakes a Faustian bargain with two sexy Greek Muses and trades his sanity for creative inspiration. Driven by his desire to please his wife Claire and succeed as a writer, he risks his life in return for his Magnum Opus.

TERRACE THEATER

Women's Work Writers Group, 7:00 - 10:00 p.m.

Crawling from the Ashes of September 11th

On the eve of her planned suicide, an architect, Julie, is visited by the ghost of her brother who died in 9/11. The two character play is adapted from the memoir, Not to Worry, I'm just Collateral Damage, written by local architect Julia Caswell Daitch, who lost her brother, the physicist, William "Billy" Caswell when the plane in which he was a passenger was hijacked by terrorists and forced to crash into the Pentagon on September 11, 2001. The play is written by Shelley Herman Gillon and directed by Ralph Cosham.

TERRACE GALLERY

Seventh Street Playhouse, 2:00 - 4:00 p.m.

The Last Days of King Solomon

Written and directed by Anthony E. Gallo, this two-act "black comedy" is about doubt and faith during the latter days of Solomon, long-time ruler of militarily and economically powerful Israel. The legendary monarch, who built the impressive temple and holds together a diverse nation by shrewd domestic and foreign marriages, has lost God's favor. He is the laughing stock of the nation because he supposedly cannot even see the temple. When he approaches the temple, all the lights go out. His treasonous chief minister is in hiding. Foreign countries wait to attack the borders, and the twelve tribes are fighting among themselves.

Kennedy Center Theater for Young Audiences, 4:30 - 6:00 p.m.

Living Heirloom by Jason Williamson

Doorway Arts Ensemble, 7:30 - 9:30 p.m.

Sex and Education
Written by Lissa Levin, the play is a one act comedy about a high school senior basketball star. Already promised a scholarship to the University of Michigan, he passes a note during his last final exam. The note is confiscated by his English teacher. Knowing that his sports scholarship will be rescinded if she fails him for passing the note, she uses her power to keep the boy after school and makes him rewrite it in "perfect paragraph form, with complete sentences, and effective thesis statement, supporting argument and conclusion, proofed for grammar, spelling, punctuation, and neatness." However, the note was a profanity-laden entreaty to his girlfriend to have sex under the bleachers after graduation. As this is the only sample of the boy's writing ever written with conviction in her class, the teachers seizes the opportunity to aid him in writing his first persuasive essay. Both learn valuable lessons throughout the process about life, sex, and themselves.

Owl Moon

Written by Lisa Liz Maestri and directed by Tiffany Ford, the play is a one act drama about two couples who venture into a desolate, frozen snowfield for the night. They find themselves trapped, not only physically but also in the mire of their own neurosis. Lisa is determined to win back her ex, Isaac, and will stop at nothing to do so. Shell and Salome carry weighty sacks across the snow, looking for a way to purge their sins. Murder, self-abuse, bizarre encounters, and desperation plague the travelers, and only some will survive the night. Is it possible to lose oneself? To lose oneself in another? Using sharp imagery and music, Owl Moon examines the fine line between passion and obsession, and the toll it takes on the mind, body, and spirit.

SOUTH OPERA TIER LOUNGE

Theater of the First Amendment, 2:00 - 4:00 p.m.

24, 7, 365

Between them Johnnie Tyler and her brother Beau have five degrees from prestigious universities, six phone numbers and a family pedigree that reaches back to 19th Century Virginia. Johnnie also has a Danish husband who dreams of Sunday pancake breakfasts while Beau's vision of success includes a trophy wife and designer clothes. What will make Johnnie and Beau happy? What would the world look like if people were satisfied? In this play written by Jennifer L. Nelson and directed by Scot Reese, educated African Americans' attitudes about race, class, and social activism are put under a humorous microscope as two Washington couples set off on a very civilized weekend camping trip for a birthday celebration. A misunderstood hip hop poet, A VERY OLD tree, and a large bottle of vodka complicate and ultimately illuminate their inner and outer lives.

Active Cultures, 7:00 - 10:00 p.m.

TBD

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 6, 2009

MILLENNIUM STAGE SOUTH

Washington Shakespeare Company, 2:00 - 3:30 p.m.

One Thousand and One Days

Scheherazade is not telling tales, she's taking heads. In this revisionary version of One Thousand and One Nights written by Paco José Madden and directed by Jessica Lefkow, Scheherazade is not the storyteller of Arabian lore, but a queen who marries a man each day and has his head served ona platter at night. Only a shepherd named Ali with different tales to tell can end the queen's madness and bring peace back to the land. Set in an imagined Baghdad, the play is a feminist spin to a classic story.

Washington Shakespeare Company, 4:00 - 6:00 p.m.

Hercules in Russia

Written by Allyson Currin, the play is based on a true story. Jim Hercules, a black man born a slave in Alabama, finds his way to the court of Tzar Nicholas II on the eve of the Russian Revolution. Jim must weigh his loyalty to his adopted country against demons from his tortured American past.

The Olney Theatre, 7:30 - 10 p.m.

Really, Really

"Because the mes want what they want and the mes want it now." At a top New England University, members of a rugby team are forced to deal with allegations of sexual assault. The allegations come from Leigh, a girl from a tortured upbringing, whom is the girlfriend of one of The Players, whom is also the son of the Dean of the Unversity. Written by Paul Downs Colaizzo and directed by Brian Swibel, the play is inspired by the infamous Duke lacrosse rape case, and examined through the lense of cultural studies of the generation being dubbed "Generation Me," Really, Really explores the selfishness and reality behind wants, motives, and tactics used by the new wave of young adults.

MILLENNIUM STAGE NORTH

Theater J, 4:30 - 5:45 p.m.

Andy Warhol: Good for the Jews?

A world premiere play by Josh Kornbluth.

SOUTH ATRIUM FOYER

AccoKeekCreek Theatre Co., 2:00 - 3:30 p.m.

ShortStack v5

New short plays for children written by Bob Bartlett, Audrey Cefaly, DW Gregory, and Gwydion Suilebhan.

Playwrights Forum, 4:00 - 6:00 p.m.

Fisker Fights For His Life

Written by Ernie Joselovitz and directed by Nick Olcott, this play is inspired by a substory of the novel by Anthony Trollope, The Way We Live Now. It's 1875. It's early morning, an hour or so before Mr. Trollope - like clockwork, like every day - is to sit down and proceed to write. Next door, a single room, the Substory Room, in which are gathered the characters whose chapter is about to be written. Including Hamilton K. Fisker, the only American except for the other, a woman whose hand (and thighs and lips) he seeks, slogging through the labyrinth landscape of this 800-page English novel.

The Essential Theatre, 7:30 - 10 p.m.

People for Whom the World Spins and Turns (a Story of Recovering Addicts)

Written by James J. Hsiao and directed by S. Robert Morgan, the play is the story of five recovering addicts and their sometimes catastrophic attempts to survive a twenty-eight day recovery program. Yielding not to temptation becomes the order of the day as questionable practices ensue and these inhabitants turn against each other in acts of deception and desperation to complete the program. Relationships begin, strengthen, and disintegrate as these five lives spin, turn, evolve, and stand still.

NORTH ATRIUM FOYER

Bowie State University, 2:00 - 4:30 p.m.

A piece directed by Renee Charlow.

Baltimore Playwrights Festival, 7:30 - 10:00 p.m.

Featured selections from the Baltimore Playwrights Festival summer productions will be presented.

TERRACE GALLERY

The Georgetown Theatre Company, 2:00 - 4:00 p.m.

The Temple of the Soul

The Temple of the Soul is written by Rececca Nesvet and directed by Catherine Aselford. Meet the man on whom Shakespeare's Shylock was based: Queen Elizabeth's personal physician, Ruy de Lopez. Was he a spy for Portugal or a loyal friend to the Queen? A victim of anti-Semitism or a traitor? A pawn in court intrigue or a schemer himself? Christopher Marlowe, the Earl of Essex, Sire Francis Walshingham, and Queen Elizabeth I all play a part in Rebecca Nesvet's elegant historical mystery.

Catholic University Music Department, 4:30 - 5:30 p.m.

Violets and Other Tales from Lyrics of Sunshine and Shadows, Act I, Scene II

Written by Steven M. Allen and directed by Asya Heatley, Lyrics of Sunshine and Shadows is an opera based on the life and love of Paul Laurence Dunbar and Alice Ruth Moore. Violets and Other Tales records the first of the two years the couple would correspond before meeting.

Solas Nua and Tinderbox Theatre Company of Belfast, 7:30 - 8:30 p.m.

Dead Green Eden

A play written by James Johnson.

FAMILY THEATER

Taffety Punk Theatre Company, 6:00 - 7:00 p.m.

Burn Your Bookes

Burn Your Bookes is written by Richard Byrne and directed by Marcus Kyd. In the popular imagination, alchemy is relic of the past - a weave of mystery and swindle. Fantastic tales have grown up around its practitioners. Alchemists did their best to create and maintain this illusion. Many of their texts remain inscrutable to this day. Burn Your Bookes is a play that demystifies alchemy - and examines its key role in the politics and technology of Renaissance politics. The one-act portion of the full three-act play is a primer on alchemy's interrelationship with court politics that reveals the high stakes of failure and success in the pursuit of the philosopher's stone. In a world where alchemy was the "research and development" arm of the Renaissance, success meant knighthood and riches, and failure or fraud was punished with death.

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 7, 2009

MILLENNIUM STAGE SOUTH

J.T. Burian Theatricals, 2:00 - 4:00 p.m.

Stonewall's Bust

Written by John Morogiello and directed by Juliana Avery, the full-length comedy is about a New Yorker who breaks a priceless statue of Stonewall Jackson in a Confederate Heritage museum run by his girlfriend's family. When the man lies, he sets in motion a comic series of escalating events that jeopardize his relationship, his reputation, and possibly his life. The play was awarded the 2007 Mountain Playhouse International Comedy Award. It was produced at Mountain Playhouse in 2008.

The Playwrights' Gymnasium, 7:30 - 10:00 p.m.

In Our Shorts: Five From the Playwrights Gymnasium

Five one acts from Washington's only process-oriented playwrights' workshop range from the mystical to the comical, to the carnal.

MILLENNIUM STAGE NORTH

Signature Theatre, 6:00 - 7:00 p.m.

SOUTH ATRIUM FOYER

Catholic University of America MFA Playwrights Readings, 2:00 - 6:00 p.m.

Readings of new plays by playwrights in the MFA in playwriting program at The catholic University of America. Playwrights include Bob Bartlett, Emily Bentley, Timothy Guillot, and Rebecca Jones.

TheHegira, 7:30 - 9:30 p.m.

Julius by Design

Jo was once a beauty. Laurel despises dictionaries. Casey and Max lost their daughter. In Kara Lee Corthron's latest play, Julius by Design, directed by Danielle A. Drakes, journey with these characters as they grieve, change, and realize their own paths to happiness.

NORTH ATRIUM FOYER

The Inkwell, 2:00 - 4:00 p.m.

Various Readings

Showcase readings will feature 20-minute excerpts of six of the most daring plays in The Inkwell's selection pool.

The Inkwell, 5:00 - 6:30 p.m.

Panel Discussion

The Inkwell, 7:30 - 10:00 p.m.

The F Word

A staged reading of Melissa Blackall's The F Word. The F Word focuses on the dirties word in the English language: fat.

THEATER LAB

Georgetown University Theater with Black Theater Ensemble, 2:00 - 4:00 p.m.

Nicole and Anthony

Written by Paul A. Notice II and directed by Derek Goldman, Nicole and Anthony is a drama that follows the life of a freed bi-racial woman as she is brought back into slavery, then freed once more through a collision of circumstances. Through her travels, Nicole comes into contact with a collection of men whose interactions with her conjure the ghosts and living remnants of slavery in American society. The play is the recent recipient of the prestigious Dr. Floyd Gaffney Award for Playwriting on the African-American Experience. In 2009, playwright Paul A. Notice II graduated from Georgetown University, where he developed the play, and is now a student in the MFA Program in Dramatic Writing at New York University.

Forum Theatre, 4:30 - 6:30 p.m.

Diagram of a Paper Airplane

Diagram of a Paper Airplane is written by Carlos Murillo and directed by Michael Dove. As a final act before his death, Javier C, the once promising playwright turned mentally unstable vagabond, sent fragments of his play Diagram of a Paper Airplane to his surviving friends - fragments that can only be made whole if the group comes together to read it. Javier's ex-wife and daughter arrange for a memorial service. Javier's surviving friends, driven by curiosity and guilt, arrive, hoping that the play will reveal the truth behind a tragic mystery that has haunted them for two decades.

Synetic Theater, 7:30 - 10:00 p.m.

Dracula

From vampiric wolves howling in the Transylvanian night to the erotic blood-lust of the demonic Count and his consorts, Bram Stoker's gothic dreamscape has stood the test of time in the imaginations of innumerable artists, and now Synetic Theater takes its place among them. This reading of Dracula is written by Bram Stocker with adaptations by Nathan Weinberger and Paata Tsikurishvil, and directed by Paata Tsikurishvil.

TERRACE GALLERY

African Continuum Theater Company, 2:00 - 4:00 p.m.

Uns

Written by Caleen Sinnette Jennings and directed by Vera Katz, the prefix ‘un' means, "not, removed, released, reversed." Undisclosed, Unmilked, Unlearned, and Uncovered are four short plays about black women who are not responsible for their predicaments, and are removed from the mainstream. Nevertheless, their energy is released. In the military, classroom, living room, and in the post-Katrina backyard, they reverse the flow of power and triumph over their conditions.

Didactic Theatre Company, 4:30 - 6:00 p.m.

Little Gives

A full-length play written by Paul Downs Colaizzo and directed by Caroline Angell.

Forum Theater, 7:30 - 10:00 p.m.

A Brief Narrative of an Extraordinary Birth of Rabbits

Written by C. Denby Swanson and directed by Elissa Goetschius, the play centers around Mare. Coming up with names is a problem for Mare when she starts giving birth to an endless stream of bunnies. But that's only the start of her problems, as a whole family of guilty consciences comes to the fore. Who can she turn to? Enter The Stork: raconteur, impresario, and OB-GYN, all rolled into one.

FAMILY THEATER

Charter Theater, 2:00 - 3:00 p.m.

KT for Prez!

Written by Jessica Macie North and directed by Sandy Murphy, this play for young audiences centers around six year old Kennedy Taylor (K.T.). Who says a six year old can't be president? K.T. believes she can be whatever she wants to be if she just rolls up her sleeve and gets to work. But running a presidential campaign is more than a song and dance for this first grader. K.T. has two important votes secured (her mom and her big brother) but this election is going to take honesty, discovery, and passion. And she needs your vote too - K.T. for Prez!

Aritists' Bloc, 4:00 - 5:00 p.m.

Hall of Mirrors

A play by Colin Hovde.

Rorschaeh Theatre Company, 5:30 - 7:45 p.m.

Eat Me or What Will You

A play by Karl Miller.

Bouncing Ball Theatrical Productions, 8:30 - 10:00 p.m.

It Closed on Opening Night

With music and lyrics by Christian Imboden, book by Shawn Northrip, and directed by Shirley Serotsky, It Closed on Opening Night is about a theater company that produces a revival of the 1977 Broadway belly-flop When I Just Can't Say It Anymore, The Musical! The story of a showgirl who misses her chance to leave the stage and lead a decent life. I Just Can't Say It... was plagued by multiple book writers, overzealous producers, and a fading diva. Nothing is scarier than a bad musical.

SOUTH OPERA TIER LOUNGE

Theater J, 3:30 - 5:45 p.m.

Mikveh

Theater J presents a reading of their May 2010 English language premiere of Mikeveh by Hadar Galron and directed by Shirley Serotsky.

Ganymede Arts, 7:30 - 10 p.m.

Fanatics, or The Vampire Hunters Guild of Orlando, Florida, Second Chapter

Written by Nathan McGaughey, the author who brought you Butchers, a love story, and directed by John C. Bailey, the play is about a group of young, normal, run-of-the-mill vampire hunters who get exactly what they bargained for...and then some.

The Page-to-Stage Festival is sponsored by The Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation.

For more information, please visit the Kennedy Center website at www.kennedy-center.org.

A comprehensive list of participating theaters includes:

AccokeekCreek Theatre Co.
Active Cultures
Adventure Theatre
African Continuum Theatre Company
Baltimore Playwrights Festival
Bouncing Ball Theatrical Productions
Bowie State University
Catholic University Benjamin T. Rome School of Music
Catholic University of America Department of Drama
Charter Theater
Didactic Theatre Company
Doorway Arts Ensemble Theater Company
Forum Theatre
Ganymede Arts
Georgetown University Theater and Performances Studies Program (in collaboration with Black Theater Ensemble)
Imagination Stage
J.T. Burian Theatricals
Kennedy Center Theater for Young Audiences
Limelight Theatre
Playwrights Forum
Rorschach Theatre Company
Safe Streets Arts Foundation
Seventh Street Playhouse
Signature Theatre
Solas Nua/Tinderbox Theatre Company of Belfast
Synetic Theater
Taffety Punk Theatre Company
The Audible Group
The catholic University of America (MFA Playwrights)
The Essential Theatre
The Georgetown Theatre Company
The Inkwell
The Olney Theatre Center
The Playwright's Group of Baltimore
The Playwrights' Gymnasium
Theater of the First Amendment
Theatre J
theHegira
Washington Shakespeare Company
Women's Work Writers Group

For more information, visit www.kennedy-center.org.

To post a comment, you must register and login.