JaBen Early

Golf is a metaphor for “the haves and have nots” in playwright August Wilson’s masterful final play Radio Golf. This challenging play now being presented at Bethesda’s Round House Theatre is directed by Reginald L. Douglas with a finely tuned ear for the cadence of speech and the robust, all-encompassing writing style of August Wilson. 

The feelings and attachments of men, whether gay or straight, as they fight for self-respect and survival in a harsh world are portrayed in playwright Katori Hall’s Pulitzer-Prize winning play The Hot Wing King. The compromises, commitments, camaraderie, and fractious relationships of a non-traditional family are explored with immediacy and sophisticated insight by Ms. Hall. Like all superbly written plays, one is continually taken by surprise as the play develops and nothing is as expected. The writing here is on the caliber of playwrights Annie Baker or August Wilson.

Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater partnered with Nationals Park to host a free live simulcast of the Roundabout Theatre Company's production of Toni Stone on Sunday, September 26 at 7:30 p.m. The performance inside the Kreeger Theater was broadcast to the center field video board at Nationals Park for thousands to experience.

Roundabout Theatre Company’s production of Toni Stone at Arena Stage, directed by Pam MacKinnon, gives Toni (Santoya Fields) the power to tell her own story — the way she wants to tell it. 

Detroit '67, the final production in the Signature Features 2021 Season is now available for streaming through Thursday, September 16 on Marquee TV.

Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater is proud to partner with Nationals Park to host a free live simulcast of the Roundabout Theatre Company’s production of Toni Stone on Sunday, September 26 at 7:30 p.m.

Reprising their roles from the A.C.T. run include JaBen Early (Arena's Junk), Kenn E. Head (Roundabout's Toni Stone), Rodney Earl Jackson Jr. (Broadway's Ain't Too Proud - The Life and Times of The Temptations), Sean-Maurice Lynch (Arena's Jubilee) and Jarrod Mims Smith (A.C.T.'s The Royale).

Detroit '67, the final production in the Signature Features 2021 Season is now available for streaming through Thursday, September 16 on Marquee TV.

Inspired in part by August Wilson's 10-play depiction of Pittsburgh life, Dominique Morisseau embarked on a similar ambition reflecting the Motor City in her 'Detroit Project.'

Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater announces the company for Toni Stone, written by Arena alumna resident playwright Lydia R. Diamond. Set in the 1950s, Toni Stone was the first woman to play baseball in the Negro Leagues, also making her the first woman to play in a professional men's league.

Signature Theatre has announced the full cast and dates for Detroit ‘67, the final production in the Signature Features 2021 Season. Written by MacArthur Genius Grant Fellow Dominique Morisseau and directed by Candis C. Jones, Detroit ‘67 depicts abrupt changes to the lives of the Poindexter siblings during the 1967 Detroit uprising.

Russell G. Jones (Ruined, 'The Americans') & Laila Robins (The Apple Family Plays, 'Homeland') have recently joined the cast of Grey Matters, Eden Marryshow's powerful family drama that explores race, class and identity in 1970s and 1980s Brooklyn. 

Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater's docudrama, May 22, 2020 is now live.  The film received its world premiere on June 12 through Arena's Supper Club, captures a day in the life of actual Washington, D.C.-Maryland-Virginia residents, ages 18-89, from a beekeeper, a climate change activist to a D.C. police detective. Their rich stories, transformed into monologues by 10 area playwrights, are a stunning look at their lives in the age of COVID-19.

Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater's docudrama, May 22, 2020 will be available online on Saturday, June 13.

Making its West Coast premiere, Toni Stone is the extraordinary, real-life story of a trail-blazing Bay Area baseball player. Check out photos 

Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater has announced the company for Toni Stone, written by Arena alumna resident playwright Lydia R. Diamond. Set in the 1950s, Toni Stone was the first woman to play baseball in the Negro Leagues, also making her the first woman to play professionally in a men's league. Against all odds, Stone blazed a path in the male-dominated sports world, shattering expectations and creating her own set of rules.

Tony Award winner and American Conservatory Theater (A.C.T.) Artistic Director Pam MacKinnon announced today the full cast and creative team for Lydia R. Diamond's new play, Toni Stone.

Tony Award & Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Robert Schenkkan will return to Broadway with the second of his two exhilarating dramas celebrating Lyndon B. Johnson's legacy: THE GREAT SOCIETY. Get to know the cast below as they begin Broadway performances!

Arena Stage's production of 'Junk' marks the Washington, DC area premiere of the critically acclaimed play, and, happily, Arena's production is more than up to the task of living up to the show's reputation.

Arena Stage presents Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and author Ayad Akhtar's (Arena's Disgraced) timely tale Junk. Inspired by the real junk bond giants of the 1980s, Akhtar explores how the riveting, hostile takeover of a family-owned manufacturing company paved the way to expose the rise of greed, power, race and wealth that led to reshaping the rules of Wall Street and the world.