Molly Smith News

Main Street Theater is closing their excellent 38th season with the wildly entertaining, often hilarious, and deeply moving CLOSE UP SPACE by Molly Smith Metzler. The zany dramadey is a Susan Smith Blackburn Prize Finalist and had its world premiere in 2011 in a Manhattan Theatre Club staging at New York City Center Stage I. This premiere production received mixed reviews that all seemed to get too caught up on the idea that the premise isn't entirely original.

Close Up Space by Molly Smith Metzler will make its regional premiere at Main Street Theater - Rice Village (2540 Times Blvd., Houston, TX), directed by Andrew Ruthven. The Susan Smith Blackburn Prize Finalist play will run tonight, May 23 - June 16, 2013.

Following a critically acclaimed run at Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater this past fall, One Night with Janis Joplin returns for a summer run. Leading the production is Mary Bridget Davies. Davies is joined by Sabrina Elayne Carten as the Blues Singer. Created, written and directed by Randy Johnson, the production is produced in partnership with The Pasadena Playhouse and Milwaukee Repertory Theater, in association with Todd Gershwin and Daniel Chilewich of One Night Productions, The Estate of Janis Joplin and Jeff Jampol of JAM, Inc. One Night with Janis Joplin runs June 21-August 11, 2013 in the Kreeger Theater.

Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater announces that force/collision, a Washington, D.C.-based interdisciplinary performance ensemble, will participate in this year's Kogod Cradle Series, which supports the exploration and development of new and emerging work. The company will present the U.S. premiere of Trust me, a devised dance/theater project created in collaboration with German playwright Falk Richter.Trust me explores the body and psyche in Western culture through dance, theater, video and music and runs June 13-16, 2013 in the Arlene and Robert Kogod Cradle.

Main Street Theater closes its 38th MainStage season with Molly Smith Metzler's Close Up Space, a comical and poignant new play about how hard it can be to communicate... in any language. With previews tonight, May 18, 19, and 22, Close Up Space opens May 23 and runs through June 16 at Main Street Theater - Rice Village, 2540 Times Blvd.

Helen Hayes Award winner and former Arena Stage Associate Artistic Director Kyle Donnelly (Ah, Wilderness!) directs the D.C.-area premiere of Jon Robin Baitz's smash hit OTHER DESERT CITIES with a cast that features Tony Award nominee and two-time Helen Hayes Award winner Helen Carey (Arena Stage's Long Day's Journey into Night, Broadway's Hedda Gabler) and two-time Daytime Emmy Award winner Larry Bryggman (Broadway's Harvey, CBS's As the World Turns). The show opened last night, May 2, and BroadwayWorld has photos from the festivities!

Main Street Theater closes its 38th MainStage season with Molly Smith Metzler's Close Up Space, a comical and poignant new play about how hard it can be to communicate… in any language. With previews May 18, 19, and 22, Close Up Space opens May 23 and runs through June 16 at Main Street Theater – Rice Village, 2540 Times Blvd.

NoPassport Theatre Alliance & Press and The Vicious Circle announce GUN CONTROL THEATRE ACTION WEEK 2013 - a week of international performances and readings from the anthology 24 GUN CONTROL PLAYS, intended to raise awareness and discourse around the immediate need for Gun Control legislation.

Theatre Communications Group (TCG), the national organization for theatre, and Blue Star Families, a national non-profit for military families, has announced that 85 theatres in 33 states have now joined the Blue Star Theatres program. In partnership between TCG and Blue Star Families, with support from MetLife Foundation, the Blue Star Theatres program connects a variety of theatre offerings to military personnel and their families across the United States. This initiative recognizes the profound contributions of service families and seeks to build stronger connections between theatres, military families and their communities.

Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater announces the Voices of Now Festival, a five-day event featuring original works of theater written and performed by 13 different youth ensembles from the internationally renowned Community Engagement program. The festival will bring together more than 175 young artists, ages 11-23, from D.C., Maryland and Virginia who have been working with professional theater artists from Arena Stage for the past year to devise original one-act plays. The 2013 ensembles will come together May 15-19, 2013 to perform and discuss their work in the Arlene and Robert Kogod Cradle at the Mead Center. This year's festival will also feature a special performance Saturday, May 18 connecting the 2013 participants in the U.S. with Voices of Now artists in Kolkata, India.

A new production of the Tony Award-winning musical Guys and Dolls begins previews April 12 at the Shaw's Festival Theatre. Like its musical predecessors My Fair Lady and Ragtime, the Shaw's production of Guys and Dolls celebrates glorious storytelling, unforgettable characters and memorable music. Directed by Tadeusz Bradecki and brought to life by The Shaw's renowned acting Ensemble, the 'greatest of all American musicals' pulsates with the neon-lit rhythm, energy and grittiness of New York City nightlife

Last night, April 4, was the opening night celebration for THE MOUNTAINTOP at Arena Stage. Opening night fell on the 45th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s assassination. Scroll down for photos from the festivities, featuring notable guests playwright Katori Hall, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton, Congresswoman Donna Edwards and Former Congressman Harold Ford, Sr.!

Mary T. & Lizzy K. stitches together an insider's look at the unique friendship between Mary Todd Lincoln and her talented dressmaker, the successful freed slave Elizabeth 'Lizzy' Keckly. Written and directed by Thompson, Mary T. & Lizzy K. runs now through April 28, 2013 in the Arlene and Robert Kogod Cradle at Arena Stage. BroadwayWorld has a first look at the cast in action below!

Hidden secrets are unearthed and family tensions fly high in Pulitzer Prize nominee Jon Robin Baitz's contemporary family drama Other Desert Cities. Helen Hayes Award winner and former Arena Stage Associate Artistic Director Kyle Donnelly returns to direct the D.C.-area premiere of the show with a cast that features Tony Award nominee and two-time Helen Hayes Award winner Helen Carey (Mary Tyrone in Arena Stage's Long Day's Journey into Night, Broadway's Hedda Gabler) as matriarch Polly Wyeth and two-time Tony Award nominee Larry Bryggman (Broadway's Harvey, CBS's As the World Turns) as patriarch Lyman Wyeth. Rounding out the cast are Emily Donahoe (Broadway's 33 Variations) as daughter Brooke Wyeth, Scott Drummond (Cherry Lane Theatre's A Perfect Future) as son Trip Wyeth and Martha Hackett (Pacific Resident Theatre's Nora) as their aunt Silda Grauman. Other Desert Cities runs April 26-May 26, 2013 in the Fichandler Stage.

Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater announced today it is seeking requests for proposals from playwrights, ensembles and theater companies interested in participating in the 2013/14 Kogod Cradle Series as part of the American Voices New Play Institute.

With the premiere of One Night With Janis Joplin at the Pasadena Playhouse tonight, March 15, writer-director Randy Johnson brings yet another electrifying musical experience to Southern California audiences.

Mary T. & Lizzy K. stars D.C.-area actress Kathryn Kelley (Round House Theatre's Next Fall) as Mary Todd Lincoln and Sameerah Luqmaan-Harris (Urban Stage's ReEntry) as Elizabeth Keckly. They are joined by noted local actors Thomas Adrian Simpson (last seen at Arena Stage as Col. Pickering in My Fair Lady) as Abraham Lincoln and Joy Jones (Studio Theatre's Invisible Man) as Ivy.