ERIKA ROSE News

Mosaic Theater Company of DC announces its most ambitious and theatrically varied lineup to date with its 2017-18 season. Compelled to respond to changing and challenging times in our country, Season Three grapples with our current political climate, celebrating outspoken heroines (of fluid gender and sexuality) in two new musicals, while embracing documentary inspired reportage, sharp political and social satire, and stirring family drama. 

Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company announces its first production of Season 38, the remount of An Octoroon by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, directed by Nataki Garrett. The show will reunite the entire cast and production teams from Woolly's 2016 production and will run from July 18 to August 6, 2017.

"Out of every eight drops of my blood, seven are red, but one is black." In those words, spoken with despairing apology in An Octoroon by Zoe, the titular octoroon, the illegitimate daughter of a plantation owner, are revealed the most profound and internalized depths of racism. Like a root vegetable, where the substance of the plant is buried under the ground, it truly visible only when you yank it out to examine what has grown underneath. In this case, what's above ground is a brilliant adaptation by playwright, 2016 Pulitzer finalist (for Gloria), and DC-native Branden Jacobs-Jenkins of an 1859 play by Anglo-Irish Dion Boucicault; a play that caused controversy and sold-out houses in somewhat equal measure when it played at the Winter Garden Theatre in the looming shadow of the Civil War.

Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company announces its final production of Season 36, the D.C. premiere of An Octoroon by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, directed by Nataki Garrett. An Octoroon will run from May 30 to June 26, 2016.

The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts hosts more than 150 outstanding theater students from colleges and universities across the nation as part of the 48th annual Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival (KCACTF), which runs April 12-16, 2016 in multiple locations throughout the Center. Thousands of student artists from eight regions across the country presented their work at regional festivals from January 5 through February 27, 2016 and more than 150 were selected to travel to the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., for an all-expenses-paid trip to participate in the national festival.

Siri, the electronic personal assistant installed on every iPhone, can be helpful in very many areas, but has heretofore has yet to be recognized for theater criticism.

? Theater J announces that its 2016 Annual Benefit will celebrate the arrival of Artistic Director Adam Immerwahr and honor Marion Ein Lewin. An event unlike any other at Theater J, this party to benefit the nation's most distinctive and progressive Jewish theater will provide an exclusive look at Immerwahr's first season as artistic director, which begins in September 2016. During the event, Adam and a team of Theater J's favorite artists will announce the 2016-2017 Season. Scenes from the upcoming season will be performed by actors including, Joshua Adams (The Sisters Rosensweig and The Intelligent Homosexual's Guide…), Kimberly Gilbert (Life Sucks and The Religion Thing), Naomi Jacobson (Life Sucks and The Disputation), Erika Rose (Falling Out of Time and In Darfur), Michael Russotto (Falling Out of Time and The Sisters Rosensweig), and others.

? The world premiere adaptation of the 2014 Israeli novel, Falling Out of Time, written by esteemed Israeli author David Grossman, plays at Theater J March 17 through April 17, 2016.

Over the past season or two, we've seen our fair share of professional productions of OLIVER in the DC area. Adventure Theatre MTC took a stab at it over the summer and Arena Stage offered up a steampunk version of the classic musical a few months ago. While the Kennedy Center's current TYA production of OLIVERio: A BRAZILIAN TWIST shares the same Charles Dickens-penned source material, those looking for the familiar Lionel Bart musical will find that what's being offered up onstage at the Kennedy Center is quite different - and not just the setting. A Kennedy Center commission featuring a book and lyrics by Karen Zacarias and music by Deborah Wicks La Puma, OLIVERio: A BRAZILIAN TWIST explores what would happen if a theatre company intended to stage a standard production of OLIVER set in 19th century London, but suddenly realized the available scenic design (Luciana Stecconi) and costumes (Ivania Stack) wouldn't quite work for that purpose.

The Kennedy Center presents the world premiere production of OLIVERio: A Brazilian Twist in the Kennedy Center Family Theater from January 30-February 21, 2016. Part of the Kennedy Center's Theater for Young Audiences 2015-2016 season, the production is inspired by the literary classic, Charles Dickens's Oliver Twist, directed by Juliette Carillo, with book and lyrics by Karen Zacarias and music by Deborah Wicks La Puma. The press opening performance is Saturday, January 30, 2016 at 4:00 p.m. OLIVERio is most appropriate for patrons ages 9 and up and their families. 

Even 21 years later, the horrific atrocities of the Rwandan genocide is hard to wrap one's head around. How could 800,000 to 1 million Tutsis be macheted to death in just over three months by the country's other ethnic group, the Hutus - including thousands cowering in a single church?

Mosaic Theater Company of DC announces its inaugural production, the epic world-premiere drama Unexplored Interior (This is Rwanda: The Beginning and End of the Earth) by longtime New York actor, first time playwright, Jay O. Sanders, to be staged by Helen Hayes Award-nominee Derek Goldman (Our Class, In Darfur) at the Atlas Performing Arts Center in the 260-seat Lang Theatre. This sweeping, assiduously researched play represents the scope and scale of Mosaic Theater Company's artistic and cultural ambitions as a space for bold art and big conversation around some of the most pressing social issues of our day.

Mosaic Theater Company of DC announces 36 actors so-far cast in the 2015-16 inaugural season: "The Case for Hope in a Polarized World." This far-reaching pool of locally and internationally acclaimed actors represents a commitment to telling the stories most pressing to our communities. These artists, over half of whom are actors of color, join Mosaic Theater Company in one of the most diversely cast seasons in Washington.

The African American experience is not represented solely by one voice or one style. For the fifth year in a row Horse Trade Theater Group will present The Fire This Time Festival (TFTT), providing a platform for talented early-career playwrights of African and African-American descent to explore new voices, styles, and challenging new directions for 21st century performing arts in order to move beyond common misconceptions of what's possible in 'black theater.'

For the fifth year in a row Horse Trade Theater Group will present The Fire This Time Festival (TFTT), providing a platform for talented early-career playwrights of African and African-American descent to explore new voices, styles, and challenging new directions for 21st century performing arts in order to move beyond common misconceptions of what's possible in 'black theater.'

Documentary theater possesses a unique ability to respond to issues of pressing political import and social justice, and provides a platform and voice for the dispossessed. "Theater of the Voiceless" - an international symposium and festival produced by Zeitgeist DC (Austrian Cultural Forum Washington, Goethe-Institut Washington and the Embassy of Switzerland) and the Laboratory for Global Performance and Politics at Georgetown University - takes place June 16 - 19, 2013 at various venues around Washington, DC.

'I have lots of black friends', 'What types of foods do you prefer?', 'How many white people does it take to screw in a light bulb?', 'Do you know how to ski?', 'What's the difference between a white woman and a tampon', 'A white man and a black man are sharing a prison cell...', and many others great one liners, jokes, and socially inappropriate commentary can all be found in CLYBOURNE PARK.

Imagination Stage's 2012 Gala, chaired by Hillary Baltimore, Siobhan Davenport, and Tammy McKnight, spotlights creativity and provides an occasion to celebrate and honor those who ignite young imaginations. This year's event honoree is Mario Bonds.

This week's challenge gets personal when contestants answer highly controversial questions about each other in pursuit of a rose, MONDAY, AUGUST 13 (8:00-10:01 p.m., ET) on ABC's BACHELOR PAD. Awaiting the winners are the first 1-on-1 dates - one to play ball at Dodger Stadium. Get a sneak peek below!