Robert Barry News

Artistic Director Molly Smith announces Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and author Ayad Akhtar as Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater's next resident playwright as part of the American Voices New Play Institute, effective July 2016 through June 2017. Akhtar's emotionally-charged drama Disgraced, which won the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, completes Arena Stage's 2015/16 season. Now in previews, the production officially opens April 28 and runs through May 29, 2016.

Rena Blades, President & Chief Executive Officer of the Cultural Council of Palm Beach County, today announced that this season's final CULTURE & COCKTAILS event attracted more than 120 people to The Colony Hotel Pavilion, located at 155 Hammon Avenue in Palm Beach. Scroll down for photos from the event!

Robert Schenkkan's Tony Award-winning drama ALL THE WAY, about President Lyndon Baines Johnson's impassioned struggle to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964, makes its Washington, D.C. debut at Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater. ALL THE WAY runs now through May 8, 2016 in the Fichandler Stage. BroadwayWorld has photos from the opening night festivities below!

Arena Stage presents the final production of its 2015/16 season, Ayad Akhtar's Pulitzer Prize-winning drama DISGRACED. Director Timothy Douglas (Arena's King Hedley II) tackles this emotionally-charged play by Akhtar, author of the novel 'American Dervish' and currently the most produced playwright in the United States. DISGRACED runs April 22-May 29, 2016 in the Kreeger Theater. BroadwayWorld has photos from the company's first rehearsal below!

Tonight, before a gathering of theatre artists and patrons, theatreWashington announced the nominees for the 2016 Helen Hayes Awards, drawn from 202 eligible productions presented in the 2015 calendar year. Scroll down for the full list of nominees!

Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater announces three projects that have been selected for the 2015/16 Kogod Cradle Series as part of the American Voices New Play Institute. Focused on the development of new plays and devised work by artists from the Greater Washington, D.C. area and around the country, this series of readings and workshops invites artists and audiences to actively explore the new work development process.

The new drama SWEAT by Pulitzer Prize winner Lynn Nottage (Ruined; By The Way, Meet Vera Stark) comes to Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater following a critically-acclaimed debut at Oregon Shakespeare Festival as part of a co-commission between the two theaters. The play is directed by Nottage's longtime collaborator Kate Whoriskey and runs tonight, January 15, through February 21, 2016 in the Kreeger Theater. The company just kicked off rehearsals, and BroadwayWorld has photos below!

The new drama SWEAT by Pulitzer Prize winner Lynn Nottage (Ruined; By The Way, Meet Vera Stark) comes to Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater following a critically-acclaimed debut at Oregon Shakespeare Festival as part of a co-commission between the two theaters. The play is directed by Nottage's longtime collaborator Kate Whoriskey and runs January 15-February 21, 2016 in the Kreeger Theater. The company just kicked off rehearsals, and BroadwayWorld has photos below!

Anthony Giardina's Off-Broadway smash hit THE CITY OF CONVERSATION, about a Georgetown political hostess, makes its Washington, D.C. debut at Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater. Following his direction of the 2014 world premiere at Lincoln Center Theater, Tony Award winner Doug Hughes returns to direct this political drama spanning three decades, from Carter's presidency through the Reagan era and ending with Obama's inauguration. THE CITY OF CONVERSATION runs January 29-March 6, 2016 in the Fichandler Stage. The company just kicked off rehearsals and you can check out photos below!

Producers Kevin McCollum, Doug Morris and Berry Gordy, and Broadway at the National present the Washington premiere of Motown the Musical, playing the National Theatre now through January 3, 2016. BroadwayWorld has photos from the opening night festivities, featuring Berry Gordy himself, below!

Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater announces three projects that have been selected for the 2015/16 Kogod Cradle Series as part of the American Voices New Play Institute. Focused on the development of new plays and devised work by artists from the Greater Washington, D.C. area and around the country, this series of readings and workshops invites artists and audiences to actively explore the new work development process.

'If life is a bowl of cherries, what am I doing in the pits?' Erma Bombeck, the award-winning humorist and syndicated columnist known for her wry and humorous take on family life, is the subject of the newest project from twin-sister journalists and playwrights Allison Engel and Margaret Engel -- the world-premiere drama ERMA BOMBECK: AT WIT'S END debuting at Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater. The Engels reunite with director David Esbjornson (Arena Stage's Guess Who's Coming to Dinner) following their collaboration on the smash hit Red Hot Patriot: The Kick-Ass Wit of Molly Ivins, which starred Kathleen Turner in its celebrated 2012 run at Arena Stage. ERMA BOMBECK: AT WIT'S END now through November 8, 2015 in the Arlene and Robert Kogod Cradle. Scroll down for photos from the opening night festivities!

'If life is a bowl of cherries, what am I doing in the pits?' Erma Bombeck, the award-winning humorist and syndicated columnist known for her wry and humorous take on family life, is the subject of the newest project from twin-sister journalists and playwrights Allison Engel and Margaret Engel -- the world-premiere drama ERMA BOMBECK: AT WIT'S END debuting at Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater. The Engels reunite with director David Esbjornson (Arena Stage's Guess Who's Coming to Dinner) following their collaboration on the smash hit Red Hot Patriot: The Kick-Ass Wit of Molly Ivins, which starred Kathleen Turner in its celebrated 2012 run at Arena Stage. ERMA BOMBECK: AT WIT'S END October 9-November 8, 2015 in the Arlene and Robert Kogod Cradle. Scroll down for a sneak peek at the cast!

Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater is seeking proposals from playwrights, ensembles and theater companies interested in participating in the 2015/16 Kogod Cradle Series as part of the American Voices New Play Institute. Now in its fourth season, the Kogod Cradle Series supports the exploration and development of new and emerging work in the theater's intimate 200-seat Arlene and Robert Kogod Cradle. The application is available at http://arenastage.org/artistic-development/work-with-us/, and proposals are due June 15, 2015 for consideration for the 2015/16 season.

Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater presents the Washington, D.C. premiere of Christopher Durang's Tony Award-winning comedy Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike. Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike runs now through May 3, 2015 in the Fichandler Stage. BroadwayWorld has photos from the opening night festivities below!

Twyla Tharp kicks off her Fiftieth Anniversary with showings at Hunter College, where she debuted her first dance, “Tank Dive,” on April 29, 1965, and at Barnard College from which she graduated in 1963.

Hunter College art galleries presents ROBERT BARRY: ALL THE THINGS I KNOW... on February 6–April 4, 2015.

Come and dance the blues away with Five Guys Named Moe! Helen Hayes Award winner Robert O'Hara (Bootcandy, director of The Mountaintop at Arena Stage) returns to Arena Stage to direct an explosive, reimagined tribute to the 'King of the Jukebox'-legendary composer and saxophonist Louis Jordan. A co-production with Cleveland Play House, the show opened last night, November 20, in the Kreeger Theater and continues through December 28, 2014. Below, BroadwayWorld has photos from the opening night festivities, featuring book writer Clarke Peters!

Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater announces three projects that have been selected for the 2014/15 Kogod Cradle Series as part of the American Voices New Play Institute. Focused on the development of new and emerging work by artists from throughout Greater Washington and around the country, this series of readings and workshops invites artists and audiences to actively explore the development process.

Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater kicks off the 2014/15 season with the world premiere of Morris Panych's The Shoplifters, a biting comedy about society's haves and have-nots and how much they might actually have in common. Noted Canadian playwright and director Panych, a two-time recipient of the Governor General's Literary Award, makes his Arena Stage debut with an expertly drawn cast of oddball characters and a high-stakes battle of wills involving a career shoplifter whose life of petty crime is halted by an overzealous rookie security guard and his ambivalent mentor. The Shoplifters runs September 5-October 19, 2014 in the Kreeger Theater.