Tonya Beckman News

The Folger Shakespeare Library brings back an audience favorite to the stage, The Second Shepherds' Play, for the holiday season. The Second Shepherds' Play is part of Folger Consort's 40th anniversary season and plays at Folger Theatre from November 27 - December 21, 2016. Scroll down for a sneak peek at the original production from 2007!

An adaptation of Kate DiCarmillo's award-winning book The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane opens the 16/17 season for Imagination Stage in Bethesda, MD. While well-acted and presented, the story isn't necessarily for everyone.

As part of the kick-off event for the 2016 Kennedy Center (KC) American College Theater Festival, a special preview of the EVERY 28 HOURS PLAYS will be performed and livestreamed as part of KC's Millennium Stage Series. The preview consists of an excerpt of the collection with more than 30 one-minute plays inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement, with participation by theater makers and institutions across the nation and showcases the creative outcome of a community outreach residency in Ferguson and St. Louis County, Missouri in the fall of 2015.

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.

When playwright Motti Lerner wrote his controversial play The Admission, no one could have predicted the chain of events that would subsequently occur. From the production's workshop run at Theater J to Studio Theater, to the formation of Mosaic Theater Company, a lot has happened which now culminates in Lerner's latest play After The War, the penultimate production of Mosaic's Voices from a Changing Middle East Festival in their inaugural season.  

Mosaic Theater Company of DC's Voices From a Changing Middle East Festival continues this month with the world premiere of Motti Lerner's powerful new family drama, AFTER THE WAR, under the direction of his longtime collaborator Sinai Peter.

Mosaic Theater Company of DC's Voices From a Changing Middle East Festival continues this month with the world premiere of Motti Lerner's powerful new family drama, AFTER THE WAR, under the direction of his longtime collaborator Sinai Peter.

Happy Holidays! It's the last week to vote for the 2015 BroadwayWorld Washington, DC Regional Awards! Check out the latest live stats as of December 18. Nominations were reader-submitted and after the nomination period ended, BroadwayWorld's local editors proofed the list for eligibility and errors. Voting runs through December 31!

Time is running out to vote for the 2015 BroadwayWorld Washington, DC Regional Awards! Check out the latest live stats as of December 18. Nominations were reader-submitted and after the nomination period ended, BroadwayWorld's local editors proofed the list for eligibility and errors. Voting runs through December 31!

Voting is fully underway for the 2015 BroadwayWorld Washington, DC Regional Awards! Check out the latest live stats as of December 11. Nominations were reader-submitted and after the nomination period ended, BroadwayWorld's local editors proofed the list for eligibility and errors. Voting runs through December 31.

Voting has opened for the 2015 BroadwayWorld Washington, DC Regional Awards! Check out the latest live stats as of November 27th. Nominations were reader-submitted and after the nomination period ended, BroadwayWorld's local editors proofed the list for eligibility and errors. Voting runs through December 31.

Voting has opened for the 2015 BroadwayWorld Washington, DC Regional Awards! Check out the latest live stats as of November 27th. Nominations were reader-submitted and after the nomination period ended, BroadwayWorld's local editors proofed the list for eligibility and errors. Voting runs through December 31.

The 1st Stage production of HARVEY by Mary Chase features Tonya Beckman, Jonathan Lee Taylor, William Aitken, Elliott Bales, Robert Grimm, DeJeanette Horne, Carolyn Kashner, Kelsey Meiklejohn, Emily Morrison, Sue Schaffel, and Tim Torre. Michael Chamberlin returns to 1st Stage to direct the production. BroadwayWorld has a first look at the cast in action below!

With World War II raging on in Europe, Veta Simmons and her daughter, Myrtle Mae Simmons are fighting a battle of their own against Elwood P. Dowd, Veta's brother, in order to try to keep their social lives intact. However, all of their tactics cannot keep Elwood from inviting his friend, Harvey, to their social events. Harvey is Elwood's best friend and they do everything together. The only problem is that Elwood is the only person who can see Harvey, a pooka in the form of a six foot tall rabbit. One afternoon after a disastrous Wednesday forum, Veta decides that it is time to commit Elwood to Chumley's Rest, a sanitarium.

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, this beloved classic is a treat for the whole family. Veta Simmons and her daughter Myrtle Mae have just moved back into town and are making quite a splash on the social scene. Gatherings and engagements abound as Myrtle Mae peruses for a viable suitor. However, to Veta and Myrtle Mae's great dismay, uncle Elwood insists on involving his best friend Harvey in all their social affairs. Harvey is a precocious, humorous, and mischievous character who just so happens to be an imaginary, six-foot-one-and-a-half-foot tall rabbit. When Veta and Myrtle Mae decide to seek respite from Elwood and his pooka, a case of mistaken identity leads the town on a journey to discover the true 'lunacy' at play. This delightful, timeless classic challenges us to embrace our imaginations and to resist, at all costs, 'being perfectly normal human beings.'

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 Kennedy Center, in association with the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival, the National New Play Network (NNPN)-the country's alliance of non-profit theaters that champions the development, production, and continued life of new plays-and with Stanford University's National Center for New Plays, will host more than 50 playwrights, directors, and dramaturgs from July 25 to August 2, 2015 as part of the 10th annual weeklong MFA Playwrights' Workshop featuring new works by MFA students from Columbia University, Northwestern University, Fordham University, Yale School of Drama, the Juilliard School, New York University-Tisch School of the Arts, University of California-San Diego, and the Juilliard School.

When Sarah Ruhl was a student at Brown University, she embarked on a journey that would culminate in her sprawling epic, Passion Play, which was first performed at Arena Stage in 2005. Her three act tome tells the story of a group of actors performing the story of the Crucifixion and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. Each act is set in a different time frame, yet what happens off-stage, which vaguely mirrors the actions on stage, is the heart of the story.

Taffety Punk's current production of The Tempest demonstrates how Shakespeare's work is infinitely elastic in terms of creativity and casting. Riot Grrrls, a faction of Taffety Punk Theatre Company dedicated to all-female productions of the Bard's works, has come up with a low-tech, low-cost, intimate staging that is as finely tuned as anything you'd pay big bucks for uptown.