Whether massive festivals, unique productions, or simply an amazing take on a classic we all know well, the DC arts community rose to the challenge this year and offered something pretty great for everyone.
St. Ann's Warehouse will present the American Premiere of Kate Tempest's Brand New Ancients, which garnered considerable critical acclaim and the prestigious Herald Angel Award at this year's Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Tempest is also the first winner under 40 of the Ted Hughes Poetry Award. Brand New Ancients, which will run from January 10 - 19, continues the St Ann's Warehouse tradition of introducing American audiences to exceptional theater artists and companies from across the pond, including Kneehigh, Enda Walsh, Stephen Hoggett, John Tiffany, and Daniel Kitson, who first recommended Tempest to St. Ann's Artistic Director, Susan Feldman. A co-production with Battersea Arts Centre on Tour, Brand New Ancients will run for eight performances at St. Ann's Warehouse in DUMBO (29 Jay Street, Brooklyn).
Into Shakespeare Theatre's stately Lansburgh Theatre comes a performance so powerful, so unrestrained, so visceral as to rip the bloody roots of power from the earth and hold them dripping above our astonished heads.
From great Russian theatre to world-class Israeli dance; from Man Booker Prize winners to Tony Award winners, from multi-player video theatre to a life-size bouncy castle Stonehenge, the 2014 Perth International Arts Festival really does have something for absolutely everybody.
THE TRAMP'S NEW WORLD, an original one-man show written by and featuring Robert Jansen, will make its Baltimore premiere at the Charm City Fringe Festival, playing at the Baltimore Theatre Project November 6-10, 2013. Tickets are available at www.charmcityfringe.com.
This morning, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz, St. Ann's Warehouse Founder and Artistic Director Susan Feldman, St. Ann's Warehouse Executive Director Andrew D. Hamingson, St. Ann's Warehouse Board Chair Joseph S. Steinberg, Brooklyn Bridge Park President Regina Myer, NYC Council Member Stephen Levin, State Senator Daniel Squadron and others broke ground at the Tobacco Warehouse in Brooklyn Bridge Park. The event signals the beginning of St. Ann's $27 million development of the historic building, originally constructed in 1861, into a 25,000 SF performing arts center and community hub on the Brooklyn waterfront. The Tobacco Warehouse will serve as a permanent home for St. Ann's, which has activated found spaces for cultural use in downtown Brooklyn since in 1980. The non-profit organization plans to present its opening season in the Brooklyn Bridge Park warehouse in Fall 2015.
After four weeks of ambitious unbranded print ads and social media mystery (#artlive), Tina Rasmussen, artistic director of Harbourfront Centre's World Stage, revealed the season lineup for World Stage 2014, which runs Feb. 1 - May 18, 2014. Welcoming work from Finland, Sweden, Germany, England, South Africa, United States and Canada, World Stage 2014 invites audiences to explore the depth, darkness, beauty and complexity of life through the lens of live performance.
The Shakespeare Theatre Company is proud to present Mies Julie, the unflinching South African adaptation of August Strindberg's Miss Julie. In a contemporary reworking of Strindberg's classic, internationally acclaimed adaptor/director Yael Farber has ingeniously transposed this 1888 parable of class and gender to a remote, South African estate 18 years post-Apartheid. Following a sell-out run at the 2012 Edinburgh Festival Fringe, this presentation by the Baxter Theatre Centre at the University of Cape Town in association with the South African State Theatre has earned many awards and accolades on its international tour to Ireland, Finland, London and the U.S. Mies Julie will make its Washington, D.C. debut at STC's Lansburgh Theatre (450 7th Street NW) from November 9-24, 2013.
The reality of what has been achieved in this adaptation belies the potential that this version of BLOOD BROTHERS held in its conception. While there are some moments that work beautifully, there are many where the shaky ideological foundation upon which this production is built calls the entire exercise into question.
The Edinburgh Festival Fringe is back for 2013. Bigger, better and brighter than ever before with an emotional rollercoaster of a programme. Get carried away, be inspired, have a blast, cry your eyes out; all of these experiences and more are awaiting audiences this year at the world's largest arts festival. With so much to see and do, time is precious, so enjoy every second.
The Puppet Lab, which is celebrating its 15th anniversary, is St. Ann's Warehouse's experimental haven for artists developing interdisciplinary projects for puppet and object theater. Under the direction of Lab Directors Matthew Acheson and Krissy Smith, participating artists and their collaborators have met weekly over several months to develop projects, share puppetry elements and other design and technical ideas, discuss plot structure and character development, and work on narrative. They will present their works in the annual Labapalooza! festival, which will run May 23 - 26 at St. Ann's Warehouse.
St. Ann's Warehouse has announced programming highlights of its 2013-14 season, which will kick off in October with the American Premiere of the Donmar Warehouse's tremendously acclaimed all-female production of Julius Caesar.
The Shakespeare Theatre Company has announced the addition of a sixth mainstage production, plus two intriguing presentations to complete the 2013-2014 Season. The Stephen Sondheim musical A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum will round out the mainstage season while South Africa's Mies Julie and Baryshnikov Productions' Man in a Case will both be part of the STC Presents Series.
The prestigious 48th annual Fleur du Cap Theatre Awards took place at the Artscape Theatre last night, Sunday March 17, 2013.It was a glamorous red carpet event, attended by celebrities, VIP's and the creme de la creme of the South African theatre scene. Top South African comedian Alan Committee hosted the onstage proceedings with great humour and flair. Africa Melane, a Fleur du Cap panel member and Capetalk presenter was his co-host for the evening.
Based on August Strindberg's 1888 play Miss Julie, Mies Julie transfers the action from a Count's estate in Sweden to a powerful (unseen) white farmer's house in modern-day post-apartheid South Africa. The bulk of proceedings concerns his daughter Julie (Hilda Cronje) and John (Bongile Mantsai), a young black man who has worked for the family with his mother Christine (Thoko Ntshinga) for many years. In an early conversation, Julie tells John her father will 'shoot the black man in the head that puts his hands on me', setting into motion a chain of events that seems doomed to end in despair.
The nominees have been announced for the prestigious 48th annual Fleur du Cap Theatre Awards that will take place at a glamorous function on Sunday 17th March at 6pm at the Artscape Theatre in Cape Town.
St. Ann's Warehouse (Artistic Director, Susan Feldman; Executive Director, Andrew D. Hamingson) extends the American premiere run of the Baxter Theatre Centre (CEO and Artistic Director, Lara Foot) production by two weeks, to December 16 (from the initially scheduled closing on December 2). This extension represents a triumphant opening of St. Ann's new theater at 29 Jay Street in DUMBO.