Arena Stage

For 60 years, Arena Stage has played a substantial role in Washington's cultural life. That role is sure to be bigger than ever after a multi-year, $135 million renovation that provides the nationally respected nonprofit theater with a greatly enhanced facility down by the Potomac. The transformation, designed by Canadian architect Bing Thom, is quite the eye-catcher. The original 1960s-era theaters have been gently tweaked, and a small studio space had been added. The entire complex — now officially designated Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater (named for major donors)

For this Valentine's season, the folks at Bay Theatre are offering A. R. Gurney's 1989 off-beat near-classic, "Love Letters. " This two-person play is ideally suited to Bay's intimate space, as well as its intention of extending the Valentine season through March 4. Contemporary playwright Gurney describes his work as, "a sort of play which needs no theater, no lengthy rehearsal, no special set, no memorization of lines and no commitment from its...

The audience peers in at the world of "Ruined" as if through the chinks of a boarded-up window. Our eyes adjust gradually to the light inside Mama Nadi's brothel in the Belgian Congo. We notice that though the paint is chipped and worn, the furniture still contains traces of once-vibrant reds and peacock blues. (Alexander V. Nichols designed the evocative set.) We notice that a prostitute so brutalized by soldiers that she walks with a limp still dresses in breezy chintzes that drape sinuously over her lovely limbs.

Even in his first job, Stephen Richard showed a flair for devising unorthodox methods of helping a cash-strapped California theater festival make ends meet. "In Los Angeles in the early 1980s, it was kind of the custom that when a rock group went off tour, the crew got a bonus by selling the equipment off the back of the truck," he said during an interview in his new work space at Center Stage . "Their wasn't much market for used stuff, and it was kind of expected. They'd back the truck right up to our door.

This is the final weekend to catch Arena Stage's rendition of Keith Glover's blues drama, "Thunder Knocking on the Door." The drama, which made its area debut at Center Stage two seasons ago, has undergone several changes in the interim.Most noticeably, Glover has replaced the play's classic blues numbers with an original score by Grammy Award-winning artist Keb' Mo' and Anderson Edwards. In addition, the production is directed by the playwright and features a new cast."Thunder Knocking on the Door" focuses on a mysterious bluesman named Marvell Thunder and the twin offspring of a late fictional blues guitarist, the only musician ever to out-play Thunder.

Arena Stage continues its season with a new British translation of a 17th-century French comedy, directed and designed by veterans of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. The play is Moliere's The Misanthrope; the translator is Ranjit Bolt, whose work has been seen at London's Old Vic as well as the Royal National Theatre and Royal Shakespeare Company; the director is Penny Metropulos, associate artistic director at the Oregon company; and the designers are William Bloodgood and Deborah Dryden, Oregon's resident scenic designer and costume designer, respectively.

The first lady of the American theater, Helen Hayes, at age 90 was resplendent in a blue sequined gown as she presided over the glittering 1991 Helen Hayes Awards at the National Theatre in Washington.The 19 awards were given out by a roster of special guests, including Charles Dutton, Stacy Keach, David Garrison and Kelly McGillis.Washington's Arena Stage won nine categories including Outstanding Resident Production for "Stand-Up Tragedy" by Bill Cain.The awards ceremony is presented by the Washington Theatre Awards Society.

For the final production of its season, Arena Players is mounting Lorraine Hansberry's classic family drama, "A Raisin in the Sun." In 1959, this chronicle of the dreams of a family living on Chicago's South Side became the first Broadway play written by a black woman. Arena's production, which opens tomorrow, is directed by William T. Brown, retired chairman of the theater department at the University of Maryland Baltimore County. In his notes on the play, Brown writes: "Although written more than 40 years ago, the dreams and aspirations of this black family have not changed, nor have many of the obstacles."

An outstanding production of Thornton Wilder's wise tome on the bittersweet joy of living, "Our Town," is running at the Arena Stage in Washington, D.C., through Jan. 6.This impressive, nostalgic work is part of the theater's 40th anniversary season and features special guest artist and veteran company member Robert Prosky reprising his role as the Stage Manager. (The actor has played this role three times for the acclaimed Equity group).Prosky, lauded for his performances on Broadway in "A Walk in the Woods" and "Glengarry Glen Ross," is probably best known for his role as Sgt. Jablonski on the TV series, "Hill Street Blues."

Washington's Arena Stage recently unveiled its plans to expand and update its theater complex in the Southwest section of the city. The $100 million project will incorporate the existing Fichandler Stage and Kreeger Theater and also include a new 200-seat flexible space called the Cradle Theater, designed to incubate new work. Canadian architect Bing Thom, whose previous designs range from the master plan for the city of Yuxi, China, to the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts in Vancouver, was selected from more than 100 candidates.

Center Stage officials announced Tuesday that they have hired a new managing director with impressive credentials as a fundraiser — Stephen J. Richard, who planned and managed the recent $125 million campaign to renovate Arena Stage in Washington. Artistic director Kwame Kwei-Armah will continue to determine the company's overall vision onstage and off, while Richard will be in charge of the management, fundraising and organizational responsibilities that can make those ideas reality.

There's an unexpected case of theatrical synergy going on in the region, with two productions that look squarely at issues of race, identity and self-esteem. At Everyman Theatre , you'll find a potent staging of Lorraine Hansberry's "A Raisin in the Sun," which became in 1959 the first work by an African-American woman to reach Broadway. At Arena Stage , there's an absorbing revival of "Trouble in Mind," a play by Alice Childress that almost became the first work by an African-American woman to reach Broadway.

Serious clowning has been the means through which Italian playwright Dario Fo makes political comments about contemporary society. Proof that Fo's goofy plays are themselves taken seriously came when he won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1997. You can laugh yourself to the same conclusion by watching "Abducting Diana" at Vagabond Players. This near-surreal comedy is characteristic of Fo's work in a less fortunate way as well, because the playwright often ventures from silly into just plain stupid.

The audience peers in at the world of "Ruined" as if through the chinks of a boarded-up window. Our eyes adjust gradually to the light inside Mama Nadi's brothel in the Belgian Congo. We notice that though the paint is chipped and worn, the furniture still contains traces of once-vibrant reds and peacock blues. (Alexander V. Nichols designed the evocative set.) We notice that a prostitute so brutalized by soldiers that she walks with a limp still dresses in breezy chintzes that drape sinuously over her lovely limbs.

George and Martha, America's first couple of dysfunction, are back onstage, biting and scratching and spitting their way to the truth in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf. " As usual, they take no prisoners. These warring spouses come to life with devastating force in the Steppenwolf Theatre Company production of Edward Albee's searing play, presented by Arena Stage as part of a comprehensive, two-month Albee festival. When the brilliant revival of "Virginia Woolf" with Kathleen Turner and Bill Irwin appeared on Broadway in 2005 (it played the Kennedy Center a couple of years later)

Lime Kiln Middle School seventh-grader Michelle Wong cannot talk with the animals, but she can imagine what they might say, and she figures few would have kind words about last year's oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. She recently wrote a short play about a few sea creatures affected by the spill that was submitted in the Arena Stage 12th Annual Student 10-Minute Play Competition. With more than 800 entries submitted from area middle and high schools, Michelle didn't figure she had much of a chance at winning.

WATERFORD, Conn. -- The weather was worrying Wendy C. Goldberg on Saturday night. No, she's not a meteorologist. Goldberg is the newly appointed artistic director of the O'Neill Playwrights Conference in this New England town. At age 31, she's the youngest artistic director in the conference's 41-year history. She's also its first female artistic director. And, as head of this prestigious summer conference -- whose alumni include Lee Blessing, John Guare, John Patrick Shanley, Wendy Wasserstein and August Wilson -- she's making the transition to the national spotlight directly from Washington's Arena Stage, where she has headed that theater's new-play development program, "downstairs in the Old Vat Room," for the past five years.

A physicist and an astronomer now retired from the Goddard Space Flight Center have donated nearly $35 million to Washington's Arena Stage in support of a $120 million arts complex, which will be named in their honor. Gilbert and Jaylee Mead's gift is the most substantial ever made to a regional theater in this country, according to Arena, which made the announcement at a news conference yesterday. Anticipated to open three seasons from now, the three-theater campus will be called Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater.

The centuries-old classic formally known as "The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night" presents one of the great plot devices: Young maiden Scheherezade escapes murder at the hands of King Shahryar by telling him riveting, to-be-continued stories. In 1992, Mary Zimmerman adapted this material into a colorful work, "The Arabian Nights," which has settled into Arena Stage with a dynamic cast and a fabulous collection of rugs. It's a long show (you may start to feel as if you will have to spend 1,001 nights in the theater)

For 60 years, Arena Stage has played a substantial role in Washington's cultural life. That role is sure to be bigger than ever after a multi-year, $135 million renovation that provides the nationally respected nonprofit theater with a greatly enhanced facility down by the Potomac. The transformation, designed by Canadian architect Bing Thom, is quite the eye-catcher. The original 1960s-era theaters have been gently tweaked, and a small studio space had been added. The entire complex — now officially designated Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater (named for major donors)