Rep Stage

"Let us trek." With that simple suggestion, three Victorian women plunge into a journey that will yield far more than they ever bargained for in Eric Overmyer's comic fantasy, "On the Verge, or The Geography of Yearning." Venturing from a point "somewhere east of Australia and west of Peru" into the great terra incognita, the trio of explorers are heavily armed with umbrellas, machetes and linguistic darts, taking the willing fellow-traveler along on what amounts to a head trip of remarkable breadth.

Royal intrigue at the 17th-century French court is still good for gossip in Lynn Nottage's 2002 play "Las Meninas. " It made a striking impression when it was staged at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County in 2010 and there's now a strikingly similar production at Howard Community College's Rep Stage. Indeed, the connections between these two productions go way beyond similarity. Director Eve Muson, set and costume designer Elena Zlotescu, and several other members of the UMBC design team also worked on the current Rep Stage production; and five of the actors from the UMBC show are in the Rep Stage cast.

Legendary monologist Ruth Draper's signature piece was a 1926 tour de force called The Italian Lesson. In this comic work, a society matron juggles conversations with servants and children, and deals with a variety of other interruptions, while she attempts to learn Italian. Beginning tomorrow, Rep Stage in Columbia will offer a double bill of Draper's spoken monologue (performed by Valerie Lash) followed by composer Lee Hoiby's opera version (performed by Deborah Kent). The combined production is titled The Italian Lesson and Other Divertissements.

If most plays about race tackle that touchy topic in literally black-and-white terms, Dael Orlandersmith's 2002 play "Yellowman" favors shades of black. Brace yourself as the playwright's skin-deep insights soon go deeper in a fine Rep Stage production. For all its thematic integrity, there are times when Orlandersmith's socially pointed, two-character drama seems on the verge of becoming overly didactic and static. Bear with her play's message-on-the-sleeve passages, however, because its dramatic substance comes across in the most crucial scenes.

The Rep Stage Company in Columbia shows signs in its sophomore year of maturing as a dramatic locus between Baltimore and Washington.Additions by the company, which is based at Howard Community College, are cooperative works with other theaters, more shows for each performance in the Outback Series and an increase in the number of Equity actors.Six of the eight works in the schedule will be solitary or cooperative productions by the company.One of the exceptions is this weekend's performance by the KanKouran West African Dance Company at Smith Theatre, which will open the Mainstage Series.

Rep Stage will celebrate its Sweet 16 on Saturday night with a party and a salute to its "mom" - founder Valerie Lash. The theater company, in residence at Howard Community College, is throwing its first gala event, called REPartee, in the newly renovated Smith Theatre on the college's Columbia campus. "We are saluting Valerie for all of her work over the years for education and entertainment in the community," said Michael Stebbins, producing artistic director of the theater. The 8 p.m. show in Smith Theatre, hosted by Stebbins and Rep Stage regular Bruce Nelson, will feature musical entertainment and guests.

The Rep Stage Company, the professional theater company in residence at Howard Community College, is seeking manuscripts for its spring 1996 Reading Series.Unpublished one-act, full-length plays and adaptations that have not been professionally produced are eligible.Translations, musicals, screenplays and television plays will not be accepted.The Reading Series will feature rehearsed, public readings of selected plays using professional actors and directors. After the reading, a discussion will be held between the playwright and audience.

Rep Stage, the professional Equity theater company in residence at Howard Community College, has received five Helen Hayes Award nominations. Kasi Campbell, associate artistic director of Rep Stage and adjunct faculty member at the college, was nominated for Outstanding Direction, Resident Play for her work in the area premiere last year of "The Lonesome West" by Martin McDonagh. "The Mystery of Irma Vep," another play directed by Campbell, garnered four nominations. Bruce Nelson, adjunct faculty at the college, was nominated for Outstanding Lead Actor, Resident Play for his portrayal of Lady Enid, Nicodemus, Pev Amri, Alcazar and Victor the Wolf in the play.

Philip Yordan wrote his 1940s melodrama, Anna Lucasta, about a Polish immigrant family. But the play is best known in its African-American version, first mounted by the American Negro Theatre in Harlem in 1944 and released on film five years later. Directed by Jennifer Nelson, this version - which helped launch the careers of Sammy Davis Jr., Eartha Kitt, Ruby Dee, Ossie Davis and Sidney Poitier - opens the season tomorrow at Rep Stage in Columbia. The cast is headed by Deidra LaWan Starnes in the title role of a young woman whose circumstances drive her to a life as a streetwalker.

As it starts its 16th year, Rep Stage is like many teenagers: trying some new things, working to establish its identity and hoping to attract more attention. In its new season, which begins next month, the professional theater company in residence at Howard Community College will offer a world premiere and two regional premieres among its six productions. It also plans to take a new approach to its holiday show, return to the freshly renovated Smith Theatre for two productions and throw its first gala fundraiser.

The first words the audience hears in "Yellowman" are a vivid evocation of what it's like to toil in summer under the South Carolina sun. The sun, we are told, can make you see things that aren't there. The sun is something you hear. And that's ironic, because the performance space in the spare and poetic production running at Rep Stage in Columbia seems perpetually cast in shadow. But as theater-goers' eyes struggle to pierce the subtly modulated layers of gray, we end up seeing with more clarity than we did before.

When the reign of Oliver Cromwell and his fellow killjoys ended, one of the first things the new English king did was order the theaters to reopen. Charles II didn't stop there. He allowed those theaters to do something previously unthinkable — engage women to act onstage. If that didn't signal the fall of Puritanism, nothing would. Those wild and crazy1660s also saw the rise of England's first successful female playwright, Aphra Behn. And that chapter from the Restoration inspired "Or," a comic work by Liz Duffy Adams that receives its regional premiere this week from Rep Stage in Columbia.

The races and the sexes will get an intense look during Rep Stage 's 2011-2012 season, the company's 19th. Michael Stebbins, producing artistic director of the Equity theater in residence at Howard Community College, will guide the season-opening production of "Or," by Liz Duffy Adams. This work, which enjoyed a success Off Broadway in 2009, fuses 1960s sensibilities to a 1660s story about real-life playwright Aphra Behn and the Restoration in England, when theaters were re-opened and restrictions on female actors were removed.

From time to time, playwright Heather McDonald lets loose her fury at the supreme being. It is, she says, a form of prayer. "I think of God as someone I can abuse, and who abuses me back," says McDonald, 51, who until recently lived in Catonsville. "It's a relationship, though not always a warm one. But I'm giving him my full attention. " Plays dealing with crises of religious faith are staged about as often on Broadway as burlesque acts are performed in churches. But McDonald's spiritual quest has consumed her since she was a teenager, and it spills over into the seven plays and one libretto that have been performed in some of the nation's most prestigious theaters, including Center Stage in Baltimore, the La Jolla Playhouse near San Diego and Houston's Grand Opera.

Heather McDonald's "An Almost Holy Picture" addresses plenty of serious subjects — God, faith, mortality, responsibility, fear, redemption. Rep Stage has approached this one-actor vehicle with obvious conviction, but with perhaps too much reverence. The result is more labored than involving. The play centers on Samuel Gentle, a minister-turned-groundskeeper who once heard a voice saying, "Follow me. " He answers that call, only to confront tragedy in the form of a bus accident that claims the lives of several children.

A show with "glitz and glamour" production values wasn't exactly the vision in Michael Stebbins' head back in 1983 when he was 17. The classically trained singer and then-amateur thespian was handed his high school diploma a half-year early in his hometown of Kenosha, Wis., and began touring with a Six Flags entourage. "I had imagined myself getting into the 'real theater,'" said the producing artistic director of Rep Stage in a mock British accent. "Not the world of spandex and tap shoes.

The Virgin Mary as a fiery women's libber? Joseph as an insecure, self-doubting man? The angel Gabriel as an inexperienced, error-prone teenage boy? William Gibson's quirky, colorful and spectacular take on the Christmas story - The Butterfingers Angel, Mary & Joseph, Herod the Nut & the Slaughter of 12 Hit Carols in a Pear Tree - is at Rep Stage through Jan. 4. The compendious title recalls the names given to Christmas pantomimes in Victorian England, such as Harlequin and the Old Man of the Sea, the Emperor, the Ogre, the Good Fairy, and the Princess.

The Rep Stage Company, the professional theater company in residence at Howard Community College, is seeking manuscripts for its 1996 Reading Series in the spring.Unpublished one-act plays, full-length plays and adaptations that have not been professionally produced are eligible.Translations, musicals, screenplays and television plays will not be accepted.The Reading Series will feature rehearsed, public readings of selected plays using professional actors and directors. A discussion with the playwright and audience will be held after the reading.

J.M. Barrie, creator of "Peter Pan," deserves wider recognition for his other works. Rep Stage is doing its part with the revival of two subtly emotional, World War I-vintage plays, deftly directed by Michael Stebbins. "The New World," from 1915, takes place in a London drawing room. "Rogie" Torrance is to depart soon for the army. His mother wants him to have quality time alone with his father first, but this is a family with major hang-ups about closeness. Bill Largess is telling as the buttoned-up father.

It's not surprising that Graham Greene's colorful, witty 1969 novel "Travels with My Aunt," which was quickly turned into a movie, eventually found its way onto the stage as well. But there is something deliciously unexpected about the way Scottish playwright, director and actor Giles Havergal devised his theatrical adaptation of the book in 1989. Even those already in on the joke are likely to be amused all over again by Rep Stage 's finely polished, season-opening production of the play, which uses only four male actors to portray more than 25 characters — an offbeat touch in keeping with what remains a disarmingly offbeat story.