Anacostia Playhouse

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Attention: CASTING CALL for New Works Festival

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Audition Announcement 

Anacostia Playhouse will host a series of staged readings of new short plays as part of the Visions/Revisions New Works Festival November 15-17. Plays are 10 – 15 minutes long and address the history of Anacostia as well as present day changes in the city’s landscape and population.

Open auditions will be held October 20 from 10am to 3:30pm. There are no audition appointments but please arrive no later than 2:30pm in order to be seen.

We are looking for actors able to play characters between the ages of 18 and 70.

To audition please prepare a 90-second monologue and be prepared for cold readings as well. Please email your headshot and resume in advance to Adele Robey at: arobey@fusemail.com

Evening performances will be held November 15, 16, and 17 with a matinee performance on November 17. Limited rehearsals will be scheduled between October 22 and November 13.

All actors will receive a $100 stipend.

Audition location:
Anacostia Playhouse
2020 Shannon Pl SE
Washington, DC 20020

 

 

 

 

Pinky Swear Productions presents BLIGHT

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Pinky Swear Productions presents BLIGHT

written by John Bavoso

directed by Ryan Maxwell

Can a home be haunted by the actions of its owners? That’s the question at the heart of John Bavoso’s BLIGHT, which will have its rolling world premiere DC production by Pinky Swear Productions at the Anacostia Playhouse beginning in October.

In BLIGHT, Silvia and Cat Henson have just moved from a tiny apartment in Washington, DC, into their sprawling dream home in the small, affluent town of Greenville, Delaware. But the house only happens to be in their price range because it was most recently the home of a teenaged mass shooter and his single mother. Within days of moving in, they’re confronted by a mayor who wants to erase their house from the map, a neighbor who’s on a mission to turn it into a memorial, and an alarmingly chipper consultant who specializes in the macabre. Silvia and Cat are forced to grapple with whether now is the right time to bring a new baby into the world, or let the house create an irreparable rift between them and their new community.

Blight runs from October 19- November 11.

For tickets, click here. 

American Moor

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We are so excited to announce the return in January 2019 of American Moor

Written and Performed by Keith Hamilton Cobb

Directed by Kim Weild

Produced in association with SenovvA 

What is the role of a lifetime? What is the role of a life?

Playwright/performer, Keith Hamilton Cobb directed by Drama Desk nominee, Kim Weild , uses his love of language and 30 years of experience in the American theatre to explore Shakespeare, race, and America, not necessarily in that order.  His 85-minute award-winning play, American Moor, that considers the dilemma of a seasoned African-American thespian auditioning for a role fraught with racial animus, Othello, is an unapologetic peer into a hindering industry irony that stands as metaphor for our most pressing societal condition: a white culture dictating rules of conduct to a non-white one from an often inadvertent place of privilege.  Cobb, with a facility for poetry entertains, and with the pathos of a veteran tragedian engages while asking questions that demand answers, and answering questions that too seldom get asked.

 American Moor  had its first staged reading in March of 2013 under the direction of Brent Buell. It had its first public performance under the direction of Paul Kwame Johnson at Westchester Community College in November of 2013 as a presentation of the WCC Humanities Institute with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Between 2014 and the present it has had multiple presentations contributing to its development. Among the most notable of these were an 11-performance showcase produced by Phoenix Theatre Ensemble at The Wild Project, Manhattan in April of 2015, directed by Paul Kwame Johnson; a production here at The Anacostia Playhouse in July of 2015, directed by Craig Wallace; and a joint production of O.W.I. (Bureau of Theatre) and Phoenix Theatre Ensemble at Boston Center for the Arts in July of 2017, directed by Kim Weild. The 2015 Phoenix Theatre Ensemble showcase garnered an AUDELCO Award for Outstanding Solo Performance. The Anacostia Playhouse production brought the play to the attention of The Folger Shakespeare Library, the script now a part of the library’s permanent collection. The O.W.I./Phoenix production in Boston earned two IRNE (Independent Reviewers of New England) Awards for Best Visiting Production Small Theatre, and Best Visiting Performer Small Theatre, and an Elliot Norton Award (Boston Theater Critics Association) for Outstanding Solo Performance.  Most recently  American Moor was presented on the stage of The Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, London, England.

If you missed it in 2015, do not miss it this time.  

For tickets, click here.  

To learn more about American Moor, please click here.

 

Deadline Extended to September 15! Call for Submissions: Anacostia New Works Festival 2018 “Visions/Revisions”

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Playwrights! Anacostia Playhouse is seeking new and non-produced 10-minute and one-act plays for the 2018 New Works Festival: Visions/Revisions. Selected playwrights will have the opportunity to work with a professional director and actors to prepare for the final staged reading or performance.

Play submissions should address the themes of deterioration and renovation, both physically and socially, over the course of Anacostia’s long history. Consider the many physical and social changes Anacostia has survived; from the time of the Nacochtank Native American settlement along the Anacostia River, to the founding of Union Town, to today. Your submission should address the impact of revisionist history on Anacostia and its residents.
This New Works Festival will be held November 15 – 19 at the Anacostia Playhouse located in historic Anacostia in Washington DC. The festival, featuring both ten-minute staged readings and one-act productions, is an opportunity to introduce new playwrights to Washington’s theater community and establish relationships between writers, producers and directors. All plays will be read by the Anacostia Playhouse. 10-minute plays will receive a staged reading and one-act plays will receive a full production.

Please note that, due to the high volume of submissions we receive, we are unable to respond individually to each submission or to offer feedback. You will hear from us by September 21, 2018 if your work has been accepted into the festival.

The Rules:
Submissions will be accepted June 5 – September 15. Submissions and payment must be submitted through the Anacostia Playhouse website using the form and payment button below. Please submit only new non-produced works. All plays must utilize a maximum of four actors (actors can play multiple parts).

Submission/Reading Fee:
One-Act plays: $20.
Ten-minute plays: $10.

There is no submission fee for high school students. If the submission fee causes a financial hardship please contact Adele Robey at arobey@fusemail.com for financial aid.

The puppets are in residence!

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Shows are free and are at 10:30 on Saturday mornings!!

The Shakespeare for the Young puppet show, led by Annie Houston, will be performing at the
Anacostia Playhouse this Saturday, September 22. This theatrical company of puppeteers is dedicated to bringing Shakespeare to young children, ages 2 and up, through a fun and interactive experience. All shows feature group activities after the performance with song, movement and interactive play. Stay tuned for our next show on November 3, 2018! No tickets or reservations are needed.

Happy Ending By Douglas Turner Ward

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Happy Ending

By Douglas Turner Ward

“This ‘Happy Ending’ is fresh, funny, and bursting with song-and-dance pizzazz. Yes, song and dance! It’s hard to imagine ‘Happy Ending’ ever ending with more upbeat joy” – DC Metro Theater Arts Review by John Stoltenberg.

A long-running Off-Broadway hit, Happy Ending was written by Douglas Turner Ward, founder of The Negro Ensemble Company.

It tells of two sisters, Ellie and Vi, who work as maid and laundress for the wealthy Harrisons.  As the play begins they are sitting at the kitchen table in a tenement apartment in Harlem, lamenting the end of their good times.  Mr. Harrison has discovered his wife in an act of infidelity.

The sisters fear that if the marriage breaks up they will be both out of a job.  Their nephew, Junie, chides them for their sentiments at a time when Blacks are on the march towards liberation.

But what Vi and Ellie really fear is that the divorce threatens a cutoff in the household graft the sisters have engaged in and which has brought considerable luxury to their lives.

Happy Ending is directed by Ella Davis Artistic Director of All About the Drama Theater Group and Board Chair, Anacostia Playhouse.

About the playwright:

Douglas Turner Ward, dramatist, actor, director, and producer was born in 1930.  Guided by a burning desire to continue the legacy of W. E. B. Du Bois, Ward was determined to create theater that was primarily written by, performed for, and representative of African American people. In his plays, Ward examines a mixed bag of attitudes and stereotypes that permeate our environment both within and outside the African American community. He uses various comic conventions such as satire, farce, absurdism, and irony to attack widely divergent cultural philosophies, politics, and ethics as well as social, moral, and racial biases. Since the 1960s, the African American dramatic literature and aesthetic philosophy of Douglas Turner Ward have been highly influential.

For more information on the Negro Ensemble Company click here.

Happy Ending Performance dates and times:

Previews

August 9th, 2018 -August 10th, 2018 8PM

Shows

August 11th, 2018-August 25th, 2018

Thurs-Sat at 8PM, Sat and Sun at 3PM

For tickets, click below:

Preview show tickets

Show tickets

Review from DC Theatre Scene: https://dctheatrescene.com/2018/08/14/review-douglas-turner-wards-happy-ending-at-anacostia-playhouse/

Review from DC Metro Theater Arts: https://dcmetrotheaterarts.com/2018/08/12/review-happy-ending-at-anacostia-playhouse/

2018 East River JazzFest Events at the Anacostia Playhouse

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One of the most active partners of the DC Jazz Festival, East River JazzFest, founded by Vernard Gray will be playing at Anacostia Playhouse this June! This year, their performances will explore “social change” themes in celebration of the 200th anniversary of the birth of social activist Frederick Douglass and the 50th anniversary of the death of social activist Dr. Martin Luther King.  And it’s making the point that D.C. is a major jazz community, going back to Duke Ellington and even before: [pioneering 1920s bandleader] Fletcher Henderson and those people all did things here in D.C. and they were internationally renowned as well. Same with Marc, Kush, and Corcoran: They spent the last month performing in France with different ensembles. There’s clearly something in the water in D.C.!

Come join us for 2 nights of celebration with East River JazzFest!

June 12th, 2018 @ 7:30 PM

Anacostia Playhouse
2020 Shannon Place SE

Admission: $20/advance
$25/day-of-event

Ron Sutton…..New Music
Ron Sutton Quartet

·        Ron Sutton, Jr., tenor saxophone

·        Alan Jay Palmer, piano

·        Vaughn Bratcher, bass

·        Aaron Walker, drums

This performance will explore new compositions by saxophonist Ron Sutton, Jr.

 

June 13th, 2018 @ 7:30 PM
Anacostia Playhouse
2020 Shannon Place SE

Admission: $20/advance
$25/day-of-event

Music from​ liberation struggles: USA, South Africa, Palestine

Liberation Project

·        Harry Appelman, piano

·        Todd Marcus, bass clarinet

·        Jeff Reed, bass

·        Eric Kennedy, drums

The quartet will play jazz interpretations of music associated with several struggles of liberation:

1.    USA civil rights struggle

2.    South Africa anti-apartheid movement

The ongoing struggle of the Palestinian people for freedom and human rights.

Smithsonian’s New Exhibit: A Right to the City

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Don’t miss this important exhibit on display now at our friend & neighbor’s Smithsonian Anacostia Community Museum!

Developed and created by Chief curator Dr. Samir Meghelli, Smithsonian’s New Exhibit A Right to the City gives us the opportunity to reflect and to gain an insight on the evolution of our nation’s capital, Washington DC.  The exhibit introduces us the stories of six Washington neighborhoods (Adams Morgan, Anacostia, Brookland, Chinatown, Shaw, and Southwest) and helps us to see how the Washingtonians have shaped our rapidly growing neighborhoods in myriad of ways and how Washington DC evolved into the neighborhood we have today.

Smithsonian Anacostia Community Mueseum:

1901 Fort Place SE
Washington DC 20020

Hours:
open daily 10:00 am to 5:00 pm
Closed December 25

ADMISSION FREE

Flood City

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Show

Theater Alliance presents

Flood City

by Gabrielle Reisman

Directed by Jenna Duncan

May 10-June 17, 2018

Regional Premiere

“Tall metal beams, endless metal beams, that a dozen men can’t even move that are bigger than any train and we’re all making steel all day and all night in smoke. I know I’m seeing the future.”

In Johnstown, Pennsylvania in 1889, the Great Flood has decimated the vibrant steel town, leaving behind a ragtag crew of survivors, aid workers, and surveyors to assess the damage and speculate what, or who, could be responsible. A century later, at a bar in Johnstown, recently laid off steelworkers ponder their uncertain futures in a town when industry, and the world, seems to have left them behind. Traversing time and space, Flood City is a hopeful dark comedy about disasters, corporate (ir)responsibility, and a community’s resilience in the wake of the unimaginable.

 

Ticket Prices

Adult – $40
Senior, Student, Military – $30

All previews are half price.

Purchase Tickets Here! 

Radical Neighboring Initiative

Name Your Own Price tickets are available for each performance to make sure that he price of a ticket does not stop anyone from seeing live theater. To claim a ticket under the program just show up at the Box Office one hour before the show and there will be a minimum of 10 Name Your Own Price tickets available.

Mobile Art Gallery Community Kick-Off: Ward 8!

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We have partnered with CulturalDC to help promote the Mobile Art Gallery for Anacostia Community Museum! It’s a great opportunity to meet new people and artists in the community. It’s also a great way to enjoy your relaxing  Saturday with friends and family with free food and performances!

  • No admission fee
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  • Anacostia Community Museum (map)

Amanda Burnham has transformed the Mobile Art Gallery for Anacostia Community Museum! Composed of gestural acrylic paintings, “Block Watch” weaves together imagery culled from archival photographs as well as the present physical landscape of Anacostia to create a playful, abstracted representation of the community, its history, and its future. Visitors will be invited to embed their own words and images related to their personal experiences of the community into the work’s three dimensional, collaged layers of drawings, creating a tapestry of voices in vignettes throughout the bold, broad structural lines of the piece.

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