Curtain Up for DC Theatre Week
By • September 26, 2024 0 40
Just as Metropolitan Washington Restaurant Week is a gift to your taste buds, DC Theatre Week — starting tonight, Thursday, Sept. 26 — is a gift to your eyes, ears, mind and heart.
Spanning three weekends, Theatre Washington’s annual celebration of the new performance season continues through Sunday, Oct. 13, with tickets to 29 shows on stages large and small, in and around D.C., priced at $20, $40 and $60.
Originally a weeklong event following the Helen Hayes Awards in April of 2012, Theatre Week soon expanded, moved to September and adopted the Restaurant Week model of set prices. Tickets are sold online through official partner TodayTix.
“Theatre Week is a time to explore,” explains Amy Austin, president and CEO of Theatre Washington. “And few things are better for our well-being than escaping into the theater to share an evening with family and friends — including a date night.”
Some of the characters to be encountered: Babbit (Shakespeare Theatre Company), Bixby the Cat (The Puppet Co.), Marlene Dietrich (ExPats Theatre), Dracula (Workhouse Arts Center), Hamlet (Synetic Theater), Billie Holiday (Mosaic Theater Company), Hugo (GALA Hispanic Theatre), Ike (Olney Theatre Center), Jaja (Arena Stage), Lincoln (Ford’s Theatre), Pooh (Imagination Stage) and Romeo and Juliet (Folger Theatre).
This year’s free Kickoff Fest is this Saturday, Sept. 28, from 1 to 5 p.m. at Arena Stage’s landmark Mead Center at 1101 Sixth St. SW (Waterfront Metro). Along with the chance to chat with representatives of 40-plus DMV theater companies — and consume food and drink by Carmine’s and Just Ice Tea — there is a full schedule of programming, as follows:
At 1:10 p.m., Spooky Action Theater will present a number from “Professor Woland’s Black Magic Rock Show.” A panel discussion about creating new work, featuring playwright/directors Mekala Sridhar and Psalmayene 24 and Theater Alliance Producing Artistic Director Raymond O. Caldwell, will take place at 1:30 p.m., as will a commedia dell’arte (improvised plays with stock comic characters) workshop with Faction of Fools.
For the kids at 1:45 p.m.: an interactive performance of “Winnie the Pooh” by Bethesda’s Imagination Stage.
The second hour will see a “talk-back” performance by Verbal Gymnastics at 2:15 p.m.; a preview of In Series’ production of legendary labor musical “The Cradle Will Rock” and an “Improve for All” workshop with Washington Improv Theater, both at 2:30 p.m.; and a taste of Spit Dat, Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company’s open mic series, at 2:45 p.m.
At 3 p.m., Jenny McConnell Frederick and Rex Daugherty, artistic directors of Rorschach Theatre and Solas Nua, respectively, will participate in a panel about theater in alternative spaces, moderated by the Kennedy Center’s Victoria Murray Baatin. Verbal Gymnastics will provide an introduction to playback theater at 3:15 p.m. and Pinky Swear Productions will demonstrate fight choreography at 3:45 p.m.
Wrapping up: Naveen Kumar, the Washington Post’s new chief theater critic, will converse with Lauren Halvorsen, who writes the “Nothing for the Group” newsletter, at 4 p.m. and Olney Theatre Center’s Derrick Buie will host Musical Trivia (with prizes) at 4:15 p.m.
Throughout the afternoon, the “New Standards Exhibit” about women jazz composers and performers, curated by drummer Terri Lyne Carrington, will be on view; DC Jazz Festival CEO Sunny Sumter will lead tours of the exhibit at 1:30 and 2 p.m.
Please note that the DC Theatre Bike Ride on Sunday, Sept. 29, is sold out.
The complete list of shows for which the special pricing applies, with links to ticketing, is available at theatreweek.org.
