The National Symphony Orchestra Pops will present NSO Pops: Cirque de la Symphonie, conducted by Michael Krajewski, in the Kennedy Center Concert Hall, February 23-25.  The new production will bring "the Magic of Cirque to the Concert Hall!" The high-flying fantasy of cirque will soar over the Concert Hall “in a performance that matches symphonic thrills from the likes of Khachaturian, Dvorák, and Tchaikovsky with heart-stopping circus acts by aerialists, acrobats, contortionists, dancers, jugglers, and strongmen.” 

Visit www.kennedy-center.org  

    The National Theatre will present Monty Python’s Spamalot, the Tony Award-winning Best Musical of 2005, March 13-18 at the Warner Theatre.  Monty Python is a group of British actors and writers (and one American) who performed their comedy show Monty Python's Flying Circus on the BBC from 1969 to 1974.  The cast of the upcoming show will include two local actors:  Arthur Rowan, who plays King Arthur, and Adam Grabau, who plays Sir Lancelot and three other roles.  The remainder of the cast for Monty Python’s Spamalot includes Brittany Woodrow as The Lady of the Lake.  The musical was lovingly "ripped-off" from the comedy team's most popular motion picture, Monty Python and the Holy Grail. To read more about the show, visit www.MontyPythonsSpamalot.com

Visit http://www.nationaltheatre.org/shows.htm

Visit http://www.fordstheatre.org/home/performances-events/2011-2012-theatre-season

    The Shakespeare Theatre Company (STC) is presenting William Shakespeare's The Two Gentlemen of Verona (A Rock Opera), directed by PJ Paparelli, through March 4 in the Lansburgh Theatre.

    The STC will present Eugene O’Neill's Strange Interlude, directed by Michael Kahn, March 27-April 29 in Sidney Harman Hall. The Pulitzer Prize-winning drama about love, infidelity, family secrets, and raw emotions spans decades. The play was considered revolutionary when it was first produced in 1928.

Visit http://www.shakespearetheatre.org/plays/details.aspx?id=11138&source=t

    Pardon the Pundit Touring Company will present Political Satire - in the Sidney Harman Hall Forum on February 24 & 25. The DC-based political theater company is comprised of six professional political comics who are not affiliated with any party. Their stand-up comedy makes “comedic fun of the hypocrisy, absurdity, corruption and self-righteousness that naturally results from our nation’s political discourse.” To read more about the company, visit http://pardonthepundit.com/

Visit http://www.shakespearetheatre.org/plays/details.aspx?id=353&source=l

    The STC is presenting the third season of Live High-definition Screenings of Plays from London’s National Theatre (NT). The series features broadcasts of live performances of plays produced by London's NT so that they can be seen at cinemas and performing arts venues around the world. The screenings are presented exclusively in Washington by the Shakespeare Theatre Company at Sidney Harman Hall.

Visit www.ShakespeareTheatre.org

The Basil Twist Festival DC 2012: 

     Basil Twist, the internationally-celebrated puppeteer, will be the subject of a unique festival in Washington in March and April. Several area theatres will participate in The Basil Twist Festival DC 2012, including The Shakespeare Theatre Company, Studio Theatre, the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center at the University of Maryland and Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company. Twist, who is a third-generation puppeteer, is originally from San Francisco and is now based in New York. His creations have received many awards, and he is a major influence on puppetry.
The Shakespeare Theatre Company will present Basil Twist's production of Petrushka, in the company’s Lansburgh Theatre, March 16-25. Twist has re-imagined the Ballet Russe production, telling the tragic tale of Petrushka against the backdrop of a specially-created two-piano version of Stravinsky’s original ballet score, Sonata. Nine hidden puppeteers combine Czech and Japanese techniques to bring the puppets to life.
The festival will mark the first time four of Twist’s works will be presented in one city in a close repertory with collaborating organizations.

To read about The Shakespeare Theatre Company production, visit http://www.shakespearetheatre.org/plays/details.aspx?id=11564&source=t

The Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center will present Symphonie Fantastique, in which puppets manipulate cloths inside a water tank, March 29-31. Visit http://claricesmithcenter.umd.edu/

    Studio Theatre will present Sucker Punch by Roy Williams, directed by Leah C. Gardiner,  February 29-April 8.   Set in 1980s London, it’s about the friendship and rivalry of two Black would-be boxers with West Indian backgrounds who fight their way from the streets to world-class boxing.  The playwright himself grew up working class in London in the 1980s, when Black sporting figures were the strongest role models to be found.
    The cast is comprised of Lucas Beck, Sheldon Best, Emmanuel Brown, Sean Gormley, Dana Levanovsky, Michael Rogers and Lance Coadie Williams. 

Visit http://www.studiotheatre.org/calendar/view.aspx?id=2746

    Studio Theatre is presenting the high/low-tech multimedia extravaganza, Astro Boy and the God of Comics, created and directed by Natsu Onoda Power, through March 11.  It’s the story of real-life Japanese cartoonist Osamu Tezuka and his most famous creation Astro Boy, a crime-fighting boy robot.  The production combines  three narratives, Tezuka’s life, the history of Japanese animation, and the fictional world of Astro Boy.  To tell his stories, Tezuka used techniques from theatre, film and other art forms, including live animation with actors drawing on stage as the audience watches.  The cast consists of Joe Black, Jamie Gahlon, Lee Liebeskind, Karen O’Connell, Betsy Rosen, JB Tadena, Kristin Watson and Clark Young. 
     Osamu Tezuka is credited with inventing modern manga comics in his native Japan.  He is said to have “envisioned Astro Boy as an embodiment of a peaceful use of nuclear energy—a robot created by a scientist after the death of his son, an eternal boy with the optimism and innocence to face down any adventures that face him.”

Visit http://www.studiotheatre.org/calendar/view.aspx?id=2918

     Arena Stage will present a Eugene O'Neill Festival beginning with Ah, Wilderness! directed by Kyle Donnelly in the Fichandler, March 9-April 8. The coming-of-age comedy is set in Connecticut and has been called “a love letter to a simpler time.”

     Arena Stage will present Eugene O’Neill’s Long Day's Journey into Night in the Kreeger Theater, March 30-May 6.   The Pulitzer Prize-winning play about the Tyrone family is O’Neill’s autobiographical “masterwork,” which “exposes the lies we tell, the deceptions we craft, and the undercurrent of compassion that, if uncovered, can redeem us in the end.”  

    Arena Stage is presenting John Logan’s Tony Award-winning play Red, through March 11.  The show, produced in association with the Goodman Theatre, features Helen Hayes Award-winner Edward Gero.  The story is set inside the world of painter Mark Rothko, who, at the height of his career, struggled with a series of grand-scale paintings for NY’s elite Four Seasons restaurant. Rothko must confront his personal demons “or be crushed by the ever-changing art world he helped create, when his new assistant challenges his artistic integrity.

   Arena Stage is presenting Elephant Room, directed by Paul Lazar, in the Kogod Cradle through February 26.  It’s a unique show starring three illusionists  - Steve Cuiffo, Trey Lyford and Geoff Sobelle  - who “choose to live their off-center lives by sleight of hand.”  There’s magic, comedy and childlike wonder.

Visit www.arenastage.org

    The Folger Shakespeare Theatre is presenting the comedy titled The Gaming Table (originally titled The Basset Table), written by Susanna Centlivre with additional material by David Grimm and directed by Eleanor Holdridge in the Elizabethan Theatre, through March 4.  The tale of English manners features Lady Reveller, an independent widow who likes to gamble.  Ultimately, a nightly card game “bankrupts some and entertains all.” 

Visit http://www.folger.edu/wosummary.cfm?woid=677 

      The Rorschach Theatre will present Klecksography:  DC Underground for two performances on March 3 at the Atlas Performing Arts Center in northeast DC. The production will be part of the Atlas Performing Arts Center’s Intersections  - A New America Arts Festival.  The show, which is about "what lurks beneath the nation's capital,” will feature three dozen theatre artists and six short plays based on six neighborhoods' buried stories.  The shows were all written, staged, designed and rehearsed in just two weeks.

    Theater J will present a return engagement of David Ives’ New Jerusalem:  The Interrogation of Baruch de Spinoza, directed by Jeremy Skidmore, February 29-April 1.  The production will feature Alexander Strain, Michael Tolaydo, Lawrence Redmond, Michael Kramer, Brandon McCoy, Colleen Delany and Emma Jaster.  The play is a retelling of the interrogation of philosopher Baruch De Spinoza, in 1656.

Visit http://washingtondcjcc.org/center-for-arts/theater-j/on-stage/11-12-season/new-jerusalem/

    Washington Stage Guild will present the American premiere of Husbands & Lovers by Ferenc Molnár, February 23-March 18 at the Undercroft Theatre, which is on the ground floor of the Mount Vernon Place United Methodist Church in downtown DC.  The Hungarian playwright has written several of the Stage Guild’s hit production.  His new play “offers a wry and wise look at the many ways women and men in love can drive each other crazy.“

    Round House Theatre Bethesda is presenting the area premiere of Next Fall by Geoffrey Nauffts, directed by Mark Ramont,  through February 26.  It’s a contemporary love story that won the  2010 Outer Critics Circle Award as Best New American Play and a Tony Award nomination for Best Play.  The theme is that people love others “ both because of – and in spite of – who they are.”  
   The cast includes Tom Story, Chris Dinolfo, Dawn Ursula, Alexander Strain, Kathryn Kelley and Kevin Cutts.  The play is considered appropriate for age 15 and above.

Visit http://rhtdev.dnsalias.com/performance/next-fall/

    The University of Maryland School of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies will present Edward Albee's 1967 adaptation of Giles Cooper's Everything in the Garden, directed by Scot Reese in the Kay Theatre on select days, March 2-10.  The play is about an ambitious suburban couple and "is framed as a comedy of manners, but it is also a biting indictment of greed and its outcomes."

Visit  http://claricesmithcenter.umd.edu/2010/c/performances/performance?rowid=13728

   The Potomac Theatre Company will present Agatha Christie's Murder on the Nile, directed by Danny Tippett at select times, March 9-25. 

Visit http://www.potomactheatreco.org/season.html

    The Chevy Chase Players will perform Neil Simon's Barefoot in the Park on Fridays & Saturdays, March 2 & 3, 9 & 10 and 16 & 17 at the Chevy Chase Community Center, on Connecticut Ave, NW in DC. 

Visit http://chevychaseplayers.org/

     Signature Theatre will present the world premiere of the new rock musical Brother Russia, the story of the controversial “Mad Monk,” Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin, in the Max Theatre, March 6-15.  Rasputin was the hypnotic mystic who seduced and ruled the Tsar and Tsarina in the waning days of Imperial Russia.
    Directed by Signature’s Artistic Director Eric Schaeffer, the show has music by Dana Rowe and book and lyrics by John Dempsey – the award-winning creators behind The Fix and The Witches of Eastwick.   The production will star John Lescault as the infamous and enigmatic Rasputin, Natascia Diaz, Doug Kreeger, Amy McWilliams,  and Tracy Lynn Olivera.  Music Director, and Orchestrator August Eriksmoen will conduct the 7-piece band.

     Signature Theatre is presenting the world premiere of contemporary drama Really Really by Paul Downs Colaizzo, directed by Matthew Gardiner, through March 25.  It’s a comic tragedy about the “Me Generation,  set at an elite university, when the party of the year “results in the regret of a lifetime… and one person will stop at nothing to salvage a future that is suddenly slipping away.” 

Visit www.signature-theatre.org/2011-2012-season

    WSC Avant Bard is presenting a new adaptation of  Les Justes (The Just Ones) by Albert Camus, adapted and translated by Rahaleh Nassri and directed by Jay Hardee,  through March 11.  The modern classic is set at the turn of the 20th century in the world of Russian revolutionaries and deals with “timeless and very human issues such as patriotism and consequence.”   The cast is comprised of WSC All-Stars including Frank Britton,  Karen Novack, Brian Crane, Theo Hadjimichael, James Majewski and Josh Speerstra, and also features some WSC newcomers such as Graham Pilato, John Stange, and Nora Achrati. 
 WSC Avant Bard performs in the Black Box Theatre in Artisphere in Arlington, VA

Visit http://artisphere.com

    The Little Theatre of Alexandria will present the classic American comedy Heaven Can Wait at select times, February 25-March 17.  It’s a tale of “the chief angel,” who checks on passengers who are to depart for “the Hereafter.”  One of the passengers, who is a prizefighter, refuses to admit he is dead.  After checking “the records,” the angel finds that the fighter isn’t scheduled  to arrive for another 60 years, so he has to find a new body for the prize fighter and return him to earth.  

Visit www.thelittletheatre.com/#

     Synetic Theatre in Crystal City, Virginia present New Movements: Light in the Darkness, directed by Petr Bohác, March 8-25.  The production is conceived and presented by Tantehorse Physical Theater Company of the Czech Republic and will star Miřenka Čechová and Radim Vizváry.  The show is a two-part piece – On the Dark Road: The Death of Marquis de Sade and Light in the Darkness: Dante.  They fuse the disciplines of physical theater, mime and modern dance.   Surreal and decadent poetry are combined with elements of physical theater and modern dance.

Visit http://synetictheater.org//mainstage/lightdark.html

    The Synetic Theater will present The Taming of the Shrew, directed by Paata Tsikurishvili and choreographed by Irina Tsikurishvili in the Lansburgh Theatre, March 31-April 22.  The production stars Irina Tsikurishvili. 

Visit http://synetictheater.org//mainstage/tamingshrew.html

    Metro Stage in Alexandria is presenting Josephine Tonight, through March 18.  The show, directed by Wally Harper, has book and lyrics by Sherman Yellen and music by Wally Harper.  It's a musical biography of showbiz legend Josephine Baker and draws on the early life of the internationally-known singer, actress and nightclub sensation who wowed audiences in America and Europe in the early 20th century.  The show reveals the relationship of the young performer and her laundress mother, who steered her toward success and later guided her to remember her roots. 


Visit http://metrostage.org/josephine.html

    The Parilla Performing Arts Center at Montgomery College in Rockville, Maryland is presenting Curtains, a musical comedy murder mystery in two acts, February 29-March 4.  It's about the theatrical staging of "an awful Western adaptation of the Robin Hood story"...........with a "supremely untalented leading lady.....who can’t sing, act, dance or even say her lines."  After she's murdered on the show's opening night, a member of the Boston Police Department is charged with solving the crime.......with hilarious results.

Visit http://www.montgomerycollege.edu/PAC/college_events/curtains.htm

    Discovery Repertory at the Hartke Theatre will present a new play titled Alien Invader by a MFA Playwriting Candidate Frank DiSalvo, Jr., directed by Directing Candidate Tom Prewitt  at the Catholic University of America, February 16-25.  Alien Invader will run in repertory with Roberto Aquirre-Sacasa’s The Mystery Plays, directed by MFA Directing Candidate Sasha Brätt, at select times, February 17-26.  The latter plays are based on medieval mystery plays but they are “infused with the eerie sensibilities of the modern American horror genre, offer an edge-of-your-seats experience as they explore the unexplainable which exists within all life, death, faith and forgiveness.”   

Visit http://drama.cua.edu/hartke-season.cfm