October 18 to November 19, 2018
Gunston Arts Center Theatre Two
Opening night: Tuesday, October 23, 2018, 7:30 pm
Opening season 29 in October will be Illyria, or What You Will, freely adapted from Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night by Jonelle Walker and Mitchell Hébert, directed by Mitchell Hébert. Illyria reimagines Shakespeare’s crossed-signal love story in a downtown Manhattan ’80s dive bar, where the habitués are club kids of assorted genders and orientations who have come to the one place where they can be who they are. Walker’s play TAME., a feminist take on The Taming of the Shrew, was produced by Avant Bard in 2016 and received a Helen Hayes Award nomination. Hébert has received Helen Hayes Awards for both acting (After the Fall) and directing (Glengarry Glen Ross), in addition to other nominations as an actor and director.
Jonelle Walker (Co-adapter) is a Helen Hayes Award–nominated playwright, theatre-maker, and scholar who lives and works in Washington, DC, but will always call Texas home. Her work as a playwright includes TAME. (2016), Prophets of Doom (2016), The Theatre of Self-Loathing (2015), and numerous short plays. She is a Company Member and Associate Producer with Rorschach Theatre. Jonelle holds an MA and is pursuing a PhD in Theatre and Performance Studies from the University of Maryland.
Mitchell Hébert (Director, Co-adapter) has worked as a director at Round House Theatre (Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and Glengarry Glen Ross), Forum Theatre (The Illusion), Olney Theatre Center (Rabbit Hole), and Adventure Theatre (Judy Moody and Stink). As an actor his recent roles include Richard Burbage and Ben Jonson in The Book of Will (Round House Theatre), Roy Cohn in Angels in America parts 1 and 2 (a co-production of Round House Theatre and Olney Theatre Center), and Arnold in Hir (Woolly Mammoth Theatre). At the University of Maryland where he is on the faculty he has directed Eurydice, The Amish Project, and The Distance from Here and co-directed A Midsummer Night’s Dream, which was performed at UMD and The National Academy of Chinese Theatre Arts, in Beijing, China. Mitch has received Helen Hayes Awards for both acting (After the Fall, Theatre J) and directing (Glengarry Glen Ross at Round House Theatre) in addition to several nominations as an actor and director.
