Remember the 1980s when Shakespeare dropped in on a dive bar in downtown Manhattan? You don’t?! Well then, listen to this playlist to hear what inspired the original music you’ll hear when the DJ spins and the divas sing in Club ILLYRIA.
Click link to listen: ILLYRIA Inspirations playlist by Composer/Sound Designer Aaron Bliden
Illyria, or What You Will, freely adapted from Twelfth Night by Jonelle Walker and Mitchell Hébert, directed by Mitchell Hébert. October 18 to November 18, 2018 at Gunston Arts Center.
Illyria reimagines Shakespeare’s crossed-signal love story in a downtown Manhattan ’80s dive bar, whose 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.
Katie Gallagher 
Aaron Bliden 
Claudia Rosales Waters 
Liz Long
Bryan Boyd
ILLYRIA, or What You Will
Opening the season in October will be Illyria, or What You Will, freely adapted from 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. Hebért 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.
Next up, in March 2019, is Topdog/Underdog, the Pulitzer Prize-winning contemporary classic by Suzan-Lori Parks. Parks, one of the most acclaimed playwrights in American theatre, is a MacArthur “Genius” Award recipient and in 2015 was awarded the prestigious Gish Prize for Excellence in the Arts. Topdog/Underdog is about two African American brothers, named Lincoln and Booth, whose names foreshadow their destiny as they engage in a deadly game of one-upmanship. Parks encapsulates 400 years of African American history in a Cain-and-Abel fable for our time. In June The New York Times named this tensely funny and dead serious tragicomedy the best American play of the last 25 years.
Rounding out Season 29 in May 2019 is A Misanthrope, a new distillation of Molière’s classic comedy by Matt Minnicino. A Manhattan-based playwright, Minnicino has adapted more than a dozen classics from the Greeks to Genet. A Misanthrope is a brisk, biting comedy about a cynic who thinks insincerity is a sin–but the joke’s on him when he falls for an ingenue who’s more than his intellectual equal. Minnicino’s A Misanthrope is written in slang-filled rhyming couplets, one howler after another; hypocrisy has never been more hilarious.
Avant Bard’s signature play-reading series, the Scripts in Play Festival (“artistic hopefuls for future productions”) kicks off in February 2019 with a slate of scripts and projects now being curated. Among the works that started out as Scripts in Play readings and then went on to stagings by Avant Bard are the Helen Hayes Award-nominated TAME., Emilie: La Marquise Du Châtelet Defends
And coming up in fall 2018 is a one-night-only benefit reading of Love Letters by A. R. Gurney (date, time, and venue TBA). This gently funny and deeply moving two-hander consists of letters exchanged over a lifetime between a couple who grew up together, went their separate ways, but continued to share confidences. Love Letters will star real-life married couple Sheila Johnson and William T. Newman Jr., who first met as actors in the Negro Ensemble Company. Johnson, co-founder of BET Network, is CEO of Salamander Hotels and Resorts and part owner of the Washington Mystics, Wizards, and Capitals. Avant Bard audiences will remember Newman as Preacher Oedipus in The Gospel at Colonus. In his day job, he is Arlington County Circuit Court Chief Judge.
PASSPORTS AND TICKETS
The association of magic with love has a long and storied history. Love spells can be found in the literature of ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia. In ancient Greece the gods could make you fall in love with whomever they chose; it often proved to be an unlikely person. Women tended to use philia spells to keep their husbands faithful, because women in this period had little or no power. Men preferred eros spells to inspire desire in the opposite sex.
Eli Finkel, a social psychologist from Northwestern University, says, “We’ve known since the 1970s that if you encounter people under pleasant circumstances, you have a much higher chance of liking them than if you encounter them under unpleasant circumstances.” In his research on speed-dating, he has found that if study participants say they “like” someone they are almost always “attracted” as well.
Sophia Howes, a playwright and director, is a senior reviewer and columnist DC Metro Theater Arts. More about her playwriting and her writing about DC theater can be found 
Justin J. Bell (Caliban) is thrilled to be joining Avant Bard for this production. Justin is a teaching artist, director/movement director, playwright, and storyteller who focuses on comedy and physical theatre. He has taught with Gala Hispanic Theatre’s award-winning youth program, Paso Nuevo; in the Richmond Public School System through Art 180; and with Synetic Theater, where he has been a company member since 2015. Past and upcoming credits include Synetic Theater: Hansel and Gretel, The Taming of the Shrew, Dante’s Inferno, Alice in Wonderland, As You Like It, A Tale of Two Cities, Hamlet, Much Ado About Nothing, The Island of Dr. Moreau (Helen Hayes nominated); Arts on the Horizon: To the Clouds, Nutt and Bolt (Helen Hayes nominated); Iron Crow Theatre: BootyCandy (Movement Director); Atramental Arts: The Root of All Knowledge (Director); Constellation Theatre Company: Journey to the West; relEASE Physical Theatre: straight on til moUrning; The Conciliation Project: Genocide Trail, Uncle Tom: de-constructed. He would like to thank his support system, especially his mom, who has been his biggest champion.
Allyson Boate (Miranda) is ecstatic to work with such lovely people in her first production with Avant Bard. She recently moved to the DMV area after touring with the National Players in Hamlet, The Grapes of Wrath, and The Giver. Previous credits include Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet (Chesapeake Shakespeare Company), Meg in Crimes of the Heart (Fable Theatre), Varya in The Cherry Orchard, and Ophelia in Hamlet (Treasure House Theater). 
Brian Crane (Gonzalo) last appeared with Avant Bard as Bernard in There Is a Happiness That Morning Is. Other Avant Bard credits include Foka in Les Justes, Edward IV in Richard III, Sigmund in Secret Obscenities (Capital Fringe Festival), Steve in Small Craft Warnings, War in Peace, LeGrue in Red Noses, Lepidus in Caligula, Lodowick in Edward III, and DeNizza and Manco in The Royal Hunt of the Sun. Roles with The American Century Theater include Juror 11 in Twelve Angry Men, Frank Elgin in Country Girl, Leslie in Seascape, Woodley in Happy Birthday, Wanda June, the Producer in Hellzapoppin’, the Egg of Head in MacBird!, Harris in Tea and Sympathy, and Felix/Williams in Paradise Lost. He has also appeared as Clotaldo in Life’s a Dream with Journeymen Theatre.
Miles Folley (Ferdinand), hailing from Washington, D.C., has been interested in acting since watching the cast of Homicide: Life on the Street eat crabs in a Baltimore seafood spot and make it look realistic. After his mentors from UDC told him to audition at AMDA (American Musical and Dramatic Academy) to learn more about the craft, his love for the artform has grown deeper. He is thankful to have attained more lessons about acting in plays such as In the Cut (DC Black Theatre Festival), Antony and Cleopatra (Virginia Shakespeare Festival), and The Very Last Days of the First Colored Circus (Restoration Stage). He is thankful and humbled to continue his growth in his debut performance at Avant Bard.
Emily H. Gilson (Ariel) is thrilled to make her Avant Bard debut! Local credits include Sister James in Doubt at SeeNoSun Onstage; workshop readings in Avant Bard’s Scripts in Play Festival, Page-to-Stage at Kennedy Center, Ari Roth’s 2011 staging of his Born Guilty Cycle (Theatre Lab/Theatre J), and Source Festival. Emily is also an accomplished devised performer and founding collaborator with DC’s TBD Immersive, originating roles in In Cabaret We Trust and the celebrated Cabaret Rising at Dupont Undergound. Her debut short film, Silent Sentinel, is currently playing at festivals. She holds a BA in Drama and Medieval Studies from SUNY Purchase and also trained with Studio Theatre, Signature (Arlington, VA), and Shakespeare & Company (Lenox, MA). Love forever to JRHR. 
Christopher Henley (Prospero) is a founding Ensemble Member of (as we were known then) Washington Shakespeare Company and was Artistic Director from 1996 until 2013. In our first Tempest (1993), he played Antonio; he directed our second Tempest (2004). He directed our first Lear (1994) and played The Fool and The King of France in last year’s King Lear. He also directed our productions of Hamlet, The Merchant of Venice, and the 2010 Richard III in addition to much else (including Caligula and Camille: a tearjerker). Other Shakespearean parts for us include Richard II, Falstaff, Henry IV, Lysander, Jacques, Horatio, Caska, Don John, Don Pedro, MacDuff, Son of MacDuff, Duncan, Donalbain, Cardinal Pandulph, and Antonio in The Two Gentlemen of Verona (Bard on Wheels version), in addition to many non-Shakespearean roles (most recently Truman Capote in Holiday Memories). Since retiring into the role of Artistic Director Emeritus at Avant Bard, he has been committing journalism as a Contributing Writer for 
Cam Magee (Antonia/Stephano) has appeared in and/or dramaturged 20 of Avant Bard’s Shakespeare productions. Her past credits include Gloucester in King Lear, Aurélie in The Madwoman of Chaillot, Eleanor/Pembroke in King John, Juno in Juno and the Paycock, and Hannah Jelkes in The Night of the Iguana. She has appeared at Arena Stage, Shakespeare Theatre Company, Folger Theatre, Theater J, Source Theatre, Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, and Washington Stage Guild (for which she received a Helen Hayes nomination playing Mrs. Cheveley in An Ideal Husband). She is a company member of Avant Bard, Rorschach Theatre, and Shakespeare for the Young (
Camille Pivetta (Ariel) is ecstatic to be working with an amazing team on Avant Bard’s production of The Tempest as her first professional show. She is currently a junior at Yorktown High School, and a part of their unique Theatre Arts Program, where she has obtained most of her training and has been exposed to experiences with companies such as Avant Bard, 
Reginald Richard (Ariel) is honored to be making his debut with Avant Bard. Just recently he was deemed runner-up in the winner-take-all actor competition, Monologue Madness. And weeks before he made his debut at Arena Stage in the political thrill ride, The Great Society. Aside from establishing himself as a fellow thespian, Reginald also teaches at the accredited National Conservatory of Dramatic Arts, where he received his training. His local stage credits include Exit, Pursued by a Bear (Barabbas Theatre); The Most Spectacularly Lamentable Trial of Miz Martha Washington (Ally Theatre Company); Ballast (Source Festival); and The Last Burlesque (Pinky Swear Productions). He would like to personally acknowledge his mother, Pamela Richard, Alan Sharpe, Doug Wilder, and Nan Ficca for their continuous support throughout his theatrical journey over the years.
Alyssa Sanders (Sebastia/Trinculo) as always is thrilled to be working with Avant Bard, where she was most recently seen as Goneril to Rick Foucheux’s Lear in King Lear. Other roles include Emilia in Avant Bard’s Othello and Beth in Peter’s Alley Theatre’s Dinner with Friends. Other local theaters she has worked for include Quotidian Theatre Company (Company Member), Lean & Hungry Theater (Company Member), Venus Theatre, Studio Theatre, Adventure Theatre. Training: American Academy of Dramatic Arts, Brandeis University, Studio Theatre Acting Conservatory. 
Tom Prewitt (Director), now in his sixth season as Artistic and Executive Director of Avant Bard, most recently staged King Lear, Holiday Memories, Othello, and the Helen Hayes Award-winning production of Visible Language. Other Avant Bard credits include celebrated productions of William Shakespeare’s King John, Six Characters in Search of an Author, and No Man’s Land. He has directed Off Broadway at The Public Theater, Drama Department, Jean Cocteau Rep, Castillo Theatre, and Blue Heron Theatre, as well as locally for Woolly Mammoth (eleven shows, including Cooking with Elvis, starring Rick Foucheux), Signature Theatre, Round House, Theater of the First Amendment, South Coast Rep, Portland Stage Company, Shakespeare Santa Cruz, Delaware Theatre Company, and New Mexico Rep. Prewitt’s production of Sins of Sor Juana by Karen Zacarias won the Charles MacArthur Award for Outstanding New Play (Theater of the First Amendment), and his staging of Ian Cohen’s Lenny and Lou received Helen Hayes Award nominations for Outstanding Resident Production and Outstanding New Play (Woolly Mammoth). His production of Nathan the Wise (also nominated for the MacArthur Award) was taped and broadcast by PBS affiliate WETA. He has taught acting, directing, playwriting, and theatre history at NYU, Manhattanville College, University of Maryland, and George Mason University. Prewitt’s abiding interest in education and theatre for social change continues this year through partnerships he helped to develop with HB Woodlawn Secondary School as well as Arlington-based 296 Project, which works with veterans and their families, using the arts to overcome effects of PTSD and traumatic brain injury. He currently serves on the Board of Governors for theatreWashington/Helen Hayes Awards, the Artistic Advisory Panel for the Mead Theatre Lab Program (CulturalDC), and Arlington County’s Four Mile Run Valley Working Group. Prewitt studied with Jerzy Grotowski at Columbia University, was awarded fellowships from Theatre Communications Group and the Drama League of New York, and received his undergraduate degree with honors from Harvard University, where he majored in English and Comparative Religions.
Greg Stevens (Set, Costume, and Props Designer) is a Helen Hayes Award nominee and has directed, designed, built, or painted sets or costumes for over 150 shows in DC, NYC, San Diego, and elsewhere. Favorite shows include Emilie: La Marquis du Châtelet Defends Her Life Tonight (set); Suddenly Last Summer (directed); Oldest Profession (set, costumes); The Amish Project (Helen Hayes nomination, set); The Cole Porter Project (co-wrote, directed, designed); Vampire Lesbians of Sodom (set, costumes); The Saint Plays (set, costumes); Boston Marriage (set). Founding company member of Helen Hayes Award–winning Factory 449.
Andrew Bellware (Composer) has designed sound and composed music for hundreds of productions. He was a founding member of the now-defunct off-off Broadway theater company Manhattan Theatresource in Greenwich Village. He has designed for the Wooster Group, worked for the New York Shakespeare Festival, and designed off-Broadway musicals Sidd and La Gioconda. With Avant Bard stage manager Laura Schlachtmeyer producing, he has directed more than a dozen science-fiction feature films, which have been distributed all over the world.
