Check out the amazing offerings in Avant Bard’s 2017 Scripts in Play Festival!
Our season kickoff script Emilie was a fan favorite in this series of play readings, which launched in Season 26 and has yielded world premiere stagings of The Good Devil (In Spite of Himself) and Helen Hayes Award-nominated TAME. Our Scripts in Play Festival continues in Season 28 with a fresh new lineup of edgy, classically based scripts under consideration for full production.
All Scripts in Play events are FREE and take place at Gunston Arts Center Theatre Two. No reservations required. Call 703-418-4808 if you have any questions.
WE ASK ONLY FOR YOUR FEEDBACK. After each event there will be a facilitated Afterchat so you can tell us what you think. Each program will run about two and one-half hours including AfterChat.
You can also email your thoughts to ScriptsFest@avantbard.org. Your feedback will help us plan future Avant Bard seasons, and we thank you for your participation!
Thursday, December 14 at 7:30 PM
The Misanthrope, by Molière, adapted by Matthew Minnicino
Directed by Rex Daugherty
Less a translation than a distillation of the classic play, this new adaptation does in our day what Moliere did in his: it tells the tale of a society weighed down by flattery, and the one man whose quips equip him more than all the rest to diss dishonor: venom-tongued Alceste. A play precocious, prating, and perverse, and 95% in rhyming verse.
Friday, December 15 at 7:30 PM
Far Away, by Caryl Churchill
Directed by Angela Kay Pirko
Joan is a milliner with a flair for the gaudy. In her cozy world, she does everything she can to forget the gruesome sights she witnessed as a young child. When her colleague gets a suspicious contract, Joan is forced to confront those memories and gaze directly at the fear that has crept into her life, answering the question, “What are all those ridiculous hats for, anyway?” A deep cut from legendary playwright Caryl Churchill (Top Girls,, Cloud 9, Love & Information).
Saturday, December 16 at 2 PM
Marvellous, an Illuminated Tale, by Matthew Minnicino (workshop reading)
Performed in partnership with Yorktown High School
Directed by Carol Cadby
Verbatim, an orphan boy left on the steps of the Abbey at Clonmacnoise, climbs an anchor that falls from the sky to find himself in a dream he’s been waiting for all his life, where he finally gets to meet the girl who’s been popping up in it. A mystical, mythical, meta-fictional manuscript, the play illuminates the fine art of growing up, imagining things, and telling stories about them—with shadow puppets. Presented in partnership with Yorktown High School, Marvellous is a workshop reading of a play in-progress performed by the next generation of theatre makers.
Saturday, December 16 at 7:30 PM
Her, Across The River by Hope Villanueva (workshop reading)
Directed by Elena Velasco
An American woman on an escape from her past in Bangkok befriends a novice Buddhist monk. As they work through their wounds together, their lost loved ones linger in the In Between, meeting gods of Greco-Roman and Thai Buddhist pantheons alike, all trying to achieve some level of peace and maybe even enlightenment.
Sunday, December 17 at 2 PM
Sizwe Bansi Is Dead by Athol Fugard
Directed by Doug Robinson
Sizwe Bansi has a problem: he needs a work permit in three days or he will be unable to provide for his family. In his despair, he goes out drinking and finds a permit under the worst circumstances–on the body of a dead man. Penned by legendary South African playwright and activist Athol Fugard, Sizwe Bansi Is Dead is a heartbreaking snapshot of life under colonial oppression, and the shimmers of hope pictured within it.
PREVIOUS READINGS
Friday, December 1 at 7:30 PM
Blues for Mister Charlie, by James Baldwin
Directed by Jeff Kirkman III
James Baldwin, author of incisive works like Go Tell It On The Mountain, Giovanni’s Room, and The Fire Next Time, was one of the first writers to explore the complex intersections of race, class and sexuality in America. His play Blues for Mister Charlie, loosely based on the murder of Emmett Till and dedicated to civil rights martyr Medgar Evers, explores these themes with grit, wit and passion.
Saturday, December 2 at 2 PM
Georgia Avenue Nocturne, by Jon Jon Johnson
Directed by Solomon HaileSelassie
When seemingly humble mechanic Glow stumbled into Club Erebus on DC’s Georgia Avenue, he was just following the aetherial music. When he meets Nyx, the mythic singer haunting the club, he finds a love with far more depth than he could ever imagine – but the affairs of the gods never did run smooth. With a dark ending that will leave you speechless, Georgia Avenue Nocturne is an ode to songs unsung, to lives cut short, and to those who have spent an eternity looking for a place called home.
Saturday, December 2 at 7:30 PM
Illyria, by Jonelle Walker and Mitch Hébert
Freely adapted from Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night
Directed by Medha Marsten
Jonelle Walker became an instant Avant Bard favorite for TAME., her fearless response to The Taming of the Shrew. Now she returns to the Scripts in Play Festival with her latest Shakespearean adaptation, in collaboration with Helen Hayes Award–winning veteran actor and director Mitchell Hébert. Inspired by the gender-bending comedy Twelfth Night, Illyria reimagines Viola, Sebastian, Orsino and Olivia in the technicolor, four-to-the-floor fantasia of the 1970’s New York City disco scene.
Sunday, December 3 at 2 PM
Brand New Ancients by Kate Tempest
Directed by Megan Behm
“Suddenly it feels as if we are not in a theatre but a church… gathered around a hearth, hearing the age-old stories that help us make sense of our lives. We’re given the sense that what we are watching is something sacred.” – The Guardian
An epic spoken-word poem from UK hip-hop MC and artist Kate Tempest. Brand New Ancients is an odyssey through contemporary life that demands we attend the gods that live on park benches and in subways, lest we lose the hope they hold dear. Winner of the 2013 Ted Hughes Award for Poetry.
Thursday, December 7 at 7:30 PM
The Custom of the Country by Philip Massinger & John Fletcher
Directed by Charlene V. Smith
A tragicomedy from Shakespeare’s (presumed) heirs apparent. A malevolent duke demands his right to deflower a bride on the eve of her marriage. The betrothed couple flees to the coast, joins a ship of not-pirates, and hijinks ensue. A quintessential Jacobean drama that sparked a 400-year conversation about patriarchal violence. Following this reading, the AfterChat will continue that conversation and engage the problematic ethics of classical drama in the modern era.
Friday, December 8 at 7:30 PM
Vieux Carré by Tennessee Williams
Directed by Christopher Henley
Williams began writing the autobiographical Vieux Carré in 1938; by the time he finished the play, forty years later, he was acknowledged as a giant of world theatre. In this early/late work we can already catch tantalizing glimpses of many of his most archetypal characters: the aging spinster; the aspiring poet; the grifters and transplants and other lonely, dispossessed figures longing to make a new home in the Big Easy. In 1977 (five years before Williams’ death), the New York Times wrote of Vieux Carre: “You leave the theater with the impression of having been told a secret. Not necessarily a truth, but a secret. Yet beneath those murmurings, through the meanderings, is an authentic voice of the 20th century…”
Saturday, December 9 at 2 PM
Marvellous, an Illuminated Tale, by Matthew Minnicino (workshop reading)
Performed in partnership with Yorktown High School
Directed by Carol Cadby
Saturday, December 9 at 2 PM at Yorktown High School (5200 Yorktown Blvd, Arlington, VA 22207
Verbatim, an orphan boy left on the steps of the Abbey at Clonmacnoise, climbs an anchor that falls from the sky to find himself in a dream he’s been waiting for all his life, where he finally gets to meet the girl who’s been popping up in it. A mystical, mythical, meta-fictional manuscript, the play illuminates the fine art of growing up, imagining things, and telling stories about them—with shadow puppets. Presented in partnership with Yorktown High School, Marvellous is a workshop reading of a play in-progress performed by the next generation of theatre makers.
Saturday, December 9 at 7:30 PM
Her, Across The River by Hope Villanueva (workshop reading)
Directed by Elena Velasco
[Note: This reading was canceled due to inclement weather.]
An American woman on an escape from her past in Bangkok befriends a novice Buddhist monk. As they work through their wounds together, their lost loved ones linger in the In Between, meeting gods of Greco-Roman and Thai Buddhist pantheons alike, all trying to achieve some level of peace and maybe even enlightenment.
Sunday, December 10
Blood Wedding by Federico García Lorca, translation by Langston Hughes
[Note: This reading was canceled due to unforeseen scheduling conflicts.]
Equal parts earthy tragedy and surreal landscape, Blood Wedding is Lorca’s entrancing meditation on love, lust, community and revenge. Translated by a leader of the Harlem Renaissance, Langston Hughes, Lorca’s rural Spanish poetry takes on a whole new feeling in Hughes’ jazz-age, African-American vernacular.
Dr. Phyllis Frosst is the Global Director of Public Health Policy for Seqirus in Washington D.C., where she leads global policy efforts supporting pandemic influenza preparedness. Dr. Frosst has served as the Senior Advisor for Policy, Communications and Strategic Alliances at the NIH, and Head of Policy at the National Human Genome Research Institute, where she directed policy development and served as a liaison to the US Congress. Dr. Frosst holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees with honors from McGill University in Montreal, Canada, a doctorate in Cell and Molecular Structure and Chemistry from The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California, and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in viral gene therapy.
Dr. Peggy Agouris is the Dean of George Mason University’s College of Science. She is also the Director of the Center of Earth Observing and Space Research (CEOSR), one of Mason’s most active research centers. She has authored more than 100 articles in journals, books, and conference proceedings in the image analysis and computer science literature, several of which have received national and international awards. Dr. Agouris has directed numerous Ph.D. and M.S. theses, and many of her advisees are already faculty members in various national and international institutions. Her work has been supported by research grants and contracts from NSF, NASA, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), Army TEC, USGS, and others. She has consulted for the CIA, Milcord, Intergraph, BAE Systems, and other companies, and has also served as expert witness in high-profile technology litigation cases. She received her Diploma in Engineering from the National Technical University of Athens, Greece, and her M.S. and Ph.D. from the Dept. of Civil, Environmental and Geodetic Engineering, The Ohio State University. Prior to joining George Mason University in 2007, she was with the School of Computing and Information Science, University of Maine, and before then with the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich.
Jessica Pfeifer is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and Executive Director of the Philosophy of Science Association, the leading international association devoted to philosophy of science. She received her Ph.D. from the University of California, San Diego, in Philosophy and Science Studies, and a B.A. from Wesleyan University, majoring in Philosophy and in Government. Her work focuses on the nature of necessity, possibility, and probability in science, and especially evolutionary theory. She has published articles in leading journals on the philosophy of science and has co-edited two books, The Philosophy of Science: An Encyclopedia (Routledge 2002) and The Philosophy of Philip Kitcher (Oxford 2016).
Sethanne Howard was born in Coronado, California, in 1944. She is the first woman to receive a degree in physics from the University of California, Davis. She received a Master’s Degree in nuclear physics from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and a Ph.D. in astrophysics from Georgia State University. Between her bachelor’s degree and PhD, she worked for a US Naval facility as an oceanographer and meteorologist during which time she created, designed, and conducted the ADP/Geophysics training and indoctrination program (still used there). She completed her Ph.D. studying large-scale computer simulations of interacting galaxies. After her Ph.D. work she spent time working with x-ray satellites at Los Alamos National Laboratory, where she received two awards for education outreach. In 2000, she started working at the U.S. Naval Observatory, where she was Chief of the Nautical Almanac Office and produced the book used as an international standard by the astronomical community. She is now retired. Her hobby is the history of women in science and technology, and she maintains a website dedicated to this effort hosted at the University of Alabama (www.4kyws.ua.edu). Her book on the history of women in science, The Hidden Giants, was just published and is available online.
Sara Barker (Emilie) has worked with Avant Bard on King Lear (Edgar), Othello (Desdemona), Orlando (Orlando), Mary Stuart (Elizabeth), Six Characters in Search of an Author (Stepdaughter), The House of Yes (Jackie-O), The Cherry Orchard (Varya), The Mistorical Hystery of Henry (I)V (Hotspur), Lulu (Lulu), and The Miser (La Fleece). Credits also include Factory 449’s 448 Psychosis and Closet Land, Rorschach’s A Maze (Oksana), Scena’s The Importance of Being Earnest (Algernon). NYC credits include The Brick’s King Lear (King Lear), Hipgnosis Theatre’s The Winter’s Tale (Paulina), and various devised works with directors Lear DeBessonet and Josh Fox. Sara is a graduate of St. John’s College and a company member with Avant Bard, Factory 449, Rorschach Theatre, and The Klunch. 
Brit Herring (Voltaire) is very happy to be making his Avant Bard debut! Brit has appeared Off-Broadway in Shel Silverstein’s The Devil and Billy Markham at SoHo Playhouse and in Paradise at The Lion Theater on Theater Row. Most recently Brit appeared in Everyman Theatre’s production of Great Expectations directed by Tazewell Thompson and made his debut at Arena Theatre in A Raisin in the Sun. Regionally he has acted with Shakespeare Theatre Company, Guthrie Theater, The Kennedy Center, Infinity Theatre Company, Annapolis Shakespeare, and many others. Brit received his MFA from Shakespeare Theatre Company’s Academy for Classical Acting at The George Washington University, and trained with The British American Theatre Institute. Brit works as a voiceover artist with The National Library Service for the Blind and Handicapped.
Lisa Hodsoll (Madame) is very pleased to work with Avant Bard for the first time. She recently finished playing Laura Bush in the Klunch’s one-woman show Laura Bush Killed a Guy. Other recent credits include A Fool’s Paradise: 30 Shakespeare Scenes in 60 Minutes at the 2016 Edinburgh Fringe Festival and the one-woman show Medea’s Got Some Issues (in Chicago with Chicago Theater Sweatshop and in D.C. with No Rules Theatre Company). Additional recent credits include Theater J: The Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures (Maeve); Theater Alliance: The Wonderful World of Dissocia (Jane/Dot, Helen Hayes nominated); and Studio Theatre: Edgar and Annabel (Miller). She is a member of Factory 449 and The Klunch.
Billie Krishawn (Soubrette) is thrilled to make her Avant Bard debut in this production of Emilie. A native Washingtonian, Billie has performed in NY, NJ, and the DMV as an actress, teaching artist, and poet. Her recent credits include Jumanji (Adventure Theatre MTC), How Old Is a Hero (Discovery Theater), and Bully (Interrobang Theatre Company). Film credits include TV One’s For My Man and Orange Juice in Bishops Garden. See her in these upcoming productions: Greensboro Lunch Counter at the Museum of American History, Skin of Our Teeth at Constellation Theatre Company.
Steve Lebens (Gentleman) is excited to make his debut with Avant Bard. Recent productions include Lazarus with Unstrung Harpists, King Lear with Lean and Hungry, Hamlet and Diary of Anne Frank with Compass Rose, and 12 Angry Men with American Century. He has also performed with Studio, Source, Signature, Folger, American Ensemble, the Guthrie, Karachi Drama Circle, and Teatro de las Americas. Screen credits include House of Cards, VEEP, Law and Order: CI, Field of Lost Shoes and King Lear.
Rick Hammerly (Director) first worked with Avant Bard, nee Washington Shakespeare Company, as an actor in their 1991 production of Hamlet. His recent directing credits include the Helen Hayes–recommended Lela & Co. (Factory 449), Junie B. Jones Is Not a Crook (Adventure Theatre MTC), Driving Miss Daisy (Riverside Center for the Performing Arts) featuring Karen Grassle (TV’s “Little House on the Prairie”), and Closet Land (Factory 449). He directed The Brontes (New York Musical Theatre Festival & Capital Fringe), Lake Untersee (Source Festival), an award-winning production of Dead Man Walking (American University), and a concert reading of the musical YANK! for Rainbow Theatre Project. Locally, he has also directed productions for SCENA Theatre, Actor’s Theatre of Washington, and Fourth Wall Productions. His Assistant Director credits include The Laramie Project, Driving Miss Daisy, The Glass Menagerie, and the upcoming Jefferson’s Garden, all at Ford’s Theatre. His acting credits include a Helen Hayes Award-winning performance as Hedwig in Hedwig and the Angry Inch (Signature Theatre) and Helen Hayes Award nominations for Angels in America (Signature Theatre), Me and Jezebel (MetroStage), and OLIVER! (Adventure Theatre MTC). He is the current Producing Artistic Director of Factory 449: a theatre collective.
Greg Stevens (Set and Properties Designer / Scenic Artist) returns to Avant Bard having designed costumes for Lulu. For Factory 449 (where he is founding company member) his credits include Lela & Co. (set), Closet Land (set), The Amish Project (set, Helen Hayes Award nomination), The Saint Plays (set/costumes), 4.48 Psychosis (set). For State of Play Productions (NYC) he designed the set for The City that Cried Wolf; for Rainbow Theatre Project he directed Kingdom of Earth and Suddenly Last Summer and designed set and costumes for Get Used to It! and The Oldest Profession. For The In Series his credits include The Cole Porter Project (co-author/co-direct/set), La Clemenza di Tito (set), and Viva Zarzuela(set/costumes); for the Actors’ Theatre of Washington, The Owl and the Pussycat (set), Vampire Lesbians of Sodom (set/costumes), Boston Marriage (set), and Les Liaisons Dangereuses (set/costumes). BA, Theatre, San Diego State University; MAT, Museum Education, GWU.
Joseph R. Walls (Lighting Designer) has collaborated with several theatre companies in New York, Baltimore, Washington, D.C., Atlanta, Los Angeles, and Salt Lake City. He previously collaborated with Avant Bard on No Man’s Land, King John, Orlando, and Nero/Pseudo. He has also collaborated with a a large number of ballet companies including The Washington Ballet, Public Displays of Motion, Inland Pacific Ballet, Ballet Spartanburg, Staibdance, Steps Academy of Dance in Panama City, Panama, The Charlotte Ballet, SCGSAH, Raiin Dance Theater,, and The Atlanta Ballet, where he is currently the lighting supervisor and recently designed Gemma Bond’s Denouement and Andrea Miller’s Push. He is the former lighting supervisor for Charlotte Ballet at the Chautauqua Institution and The Washington Ballet. 
Danielle Preston (Costume Designer) is thrilled to be returning to Avant Bard after having previously designed Holiday Memories, TAME., and The Gospel at Colonus. Other local credits include The Christians (Theater J), The How & The Why (Theater J), Darius & Twig (The Kennedy Center), Where Words Once Were (The Kennedy Center), All the Way LIVE! (The Kennedy Center), Other Desert Cities (Triad Stage), Mnemonic (Theater Alliance), To Tell My Story: A Hamlet Fanfic (The Welders), Jesus Hopped the ‘A’ Train (1st Stage), Well (1st Stage). Education: BA in Theater Production, Meredith College; MFA in Costume Design, The University of North Carolina School of the Arts, Member of United Scenic Artists Local 829 Upcoming designs: Roz & Ray (Theater J), Where Words Once Were (The Lincoln Center, NYC), Darius & Twig (national tour/ The Kennedy Center).
Frank DiSalvo Jr. (Sound Designer) is returning to Avant Bard after designing sound for The Madwoman of Chaillot. He designs often for Washington Stage Guild and The Catholic University of America, where he received his MFA in Playwriting. He received two Helen Hayes nominations in 2015 for his work with Rorschach Theatre and Washington Stage Guild.
Elena Day (Movement Coach) is excited to join the Avant Bard family. Movement directing credits include Kennedy Center Young Audiences: Mockingbird; Imagination Stage: Smartest Girl, Wiley and the Hairy Man (Helen Hayes Award, Outstanding Production, Theatre for Young Audiences); The Studio Theatre: Laugh, Moth; Adventure Theatre MTC: The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, Junie B. Jones Is Not a Crook. Performance credits include Cirque du Soleil’s La Nouba. She is on the faculty at The Studio Theatre Conservatory and The Wolf Trap Institute. 
Christian Sullivan (Technical Director) is a proudly tatted company member of Rorschach Theatre. Having worked for most of the professional theatres in town, Christian is an actor, carpenter, and fighty guy who has worked coast to coast, north to south. Next up he will be once again fighting decency is Elvis’ Birthday Fight Club.
Joan Cummins (Dramaturg) is a dramaturg, director, and teaching artist working in new plays and interactive theater. She is also a public historian, working to make history accessible to the public through interactive experiences and performance. Locally, she has worked with dog & pony dc, President Lincoln’s Cottage, The Welders, Signature Theatre, Pinky Swear Productions, the Historical Society of Washington, D.C., the Capital Fringe Festival, Ford’s Theater, and the Kennedy Center
Richard Lore (Production Stage Manager) returns to his first love after a 25-year diversion with public television. While at PBS, he conducted talent workshops for 71 stations. Directing credits include premiere works by Israel Horovitz, Martin Sherman, and Ernest Joselovitz. He is a member of Actors Equity. His play Mixed Doubles, was produced in Denver, Chicago, and San Jose.
She insisted on using experimental results to back up her conclusions, and implemented Leibniz’s principle of sufficient reason. In essence, this principle refused to accept easy answers, and required a scientist to continue to seek explanations for why something worked one way and not another until you really got to the bottom of it. She also advocated for scientists to come up with hypotheses and then test them to determine whether they were true, an idea controversial in her day that today is the foundation of scientific work.
