Avant Bard Announces 30th Anniversary Season

WSC Avant Bard, celebrating 30 years of thoughtful, provocative work, announces three mainstage productions including a spring repertory, as well as an upcoming benefit featuring comic poetry readings from local acting icons Holly Twyford and Rick Foucheux.

"As we approached year 30, I learned that the 30th wedding anniversary is the 'pearl' anniversary," says Executive Artistic Director Tom Prewitt. "This season is indeed a pearl--really a string of them--with shows that reflect our rich history, both early and more recent. It all kicks off October 14th with our 30th Anniversary benefit celebration, featuring Holly [Twyford] and Rick [Foucheux]. We're especially grateful to our friends at Signature Theatre for hosting the event at The ARK. We can't wait to see everyone there."

AN EVENING WITH Rick Foucheux AND Holly Twyford
performing scenes from the comic masterpiece
Archy and Mehitabel by Don Marquis

A benefit celebration of Avant Bard's 30th Anniversary Season
ONE NIGHT ONLY
Monday, October 14, 2019 at 7:30 PM
The Ark at Signature Theatre

Legendary actors Rick Foucheux and Holly Twyford kick off the 30th Anniversary Season in high style with a staged reading of Don Marquis' beloved classic. Of Archy and Mehitabel, E.B. White wrote, "It is funny, it is wise, it is tender, and it is tough." In the New York offices of The Evening Sun newspaper, Archy--a precocious cockroach who was a free-verse poet in another lifetime--hurls himself on the keys of a typewriter, penning insightful free verse poetry for the reporters to discover in the morning. His best friend is Mehitabel, an alley cat who claims to be the reincarnation of Cleopatra, and together their sharp, insightful commentary has delighted readers (and now live audiences!) for decades. Don't miss this legendary, one-night-only spectacular!

Tickets for this event will go on sale Thursday, September 19th and will be available only on Avant Bard's website, www.avantbard.org, or through the Avant Bard box office (703-418-4808). Seating, package details and pricing will all be made available at that time.

SCRIPTS IN PLAY 2019
December 5-22, 2019
Theatre on the Run

The fifth annual Scripts In Play Free Reading Festival returns in December, 2019. Previous Scripts In Play readings have gone on to become full productions, including the Helen Hayes Award-nominated TAME., Emilie, Illyria, A Misanthrope, and Season 30's Ada and the Engine. Catch the hottest prospects, so you can say you knew them before they were famous.

SEASON 30 SPRING REPERTORY
February 27-April 5, 2020
Gunston Arts Center Theatre II

SUDDENLY LAST SUMMER by Tennessee Williams
Directed by Christopher Henley

Set in the hothouse of New Orlean's Garden District, Suddenly Last Summer has all the hallmarks of a Tennessee Williams masterpiece: exotic locales, tortured psyches, glorious, lyrical language, and Williams' gift for creating vivid, unforgettable characters. An elderly socialite mourns the death of her poet son, who died under mysterious circumstances while vacationing at an island resort. Eager to protect her son's image, she hires a doctor to silence the only witness to the tragic event--but the shattering truth fights its way to the surface, as it always does in Williams' world. In the great Avant Bard tradition of providing audiences an opportunity to see something they may have read but have never seen--or have seen the movie version but have never seen it on-stage--audiences can learn first-hand what happened last summer, and experience the unique and exhilarating beauty of this quintessential Williams classic. Directed by Artistic Director Emeritus Christopher Henley, Suddenly Last Summer will be produced along with Ada and the Engine as a part of Avant Bard's 30th Anniversary Spring Repertory.

ADA AND THE ENGINE by Lauren Gunderson
Directed by Megan Behm

Ada Lovelace, the only legitimate child of the amorous poet Lord Byron, had a love of her own: mathematics. Well, that...plus a certain polymath-inventor, Charles Babbage, famous as "the father of the computer." It's true that Babbage invented the hardware--the Analytic Engine--but the language, the song, the soul of the thing, the programming: that was all Ada. From prolific playwright Lauren Gunderson (author of the inspirational Emilie, which Avant Bard produced to great acclaim in 2017), Ada and the Engine is a whimsical scientific history that once again proves the future is, and has always been, female. Megan Behm, who staged last season's uproarious hit A Misanthrope, will return to Avant Bard to direct Ada and The Engine as part of Avant Bard's Spring Repertory, alongside Suddenly Last Summer.

JULIUS CAESAR by William Shakesepare
Directed by Joe Banno
May 21 - June 21, 2020
Gunston Arts Center Theatre

The story is all too familiar: Julius Caesar reunites Rome after a bloody civil war, and returns home to be crowned Emperor. His assassination is meant to restore Rome to former glory, but democracy cannot be rebuilt so easily. A classic, passionate story about what we'll sacrifice for a chance at a better world. For our 30th Anniversary Season, director Joe Banno, a longtime Avant Bard favorite, returns to present Shakespeare's tragedy in a multimedia production that promises to be both epic in scope and rawly visceral in impact.

An Evening With Rick Foucheux & Holly Twyford will take place at THE ARK at Signature Theatre, 4200 Campbell Avenue, Arlington VA 22206.

Scripts In Play 2019 will be at Theatre on the Run, 3700 S Four Mile Run Drive, Arlington VA 22207.

All mainstage productions will be at Gunston Arts Center Theatre Two 2700 South Lang Street, Arlington, VA 22206.

Tickets for An Evening With Rick Foucheux & Holly Twyford will go on sale Thursday, September 19th and will be available only on Avant Bard's website, www.avantbard.org, or through the Avant Bard box office (703-418-4808). Seating, package details and pricing will all be made available at that time.

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