Wood Van Meter News

The Washington Stage Guild presents the third and final play in Arlene Hutton's romantic trilogy portraying married life in the mid-20th Century. Gulf View Drive explores the lives of Raleigh and May Brummett, who met by chance during World War II, married in haste and faced the challenges of finding their own way. It is now 1953 and Raleigh's published stories have gained success. But success brings new challenges as both mothers-in-law and a sister descend on the couple. Along the way, each adjusts to the meaning of family life in his or her own way and faces an America beginning to confront its racial divide. The play opens on Thursday, January 17 and will run through Sunday, February 10, 2019. Press performance will be on Sunday, January 20 at 2:30 pm. A special talkback with playwright Arlene Hutton is scheduled immediately following this performance.

The Washington Stage Guild presents the third and final play in Arlene Hutton's romantic trilogy portraying married life in the mid-20th Century. Gulf View Drive explores the lives of Raleigh and May Brummett, who met by chance during World War II, married in haste and faced the challenges of finding their own way.

It's the last week to vote for the 2018 BroadwayWorld Washington, DC Awards, brought to you by BroadwayHD! Readers are already setting records as they vote for their favorites. Regional productions, touring shows, and more are all included in the awards, honoring productions which opened between October 1, 2017 through September 30, 2018. Our local editors set the categories, our readers submitted their nominees, and now you get to vote for your favorites! Voting will continue through December 31st, 2018.

A ghostly mystery, a witty comedy-drama, a poignant romance, and a sassy revisiting of a world classic: The Washington Stage Guild's 2018-2019 season offers four new productions never before seen in the DC area.

The nominees for the 2018 Helen Hayes Awards were announced on February 5, 2018. One of the country's most prestigious cultural honors, The Helen Hayes Awards recognizes and celebrates excellence in professional theatre throughout the Washington metropolitan area. The National Theatre's Helen Hayes Gallery set the scene for the announcement of nominees in 47 categories for artistic excellence, and the theatre companies eligible for the 2017 John Aniello Award for Outstanding Emerging Theatre Company. The recipient of the 2018 Helen Hayes Tribute will be announced shortly.

Washington Stage Guild had a hit last year with the 1940s Americana romance 'Last Train to Nibroc,' so it's natural to want to stage the sequel by Arlene Hutton featuring the same pair of actors as the appealing couple, Lexi Langs and Wood Van Meter.

The Washington Stage Guild offers a warm and touching tale of young love with the Washington area premiere of See Rock City by Arlene Hutton. It is the height of World War II, and Raleigh and May, the young couple from last season's uplifting hit Last Train to Nibroc, have returned home to Kentucky to figure out their lives. Their two very different mothers have plenty of ideas for them, but the war's progression affects them all, and leads to a heartwarming, bittersweet conclusion.

The Washington Stage Guild will begin its 32nd season with Widowers' Houses, the first play written by George Bernard Shaw as he set out to shake up the British theatre. Published in 1893, the comedy is still amazingly topical in 2017, and especially in a gentrifying city like Washington.

Producing Artistic Director Carolyn Griffin is pleased to announce that the play Are You Now or Have You Ever Been , a play written and conceived by Carlyle Brown and directed by MetroStage Artistic Associate Thomas W. Jones II with original music by William Knowles, will be in performance Oct. 5-Nov. 5 at MetroStage.

The Washington Stage Guild, a fixture on the DC theatre scene since 1986, announces a season of plays that confront us with the perils and pitfalls of refusing to accept the truth, and of questioning, rather than accepting, the facts in front of us. In an era when scientific research is dismissed and statistics are ignored in favor of preferred alternatives, the Stage Guild will take a look at the consequences of that phenomenon in four productions at the Undercroft Theatre in downtown DC. From undisclosed financial dealings in the 1890s, to idealistic hopes and memories during the holidays, and from wartime disappointments, to opposition to social progress, the refusal to face facts and the effect on those who do will take center stage.

Spend an evening at the Beacon Bar & Grill, sipping on cocktails and singing your favorite tunes at theatreWashington's monthly showTunes & Cocktails.

In celebration of Columbia's 50th year, Toby Orenstein, Artistic Director of Toby's Dinner Theatre in Columbia, rotates one powerhouse leading lady per decade into the well-written Narrator role of JOSEPH AND THE AMAZING TECHNICOLOR DREAMCOAT. Toby Orenstein and co-director Mark Minnick put together a fun, energetic production. Add new arrangements and musical direction by Ross Scott Rawlings, and the resulting show is engaging, sassy, funny, family-friendly and stuffed with talking points for the car ride home.

Toby's Dinner Theatre of Columbia, in celebration of Columbia's 50th anniversary and its own 45th presents JOSEPH AND THE AMAZING TECHNICOLOR DREAMCOAT, gathering a beautiful assemblage of multi-cultural, multi-talented performers who shine in this unserious collage of an Andrew Lloyd Webber/ Tim Rice Old Testament crazy-quilt favorite.

The smash-hit John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts production of Shear Madness, the uproarious whodunit that holds the Guinness world record as the longest-running play in America, resumes performances tonight, January 31, in the Kennedy Center Theater Lab, following a brief hiatus.

The Washington Stage Guild continues its 30th anniversary season with a pearl of a romantic comedy, Arlene Hutton's charming LAST TRAIN TO NIBROC. On the train carrying F. Scott Fitzgerald's and Nathaniel West's coffins across the country, a young couple, each returning home from unexpected disappointment, begins a journey to life together that takes several detours, in this WWII-era story of thwarted dreams that lead to unexpected opportunities. 

It's not just 'another op'nin' of another show,' it's the classic musical the Shakespeare Theatre Company (STC) was destined to produce: Kiss Me, Kate. STC Associate Artistic Director Alan Paul, director of last season's smash hit Man of La Mancha-the best-selling production in the Company's history-and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (Helen Hayes Award for Outstanding Director, Resident Musical) helms Kiss Me, Kate, with choreography by Michele Lynch (Washington National Opera's Show Boat).

Rep Stage, the regional theatre in residence at Howard Community College (HCC), continues its 22nd season with Samuel D. Hunter's 'The Whale', directed by Helen Hayesaward winner and Rep Stage veteran Kasi Campbell. Check out a first look at the production below!

Kasi Campbell directs superb cast in a story you will long remember.

Trust me: you will become absorbed with these characters. You will care about who these people are and what they're going to do next. In the end the Whale's heroism matters; the motivations the dramatist tenders for that heroism don't much. It's just an interesting story touchingly told