Arena Stage is a not-for-profit regional theater based in Southwest, Washington, D.C. Established in 1950, it was the first racially integrated theater in Washington, D.C., and its founders helped start the U.S. regional theater movement. Its theater complex was completed for the company in 2010; it is called The Mead Center for American Theater.
31-541: Since 1998 the theater's Artistic Director had been Molly Smith , who retired in July 2023. The current Artistic Director is Hana S. Sharif. [1] The Executive Producer is Edgar Dobie. It is the largest company in the country dedicated to American plays and playwrights. Arena Stage commissions and develops new plays through its Power Plays initiative. The company serves an annual audience of more than 300,000. Its productions have received numerous local and national awards, including
62-621: A Pulitzer Prize. It was also adapted as a film. Zelda Fichandler worked with the writer of the play for a year to make it production-ready. The Arena did not earn a share of the play's Broadway and film profits. A collection of the Arena Stage Records and materials is housed at the George Mason University Special Collections Research Center . The Research Center also houses materials related to individuals involved with
93-541: A central lobby, restaurant, and the Catwalk Cafe, and such support spaces as rehearsal rooms, classrooms, production shops, and offices. The restaurant, Richard's Place, is closed for the 2021–2022 season. For the first time in the company's history, all staff and operations were joined under one unifying roof. The three-stage theater complex is now the second-largest performing arts center in Washington, DC, after
124-620: A cycle. In 1998, Smith returned to Washington when she was selected as Artistic Director of Arena Stage. Her emphasis has been on encouraging production of American plays, from both established and new playwrights, encouraging new voices by developing writers through commissions and workshops, and focusing on American stories. Her innovations have increased not only the range of playwrights and artists, but resulted in more diverse audiences for Arena Stage. She founded Arena's "downstairs series," which has held readings and workshopped some 60 plays, many of have later received full productions. Through
155-565: A glass skin, was named as the Mead Center for American Theater. Its outdoor terrace overlooks the Southwest Waterfront. Arena was the first theatre in D.C. to be racially integrated. Its production The Great White Hope , which opened at Arena Stage in 1967, was transferred to Broadway with its original cast, including James Earl Jones and Jane Alexander in the lead roles. Arena was the first regional theater to transfer
186-465: A production to Broadway . When Arena Stage reprised the play in 2000 as part of its 50th-anniversary celebration, Mahershala Ali was cast as the male lead. It was his first professional role. In 1968, the company received a $ 250,000 grant from the Ford Foundation. Part of it was to be used for the training of black actors. In 1987, Arena hosted a symposium on nontraditional casting. In 1989,
217-623: The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts . It is the largest regional theater in D.C. Arena Stage re-opened in October 2010 with Oklahoma! . The capacity of its three theaters follows: One of the founders, Zelda Fichandler , was the company's artistic director from its founding through the 1990/91 season. Douglas C. Wager succeeded her for the 1991/92 through 1997/98 seasons. Molly Smith , assumed those duties beginning with
248-551: The Perseverance Theatre in her home town of Juneau, Alaska , soon after completing her master's in theatre at American University . She led the theatre company as artistic director until 1998. In addition to building audience and community through established works, she directed several world premieres of new works by rising American playwrights. Born and raised in a theater family in Juneau, Alaska , Smith moved to
279-843: The Sundance Theatre Lab. She formed the Arena Stage Writers Council in partnership with Georgetown University . The Council is composed of leading American playwrights and promotes development. Smith brings artists of international renown to the Arena. She is a member of the Board of the Theatre Communications Group, as well as the Center for International Theatre Development. She has also directed two feature films. Raven's Blood (1997)
310-644: The Tony Award for best regional theater and over 600 Helen Hayes Awards. The company was founded in Washington, D.C., in 1950 by Zelda and Thomas Fichandler and Edward Mangum. Its first home was the Hippodrome Theatre, a former movie house. In 1956, the company moved into the gymnasium of the old Heurich Brewery in Foggy Bottom ; the theater was nicknamed "The Old Vat." In 1960, the company moved into its current complex on Sixth Street, which
341-1172: The University of British Columbia and Simon Fraser University . In 2010, Thom was awarded the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada's Architectural Firm of the Year award. and in 2011 he was awarded the RAIC's highest honour, the RAIC Gold Medal. Thom died at age 75 of a brain aneurysm while on a trip to Hong Kong in October 2016. As of 2015 the firm had a total staff of 47, including principals Venelin Kokalov and Shinobu Homma, directors, registered architects, architectural graduate and students, urban designers and planners , and support staff. The firm specialized in urban planning and complex building types such as civic buildings, performing arts centres and public spaces. Typically projects are mixed-use, integrating commercial, residential and cultural uses to create
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#1732776655743372-629: The University of British Columbia and a Master of Architecture in 1970 from the University of California, Berkeley . He moved to Tokyo in 1971 to work for Japanese architect-urbanist Fumihiko Maki . Returning to Canada in 1972, he joined Arthur Erickson Architects as project director and oversaw projects such as Roy Thomson Hall in Toronto (1977), the Robson Square Courthouse Complex in Vancouver (1973–1979) and
403-443: The 1998/99 season. In June 2022, she announced she would retire and leave Arena Stage in July 2023. The current Artistic Director is Hana S. Sharif. [2] Some of the plays from the 2020 season were postponed due to the pandemic . As the crisis subsided, they were produced during the company's re-opening in the 2021–2022 season. The Washingtonian magazine, as part of its 50th anniversary commemoration, identified
434-751: The Air Defence Ministry Building in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia . In 1981, Thom established his own architecture firm , Vancouver-based Bing Thom Architects . In 1995, Thom was made a Member of the Order of Canada and he was a recipient of the Golden Jubilee Medal for outstanding service to his country. He was a Fellow of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada . Thom received honorary degrees from
465-465: The Arena Stage's 1967 production of The Great White Hope as one of "50 Moments That Shaped Washington, DC". The play received a lot of attention, some of it negative, because it featured an interracial relationship between James Earl Jones, then a new actor, and Jane Alexander. It was one of the first regional-theater productions to move to Broadway. There the production won several Tony Awards, and
496-571: The Arena Stage. From 2016 to 2024, a total of 25 plays have been commissioned related to American history. The Mead Center for American Theater, completed in 2010, is one of her legacies. Smith has received Honorary Doctorates from Towson and American universities. She organized a march on the National Mall for gun control on January 26, 2013. [REDACTED] Theatre portal Bing Thom Architects Bing Wing Thom , CM ( Chinese : 譚秉榮; 8 December 1940 – 4 October 2016)
527-418: The Arena. She also drove the development and design of a complex called The Mead Center for American Theater, completed in 2010. The project included renovations of the two existing theaters, and construction of a third theater, and related spaces to bring all functions to the site. With this, Arena became the largest regional theater in Washington and second to the Kennedy Center . In 1979 Smith had founded
558-501: The Artists Marketplace as a way for people to commission or purchase work from the artists who have worked with the company. The company also produced three films: May 22, 2020, a docudrama that follows D.C.-Maryland-Virginia residents and captures a day in their lives during the pandemic; Inside Voices , which features the stories of kids during the pandemic; and The 51st State , about D.C. statehood issues. In 2021,
589-713: The Crystal Forum and the Lincoln Theatre. The Arena's existing theaters, the Fichandler Stage and the Kreeger Theater, were enclosed under a glass "skin" together with a new theater, the Arlene and Robert Kogod Cradle. The entire $ 135 million complex was renamed "Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater" in honor of supporters Gilbert and Jaylee Mead . The new building also includes
620-823: The Lower 48 for college and graduate school. She attended Catholic University (Washington, D.C.), and received a master's degree in 1978 in theatre from American University . She returned to Juneau, where in 1979 she founded the Perseverance Theatre . Smith led this company as artistic director until 1998. Smith commissioned numerous world premieres at the Perseverance Theatre, including Paula Vogel 's Pulitzer Prize -winning How I Learned to Drive and The Mineola Twins , Tim Acito ’s The Women of Brewster Place , Moises Kaufman ’s 33 Variations , Charles Randolph-Wright 's Blue , Zora Neale Hurston 's lost play, Polk County ; and Sarah Ruhl 's Passion Play,
651-484: The Power Plays initiative to commission 25 original plays and musicals over the next 10 years to showcase American history from 1776 to modern day. These have included works by Jacqueline Lawton, Eve Ensler, Rajiv Joseph, Mary Kathryn Nagle, Sarah Ruhl, Lawrence Wright, Eduardo Machado, Aaron Posner, John Strand , Craig Lucas, Kenneth Lin, and Nathan Alan Davis. During the coronavirus pandemic , Arena Stage launched
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#1732776655743682-707: The Power Plays initiative, from 2016 to 2024 Arena has commissioned 25 new plays related to American history. Smith has also directed at the Shaw Festival in Canada (2007), Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Trinity Repertory Company, Tarragon Theatre in Toronto, and Centaur Theatre in Montreal, and includes the shows South Pacific , Mack and Mabel , Anna Christie , Cat on a Hot Tin Roof , " The Music Man ", and " My Fair Lady ". Smith has served as Literary Adviser to
713-795: The U.S. State Department to do so. This made them the first regional theater to present U.S. plays in the USSR. In 1980 Arena Stage was the first American theater company to be invited to the Hong Kong Arts Festival. It attended the Israel Festival in Jerusalem in 1987. In the U.S., to promote cultural diversity, Zelda Fichandler included plays from the Soviet Union, Romania, Poland, Hungary, Austria, East and West Germany, France, Switzerland, England, Canada, and Australia in
744-594: The company received a $ 1 million grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to train minority actors, directors, designers and administrators, and to produce plays from non-white cultures. In the latter half of the 20th century, the company traveled abroad. In 1973, they performed Thornton Wilder's Our Town and Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee's Inherit the Wind in the Soviet Union after being encouraged by
775-433: The company released a three-part commissioned music series called Arena Riffs as part of its reopening. A major renovation of the facility was undertaken from 2008 through 2010. The architect for the project was Bing Thom Architects of Vancouver , British Columbia , Canada, who contracted Fast + Epp consulting engineers to design the main columns for the building. During the renovation, Arena Stage temporarily moved to
806-579: The theater's repertoire. In 1991, Arena raised $ 4 million for a cultural diversity grant. This became the Allen Lee Hughes Fellowship Program. In 1981, Arena developed Audio Description for visually impaired audience members. This made the company the first theater to create audio-described performances. In 1976, Arena Stage became the first theater outside New York to receive a special Tony Award for theatrical excellence. In 2016, artistic director Molly Smith announced
837-682: The theater, including personal records of Zelda Fichandler's , Thomas Fichandler's papers , the Ken Kitch papers , and materials relating to the Living Stage . Molly Smith Molly Smith is an American theatre director and the artistic director of Arena Stage in Washington, D.C. from 1998 to 2023. During this period, she emphasized promoting new American plays, playwrights, and voices, producing 200 works. In addition, she helped originate 150 works by workshops and commissions at
868-528: Was a Canadian architect and urban designer. Born in Hong Kong , he immigrated to Vancouver , British Columbia , Canada with his family in 1950. His paternal grandfather originally immigrated to Vancouver in the 1890s and his father was born in New Westminster before moving to Hong Kong after being unable to practice as a pharmacist in Canada. Thom received a Bachelor of Architecture in 1966 from
899-505: Was adapted from the mystery novel, Death of an Alaskan Princess, by Bridget Smith, and filmed in Juneau. A major community effort, it featured many local actors and extras. She also directed Making Contact (1999). In 2014 Smith married her longtime partner, Suzanne Blue Star Boy, in a ceremony officiated by Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg . They had met in Alaska. The ceremony
930-466: Was designed for them by Chicago architect Harry Weese . He also designed the Arena's Kreeger Theater, which opened in 1970. In 1966, Robert Alexander joined the company and created the Living Stage as a social outreach improvisational theater. From 2008 to 2010, the complex was renovated and a third theatre was added, together with a variety of support spaces. The new complex, with the theatres under
961-542: Was held in the Kogod Cradle of the Arena's complex, with the reception on the outdoor terrace and in the rehearsal hall. Smith led the development of Arena Stage as a center for new American plays, artists, and voices. Some 200 works were produced, including by established American playwrights. She directed many new works, and invited diverse actors and directors to participate in productions. Some 150 works were originated in readings, workshops and related initiatives at