2007-2008 Season

August 3-August 26
Oliver!
Music and Lyrics By Lionel Bart
Directed by Roman S. Gusso
Produced by David Weaver.
The Tony-award winning musical version of Dickens’ “Oliver Twist,” brings to life the story of an orphaned boy, who joins a jolly band of pickpockets who try to teach the innocent boy to be a thief. The whole family will leave humming songs from the memorable and haunting score.
A large cast of talented children and adults will be singing and dancing up a storm!

August 31-September 2
Macbeth: Life on the Heath
Written by William Shakespeare and P. Ryan Anthony
Directed by P. Ryan Anthony
Produced by Gretchen Jacobs.
From the team that brought you last summer’s surprise hit Hamlet, Revenge! comes another fresh adaptation of a Shakespearean tragedy. This new half-hour version breathlessly explores the craziness that ensues when Brave Macbeth and his Lady (affectionately called “Chuck”) overreach their own ripe ambitions and snatch the Scottish throne so fast that heads spin and even come off!
The annual Shakespeare on the Green production is offered free to the public, as part of Greenbelt’s Labor Day Festival.
In past years these were performed in public parks, but will be in the Arts Center theater this year. Five shows in the theater – Friday at 8:00 pm; Saturday, September 1 and Sunday, September 2 at 5:00 pm and 7:00 pm.

September 1-2
Snow White & Rose Red
Greenbelt Arts Center in cooperation with Alchemy Children’s Theater will be presenting a children’s show. Appropriate for kids aged three and up.

September 14-October 6
Dearly Departed
Written by David Bottrell and Jessie Jones
directed by Lenora S. Dernoga
produced by Beatriz Mayoral.
Meet the delightful but dysfunctional Turpin family, who prove that living and dying in the South are seldom tidy and always hilarious! There is a funeral to plan and feuds, marital flings and plenty of “joy, joy, joy down in our hearts!” By the time the Turpins sort through the chaos, they’ve learned that coping with life’s losses can turn out to be drop-dead funny.

October 26-November 4
Saving Us Saints
Written by Dorothy Phaire
directed by Dr. Percy Thomas.
A values-based play appropriate for all ages, combining real-life drama, humor, and music to portray a family in conflict over teen peer pressure, adult infidelity and a family’s ultimate road to recovery.

October 19-November 10
The Dining Room Cancelled
Written by Albert Ramsdell Gurney
Directed and designed by Jeffery Lesniak

December 6-16
Love & War: The Bard’s Women
Directed by Jennifer Crooks
Produced by Hilary Kacser.
A fresh and funny play in two movements celebrating Shakespeare’s heroines. Exploring war in a variety of roles, from Hecate and the three witches in Macbeth to Katherina in The Taming of the Shrew, Actor-Manager Hilary Kacser portrays these ladies with stirring word and deft dance, echoed and complemented by the ensemble including Jennifer Crooks (also the director).
Love prevails as Juliet replies to letter writers seeking her advice, with comic and touching effect. Artistically conceived, carefully integrated, skillfully performed, and compelling. Its humor made me laugh out loud. Do yourself a favor and don’t miss it. (Bob Morrison, Fringe & Purge).
Following each GAC performance will be an Audience Talk Back, Question & Answer with the cast, producer, and director. This six actor show premiered at the 2007 Capital Fringe Festival and recently played Capitol Hill’s Corner Store Stage.

January 11-February 2
The Beard of Avon
Written by Amy Freed
Produced and Directed by Gretchen Jacobs.
A guest production from Alchemy Theater
For centuries people have wondered how a country bumpkin became the leading poet of the age, William Shakespeare. Amy Freed brilliantly reveals the hilarious saga behind the making of the playwright everyone had to read in high school. This ingenious comedy solves many puzzles: who wrote the plays, how Shakespeare seemed to know everything, and who the Dark Lady really was.

February 15-23
Winter Youth Musical: The Trials of Hercules
by Christopher Cherry
Stunned to learn that his absent father is the king of the gods, brash young Hercules sets out to find him. But the Fates have other plans. How did a fatherless teenage boy become the most famous hero in history?
Tickets are specially priced at $5. The Winter Youth Musical has a tradition of selling out, so buy your tickets early! Tickets sales are handled through the Greenbelt Community Center business office. You may purchase tickets in person at the Community Center or charge them by phone at 301-397-2208, Monday-Friday from 9:00 am to 4:30 pm. Due to the high demand for tickets, this is a sales-only production, so we cannot accept unpaid reservations.

February 29-March 1
The Importance of Being Earnest
Directed by Jaki Demarest
The Rude Mechanicals, the veteran, fun, wildly inventive DC-based Shakespeare company responsible for such trivialities as Antony & Cleopatra: Snakes in a Play and The Life and Death of King John done Monty Python style, are finally tackling Oscar Wilde’s masterpiece, re-imagining it in lavish, decadent 1935 Hollywood, the one place the Haves still Have in a nation otherwise gripped by the Great Depression. Described by the Washington Post as “artistic anarchists – intense, vibrant and original,” the Rudes have a fantastic reputation for breathing new life into old works, with quirky style, razor sharpness and shrewd insights.

March 8
The Vagina Monologues
By Eve Ensler
A benefit for the Family Crisis Center of Prince George’s County, this one-night presentation is part of V-Day in Greenbelt.

March 14-April 5
Born Yesterday
Written by Garson Kanin
Directed by Randy Barth
Produced by Andrew Negri
Today’s Washington lobbyists ain’t got nothin’ on Harry Brock! A blustering businessman and his “sure-thing-hon” girlfriend visit Congress to do some business in the halls of power in this American classic comedy. But when Harry hires a jaded but conscientious journalist to give his gal “some educating,” something happens that threatens to bring down Harry and his cronies.

April 25-May 17
The Octette Bridge Club
Written by P.J. Barry
Directed by Erica Drezek
Produced by Jo Rake
On alternate Friday evenings, eight sisters meet to play bridge, gossip and socialize. Although they appear to be right out of Norman Rockwell Americana, you’ll find that they share heaping helpings of hypocrisy and heartbreak along with the coffee cake. A not-to-be-missed evening of laughter and sentimentality.

May 23-31
The Tempest
A gues production from The Rude Mechanicals
Written by: William Shakespeare
Directed by: Arthur Rowan
Shakespeare’s Tempest, as with the rest of his “supernatural” plays, provides a wonderful vessel for evoking that sense of delight, magic, and wonder which can be hard to find in our high-stress, overwhelmingly practical world. The Rudes capture this magic by weaving acting and music together into one story, reinventing Shakespeare’s final play as a Celtic musical.

June 6-28>
Wyrd Sisters
A guest production from Alchemy Theater Written by Terry Pratchett, Adapted by Stephen Briggs
Directed by Gretchen Jacobs
From Britain’s most popular fantasy writer comes a tale that sounds familiar: three witches on a heath, an ambitious nobleman, a king’s ghost, and horrible mind-warping guilt – but in Pratchett’s hands it’s anything but tragic!