Photo courtesy of Kelli Biggs. Jaki Demarest as Kent and Michael Galizia as King Lear star in the visiting production of "King Lear" by the Rude Mechanicals at the Greenbelt Arts Center through Sept. 4.

Published on: Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Annabelle Ferguson Auditorium

Suitland High School

5200 Silver Hill Road

www.promise-productions.net

“He’s Not Mine * She’s Not Mine”

Ray Quick presents the theatrical stage play, “He’s Not Mine * She’s Not Mine” Saturday, Sept. 18.

Written and produced by Quick, this heartfelt story exposes the challenges and struggles of blended families. A non-biological son and husband refuse to get along. What role did the wife play in this? Will they ever survive? It delivers a powerful performance that highlights both points of views from the man’s and woman’s perspective. The play in unquestionably structured to bring awareness, communication and healing to an ever growing population of blended families.

Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center

University of Maryland College Park

www.claricesmithcenter.umd.edu

Liz Lerman Dance Exchange’s “The Matter of Origins,” Sept. 10-12.

Act One is a dance performance illuminated by video and a vivid soundscape, exploring the nature of beginnings and the physics that underlies the origin of matter. Act Two will incorporate tea, cake and conversation as Dance Exchange cast members serve tea and chocolate cake made from the famous recipe of Edith Warner, the Los Alamos local whose tea house was a gathering spot for the scientists at the Manhattan Project. This experience will allow audiences to respond to what they have seen and contribute their own insights to the spirit of discovery at the heart of “The Matter of Origins.”

The University of Maryland School of Music’s Schumann Festival celebrates the 200th anniversary of the German composer’s birth with a festival devoted to his work. The festival begins Oct. 19 with a showcase of chamber work's featuring Maryland faculty and the Left Bank Quartet. Other events include tenor Christoph Genz and noted Romantic musicologist/pianst Charles Rosen recreating Schumann’s song cycle “Dichterliebe” in a seldom-heard version that includes four unpublished songs on Oct. 20.

On Oct. 21, mezzo-soprano Delores Ziegler and accompanist Rita Sloan will culminate in a performance of “Paradise and the Peri,” a cantata for soloists, chorus and orchestra that was Schumann’s most popular and most frequently performed work during his lifetime. Supplanted by other work over the years, it is rarely performed but will resurface Oct. 22 as the University of Maryland Symphony Orchestra and the University of Maryland Concert Choir bring it to the stage.

Greenbelt Arts Center

123 Centerway, Greenbelt

301-441-8770

www.greenbeltartscenter.org.

“King Lear,” Aug. 20- Sept. 4, written by William Shakespeare and directed by Kelli Biggs. Visiting production from the Rude Mechanicals.

ALONIZ Improv Team (Eleanor Roosevelt High School) - Sept. 5-6

Announcing our 31st season:

Note: Show dates subject to change

Sept. 24 - Oct. 16: “Volpone,” by Ben Jonson, directed by Bill Jones

Nov. 12 - Dec. 4: “Chapter Two,” by Neil Simon, directed by Sheilah Crossley-Cox

Jan. 21 - Feb. 12: “Doubt,” by John Patrick Shanley, directed by Bob Kleinberg

March 11 - April 2: “Reefer Madness,” book by Kevin Murphy & Dan Studney, Music by Dan Studney, Lyrics by Kevin Murphy, directed by Jeffery Lesniak

April 22 - May 13: “The Burial at Thebes,” by Seamus Heaney, directed by Patrick Miller

Laurel Mill Playhouse

508 Main St., Laurel

www.laurelmillplayhouse.org.

One Act Festival, produced by Maureen Rogers and Diana Simmons runs September 3-5, 10-12 and 17-19. Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 2 p.m.

A different set of shows each weekend!

 General admission tickets are $10 each or to see all three weekends, special price of $25. For reservations, please call 301-617-9906 and press 2. For more information about shows, visit www.laurelmillplayhouse.org or call Maureen Rogers at 301-452-2557.

“The American Way,” a play being produced in partnership with Montpelier Mansion and the Laurel Museum. The play, which runs October 1 through October 22nd, is part of a project called Barriers and Gateways: The Immigrant Experience, which in turn is part of a larger project with the Smithsonian Institution called Between Fences. Montpelier Mansion is the first stop in the Maryland tour of Between Fences, an exhibit about boundaries in our everyday lives. Each host site for Between Fences must create a companion exhibit and programming on the topic of boundaries in their own communities. Montpelier has chosen to do their companion exhibit and programming on the metaphorical boundaries faced by immigrants throughout history. This is where the Laurel Mill Playhouse comes in. They have decided to do The American Way as part of the programming for Barriers and Gateways. The American Way, by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart, directed by Marie Sproul and Produced by Maureen Rogers, explores the challenges faced by a family of German immigrants in the early 1900s.

If you have any questions, please contact Holly Burnham at Montpelier Mansion, (301) 377-7817, holly.burnham@pgparks.com, or Maureen Rogers at Laurel Mill Playhouse, at (301) 452-2557, maureenrogers@gmail.com. 

Port Tobacco Players’ Theatre

508 Charles St.

La Plata

301-932-6819

www.ptplayers.com

“Arsenic and Old Lace,” Aug. 27 - Sept. 12.

A farcical black comedy set in Brooklyn, New York during the 1940s. The play revolves around two nice, sweet old ladies who murder nice, sweet, lonely old men by offering them elderberry wine laced with poison. The Brewster sisters live with their mentally challenged nephew Teddy who believes he is Theodore Roosevelt and frequently charges up the stairs as if it were San Juan Hill. Matters get complicated when a second nephew Mortimer, a theater hating drama critic discovers the murders.

Mortimer must juggle the antics of his two murdering Aunts, calls from the NYPD regarding Teddy, woo his fiancé Elaine and get rid of his criminal older brother Jonathan who has just arrived in town with the alcoholic plastic surgeon Dr. Einstein. In this adroit mixture of comedy and mayhem, Arsenic and Old Lace satirizes our normal charitable impulses and pokes fun at the conventions of the theater.

Performances are Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m., Sundays at 3 p.m.

Admission: $17 for adults; $14 for students/seniors/military.