The Studio Theatre, the urban, edgy, Off-Broadway-style nonprofit in Washington, DC, will have A.R. Gurney's Far East, William Finn's A New Brain, Javon Johnson's Hambone, a newly adapted Prometheus and Kenneth Lonergan's Lobby Hero in the 2001-2002 season.
The company's mainstage season begins Sept. 19-Oct. 28 with artistic director Joy Zinoman's staging of Far East, the tale of American military men and their women stationed abroad in exotic Japan. Performances are in the Milton Theatre.
Songwriter-librettist William Finn's quirky, autobiographical medical musical, A New Brain, about his brush with a brain tumor, follows in the Mead Theatre Nov. 14-Dec. 23. James Lapine co-wrote the book, Serge Seiden directs the onetime Off-Broadway tuner.
Javon Johnson's play about generational and racial feuds, Hambone, focuses on tensions in a Southern city where the Confederate flag flies over the state capitol, Jan. 2 Feb. 10, 2002, in the Milton.
Novelist Sophy Burman has adapted Aeschylus' ancient Prometheus and Joy Zinoman directs the world premiere, with a 20-woman chorus telling the tale, March 20 May 5, 2002, in the Mead. The production includes Act One (the adapted text) and a brand-new "companion act." Prometheus is the only extant third of a Greek trilogy by Aeschylus (525-456 B.C.). Only a fragment of the remaining plays exist. Lonergan's quirky, seriocomic examination of loyalty, morality, ambition and workplace betrayal, Lobby Hero (currently continuing its Off-Broadway production to Sept. 2 in Manhattan), gets a May 15-June 23, 2002, DC premiere under the direction of J.R. Sullivan, in the Milton. Two cops and two apartment building security guards square off in the play by the Pulitzer Prize-nominated writer of This Is Our Youth (which will play the Studio Secondstage in spring 2001-2002) and The Waverly Gallery.
W. David Hancock's The Race of the Ark Tattoo, Sept. 7-23, performed by Matthew Maher as "a man with a mysterious past peddling his wares at a neighborhood flea market," is an added event in 2001. No performance is ever the same as he tells the history behind the objects. The work was previously seen to acclaim at P.S. 122 in New York. The Studio venue will be announced.
Also special to the season is John Epperson's populó>¿
