World Premiere of Kwame Kwei-Armah's Beneatha's Place Begins

New PBS Special Slated to Document CENTERSTAGE’s Raisin Cycle

Baltimore, MD—May 2, 2013. On Wednesday, May 8, CENTERSTAGE begins previews of the World Premiere production of Artistic Director Kwame Kwei-Armah’s new play, Beneatha’s Place. The production, playing in rotating repertory with Clybourne Park, forms the second half of The Raisin Cycle. Opening Night for Beneatha’s Place will be on Wednesday, May 15. 

When Baltimore first met Kwame Kwei-Armah in 2005, it was as the playwright of the smash hit Elmina's Kitchen. Now, under his artistic leadership, CENTERSTAGE is ending its 50th Anniversary Season with his most recent work—Beneatha's Place. Inspired by Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun, Beneatha’s Place continues the conversation that began in Clybourne Park. The play explores identity, leadership, and legacy through the story of one powerful African American woman, following Beneatha Younger far beyond that iconic Chicago living room, from 1959 to today, and from her home in Nigeria to her career at a California university.
 
“As a playwright of color, even in Britain, the legacy of Lorraine Hansberry and A Raisin in the Sun looms large for me. I may have seen the play more often than any other,” says Kwei-Armah. “In writing my own encounter with her seminal saga, I felt drawn to explore the nature of identity, community, and what it means to become a leader.”

As part of this exciting endeavor, CENTERSTAGE’s productions of Beneatha’s Place and Clybourne Park will be featured this fall as a nationally broadcast PBS documentary examining the legacy of A Raisin in the Sun. The documentary special follows the process of mounting The Raisin Cycle, from first rehearsal through the opening of both productions. The title, and additional details, will be announced soon. 

“A Raisin in the Sun is a powerful story of perseverance that arts followers have come to know and love, and we think our viewers will be just as interested in learning more about the Clybourne Park and Beneatha’s Place storylines,” said PBS Vice President of Programming Donald Thoms. “PBS is committed to giving millions of viewers a front-row seat and a backstage pass to the best music, theater, dance, art, and cultural history programs on-air and online, and we’re excited that CENTERSTAGE will provide us with great content to feature this fall.”

“We are honored to partner with PBS in this fantastic endeavor to expand the impact of CENTERSTAGE’s work beyond our local audience,” said Stephen Richard, CENTERSTAGE’s Managing Director. “Bringing The Raisin Cycle, through television, to communities across the country is indicative of our belief in the power of theater to play a role in national conversations.”

Beneatha’s Place and Clybourne Park are being produced in rotating repertory as The Raisin Cycle using a single company of actors and a shared design team under the direction of Derrick Sanders. Clybourne Park opened April 10, and Beneatha's Place begins previews May 8, officially opening on May 15. On May 18, the two plays will begin playing in rotating repertory, running through June 16. Details and tickets can be found at www.centerstage.org/cycle, or by calling 410.332.0033.

The Raisin Cycle

Clybourne Park
By Bruce Norris
Directed by Derrick Sanders
Apr 10 – Jun 16

The Pulitzer Prize-winning drama taking America by storm. Picking up where Lorraine Hansberry left off in her landmark A Raisin in the Sun (2001-02 Season), The New York Times called Clybourne Park a “darkly humorous… dissection of race, gentrification and real estate.”

Beneatha’s Place
World Premiere
By Kwame Kwei-Armah
Directed by Derrick Sanders
May 8 – Jun 16

Follow the life of Beneatha Younger from A Raisin in the Sun as she journeys beyond that Chicago living room, from Nigeria to California and 1959 to today.

CAST  Kim Bey* Eric Burton Jonathan Crombie* Jessica Frances Dukes* Charlie Hudson, III* Beth Hylton*  Jacob H Knoll* James Ludwig*  Jenna Sokolowski*

Clybourne Park  (n/a) (n/a)   Russ/Dan Francine/Lena  Albert/Kevin Bev/Kathy  Jim/Tom/Kenneth Karl/Steve Betsy/Lindsey

Beneatha’s Place Auntie Fola Tunde  Peter Nelson/Gary Jacobs Beneatha Joseph Asagai/Wale Oguns Harriet Banks  (n/a)  Daniel Barnes/Mark Bond  Mrs. Nelson

Laura Smith*, Stage Manager
Captain Kate Murphy*, Assistant Stage Manager
Caitlin Powers*, Assistant Stage Manager

ARTISTIC TEAM
Derrick Sanders, Director
Jack Magaw, Scenic Designer 
Reggie Ray, Costume Designer
Thom Weaver, Lighting Designer
Elisheba Ittoop, Sound Designer
Gregory Bazemore and Linda Cavell, Hair and Wigs
Gavin Witt, Production Dramaturg   
Evamarii Johnson, Dialect Consultant
Tara Rubin, Casting Director
Sakina Ansari-Wilson, Assistant Director
Jeff Kirkman, Assistant Director

*Member Actor’s Equity Association

CENTERSTAGE, the State Theater of Maryland, celebrates its 50th Anniversary Season in 2012-13. The professional, nonprofit company serves as a local hub and national leader for provocative, entertaining theater and as a catalyst for conversation in the community. Each year, a broad range of productions in two intimate performance spaces attracts a highly diverse audience of more than 100,000 people—including more than 8,000 fiercely loyal members. Under the leadership of acclaimed playwright, actor, and director Kwame Kwei-Armah (Artistic Director) and national arts leader Stephen Richard (Managing Director), CENTERSTAGE enters its 50th year with a renewed dedication to the production of world-class theater in the heart of Baltimore.

The Raisin Cycle is supported by an Art Works grant from the National Endowment for the Arts and an Edgerton Foundation New American Plays Award, as well as by The Annie E. Casey Foundation and The William L. and Victorine Q. Adams Foundation.

New play development at CENTERSTAGE is made possible in part by The Eddie C. and C. Sylvia Brown Family Foundation, the Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust, and the Nathan and Suzanne Cohen Foundation Fund for Commissioning and Developing New Plays.

CENTERSTAGE’s 50th Anniversary is made possible by presenting partner M&T Bank, and support from  DLA Piper, The Rouse Company Foundation, T. Rowe Price and the T. Rowe Price Foundation, Ellen and Ed Bernard, Stephanie and Ashton Carter, James and Janet Clauson, Lynn and Tony Deering and The Charlesmead Foundation, Jane and Larry Droppa, Terry H. Morgenthaler and Patrick Kerins, Judy and Scott Phares, Phil and Lynn Rauch, Jay and Sharon Smith, and Barbara Voss and Charles E. Noell, III; with additional support from Kathleen Hyle, Kenneth C. and Elizabeth M. Lundeen, and Sylvan/Laureate Foundation; and season media partners Maryland Public Television, The Baltimore Sun, WYPR, and WBAL.

CENTERSTAGE is supported by a grant from the Maryland State Arts Council, an agency dedicated to cultivating a vibrant cultural community where the arts thrive. An agency of the Department of Business & Economic Development, the MSAC provides financial support and technical assistance to non-profit organizations, units of government, colleges and universities for arts activities. Funding for the Maryland State Arts Council is also provided by the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency.

Pulitzer Prize- and Tony Award-Winning Clybourne Park Begins Previews at CENTERSTAGE

Baltimore, MD—April 2013. CENTERSTAGE announces the Baltimore Premiere of Bruce Norris’ highly acclaimed Clybourne Park, the first of two landmark plays slated to run in rotating repertory this spring as The Raisin Cycle. The Baltimore Premiere of Clybourne Park begins previews April 10, and the World Premiere of CENTERSTAGE Artistic Director Kwame Kwei-Armah’s Beneatha’s Place begins May 8. 

The Pulitzer Prize- and Tony Award-winning drama taking America by storm, Clybourne Park picks up where Lorraine Hansberry left off in her landmark A Raisin in the Sun. The New York Times called Clybourne Park a “darkly humorous… dissection of race, gentrification and real estate,” and Variety proclaims it “dangerous, provocative, and pulverizing funny.”

“Clybourne Park is an absolutely brilliant piece of theater. It’s a testament to just how good it is that after seeing it for the first time, I was so filled with ideas that I simply had to pick up a pen and join Bruce in this conversation,” says Kwei-Armah, referring to his play Beneatha’s Place.

Inspired by Norris’ reimagining of the character Karl Lindner from Raisin, Kwei-Armah expands the legacy of Hansberry’s masterpiece as he builds a new story for another figure. In Beneatha’s Place, Beneatha Younger—the intellectual and restless young woman who, at the end of Raisin, contemplates a move to Nigeria with her suitor—is given a new life and path as she confronts the fundamental questions of community and legacy.

The two plays will be produced in rotating repertory as The Raisin Cycle, using a single ensemble of actors, and a shared design team, under the direction of Derrick Sanders (Joe Turner’s Come and Gone). The Chicago-based Sanders was the founding Artistic Director of Congo Square Theatre, where he directed Kwei-Armah’s Elmina’s Kitchen, as well as several award-winning productions of the works of August Wilson. 

Among those in the cast making their CENTERSTAGE debuts are several familiar faces to the Baltimore/DC theater scene: Jessica Frances Dukes, a company member at Woolly Mammoth; Everyman Theatre resident company member, Beth Hylton; Kim Bey, who serves as the Chair of the Department of Theatre Arts at Howard University and has worked regionally and nationally as an actor and a dialect coach; and DC-based Jenna Sokolowski who has frequently appeared at Woolly Mammoth Theatre, Everyman Theatre, Metro Stage, Signature, Shakespeare Theatre, and Studio Theatre. A full cast list and bios are included at the end of this release.

Surrounding the repertory, CENTERSTAGE will produce Expanding the Cycle, an array of programming featuring pre- and post-show conversations, special events, and panel discussions. Highlights include a mini-festival of play readings that continue the conversations found in The Raisin Cycle, a playwrights convening on African American narratives, and a panel discussion and video series with local African American women in leadership positions. For a full schedule, visit www.centerstage.org/cycle.

Clybourne Park by Bruce Norris begins previews this week, and celebrates its Opening Night on Wednesday, April 17. Beneatha’s Place by Kwame Kwei-Armah, begins previews May 8, and celebrates Opening Night, Wednesday, May 15. Tickets can be purchased at 410.332.0033 or online at www.centerstage.org.

The Raisin Cycle

Clybourne Park
By Bruce Norris
Directed by Derrick Sanders
Apr 10 – Jun 16

The Pulitzer Prize-winning drama taking America by storm. Picking up where Lorraine Hansberry left off in her landmark A Raisin in the Sun (2001-02 Season), The New York Times called Clybourne Park a “darkly humorous… dissection of race, gentrification and real estate.”

Beneatha’s Place
World Premiere
By Kwame Kwei-Armah
Directed by Derrick Sanders
May 8 – Jun 16

Follow the life of Beneatha Younger from A Raisin in the Sun as she journeys beyond that Chicago living room, from Nigeria to California and 1959 to today.

CAST  Kim Bey* Eric Burton Jonathan Crombie* Jessica Frances Dukes* Charlie Hudson, III* Beth Hylton*  Jacob H Knoll* James Ludwig*  Jenna Sokolowski*

Clybourne Park  (n/a) (n/a)   Russ/Dan Francine/Lena  Albert/Kevin Bev/Kathy  Jim/Tom/Kenneth Karl/Steve Betsy/Lindsey

Beneatha’s Place Auntie Fola Tunde  Peter Nelson/Gary Jacobs Beneatha Joseph Asagai/Wale Oguns Harriet Banks  (n/a)  Daniel Barnes/Mark Bond  Mrs. Nelson

Laura Smith*, Stage Manager
Captain Kate Murphy*, Assistant Stage Manager
Caitlin Powers*, Assistant Stage Manager

ARTISTIC TEAM
Derrick Sanders, Director
Jack Magaw, Scenic Designer 
Reggie Ray, Costume Designer
Thom Weaver, Lighting Designer
Elisheba Ittoop, Sound Designer
Gregory Bazemore and Linda Cavell, Hair and Wigs
Gavin Witt, Production Dramaturg   
Evamarii Johnson, Dialect Consultant
Tara Rubin, Casting Director
Sakina Ansari-Wilson, Assistant Director
Jeff Kirkman, Assistant Director

*Member Actor’s Equity Association

CENTERSTAGE, the State Theater of Maryland, celebrates its 50th Anniversary Season in 2012-13. The professional, nonprofit company serves as a local hub and national leader for provocative, entertaining theater and as a catalyst for conversation in the community. Each year, a broad range of productions in two intimate performance spaces attracts a highly diverse audience of more than 100,000 people—including more than 8,000 fiercely loyal members. Under the leadership of acclaimed playwright, actor, and director Kwame Kwei-Armah (Artistic Director) and national arts leader Stephen Richard (Managing Director), CENTERSTAGE enters its 50th year with a renewed dedication to the production of world-class theater in the heart of Baltimore.

The Raisin Cycle is supported by an Art Works grant from the National Endowment for the Arts and an Edgerton Foundation New American Plays Award, as well as by The Annie E. Casey Foundation and The William L. and Victorine Q. Adams Foundation.

New play development at CENTERSTAGE is made possible in part by The Eddie C. and C. Sylvia Brown Family Foundation, the Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust, and the Nathan and Suzanne Cohen Foundation Fund for Commissioning and Developing New Plays.

CENTERSTAGE’s 50th Anniversary is made possible by presenting partner M&T Bank, and support from  DLA Piper, The Rouse Company Foundation, T. Rowe Price and the T. Rowe Price Foundation, Ellen and Ed Bernard, Stephanie and Ashton Carter, James and Janet Clauson, Lynn and Tony Deering and The Charlesmead Foundation, Jane and Larry Droppa, Terry H. Morgenthaler and Patrick Kerins, Judy and Scott Phares, Phil and Lynn Rauch, Jay and Sharon Smith, and Barbara Voss and Charles E. Noell, III; with additional support from Kathleen Hyle, Kenneth C. and Elizabeth M. Lundeen, and Sylvan/Laureate Foundation; and season media partners Maryland Public Television, The Baltimore Sun, WYPR, and WBAL.

CENTERSTAGE is supported by a grant from the Maryland State Arts Council, an agency dedicated to cultivating a vibrant cultural community where the arts thrive. An agency of the Department of Business & Economic Development, the MSAC provides financial support and technical assistance to non-profit organizations, units of government, colleges and universities for arts activities. Funding for the Maryland State Arts Council is also provided by the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency.

Expanding the Cycle Brings the Conversation to the Community

Conversations, Talk Backs, and Special Events Encourage Dialogue around CENTERSTAGE's Raisin Cycle

BALTIMORE, MD—April 9, 2013. CENTERSTAGE is proud to announce an array of programming to supplement The Raisin Cycle this spring. Both Clybourne Park and Beneatha’s Place raise tough questions and rouse passionate opinions; through Expanding the Cycle, CENTERSTAGE aims to provide outlets for questions and opinions, to enhance and activate audiences’ play-watching, and to spark meaningful civic discussion. 

In addition to regular programming, such as AfterThoughts, Meet the Actors, and Night Out, CENTERSTAGE will produce more than two dozen events throughout the run of the Raisin Cycle. There will be weekly talk backs after every Thursday evening and Sunday matinee performance; a discussion on the legacy of call-and-response works; a panel discussion with women in leadership roles throughout Baltimore; and a special sneak peek behind the scenes where audiences are invited to watch the production team transforms the set from one show to the other between performances, changing it from a home in Nigeria for Beneatha’s Place into an iconic Chicago bungalow for Clybourne Park. 

Highlights from Expanding the Cycle are listed below, and a full list can be found online at www.centerstage.org/cycle. 

Saturday, April 20 
Riffing, 4 pm—Following the matinee performance, join us in The Deering Lobby to enjoy a brief presentation on the legacy of call-and-response work in many media and genres; discussion to follow.

Tuesday, April 23 @ Howard County Community College
Columbia as a Planned Community, 7 pm—Held in Monteabaro Recital Hall of the Borowitz Center at Howard Community College, this panel discussion will review the history and explore the legacy of Columbia, MD, as a planned, integrated community.

Wednesday, May 8 
Leading Women, 6:30 pm—A lively discussion with women in leadership positions in and around Baltimore, in conjunction with our “I Am Beneatha” video series.

Wednesday, May 15 (Opening Night for Beneatha’s Place)
Playwrights’ Convening, 6:45 pm—Expanding the African American narrative. A group of playwrights joins us to ask: Who are we tomorrow? Who were we yesterday? Who has the authority to enter the investigation?

Thursday, May 16 — Saturday, May 18 
Play Readings, 7:30 pm each day—A three-day festival of play readings that carry on the conversation begun by A Raisin in the Sun and continued in The Raisin Cycle.

Saturday, May 18 
Post-Show Conversation, 4 pm—Hosted by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, this discussion explores current trends and issues in neighborhood revitalization, in Baltimore and beyond.
 
Saturday, June 8 
Behind the Rep, 4 pm—Watch as our production crew changes from one set to another, and learn about the process of rotating rep with Production Manager Mike Schleifer.

Talk Backs
Post-Show open forum conversations moderated by a member of the CENTERSTAGE staff. (Sunday talk backs will follow the 2 pm matinee)
 
Thursday, May 9 
Sunday, May 26
Thursday, May 30
Thursday, June 6
Sunday, June 9 
Thursday, June 13 
Sunday, June 16 

Expanding the Cycle is supported by the Howard County Arts Council through a grant from Howard County. Special thanks to Rep Stage and the Horwitz Center at Howard County Community College. 

About The Raisin Cycle
Clybourne Park by Bruce Norris and Beneatha’s Place are produced in rotating repertory as The Raisin Cycle, using a single company of actors and a shared design team, under the direction of Derrick Sanders. Beginning April 10, the theater will first present Clybourne Park. Beneatha’s Place will begin on May 8, and on May 18, the two plays will begin playing in rotating repertory, running through June 16. Details and tickets can be found at www.centerstage.org, or by calling 410.332.0033.

The Raisin Cycle is supported by an Art Works grant from the National Endowment for the Arts and an Edgerton Foundation New American Plays Award, as well as by The Annie E. Casey Foundation and The William L. and Victorine Q. Adams Foundation.

New play development at CENTERSTAGE is made possible in part by The Eddie C. and C. Sylvia Brown Family Foundation, the Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust, and the Nathan and Suzanne Cohen Foundation Fund for Commissioning and Developing New Plays.

CENTERSTAGE, the State Theater of Maryland, celebrates its 50th Anniversary Season in 2012-13. The professional, nonprofit company serves as a local hub and national leader for provocative, entertaining theater and as a catalyst for conversation in the community. Each year, a broad range of productions in two intimate performance spaces attracts a highly diverse audience of more than 100,000 people—including more than 8,000 fiercely loyal members. Under the leadership of acclaimed playwright, actor, and director Kwame Kwei-Armah (Artistic Director) and national arts leader Stephen Richard (Managing Director), CENTERSTAGE enters its 50th year with a renewed dedication to the production of world-class theater in the heart of Baltimore.

CENTERSTAGE’s 50th Anniversary is made possible by presenting partner M&T Bank, and support from  DLA Piper, The Rouse Company Foundation, T. Rowe Price and the T. Rowe Price Foundation, Ellen and Ed Bernard, Stephanie and Ashton Carter, James and Janet Clauson, Lynn and Tony Deering and The Charlesmead Foundation, Jane and Larry Droppa, Terry H. Morgenthaler and Patrick Kerins, Judy and Scott Phares, Phil and Lynn Rauch, Jay and Sharon Smith, and Barbara Voss and Charles E. Noell, III; with additional support from Kathleen Hyle, Kenneth C. and Elizabeth M. Lundeen, and Sylvan/Laureate Foundation; and season media partners Maryland Public Television, The Baltimore Sun, WYPR, and WBAL.

CENTERSTAGE is supported by a grant from the Maryland State Arts Council, an agency dedicated to cultivating a vibrant cultural community where the arts thrive. An agency of the Department of Business & Economic Development, the MSAC provides financial support and technical assistance to non-profit organizations, units of government, colleges and universities for arts activities. Funding for the Maryland State Arts Council is also provided by the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency.

CENTERSTAGE Announces 2013-14 Season

Season 51: Theater for the Heart

Baltimore, MD—March 11, 2013. Artistic Director Kwame Kwei-Armah and Managing Director Stephen Richard announce today CENTERSTAGE’s 2013-14 Season, Theater for the Heart. Season 51 brings together a roster of remarkable theater artists and stories. Featuring classic masterpieces of comedy as well as plays by some of America’s most talked-about playwrights, it’s a season of music, poetry, and adventure.

“Our 51st season is, quite simply, all about the heart. Each of these plays, whether through music, poetry, or sheer comedic perfection, says something fundamental about what it means to be human; about what it means to feel,” says Kwei-Armah. “From the sweeping poetry of Marcus Gardley’s dance of the holy ghosts to the quiet triumph of the spirit in Paula Vogel’s A Civil War Christmas, they are beautifully crafted plays, each with a daring and thoughtful take on matters of the spirit.”

The season gets off to a rollicking start with a fresh new revival of the Marx Brothers’ musical comedy gem, Animal Crackers. Starring 2012 City Paper Best Actor Bruce Nelson (…Edgar Allan Poe) as Groucho Marx playing the ineffable Captain Spaulding, Animal Crackers proves the comedy genius of the Marx Brothers is as spot-on as ever.  

Artistic Director Kwame Kwei-Armah will direct a pair of plays by two of the country’s most exciting playwrights. Following Animal Crackers, Kwei-Armah will helm Marcus Gardley’s melodic family drama, dance of the holy ghosts: a play on memory, which brings us the story of blues-man Oscar Clifton as he confronts a history of loves and regrets. In the spring, after directing the World Premiere this summer at Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Kwei-Armah will stage Naomi Wallace’s historical saga The Liquid Plain for Baltimore audiences. Winner of the prestigious 2012 Horton Foote Prize for Promising New American Play, The Liquid Plain follows two runaway slaves and an amnesic sailor as they live a life and plot an escape on the docks of eighteenth-century Rhode Island. 

The holiday season brings Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Paula Vogel’s stunning new musical tale of hope and forgiveness, A Civil War Christmas. Weaving together carols, hymns, and folk songs, this “beautifully stitched tapestry of American lives” (The New York Times) follows friends and foes, from the White House to the battlefields, on one frigid and surprising Christmas Eve in 1864. 

Ushering in the New Year are two masterpieces of comedy from across the pond. Marie Jones’ Stones in His Pockets is an acting tour de force with a cast of two actors playing more than a dozen characters in a small Irish village overrun by a big budget Hollywood film crew. And the Bard makes a return to CENTERSTAGE with Twelfth Night, Shakespeare’s quintessential romantic comedy filled with revelry, disguises, and pining lovers. 

The Liquid Plain arrives in April, and then, rounding out the season, is the “extravagantly talented” (Entertainment Weekly) Colman Domingo’s Wild with Happy. A recent smash hit at New York’s Public Theater, this shimmering new comedy follows Gil, a down-on-his-luck actor whose journey to happiness weaves through love, loss and, surprisingly, The Most Magical Place on Earth. 

Full information on the season can be found at www.centerstage.org/2013-14season. 

2013-14 Season at a Glance

Animal Crackers 
Book by George S. Kaufman and Morrie Ryskind
Music and Lyrics by Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby
Adapted by Henry Wishcamper
Original Orchestrations by Doug Peck
Sep 4–Oct 13

The toe-tapping, knee-slapping Marx Brothers classic gets a zany new revival in this gem of American musical comedy. The society party of the season has landed at the Rittenhouse estate, but the disappearance of a valuable painting threatens to spoil the affair. Thankfully, Captain Spaulding is on the case! Or is he? Filled with secret identities, love affairs, and stolen art, Animal Crackers proves the comedy genius of the Marx Brothers is as spot on as ever.  

dance of the holy ghosts: a play on memory
By Marcus Gardley
Directed by Kwame Kwei-Armah 
Oct 9–Nov 17 

Oscar Clifton is a blues man living through his memories of the past, until his estranged grandson Marcus pays a visit. Together, they confront a history of loves, regrets, and missed opportunities. This acclaimed play by Marcus Gardley is a poetic family drama set in the key of blues—a memory-scape skipping seamlessly across the decades.  

A Civil War Christmas: An American Musical Celebration
By Paula Vogel 
Nov 19–Dec 22

Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Paula Vogel spins a musical tale of hope and forgiveness. It’s a bitterly cold Christmas Eve in 1864 and all along the Potomac, from the White House to the battlefields, friends and foes alike find their lives strangely and poetically intertwined. Weaving together carols, hymns, and folk songs, this “beautifully stitched tapestry of American lives” (The New York Times) is sure to become a new holiday classic for the entire family.

Stones in His Pockets
By Marie Jones
Jan 15–Feb 23

When a big Hollywood film crew takes over a small Irish town, the locals line up to earn their “40-quid-a-day” as extras—and maybe pursue some dreams of their own. Charlie wants to write a blockbuster screenplay, while Jake would settle for a date with the lovely leading lady. Where they and their neighbors end up ultimately surprises them all. An “uproarious, joyful evening” (New York Daily News) with two actors playing more than a dozen characters, Stones is an acting tour de force both rollicking and poignant.

Twelfth Night
By William Shakespeare
Mar 5–Apr 6

Revelry, disguises, swashbuckling, and (of course) pining lovers abound in what some call Shakespeare’s most perfect comedy. Twins Viola and Sebastian, separated in a shipwreck and presuming each other dead, wash ashore in the beautiful but mysterious land of Illyria. A tale of mistaken identity and mismatched ardor unfurls as lords and ladies, servants and masters wind a topsy-turvy path to happiness. 

The Liquid Plain
By Naomi Wallace
Directed by Kwame Kwei-Armah 
Apr 16–May 25

In this lyrical and award-winning new drama, two runaway slaves and an amnesic sailor live on the docks of an 18th-century New England seaport. But as identities come to light and truths are revealed, plans for an escape to Africa are put in jeopardy and their lives are forever altered. Kwame Kwei-Armah, after directing the world premiere at Oregon Shakespeare Festival in summer 2013, will stage this sweeping historical saga for Baltimore audiences. 

Wild with Happy
By Colman Domingo
May 28–Jun 29

Grief is a funny thing. Gil’s boyfriend has left him, his acting career isn’t exactly taking off, and his mother just passed away. He’s not taking it all very well. But luckily his boisterous Aunt Glo, a sensitive funeral director, and his outrageous best friend may be exactly what he needs. Colman Domingo’s new comedy, a recent smash hit at New York’s Public Theater, is a wild ride through love, loss, and, just maybe, The Most Magical Place on Earth. 

CENTERSTAGE, the State Theater of Maryland, celebrates its 50th Anniversary Season in 2012-13. The professional, nonprofit company serves as a local hub and national leader for provocative, entertaining theater and as a catalyst for conversation in the community. Each year, a broad range of productions in two intimate performance spaces attracts a highly diverse audience of more than 100,000 people—including more than 8,000 fiercely loyal members. Under the leadership of acclaimed playwright, actor, and director Kwame Kwei-Armah (Artistic Director) and national arts leader Stephen Richard (Managing Director), CENTERSTAGE enters its 50th year with a renewed dedication to the production of world-class theater in the heart of Baltimore.

CENTERSTAGE is supported by a grant from the Maryland State Arts Council, an agency dedicated to cultivating a vibrant cultural community where the arts thrive. An agency of the Department of Business & Economic Development, the MSAC provides financial support and technical assistance to non-profit organizations, units of government, colleges and universities for arts activities. Funding for the Maryland State Arts Council is also provided by the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency.