Helen Hayes MacArthur was an American actress. Often referred to as the "First Lady of American Theatre", she was the second person and first woman to win the EGOT, and the first person to win the Triple Crown of Acting. Hayes also received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, America's highest civilian honor, from President Ronald Reagan in 1986. In 1988, she was awarded the National Medal of Arts.
AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center is a three-screen movie theater complex in downtown Silver Spring, Maryland, north of Washington, D.C. It is operated by the American Film Institute.
The Helen Hayes Awards are theater awards recognizing excellence in professional theater in the Washington, D.C. area since 1983. The awards are named in tribute of Helen Hayes, who is also known as the "First Lady of American Theatre." They are presented by Theatre Washington, sponsored by TodayTix, a ticketing company, and supported in part by the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, The Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation, The Max and Victoria Dreyfus Foundation, The Share Fund, Prince Charitable Trust, and Craig Pascal and Victor Shargai.
Located in Olney, Maryland, the Olney Theatre Center offers a diverse array of professional productions year-round that enrich, nurture, and challenge a broad range of artists, audiences and students. One of the two official state theaters of Maryland, Olney Theatre Center is situated on 14 acres (57,000 m2) in the middle of the Washington–Baltimore–Frederick "triangle." There are three indoor venues: the Historic Theatre, the Roberts Mainstage, and the Mulitz-Gudelsky Theatre Lab. There is also an outdoor venue, the Root Family Stage at Omi’s Pavilion.
The Cappies is an international program for recognizing, celebrating, and providing learning experiences for high school level theater and journalism students and teenage playwrights. The program prides itself on being a completely student-driven organization that gives a platform to teen voices.
Zelda Fichandler was an American stage producer, director and educator.
The culture of Washington, D.C. is reflected in its status as the capital of the United States and the presence of the federal government, its large Black population, and its role as the largest city in the Chesapeake Bay region. The presence of the U.S. federal government, in particular, has been instrumental in developing numerous cultural institutions throughout the city, such as museums and performing arts centers. The city's historic Black population has also helped drive cultural activities and artistic pursuits. During the early 20th century, for example, Washington's U Street Corridor became an important center for African American culture.
Forum Theatre was a non-profit theatre company based in Washington, D.C. Founded in 2004 as Forum Theatre and Dance, it worked out of the Warehouse Theatre, the H Street Playhouse and, in its final years, out of a black box theatre in Silver Spring, Maryland. The company focused on plays that featured storytelling and theatricality. The company also aimed to host productions dealing with topics that lent themselves to post-show discussions, which the theatre hosted in the lobby. It was known for producing "new and recent plays at revolutionarily low prices," according to The Washington Post. The Forum Theatre ceased operations on July 31, 2018.
Ari Roth is an American theatrical producer, playwright, director and educator. From 2014 to 2020 Roth served as the Artistic Director of Mosaic Theater Company of DC and was formerly the Artistic Director of Theater J at the Washington, D.C. Jewish Community Center from 1997 to 2014. Over 18 seasons at Theater J, he produced more than 129 productions and created festivals including "Locally Grown: Community Supported Art," "Voices from a Changing Middle East", and Theater J's acclaimed "Beyond The Stage" and "Artistic Director's Roundtable" series. In 2010, Roth was named as one of the Forward 50, honoring nationally prominent "men and women who are leading the American Jewish community into the 21st century, and in 2017 he was given the DC Mayor's Arts Award for Visionary Leadership. In 2021, Roth launched a new partnership with A. Lorraine Robinson, founding Voices Festival Productions, to be the new home for his long-running "Voices From a Changing Middle East Festival." Their first public event was a virtual benefit in support of "Ukrainian Playwrights Under Siege" in partnership with the Arts Club of Washington.
David Kenneth Cook was a British author, screenwriter and actor. He is best known for the screen adaptation of his 1978 novel Walter, and was the first presenter of the UK TV programme Rainbow. He was born in Preston, Lancashire. He studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, London, from 1959 to 1961. His first role was in the 1962 film adaptation of A Kind of Loving. Thereafter, he worked on both stage and television. He began to write novels and also for television in the early 1970s.
Young Playwrights' Theater (YPT) is a not-for-profit theater arts-based education organization in Northwest Washington, D.C. It provides interactive in-school and after-school programs presenting and discussing student-written work to promote community dialogue and respect for young artists.
Willy Conley is an American deaf photographer, playwright, actor and writer.
Sandra Cecelia Seaton is an American playwright and librettist. She received the Mark Twain Award from the Society for the Study of Midwestern Literature in 2012. Seaton taught creative writing and African-American literature at Central Michigan University for 15 years as a professor of English.
Jared Mezzocchi is an American theatre director and projection designer.
Karen Zacarías is an American playwright. She is known for her play Mariela in the Desert. It was the winner of the National Latino Playwriting Award and a finalist for other prizes. Mariela in the Desert was debuted at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago. Zacarías is the founder of the Young Playwrights' Theater located in Washington, D.C.
Frank Wright was an American painter, professor of art for many years at George Washington University, and sixth-generation Washingtonian.
Martyna Majok is a Polish-born American playwright who received the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for her play Cost of Living. She emigrated to the United States as a child and grew up in New Jersey. Majok studied playwriting at the Yale School of Drama and Juilliard School. Her plays are often politically engaged, feature dark humor, and experiment with structure and time.
Michael J. Bobbitt is an American playwright, director, choreographer, and performing arts leader based in Boston. He will become executive director of the Massachusetts Cultural Council on February 1, 2021. Bobbitt was the artistic director of Adventure Theatre-MTC, the longest-running children's theater in the Washington metropolitan area, for 12 years before becoming artistic director of the New Repertory Theatre in greater Boston on August 1, 2019. Bobbitt's work has been recognized frequently as both a nominee and a recipient of the annual Helen Hayes Awards for excellence in theater.
Leslie Bravman Jacobson is a George Washington University professor emeritus of theatre, playwright, director, and the founding artistic director of the longest-running women's theatre in the United States, Horizons: Theatre from a Woman's Perspective in Washington, D.C. She was also a founder and vice president of the 501(c)(3) not-for-profit Bokamoso Youth Foundation, president of the League of Washington Theatres, and recipient of a Fulbright Senior Research Fellowship.
