Forum Theatre (DC)
Encyclopedia
Forum Theatre is a non-profit theatre company based in Washington, D.C.
Founded in 2003, Forum produces three shows per season and is in residence at the H Street Playhouse
. The company focuses on plays that feature innovative storytelling and theatricality. Forum productions also tend to deal with topics that lend themselves to discussions that the theatre hosts in the lobby, post-show. The Washington Post
has hailed the company as "gutsy", "daring" and a company who produces in a "nonlinear theatrical style that is underrepresented on local stages" http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/20/AR2006012001926.html
From day one, Forum sought not only to create distinctive work, but also to bring new or seldom-performed plays to Washington, using the shows as a springboard for artistic expression and discussion. The company’s first productions were a collection of Samuel Beckett
short plays and a movement and video piece called All Things Seen, based on Jean-Paul Sartre
's No Exit
. Audiences and critics took immediate notice: the “extreme theatricality” of the pieces caused one critic to remark that Forum was a “refreshing addition” to the DC theatre scene.
In the past three years, the acclaim increased as audiences followed the company from venue to venue. Forum performed at the Arena Stage at 14th & T Streets, Warehouse Theater, Church Street Theater, The University of Maryland, The Kennedy Center Millennium Stage, and Round House
Silver Spring before taking up residence at the H Street Playhouse
in historic northeast DC in June 2007. Forum's varied production history includes the world premieres of Israeli playwright Ami Dayan’s UpShot and a new translation of The Gas Heart commissioned by the company, along with the DC premieres of Hamletmachine
, Václav Havel
's The Memorandum
, Kid-Simple: A Radio Play in the Flesh, Caryl Churchill
’s The Skriker
, and Don DeLillo
's Valparaiso
.
In October 2006, Forum founded and produced (with Solas Nua) the DC Samuel Beckett Centenary Festival to celebrate the writer’s work and impact on contemporary art. The festival, which took place in several DC venues, included two weeks of theatre productions, film screenings, expert panel discussions, academic symposia, book clubs, downloadable radio play podcasts, and the international touring production of Waiting for Godot
by Ireland’s Gate Theatre
. The festival was sponsored by the Embassy of Ireland, The University of Maryland, and the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
Today, Forum is a dedicated group of 16 performers, technicians, and theater administrators, supported by a 13-member board. For its 2007–08 season, the company will produce Jean Anouilh
's Antigone
, The Last Days of Judas Iscariot
by Stephen Adly Guirgis
, and Marat/Sade
by Peter Weiss
. In addition, the launch of OpenForum this fall will further expand Forum's mission to create distinctive, inclusive theatrical experiences for its audiences.
2005-2006
2006-2007
2007-2008
2008-2009
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
Founded in 2003, Forum produces three shows per season and is in residence at the H Street Playhouse
H Street Playhouse
The H Street Playhouse is a black-box theater and gallery located in the Atlas District, in Northeast Washington D.C. Home to resident companies , and Forum Theatre , the Playhouse has also hosted African Continuum Theatre Company, Musefire, Landless Theater Company, Theater Blue, Journeymen...
. The company focuses on plays that feature innovative storytelling and theatricality. Forum productions also tend to deal with topics that lend themselves to discussions that the theatre hosts in the lobby, post-show. The Washington Post
The Washington Post
The Washington Post is Washington, D.C.'s largest newspaper and its oldest still-existing paper, founded in 1877. Located in the capital of the United States, The Post has a particular emphasis on national politics. D.C., Maryland, and Virginia editions are printed for daily circulation...
has hailed the company as "gutsy", "daring" and a company who produces in a "nonlinear theatrical style that is underrepresented on local stages" http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/20/AR2006012001926.html
History
Forum was founded in 2003 by Kelly Bartnik, Michael Dove, Paul Frydrychowski, and Mark Wright who thought that theatre could be more affecting, provocative, and relevant with a multimedia approach. Instead of using a single performance method, Forum would explore diverse storytelling styles and artistic media to create unique performances. The roots of the company came from the founders’ combined backgrounds in film, dance/movement, music, visual art, and theatre. In that year, Forum Theatre (then known as Forum Theatre & Dance) began in Washington, D.C., a city chosen for its emergence as a major theatre community.From day one, Forum sought not only to create distinctive work, but also to bring new or seldom-performed plays to Washington, using the shows as a springboard for artistic expression and discussion. The company’s first productions were a collection of Samuel Beckett
Samuel Beckett
Samuel Barclay Beckett was an Irish avant-garde novelist, playwright, theatre director, and poet. He wrote both in English and French. His work offers a bleak, tragicomic outlook on human nature, often coupled with black comedy and gallows humour.Beckett is widely regarded as among the most...
short plays and a movement and video piece called All Things Seen, based on Jean-Paul Sartre
Jean-Paul Sartre
Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre was a French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and literary critic. He was one of the leading figures in 20th century French philosophy, particularly Marxism, and was one of the key figures in literary...
's No Exit
No Exit
No Exit is a 1944 existentialist French play by Jean-Paul Sartre. The original French title is Huis Clos, the French equivalent of the legal term in camera, referring to a private discussion behind closed doors; English translations have also been performed under the titles In Camera, No Way Out...
. Audiences and critics took immediate notice: the “extreme theatricality” of the pieces caused one critic to remark that Forum was a “refreshing addition” to the DC theatre scene.
In the past three years, the acclaim increased as audiences followed the company from venue to venue. Forum performed at the Arena Stage at 14th & T Streets, Warehouse Theater, Church Street Theater, The University of Maryland, The Kennedy Center Millennium Stage, and Round House
Round House
The Round House is the oldest building still standing in Western Australia. It is located at Arthur Head in Fremantle, and recent heritage assessments and appraisals of the precinct of the Round House incorporate Arthur Head....
Silver Spring before taking up residence at the H Street Playhouse
H Street Playhouse
The H Street Playhouse is a black-box theater and gallery located in the Atlas District, in Northeast Washington D.C. Home to resident companies , and Forum Theatre , the Playhouse has also hosted African Continuum Theatre Company, Musefire, Landless Theater Company, Theater Blue, Journeymen...
in historic northeast DC in June 2007. Forum's varied production history includes the world premieres of Israeli playwright Ami Dayan’s UpShot and a new translation of The Gas Heart commissioned by the company, along with the DC premieres of Hamletmachine
Hamletmachine
Hamletmachine is a postmodernist drama by German playwright and theatre director Heiner Müller. Written in 1977, the play is loosely based on Hamlet by William Shakespeare. The play originated in relation to a translation of Shakespeare's Hamlet that Müller undertook...
, Václav Havel
Václav Havel
Václav Havel is a Czech playwright, essayist, poet, dissident and politician. He was the tenth and last President of Czechoslovakia and the first President of the Czech Republic . He has written over twenty plays and numerous non-fiction works, translated internationally...
's The Memorandum
The Memorandum
-Plot:Josef Gross, a director of an unnamed organization, receives a memorandum written in Ptydepe, a constructed language, about an audit. He finds out that Ptydepe was created to get rid of similarities between words, such as fox and box, and emotional connexions. He tries to get someone to...
, Kid-Simple: A Radio Play in the Flesh, Caryl Churchill
Caryl Churchill
Caryl Churchill is an English dramatist known for her use of non-naturalistic techniques and feminist themes, the abuses of power, and sexual politics. She is acknowledged as a major playwright in the English language and a leading female writer...
’s The Skriker
The Skriker
The Skriker is a 1994 play by Caryl Churchill that tells the story of an ancient fairy who, during the course of the play, transforms into a plethora of objects and people as it pursues Lily and Josie, two teenage mothers whom it befriends, manipulates, seduces and entraps...
, and Don DeLillo
Don DeLillo
Don DeLillo is an American author, playwright, and occasional essayist whose work paints a detailed portrait of American life in the late 20th and early 21st centuries...
's Valparaiso
Valparaiso (play)
Valparaiso is Don DeLillo's second play, in which a man suddenly becomes famous following a mistake in the itinerary of an ordinary business trip which takes him to Valparaíso, Chile, instead of Valparaiso, Indiana....
.
In October 2006, Forum founded and produced (with Solas Nua) the DC Samuel Beckett Centenary Festival to celebrate the writer’s work and impact on contemporary art. The festival, which took place in several DC venues, included two weeks of theatre productions, film screenings, expert panel discussions, academic symposia, book clubs, downloadable radio play podcasts, and the international touring production of Waiting for Godot
Waiting for Godot
Waiting for Godot is an absurdist play by Samuel Beckett, in which two characters, Vladimir and Estragon, wait endlessly and in vain for someone named Godot to arrive. Godot's absence, as well as numerous other aspects of the play, have led to many different interpretations since the play's...
by Ireland’s Gate Theatre
Gate Theatre
The Gate Theatre, in Dublin, was founded in 1928 by Hilton Edwards and Micheál Mac Liammóir, initially using the Abbey Theatre's Peacock studio theatre space to stage important works by European and American dramatists...
. The festival was sponsored by the Embassy of Ireland, The University of Maryland, and the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
Today, Forum is a dedicated group of 16 performers, technicians, and theater administrators, supported by a 13-member board. For its 2007–08 season, the company will produce Jean Anouilh
Jean Anouilh
Jean Marie Lucien Pierre Anouilh was a French dramatist whose career spanned five decades. Though his work ranged from high drama to absurdist farce, Anouilh is best known for his 1943 play Antigone, an adaptation of Sophocles' Classical drama, that was seen as an attack on Marshal Pétain's...
's Antigone
Antigone (Anouilh play)
Jean Anouilh's play Antigone is a tragedy inspired by Greek mythology and the play of the same name from the fifth century B.C...
, The Last Days of Judas Iscariot
The Last Days of Judas Iscariot
The Last Days of Judas Iscariot is a 2005 play by American playwright Stephen Adly Guirgis first staged off-Broadway at The Public Theater on 2 March 2005 directed by Philip Seymour Hoffman.-Plot summary:...
by Stephen Adly Guirgis
Stephen Adly Guirgis
Stephen Adly Guirgis is an American playwright, screenwriter, director, and actor. He is a member and co-artistic director of New York City's LAByrinth Theater Company. His plays have been produced on five continents and throughout the United States....
, and Marat/Sade
Marat/Sade
The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade , almost invariably shortened to Marat/Sade, is a 1963 play by Peter Weiss...
by Peter Weiss
Peter Weiss
Peter Ulrich Weiss was a German writer, painter, and artist of adopted Swedish nationality. He is particularly known for his plays Marat/Sade and The Investigation and his novel The Aesthetics of Resistance....
. In addition, the launch of OpenForum this fall will further expand Forum's mission to create distinctive, inclusive theatrical experiences for its audiences.
Production history
2004-2005- Beckett: The Shorter Plays (Not INot INot I is a twenty-minute dramatic monologue written in 1972 by Samuel Beckett, translated as Pas Moi; premiere at the “Samuel Beckett Festival” by the Repertory Theater of Lincoln Center, New York , directed by Alan Schneider, with Jessica Tandy and Henderson Forsythe .-Synopsis:Not I takes place...
, FootfallsFootfallsFootfalls is a play by Samuel Beckett. It was written in English, between 2 March and December 1975 and was first performed at the Royal Court Theatre as part of the Samuel Beckett Festival, on May 20, 1976 directed by Beckett himself. Billie Whitelaw, for whom the piece had been written, played...
, BreathBreath (play)Breath is a notably short stage work by Samuel Beckett. An altered version was first included in Kenneth Tynan's revue Oh! Calcutta!, at the Eden Theatre in New York City on June 16, 1969. The UK premiere was at the Close Theatre Club in Glasgow in October 1969; this was the first performance of...
, Come and GoCome and GoCome and Go is a short play by Samuel Beckett. It was written in English in January 1965 and first performed at the Schillertheater, Berlin on 14 January 1966...
, Krapp's Last TapeKrapp's Last TapeKrapp's Last Tape is a one-act play, written in English, by Samuel Beckett. Consisting of a cast of one man, it was originally written for Northern Irish actor Patrick Magee and first titled "Magee monologue"...
, RockabyRockabyRockaby is a short one-woman play by Samuel Beckett. It was written in English in 1980, at the request of Daniel Labeille, who produced it on behalf of Programs in the Arts, State University of New York, for a festival and symposium in commemoration of Beckett's 75th birthday...
, and CatastropheCatastrophe (play)Catastrophe is a short play by Samuel Beckett, written in French in 1982 at the invitation of A.I.D.A. and “[f]irst produced in the Avignon Festival … Beckett considered it ‘massacred.’” It is one of his few plays to deal with a political theme and, arguably, holds the title of Beckett's most...
) - All Things Seen (based on Jean-Paul SartreJean-Paul SartreJean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre was a French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and literary critic. He was one of the leading figures in 20th century French philosophy, particularly Marxism, and was one of the key figures in literary...
’s No ExitNo ExitNo Exit is a 1944 existentialist French play by Jean-Paul Sartre. The original French title is Huis Clos, the French equivalent of the legal term in camera, referring to a private discussion behind closed doors; English translations have also been performed under the titles In Camera, No Way Out...
) - EverymanEveryman (play)The Somonyng of Everyman , usually referred to simply as Everyman, is a late 15th-century English morality play. Like John Bunyan's novel Pilgrim's Progress, Everyman examines the question of Christian salvation by use of allegorical characters, and what Man must do to attain it...
2005-2006
- UpShot by Ami Dayan
- The Gas Heart by Tristan TzaraTristan TzaraTristan Tzara was a Romanian and French avant-garde poet, essayist and performance artist. Also active as a journalist, playwright, literary and art critic, composer and film director, he was known best for being one of the founders and central figures of the anti-establishment Dada movement...
(translated by Steven Perry) and HamletmachineHamletmachineHamletmachine is a postmodernist drama by German playwright and theatre director Heiner Müller. Written in 1977, the play is loosely based on Hamlet by William Shakespeare. The play originated in relation to a translation of Shakespeare's Hamlet that Müller undertook...
by Heiner MüllerHeiner MüllerHeiner Müller was a German dramatist, poet, writer, essayist and theatre director. Described as "the theatre's greatest living poet" since Samuel Beckett, Müller is arguably the most important German dramatist of the 20th century after Bertolt Brecht... - The MemorandumThe Memorandum-Plot:Josef Gross, a director of an unnamed organization, receives a memorandum written in Ptydepe, a constructed language, about an audit. He finds out that Ptydepe was created to get rid of similarities between words, such as fox and box, and emotional connexions. He tries to get someone to...
by Václav HavelVáclav HavelVáclav Havel is a Czech playwright, essayist, poet, dissident and politician. He was the tenth and last President of Czechoslovakia and the first President of the Czech Republic . He has written over twenty plays and numerous non-fiction works, translated internationally...
2006-2007
- DC Beckett Centenary Festival
- The SkrikerThe SkrikerThe Skriker is a 1994 play by Caryl Churchill that tells the story of an ancient fairy who, during the course of the play, transforms into a plethora of objects and people as it pursues Lily and Josie, two teenage mothers whom it befriends, manipulates, seduces and entraps...
by Caryl ChurchillCaryl ChurchillCaryl Churchill is an English dramatist known for her use of non-naturalistic techniques and feminist themes, the abuses of power, and sexual politics. She is acknowledged as a major playwright in the English language and a leading female writer... - Kid-Simple: A Radio Play in the Flesh by Jordan Harrison
- ValparaisoValparaiso (play)Valparaiso is Don DeLillo's second play, in which a man suddenly becomes famous following a mistake in the itinerary of an ordinary business trip which takes him to Valparaíso, Chile, instead of Valparaiso, Indiana....
by Don DeLilloDon DeLilloDon DeLillo is an American author, playwright, and occasional essayist whose work paints a detailed portrait of American life in the late 20th and early 21st centuries...
2007-2008
- AntigoneAntigone (Anouilh play)Jean Anouilh's play Antigone is a tragedy inspired by Greek mythology and the play of the same name from the fifth century B.C...
by Jean AnouilhJean AnouilhJean Marie Lucien Pierre Anouilh was a French dramatist whose career spanned five decades. Though his work ranged from high drama to absurdist farce, Anouilh is best known for his 1943 play Antigone, an adaptation of Sophocles' Classical drama, that was seen as an attack on Marshal Pétain's... - The Last Days of Judas IscariotThe Last Days of Judas IscariotThe Last Days of Judas Iscariot is a 2005 play by American playwright Stephen Adly Guirgis first staged off-Broadway at The Public Theater on 2 March 2005 directed by Philip Seymour Hoffman.-Plot summary:...
by Stephen Adly GuirgisStephen Adly GuirgisStephen Adly Guirgis is an American playwright, screenwriter, director, and actor. He is a member and co-artistic director of New York City's LAByrinth Theater Company. His plays have been produced on five continents and throughout the United States.... - Marat/SadeMarat/SadeThe Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade , almost invariably shortened to Marat/Sade, is a 1963 play by Peter Weiss...
by Peter WeissPeter WeissPeter Ulrich Weiss was a German writer, painter, and artist of adopted Swedish nationality. He is particularly known for his plays Marat/Sade and The Investigation and his novel The Aesthetics of Resistance....
2008-2009
- Drunk Enough to Say I Love You?Drunk Enough to Say I Love You?Drunk Enough to Say I Love You? is a 2006 political play with seven scenes by Caryl Churchill. It addresses the application of power by the United States mostly since the Vietnam war.-Plot summary:...
by Caryl ChurchillCaryl ChurchillCaryl Churchill is an English dramatist known for her use of non-naturalistic techniques and feminist themes, the abuses of power, and sexual politics. She is acknowledged as a major playwright in the English language and a leading female writer... - The Last Days of Judas IscariotThe Last Days of Judas IscariotThe Last Days of Judas Iscariot is a 2005 play by American playwright Stephen Adly Guirgis first staged off-Broadway at The Public Theater on 2 March 2005 directed by Philip Seymour Hoffman.-Plot summary:...
by Stephen Adly GuirgisStephen Adly GuirgisStephen Adly Guirgis is an American playwright, screenwriter, director, and actor. He is a member and co-artistic director of New York City's LAByrinth Theater Company. His plays have been produced on five continents and throughout the United States.... - MarisolMarisolMarisol is a Spanish name. Two Spanish words: Mar and Sol make Mar y Sol .Many argue, however, that it's also a combination of other names, such as María Soledad or María del Sol.Marisol can refer to:...
by Jose RiveraJose RiveraJose Rivera may refer to:*José Antonio Primo de Rivera , Spanish politician*José Eustasio Rivera , Colombian politician and writer*José Rivera , American playwright... - dark play or stories for boys by Carlos Murillo
Company members
- Kelly Bartnik
- Fiona Blackshaw
- Austin Bragg
- Patrick Bussink
- Jenn Carlson
- Michael Dove
- Paul Frydrychowski
- Maggie Glauber
- Hannah Hessel
- Brent Lowder
- Rose McConnell
- Laura Miller
- Alexander Strain
- Mark Jude Sullivan
- Jesse Terrill
- Mark Wright