Every new beginning feels so heavy; only the trees know
everything. In life and death, in grief and suffering, we experience things
differently. Regardless of your cultural heritage, your geographical
upbringing, or your placement in life, grief and loss come to each in their
time in their own way. Debuting its 69th women-empowering script,
Venus Theatre is pleased and proud to present the Western Hemisphere and North
American premiere of The Finger,
The internet is a glorious thing. You can look up anything at the touch of a button or the tap of your finger. Instantly you can access all sorts of records, all sorts of facts, and all sorts of history. You can read bios, get sports stats, and discover a world of knowledge about people from the past. But you can’t google a spirit. You cannot live and breathe their moments of excitement or feel their triumphs and failures through the internet.Enter live theatre;
Everyone has their own story to tell. People are stories. Theatre is an extension of telling your story and no one knows and understands that more profoundly than Deborah Randall, whose story is far too complex and toeing the line of a theatrical goddess archetype to be summed up in a few mere words. Telling your story is what’s important. Embracing the joy in your story becomes critical for the darkest moments in your lives.
Would you choose to be you if you had to choose? What if at the end of the bright, white light there’s a form with boxes that you have to check? Sex: Male or Female? Orientation: Heterosexual or Homosexual? Would you choose to be the you that you had just been, the you that you know yourself to be? Playwright Maureen Chadwick examines exactly that with her edgy and riveting work The Speed Twins,
Beauty, truth, and rarity, grace and all simplicity; but what happens when Shakespeare is displaced in favor the sex-worker industry where beauty becomes filth, truth becomes the cold, hard reality of drugs and prostitution, and rarity is the kindness of a stranger from a world outside of unending night? In a visually poetic and evocatively moving new work, The Ravens— making its United States premiere— opens as script number 62 and the final production of Season17,
No woman has just one mood. No woman likes to be pegged as just one thing. When one road leads to the forest, another to the sea, logically the third road must lead to the only professional stage in the Washington DC area dedicated to promoting the voices of women and children in theatre for a lifetime. All roads lead to Venus Theatre as they continue on their 17th season— To a T! Love Notes to a Friend!— with Claudia Barnett’s latest work Aglaonike’s Tiger.
Clutch your dreams in your screwed up fists and carry them out into reality. A mantra statement that Artistic Director and Founder of Venus Theatre Deborah Randall has abided by long before those words made their way into print in Alana Valentine’s script, Soft Revolution: Shafana and Aunt Sarrinah. Appearing as the perfect conclusion to season 16 and arriving as Script#58 at Venus Theatre, this evocative new work is receiving its DC-area premiere under the Direction of Deborah Randall and the timing could not be more poignant and relevant to the cultural and political upheaval in which the city and the nation,
Are you ready to rock, theatergoers? Because it’s time to get down to life and live at Venus Theatre as it enters the halfway point of Season16 with Kathleen Warnock’s work Rock the Line. Directed by Founding Artistic Director Deborah Randall, this edgy exploration of sex, love, and rock and roll teaches audiences a valuable lesson or two through the lens of musical fanatic devotion. Like all productions that make their way to the Venus Stage,
Good memories are all too oft entangled with the bad ones, forcing the mind to shut them all out. Recollection is subjective; you aren’t remembering it wrong but rather remembering how you felt it happened. Debuting the 56th women-empowering script at Venus Theatre, Founding Artistic Director Deborah Randall opens the world premiere of Jayme Kilburn’s Garbage Kids and turns the notion of memory on its ear. A play in two acts, where the first is memory and the second occurring in real-time reality,
People say you can’t get used to some things, but you do. Washington DC is used to the fact that there is a dedicated, professional theatre setting continual flight to the voices of women at Venus Theatre in Laurel, Maryland. But how much of what you hear is ever actually true? Hear this, Washington DC— the 55th script of Venus Theatre, Fur by Migdalia Cruz, which launches Season Sweet16: Groovy Young Things,
Truth is not simply there for the taking. Truth requires proof. And the proof is in the pudding, well…in the milk rather, at Venus Theatre this fall season. Closing out the epic 15th season entitled Feral 15: Feminist Fables— No Strings Attached, a world premiere production of Amy Bernstein’s Raw brings sharp focus to the biting and unapologetic work achieved on the Venus stage throughout the season. Directed by company founder and Artistic Directed Deborah Randall,
Fair is foul and foul is fair when tragedy runs through the air. How long can a blind-eye be turned to the everyday tragedies of woman that vanish? From Juarez, Mexico to right here in the United States, women are vanishing all the time— be it physically or erased from their identities of religion and culture by oppression— it has become a cultural phenomenon that is all too often not addressed. In an evocative new work by renowned playwright Claudia Barnett,
When the walls fell down and everything ended; the bones rose out of the dirt. An epic poem, not your traditional format for what comes to the stage as theatre, but in keeping true to the mission statement of Venus Theatre, company founder Deborah Randall opens Dry Bones Rising, script #52 and the second of the 15th season, on the stage and it calls to mind more than just poetry in motion.
There are no such thing as accidents. In tarot cards. Nor in theatre; particularly not when a fierce and evocative play finds its way to the Venus Theatre stage. Bursting into Feral 15: Feminist Fairytales, No Strings Attached, Artistic Director Deborah Randall sets the season’s bar exceptionally high with the world premier of Doc Andersen-Bloomfield’s God Don’ Like Ugly. A visceral and poignant tale that struggles to find rays of hope and light among the bleakness of a tragic and violent reality,
An inconvenient truth always beats a pretty lie in the long run. The central conceit— and cleverly coined phrase— of Baltimore playwright Rich Espey’s new work The Revelation of Bobby Pritchard. Making its world premier at Iron Crow Theatre, this engaging and compelling drama reveals a great many truths which are in need of being told. In a TheatreBloom exclusive, we sit down with the playwright to talk about the inspiration behind the story and just how it all came to fruition.
Well behaved women rarely make history. And for fourteen seasons Venus Theatre has been living up to that infamous quote. In a TheatreBloom exclusive interview with Founding and Producing Artistic Director Deborah Randall, we explore the brand new season of exceptional world and regional premier works that will be setting flight to the voices of women in the theatre. Entitled “Feral15” the season includes four new works to the Venus Stage, three of which are world premier productions.
Words are everything. Everyone wants everything and words are everything. The profundity of such statements and similar can be found in Venus Theatre’s edgiest work to date. Concluding their 14th season with their 50th production, Venus is proud to present Virus Attacks Heart, a new work by Shannon Murdoch. In alignment with the company’s mission statement of setting flight to the voices of women, this production features a strong female character coping with life in the face of mortality.
It has happened before. It will happen again. It’s happening right now. The innovative new work that is changing the way theatre is viewed right in Washington DC’s back yard. Venus Theatre is midway through ‘Fierce14’ with their production of We Are Samurai, a new work by emerging playwright Daria Marinelli. The piece itself fully supports the mission statement of the theatre company currently producing it. which is setting flight to the voices of women and children in theatre for live.
It has happened before. It will happen again. Cats. Souls. Revenge. Samurai. Venus Theatre is taking a daring new leap in the middle of ‘Fierce14’ with their 49th production. Unlike anything previously staged at the Playshack, Director Deborah Randall is giving Daria Marinelli’s We Are Samurai its regional premier. As a promenade style performance, this ensemble piece takes place in five different locations set both inside and outside the theatre;