2017 Season. To a T! Love Notes to a Friend.
Featuring four new plays
May 16 - April 9
Selections from:
The Methuen Drama Book of Suffrage Plays
Edited by Naomi Paxton
..........
May 11 - June 4
Tunnel Vision
..........
September 7 - October 1
Aglaonike's Tiger
..........
November 2 - November 26
The Ravens
Assistant Director Marni Penning
Set Design by Amy Rhodes
Light Design by Kristen Thompson
Sound Design Neil McFadden
Costume and Props Deborah Randall
Stage Management Jenna Lawerence
Fight Choreographer Mallory Shear
Featuring: Rebecca Herron, Myrrh Cauthen, Amy Rhodes, Tamieka Chavis, Lida Benson, Deborah Randall, Patrick Gorirossi
Images by Mike Landsman
Venus Theatre presents
woman empowering script #56
Written by Jayme Kilburn
Directed by Deborah Randall
Set Design by Amy Belschner Rhodes
Light Design by Kristen Thompson
Sound Design Neil McFadden
Costume and Props Deborah Randall
Stage Management by Lydia Howard
Fight Choreographer Mallory Shear
Graphic Design and Marketing Laura Schraven
Featuring: Deborah Randall, Jay Hardee, and Amy Belschner Rhodes
Images by Curtis Jordan
Venus Theatre presents
woman empowering script #55
Written by Migdalia Cruz
Directed by Deborah Randall
Assistant Direction by Amy Rhodes
Stage Management Lydia Howard
Lighting and Set Design Amy Rhodes
Sound Design Neil McFadden
Costume and Props Deborah Randall
Fight Choreography and fx Lewis Shaw
Assistant Fight Choreographer Mallory Shear
Graphic Design and Marketing Laura Schraven
Featuring: Deborah Randall as Citrona, Karin Rosnizeck as Nena, and Grant Cloyd as Michael
Images by Lisa Helfert Photography.
Venus Theatre is among more than 50 professional theatres in the Washington D.C. region participating in the Women's Voices Theatre Festival. Witches Vanish by Claudia Barnett, directed by Deborah Randall will perform Aug 20 - Sept 20, 2015 and RAW by Amy Bernstein, directed by Deborah Randall will perform Oct 22 - Nov15, 2015.
WOMEN'S VOICES THEATRE FESTIVAL
WITCHES VANISH
by Claudia Barnett
RUNS August 20 - September 20, 2015
In a series of stylized, highly visual vignettes employing puppetry, poetry, and surrealism, the weird sisters from Macbeth explore the stories of women who disappear, whether by choice or force. Inspired by history, astronomy, and Shakespeare, Witches Vanish examines the nature of change and the value of human life.
RAW
by Amy Bernstein
RUNS October 22 - November 15, 2015
Eliza’s dairy farm is under siege: by Caroline, the documentary film-making, grudge-holding heifer she allows into her house to bear witness, for a fee; by Harriet, her inheritance-deprived sister; and by the bacteria lurking in the raw milk lying in wait for daughter Jamie. Woe descends on Red Robin Farm.
Dear Esteemed Member of the Press:
Welcome to our 51st women empowering script here at Venus Theatre.
Venus Theatre is among the longest running women's theatre companies in the world. It is the mission of Venus to set flight to the voices of women and children with theatre for a lifetime.
This is a world premiere and features two Venus veterans, Ann Fraistat and Caty Benson.
We hope you will enjoy the show.
Warmest Regards,
Deborah Randall
GOD DON' LIKE UGLY
by Doc Andersen-Bloomfield (UK)
RUNS March 19 - April 12 [*no performances on Sunday, March 22 & 29, 2015]
Issues/themes: love; living with a mentally disabled child (the carer and the cared for); Domestic Violence; magic.
Esme loves to sing and dance, dressing up in costumes, performing her ‘Golden Oldies’ to an imaginary audience. Today is Esme’s 36th birthday and because she has the mental age of a seven year old, she still lives with her tired and overwhelmed mother, Bessie, in a dilapidated old crumbling home, set in the rural South. Esme has a twin, not seen for quite awhile. Heartsick Bessie yearns for the twin, who’s ‘the okay one’ to come home to celebrate. This will never happen and only Esme seems to understand this. A stranger, on the run, named SJ, enters their small lives, seeking to hide from a violent partner. She encounters the extraordinary, both in the human beings who live there as well as their magic of simply ‘being’.
A realistic (but magical) tragicomedy set in America's rural south, with intermittent Physical Theatre Scenes.
DOC ANDERSEN-BLOOMFIELD (UK)
Doc currently writes with Oxford Playwrights and for Oxford Actors’ Network. Other past works in progress/rehearsed readings include: Women’s ‘Theatre Workshop (Oval; Finborough; Drill Hall; Soho in London)
Doc is an American who has lived and written in Oxford, England, the last 28 years. She was one of the founding mothers of Women In Theatre, in Los Angeles.
“[Randall] gets nearly 200 scripts a year from around the world, and writers tell her that Venus... now stacks up as one of the longest continuously producing women’s theaters anywhere.”
“Wild, dark and sad with moments of fun is how Venus Theatre founder Deb Randall describes the 2015 season for the C Street theatre. Four plays written by women will get their premieres in a season Randall has dubbed “Feral 15: Feminist Fables with No Strings Attached.””
“Don’t expect a light hand; at times provocative and raw, the work of Venus is as vital as the women it represents.”