2012 is only 19 days old and already several very different shows have opened and there’s much more variety to come over the next two and a half months, for adults and children alike. David Margulies’ play about a female journalist who must choose between a safe life with her boyfriend and the dangerous career she loves (“Time Stands Still,”) is playing at Studio Theatre. It contrasts with Renee Calarco’s comedy at Theater J about four young people (“The Religion Thing”) who tussle with their sexuality and religious beliefs. A classic Shakespearean comedy about family and love (“The Two Gentlemen of Verona”) has opened at The Shakespeare Theatre Company, while the Kennedy Center is presenting a very different vision of love and family in the musical “La Cage aux Folles,” starring George Hamilton.
Beginning on Friday, Arena Stage will offer two contrasting shows: a richly challenging two-person drama that examines the life and work of the painter Mark Rothko (“Red”); and a light-hearted, absurdist magic/comedy show, “Elephant Room,” in which three illusionists reveal how they pull off their unconventional lives. Friday also sees the opening of Richard Hellesen’s “Necessary Sacrifices” at Ford’s Theatre, a dramatization of two documented encounters between Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln during the summers of 1863 and 1864.
At the end of January, The Folger Theatre will offer a new interpretation of a Restoration comedy of manners (“The Gaming Table”) by Susanna Centlivre and Signature Theatre will produce Paul Downs Colaizzo’s “Really Really,” a contemporary drama about “Generation Me.”
Early in February, 1st Stage will offer “Almost, Maine,” a whimsical love story set in a snowy, mythical town in the Pine Tree State. February also sees the opening of a new direction for Synetic Theater. In the farcical “New Movements: Genesis Reboot,” written and directed by Ben Cunis, an angel and a devil re-envision the creation story.
GALA Hispanic Theatre will produce “Anna in the Tropics,” the story of life in a 1920’s cigar factoryinFlorida, where cigars are still rolled by hand.Aschapters ofAnna Karenina are read aloud tothe workers, their lives are slowly and profoundly transformed. Shortly thereafter, Woolly Mammoth will offer “Civilization: All You Can Eat” about the 2008 Presidential election cycle and our nation’s anxiety about its economic future.
Late February and early March will see a Latin American festival from Teatro de la Luna. Later in March, the trend toward variety will continue, bringing everything from “Monty Python’s Spamalot” to “1776” to American premieres and a show by a famous Hungarian company. It will be a month of productions designed to delight theatergoers of every taste.
