Welcome to Kwame Kwei-Armah's first season as Artistic Director--that is, the first where the choice of plays and players has stemmed from his own heart and mind--and CENTERSTAGE's 50th Anniversary Season. At its core, next season's selection of great classics and exciting new plays revolve around the notion of Conversation.
Locally and nationally, civically and artistically, our aim is to be a focal point for art as a catalyst for debate. We hope that when you leave a show, whether you have loved it or not, you will have been exposed to an idea, an emotion, or an experience that will stay with you long after you have left the auditorium.
“Plays, old and new, were chosen not just for the value of the lines spoken onstage, but also for their potential to generate a broader dialogue on various issues. By the end of next season, it may seem as if the plays themselves are conversing with each other.”
—The Baltimore Sun
So join us again as we celebrate CENTERSTAGE’s place at the heart of this community. Come help us reflect it, serve it, be it.
Become a member or renew your membership today!
An Enemy of the People
By Arthur Miller
Adapted from the play by Henrik Ibsen
Directed by Kwame Kwei-Armah
Sep 19–Oct 21
American icon Arthur Miller (The Price) takes on Ibsen’s classic conundrum, pitting brother against brother and a community against itself. Just in time for election season comes this riveting saga that asks, does the good of some outweigh the good of the rest?
The Completely Fictional—Utterly True—Final Strange Tale of
Edgar Allan Poe
By Stephen Thorne
Directed by Curt Columbus
Oct 17 – Nov 25
Hometown favorite Bruce Nelson stars in this tale of the morbid life and mysterious final days of Baltimore’s treasured emblem of oddness, E.A. Poe. By turns a madcap vaudeville and a touching examination of artistic aspiration, this new script playfully and poignantly adds up the sum of a life lived.
Bus Stop
By William Inge
Directed by David Schweizer
Nov 21 – Dec 23
In this 1955 romantic classic by William Inge (Picnic), a busload of strangers, down on their luck in love and bound for other places, wait out a snowstorm in Grace’s Kansas diner. From rodeo champ Bo and Cherie the chanteuse to forlorn Dr. Lyman and starry-eyed Elma, everyone’s chasing their slice of the American Dream, and someone to share it with. And yes, that was Marilyn Monroe in the movie.
The Mountaintop
By Katori Hall
Directed by Kwame Kwei-Armah
Jan 9 – Feb 24
The Lorraine Hotel. April, 1968. In room 306, Dr. King unwinds and prepares. A visit from a hotel maid offers welcome diversion and a challenging new perspective—but also raises profound and surprising questions. Already a worldwide sensation, recently hailed in a star-studded Broadway production, Katori Hall’s sensitive new play gets its first showing for Baltimore audiences.
Mud Blue Sky
World Premiere
By Marisa Wegrzyn
Directed by Susanna Gellert
Mar 6 – Apr 14
Work, motherhood, missed connections, and prom night form the backdrop for Marisa Wegrzyn’s tender, funny new play. In a nondescript hotel room near O’Hare Airport, three flight attendants and an unlikely fourth companion poise on the brink of looking back and moving ahead.
The Raisin Cycle (Playing in rotating repertory)
Clybourne Park
By Bruce Norris
Directed by Derrick Sanders
Apr 10 – Jun 9
The Pulitzer Prize-winning drama taking America by storm. Picking up where Lorraine Hansberry left off in her landmark Raisin in the Sun (2001-02 Season), The New York Times called Clybourne Park a “darkly humorous… dissection of race, gentrification and real estate.”
Beneatha’s Place
World Premiere
By Kwame Kwei-Armah
Directed by Derrick Sanders
May 8 – Jun 9
For his first drama set in America, Artistic Director Kwame Kwei-Armah (Let There Be Love, Elmina’s Kitchen) offers his own response to Hansberry, continuing the conversation initiated in Clybourne Park.
50 fest: 50th Anniversary Celebration Weekend
September 27–30, 2012
Opening Night of the 50th Anniversary Season, An Enemy of the People.
A three-day festival of performances from across Maryland, in conjunction with the Baltimore Book Festival.
A special expanded edition of Backstage@CENTERSTAGE, our annual open house.
The 2012-13 50th Anniversary Season Gala will be on Saturday, April 27, 2013.
For more information, contact Brad Norris, bnorris@centerstage.org.