Sofonisba

By Callie Kimball
Directed by Deidra LaWan Starnes

April 10 to May 4, 2025

She was one of the first known female artists. And one of the first women artists to establish an international reputation. A student of Michelangelo, 27-year-old noblewoman and renowned portrait artist Sofonisba Anguissola travels from Italy to Spain to paint for King Philip II. In her 20 years at the Royal Court, she must play to and against the expectations of the king, friendship with and service to a 14-year-old Queen Isabel, and navigate the tricky waters of court politics as an unmarried woman. A play about the hunger for creation – of birth and of art – and what it costs. Area Premiere.

Escape from the Asylum:  A Madcap Mystery

by Patricia Milton
Directed by Morgan Duncan

January 30, 2025 to February 23, 2025

Will the women outsmart the men AGAIN?! Dual adventures ensue in this sequel to last season’s sell-out, The Victorian Ladies’ Detective Collective. Three intrepid lady detectives hatch a plan to free a perfectly sane woman explorer shut away in an asylum by her husband. If that weren’t enough, they also try to identify who is stealing the explorer’s inheritance. Follow the clues to solve two mysteries amid a Victorian seance, a pre-Freudian alienist, some cross-dressing, and barriers to gender equality at every turn. Welcoming back Stage Guild’s Victorian Ladies’ cast and director! Area Premiere. 

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“Escape from the Asylum is a fresh and enjoyable take on the “whodunit” genre…Maddie Baylor is positively delightful as the quick-witted American boarder…” – DC Theater Arts

“WHIP-SMART DIALOGUE” – San Francisco Chronicle

“[A] BLEND OF PUNS, POLITICAL SATIRE, AND SCHOLARLY FEMINIST INSIGHT, all played for laughs and maximum damage to patriarchal pomposity.” – Theatrestorm

Shaw’s Shorts

by G.B. Shaw
Directed by Laura Giannarelli

November 21 to December 15, 2024

A fresh look at three of GB Shaw’s most delicious one-act plays, first produced by Stage Guild in 2007. In O’Flaherty VC, the winner of the Victoria Cross for outstanding bravery, is confronted by his Irish-to-the-core Catholic mother, incensed to discover he’s been fighting for the British. In the imaginative The Dark Lady of the Sonnets, Will Shakespeare goes to the palace to meet his Dark Lady to whom he addressed sonnets of love, only to find Her Majesty the Queen instead – followed by the Dark Lady herself who lambasts them both! Plus, The Interlude at the Playhouse, a comic curtain-raiser in which a nervous theater owner must give a big speech at a gala opening, but his wife may have to save the day.

“DIRECTOR LAURA GIANNARELLI’S DEEP UNDERSTANDING OF THE TEXT AND THE VERSATILITY OF HER ACTORS SHINE THROUGHOUT.” – Broadway World

FAITHLESS

by Jon Klein
Directed by Steven Carpenter

Sept 26 – Oct 20, 2024

Family differences become amplified when faith is the main point of conversation AND contention in Jon Klein’s latest comic drama. Aging atheist Gus and his two adult stepchildren – a minister suffering from a crisis of faith, and his hardened, non-believer sister who’s had a glimpse of the afterlife following a head injury – come together when Gus’ teenage adopted daughter stuns them with her decision that she’d like to become a nun. From the author and director of Stage Guild’s 2019 hit Resolving Hedda. Area Premiere.

“THE PLAYWRIGHT’S SURE-FIRE DIALOGUE COMBINES LOFTY QUESTIONS WITH VERY FUNNY ANALOGIES TO POPULAR CULTURE.”  — DC Theater Arts