A Summer Festival Reborn

Defunct Company's Event to Be Revived at Its Old Building

The month-long Washington Theatre Festival, presented every summer for 20-plus years on a shoestring by the now-defunct Source Theatre Company, will be reincarnated next year as the Source Festival. Jeremy Skidmore, formerly of Theater Alliance, will produce it under the auspices of the Cultural Development Corp. (CuDC), which since last year has owned and operated the Source building at 1835 14th St. NW as a nonprofit performing arts venue.

Construction work has been twice delayed this year, and CuDC is awaiting word on a grant from the D.C. Department of Housing and Community Development, which could delay the start of renovation again -- until the first of the year. Even so, CuDC Executive Director Anne Corbett said that by May "at the latest," the building will have undergone a $1 million-plus renovation and be ready to host theater, music and dance groups.

In the meantime, the venue is available for rental only through next month, according to the new Source Web site ( http://www.sourcedc.org). The fledgling Constellation Theatre Company starts previews of "Arabian Nights" there tomorrow, running through Oct. 21.

Corbett also announced most of the arts organizations chosen by a panel of area arts administrators to be in residence at the new, improved Source next spring: Constellation; the experimental Catalyst Theater company, which now performs at the Capitol Hill Arts Workshop; the comedic Washington Improv Theater (WIT); the In Series, which does opera, chamber music and cabaret; and the D.C. Arts and Humanities Education Collaborative.

Not on the list: Ganymede Arts (formerly the Actors' Theatre of Washington), a troupe geared to the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered community, which has staged its shows at Source for several years.

Even though his company did not gain a residency, Artistic Director Jeffrey Johnson views as a triumph Ganymede's efforts with the In Series and grass-roots supporters to save Source from becoming a billiard hall. "Ultimately our part of the battle was to save Source, and in that battle Ganymede Arts won," he wrote in an e-mail to Backstage. "It's surprising that we were rejected from continuing on. But with that said, you take your challenges and you turn them into your strengths . . . and we are very good at doing that."

Johnson says the company may land at Church Street Theatre, where its fall arts festival will run Oct. 19-28.

The reconstituted Source Festival will run June 21-July 13 and include a week of 10-minute plays chosen from a national "open call"; a day of plays created in a 24-hour period; a week of "multi-disciplinary" works; and a week of one-acts commissioned from local and national writers. The festival will be "100-percent curated" with "100-percent new work" and participation by many high-profile local artistic directors, Skidmore wrote in an e-mail. "The goal is that for one week we all put down our own companies and come together to work on a project," nudging them toward "new or unfamiliar collaborators."

Finding Fugard

"It's a story of courage, I think," says actress Veronica del Cerro, who plays a white South African teenager in Athol Fugard's "My Children! My Africa!" at Studio Theatre through Oct. 21. Her character, Isabel, "is willing to cross the line; she's willing to open her eyes," del Cerro says.

In Fugard's play, set in 1984, when Nelson Mandela was still imprisoned and apartheid seemed entrenched, Isabel leaves her safe white enclave to join in a debate at a high school in the nearby black township. She finds friendship with her debating partner, Thami (played by Yaegel T. Welch) and his idealistic teacher, called Mr. M (James Brown-Orleans) by his students. Mr. M believes deeply in peaceful change. On this he and Thami part ways, and Isabel, caught in the middle of a cataclysm, vows to make change her life's work.

"She grows up in that instant," says del Cerro, who was raised in Burke and studied at Studio's acting conservatory. "Rarely do you get the opportunity at that age to see what you could do in life. . . . She's not going to take the easy way out."

All three actors speak feelingly of Fugard's poetic dialogue -- "like a dance" between the actors, Brown-Orleans says -- and the compassion he shows for his characters.

Brown-Orleans took a leave of absence from his role on Broadway as the hyena Banzai in "The Lion King" to work at Studio. He sees Mr. M as a "great, great tragic character." Brown-Orleans's own father was a teacher in Ghana -- they immigrated to the States when the actor was 10 -- and he sees in Mr. M "a man who just absolutely loves what he does. He loves teaching" and "instills in these kids the power of words [and] a sense of hope."

Growing up in Riverside, Calif., Welch knew little about apartheid. Yet, fatefully, the monologue he chose when he auditioned for his high school drama class was Thami's first speech in Fugard's play. The more research he did for professional productions (he also performed "My Children!" in Philadelphia), the more he noticed the parallel between Thami's choices and Mandela's. "What I appreciate most is his [Thami's] intelligence and his courage . . . knowing what's right even when other people don't see it," Welch says. "Once I could understand his circumstances, I realized he was more than just a rebellious kid."

Welch, a recent product of the Shakespeare Theatre's Academy for Classical Acting, says in a Fugard play, as with Shakespeare, "everything is very much in the words and playing the language."

"Every word is important," agrees Brown-Orleans. With such language, "the actors cannot hide," he says. Fugard "just brings out the humanity, right or wrong."

Follow Spot

¿ Studio Theatre will celebrate its 30th anniversary season this weekend. Events include an open house from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday and free chamber readings (reservations required) at 7:30 p.m. Saturday and Sunday of Lanford Wilson's "The Rimers of Eldritch," the first play ever done by Studio. It will feature members of the original cast under Artistic Director Joy Zinoman's baton. Visit http://www.studiotheatre.org for details.