On the Boards in the Burbs: Challenging Works

And of course, many other plays in the Olney rep -- musicals, farces and assorted chestnuts -- do not. "Peter Pan" will hit the boards as the family-friendly holiday musical this winter, though Marshall -- who makes no bones about being happy it's on the menu -- insists, "It will be the most interesting 'Peter Pan' I've ever seen." The company just scored its biggest commercial success ever with a straight play, and it wasn't for something up-to-the-minute: The smash was Agatha Christie's "The Mousetrap."

That is the pickle Petosa finds himself in, though he doesn't really view it as an artistic problem so much as a marketing challenge. Not-for-profit theaters increasingly seek niches -- classic, ethnic, literary, wacky -- the better to brand themselves with the public. Petosa's company sticks to an older model, playing the field and keeping the options broad.

"I guess what we are saying is 'We are you,' " Petosa says. "To be more specialized than that I don't think allows us to be a four-performance venue on a 14-acre campus in the middle of a city-suburban sprawl that literally meets at our front door. And if anything," he adds, noting the rising Asian and Latino populations in the region, "what I'm looking for is further diversification."

A year ago, Petosa was on his way out as artistic director, opting to focus on his job as head of Boston University's drama department (a position he still holds) and other interests. But the board never took a serious look at other candidates, and the working relationship with Marshall seemed so promising that this past spring, Petosa decided to stay.

He and his Potomac Theatre Project confederates have successfully relocated the venture to New York for the past two summers, but Petosa continues to slot tough, conscientious work at Olney, sometimes even fighting against an absence of interest in ripe plays among comparable downtown troupes. Olney waited patiently for "Stuff Happens" and, several years earlier, for "The Laramie Project," Moises Kaufman's chronicle of the homophobic murder of Matthew Shepard -- in both cases because rights houses kept hoping for D.C. productions.

Across the Washington area, attendance has flatlined for years, but in the past four years, sales at the Olney have doubled. Marshall offers an instance suggesting that the patrons are ready for anything; last month, she opened a door for a gentleman and asked which show he was coming to see.

"What's playing?" he asked. Marshall was able to offer "Stuff Happens," a young company production of "Big River," and "The Mousetrap." (He took "The Mousetrap.")

Rick Foucheux, a fixture on D.C. stages, played Tevye in Olney's dark (and popular) take on "Fiddler on the Roof" last year, and as he played George W. Bush in "Stuff Happens" he noted that the play ran a bit against the popular grain, with some walkouts at intermission and a few sour faces at the curtain call.

"Later in the run, though," Foucheux says, "we were preaching to the choir."