Washington Stage Guild finds sanctuary, or close to it, in downtown church

Washington Stage Guild is, it appears, no longer a-wanderin'. The 23-year-old ensemble, which specializes in plays by the likes of Shaw, Molnar, Eliot, Friel, Coward and others, will offer a short winter-spring season in downtown Washington at the Mount Vernon Place United Methodist Church. If things go well, the company will do a full season there starting in the fall.

The building at 900 Massachusetts Ave. NW, built in 1917, was recently renovated, and Stage Guild's space will be in the Undercroft Theatre, with seating for 148. "In the renovation, they really have made it very very beautiful," says Producing Artistic Director Bill Largess. "It's got nice, folding theater seats. . . . The lobby is this little marble entranceway with newly renovated restrooms. . . . The auditorium is very, very handsome and has a nice period look, which certainly suits the kind of stuff we do." There are also men's and women's dressing rooms and a bit of backstage space.

Stage Guild Executive Director Ann Norton says they're telling actors cast in the short season that "before you say yes, be aware that this is another great adventure. We have no idea how this space is going to work." There will be limitations in terms of low ceilings and lighting, but longtime Stage Guild lighting designer Marianne Meadows is used to work-arounds, Norton says. Besides, she adds, "it would have been an adventure also in our own new theater."

The company fell on hard times after the 2008 death of John MacDonald, Norton's husband. Largess, a founding company member, actor and dramaturge, stepped in right away as artistic director, but the bad economy meant more trouble. Stage Guild couldn't get enough funding to complete a new downtown space they had planned. To stay in touch with subscribers, they did readings at Flashpoint and then a fully produced pair of one-acts at the Shaw Conference at Catholic University last fall. All the while, they searched for a new home.

Stage Guild's Undercroft space will have stained-glass windows and organ music above when they rehearse on Sundays. "How cool is that?" remarks Norton. It may be a little unusual, she adds, but "it's going to enable us to produce, and to produce downtown."

The first show of the season will be Largess's adaptation of a story by Oscar Wilde, "Lord Arthur Savile's Crime" (Feb. 18-March 14), which he'll direct. It's about a young aristocrat who's told by a palm reader that he's destined to commit a murder. So, he sets about trying to commit it before his marriage, just to get it out of the way. James Konicek will play the would-be killer.

Stage Guild's spring show will be "The Best of Friends" (April 29-May 23) by Hugh Whitemore, based on the long-term friendship and correspondence among George Bernard Shaw, museum curator Sidney Cockerell and cloistered Benedictine nun Dame Laurentia McLachlan. The director and cast are to be announced.

The short season is a kind of new beginning, says Largess -- a reboot. "We're back up and running. A new place. We're still the same people. We're still the same company, and we're making a fresh start here."

Venus's season in Laurel

"My goal is to build a brand new audience," says Venus Theatre founder and artistic director Deborah Randall. Since relocating her tiny feminist-inspired, new-play-oriented theater from Washington to Laurel in 2006, Randall concedes it's been a struggle to stay in the public eye.

Even so, she grew up in Prince George's County and is proud she's returned there to do what she loves. "In many ways, theater saved my life. . . . I want it back in Prince George's County and I want to use it to revitalize the county." (Active Cultures in Mount Rainier is another professional theater dedicated to serving Prince George's County.)

In her converted storefront, the Play Shack at 21 C St. in Laurel's historic downtown area, with a shoestring budget of $10,000 per show, Randall continues to pursue her vision. Efforts to offer theater classes and day camps for girls didn't pan out, so she says she's just focusing on producing a full season of plays for adults.

To pay her professional actors, designers and guest directors (very modestly), "we just need to sell half of our [seats] and all of our expenses are covered," Randall says.