Introducing The Communist Dracula Pageant

Anne Washburn is one of my favorite young American playwrights.  In plays such as The Internationalist, The Ladies, and Apparition, she has revealed wonderfully theatrical imagination, far removed from the realism and family dramas that currently dominate American and British playwriting. 

Anne’s plays are purely theatrical; it’s hard to imagine them adapted as scripts for film or television.  She delights in stage illusion, in ghosts, fantasies, and figments of our imagination.  Her style reminds me somewhat of early Caryl Churchill, and she has something of Tony Kushner’s epic and historical sweep, but ultimately her voice is unique.

Introducing the 2008-09 season

Now that we have announced the A.R.T.’s 2008-09 season, and I wanted to share with you some of my thoughts as I assembled these seven productions. I hope you’ll agree that it’s a terrific line-up, consisting of seven very different theatrical experiences–new plays and classics, comedies and dramas, great epics and chamber pieces, with a healthy dose of spectacle and politics, heartbreak and whimsy.