Mere days after closing out its 2023-2024 season, 1st Stage in Tysons is pulling back the curtain on a new year of community theater.
The professional theater company will kick off its 2024-2025 season later this month with the return of its annual Logan Festival of Solo Performance, a two-week event that draws solo actors from across the U.S. with performances, workshops, discussions and other activities.
This year’s festival will run from July 18-28 and feature three productions, according to a press release:
Fly Me to the Sun
Written and Performed by Brian Quijada
Directed by Raymond O. CaldwellFollowing a tragedy in El Salvador, Abuela Julia moves in with her family in a Chicago suburb. Her grandson, BQ, learns about America through his grandmother’s eyes while also teaching her to enjoy simple pleasures. Told in the style of a late-night talk show with Julia as a special guest (in the form of a puppet), Quijada weaves a beautiful story about the moments that move us and what calls us home.
Too Fat for China
Written and Performed by Phoebe PottsThe story follows Phoebe Potts, a self-described comic storyteller and professional Jew, as she tries, fails and eventually succeeds to adopt a baby. After a US adoption goes horribly wrong, Potts finds herself surprised, disgusted and ultimately resigned to the role she plays as a middle-class white lady in the business of adopting babies in the US and internationally. Potts’ tragi-comic journey is about looking for more— more love, more life and more family and will do anything to get it, including having her morals and values fold in on themselves.
GUAC
Written and Performed by Manuel Oliver
Co-Written by James Clements
Directed by Michael CoteyWhat do you do when you lose a son? Take it from Manuel Oliver, the father of Parkland shooting victim Joaquin Oliver, you have to do what you do best. Fearless, funny, and pulling zero punches, GUAC is a one-man tour-de-force theatrical experience about a father turned activist, his undying love for his son, and the story of an immigrant family in search of the American Dream only instead to be confronted by a uniquely American Nightmare.
Tickets to the Logan Festival productions, which each have multiple showtimes, cost $20 each, or $10 for students who show valid identification. They can be purchased online or by calling the box office at 703-854-1856.
The main season will open on Sept. 12 with Oscar winner Kenneth Lonergan’s “The Waverly Gallery,” which was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2001 and won the Tony Award for Best Revival of a Play in 2019.
The upcoming year will also bring productions of Alexis Scheer’s “Laughs in Spanish,” a play focused on Miami’s Cuban and Columbian American communities that premiered in Denver last year, and Pulitzer Prize finalist Rajiv Joseph’s “The Lake Effect,” a family drama that got its start a decade ago in Chicago.
After a spring run of debbie tucker green’s “hang,” 1st Stage will finish its season next June with August Wilson’s “The Piano Lesson,” which was revived on Broadway in 2022 with Samuel L. Jackson and John David Washington in its lead roles.
General admission tickets for all the main shows are $55, though some $25 and $40 tickets are available. The theater also offers subscriptions and flex passes that can save up to 50% off the regular ticket price.
Formed in 2008 with the goal of bridging professional and educational theater, 1st Stage operates out of a 110-seat theater at 1524 Spring Hill Road in the Spring Hill Business Center. In addition to its main shows, it hosts family programs, workshops, a book club and a Summer Sippin’ wine-and-paint series that will return on Sunday, July 14.
Full descriptions of the 2024-2025 season’s plays from 1st Stage are below.
The Waverly Gallery
Written by Kenneth Lonergan
Directed by Alex Levy
Sept. 12 to Oct. 6, 2024
In this 2019 Tony Award nominee for Best Revival of a Play, Gladys, the elderly matriarch of the Green family, has run an art gallery in a small Greenwich Village hotel for many years. The management wants to replace her less-than-thriving gallery with a coffee shop. Always irascible but now increasingly erratic, Gladys becomes a cause for concern to her family. By the Academy Award winning writer of Manchester by the Sea, this production is poignant, wacky, and heartrending.
Laughs in Spanish
Written by Alexis Scheer
Directed by Elena Velasco
Dec. 12 to 29, 2024
Step into the vibrant world of Miami’s Wynwood arts district with a joyous and downright hilarious snapshot of Cuban and Colombian-American culture. As Art Basel approaches, Mariana, the director of a swanky modern art gallery, faces a serious dilemma: her showroom has become an active crime scene. Part crime-comedy, part mother-daughter story, this play follows Mariana and her eccentric squad including her larger-than-life mother, a film and television star determined to save the show.
The Lake Effect
Written by Rajiv Joseph
Directed by Alex Levy
Jan. 30 to Feb. 16, 2025
A drama of family secrets by Pulitzer Prize finalist Rajiv Joseph. During a fierce Cleveland mid-winter storm, estranged siblings are reunited by their father’s sudden death. In the midst of closing his failing Indian restaurant, they must confront the painful memories and secrets that drove them apart. With witty dialogue, richly drawn characters, and a deep understanding of the complexities of human relationships, The Lake Effect is a must-see. “Simply brilliant.” –Showbiz Chicago
hang
Written by debbie tucker green
Directed by Deidra LaWan Starnes
March 13 to 30, 2025
One crime. One room. Three people. A woman’s unspeakable decision as the criminal’s fate hangs in the balance. Set in a haunting world where every word is a revelation and every silence speaks volumes, this electrifying production will take you on a journey through the complexities of justice and human nature. This 2015 hit from London’s Royal Court is provocative, touching, and darkly humorous.
The Piano Lesson
Written by August Wilson
Directed by Danielle A. Drakes
June 5 to 22, 2025
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, this haunting, luminous play is fourth in Wilson’s famous American Century Cycle. Set in 1930s Pittsburgh, Berniece and her brother Boy Willie navigate the complexities of their past and the weight of their future, all centered around an heirloom piano with a story of its own.
