Directors: 2008-2009 Season

Silver Spring Stage is very excited about our upcoming 41st season. We are eager to build on our reputation for engaging, creative and compelling theater, and are excited about the opportunity to consider proposals from directors. The Stage presents a season of 7 full-stage productions. We are currently seeking directors for 4 of the plays:

  • As Bees in Honey Drown by Douglas Carter Beane (Dramatists Play Service, Inc.) Evan Wyler has just finished a photo session with his shirt off. No, he’s not a supermodel; he’s a twenty-something New York writer savoring the success of his debut novel. Defined by the media as the “hot-young thing-of-the-moment,” Evan captures the attention of Alexa Vere de Vere, a woman of mystery who’s made the world of celebrity her home. Maybe she’s a record producer, maybe she’s a film agent; what is clear is that she wants Evan to write the screenplay of her life story. To Evan, it’s like an invitation into the world of Auntie Mame, Sally Bowles and Holly Golightly all rolled into one. But once Evan fools himself into believing he loves Alexa, she vanishes, leaving him to foot the bill for all the dinners and Armani suits they’ve gone through. Trying to find Alexa, Evan discovers a chain of people who have fallen under her spell, for Alexa has no money, no job, no life of her own – only the one she’s created for herself.
  • Arms and the Man by George Bernard Shaw (Samuel French, Inc.) Set during the Serbo-Bulgarian War of the 1880’s, its heroine, Raina, is a young Bulgarian woman engaged to Sergius, one of the heroes of that war, whom she idealizes. One night, Raina finds her bedroom invaded by Captain Bluntschli, a Swiss mercenary who had been fighting for Serbia but is now fleeing the victorious Bulgarians. He begs her to hide him so that he is not killed. When the battle dies down, Raina and her mother sneak Bluntschli out of the house in an old housecoat. The war ends and Sergius returns to Raina, but also flirts with her insolent servant girl, Louka. Raina begins to find Sergius both foolhardy and tiresome. Bluntschli unexpectedly returns so that he can give back the old housecoat, but also so that he can see Raina. Left alone with Bluntschli, Raina realizes that he sees through her romantic posturing but that he respects her as a woman, as Sergius does not. Louka tells Sergius that Bluntschli is the man who Raina protected and that Raina is really in love with him, so Sergius challenges him to a duel. The men avoid fighting, but Sergius and Raina break off their engagement. After Bluntschli reveals the whole story to Raina’s father, Sergius proposes marriage to Louka. News arrives that Bluntschli’s father has just died, leaving him a grand inheritance. Raina, having realized the hollowness of her romantic ideals and fiancé’s values, protests that she would prefer her poor “chocolate-cream soldier” to this wealthy businessman. Bluntschli says that he is still the same person, and Raina proclaims her love for him.
  • Dinner with Friends by Donald Margulies (Dramatists Play Service, Inc.) Winner of the 2000 Pulitzer Prize. Two married couples have been best friends for years. In their Connecticut home, Karen and Gabe, international food writers, are giving a dinner for Beth and Tom, which Tom doesn’t attend. It emerges from the heartbroken Beth that he has left her for another woman. Gabe and Karen are almost as crushed, having expected ‘to grow old and fat together, the four of us.’ When Tom shows up at his home, he is enraged that Beth broke the news of their breakup to their friends in his absence. Late as it is, he rushes over to his friends to present his side of the story. Act II begins with another dinner, twelve-and-a-half years earlier, in a summer house on Martha’s Vineyard, where Karen and Gabe are introducing Beth to Tom. We skip five months after the events in Act One, as Beth reveals to Karen that she has fallen in love with an old friend whom she intends to marry. Later that day, in a Manhattan bar, Tom tells Gabe about his newfound happiness, to which Gabe reacts sourly. Later that night, Gabe and Karen discuss the Tom-and-Beth situation, as well as their own marriage…clinging to it like the shipwrecked to their raft.
  • Third by Wendy Wasserstein (Dramatists Play Service, Inc.) Professor Laurie Jameson, a very popular and stridently feminist English professor, meets an intelligent jock, Woodson Bull, III (his friends call him “Third”) who sparks her ire when he tells her of his desire to be a sports agent. When Third turns in a paper about “King Lear,” she believes it is the work of an advanced scholar, not a wrestler, and she accuses him of plagiarism. From there, the audience is taken on a journey through the midlife crisis of a woman reckoning with a two-decade old marriage, an ailing parent, hot flashes, children who have suddenly become adults, a close friend battling cancer and angrily rebuffing her attempts to be more involved, and political beliefs that have somehow turned into a crusade against her student.

Productions will be presented as follows:

  • Sept/Oct, 2008 - Dinner with Friends
  • November, 2008 - Third
  • December, 2008 - A Little Princess
  • January, 2009 - As Bees in Honey Drown
  • Feb/Mar, 2009 - A Bad Friend
  • April, 2009 - columbinus
  • May/June, 2009 - Arms and the Man
  • June/July, 2009 - The Mousetrap

Submission Requirements

In your submissions to the Stage we request the following:

  1. A resume of your directorial and other theatrical experience.
  2. A proposal that features:
    • Themes you believe important or relevant in the play.
    • Your concept/vision for a production; e.g., period, style, etc.
    • Ideas on production elements; i.e., set, costumes, lighting, sound or other special effects (we do not require actual set drawings or lighting plots).
    • Any other items.

Director interviews will be held on Monday, May 19th, beginning at 7:30. A specific schedule will be announced.

You can submit proposals for up to 2 shows. We prefer you e-mail the proposal to Bridget Muehlberger at widgetm@erols.com.

You can also mail it to:

Silver Spring Stage
Attn: Bridget Muehlberger
P.O. Box 3086
Silver Spring, MD 20918-3086

Deadline: May 11, 2008

For your Information

Silver Spring Stage offers an intimate, flexible and unique performance space.  The stage dimensions are 23 feet x 22 for a total playing are of 506 square feet.  If you have not seen the stage, we recommend you make a visit to help yourself to visualize a production.  Physically, it is laid out in a diamond shape, with the two lower sides of the diamond facing the audience featuring a support pole at the tip.  The upper sides of the diamond have backstage areas behind them.

Silver Spring Stage presents 7 full stage productions and an annual one-act festival. Performances are Friday and Saturday at 8 PM, Sunday at 2 PM over a 4 weekend run. The house seats 120.  A distinct advantage at Silver Spring Stage is we have our own rehearsal studio with a space that matches in dimension the actual performance stage.  Also, we have our own set construction area, storage, costumes, props and other set pieces.

For information or questions, please contact Bridget Muehlberger by e-mail at widgetm@erols.com. Thank you.












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All programs at Silver Spring Stage are made possible by support from the Arts and Humanities Council of Montgomery County, the Maryland State Arts Council and the Combined Federal Campaign.
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