Press Release: Keegan Assumes Full Residency at Church Street, Announces 2009-2010 Season
Washington, DC, Summer 2009—The Keegan Theatre is pleased to announce that an agreement has been reached to be the full-time resident company at Church Street Theater, beginning with its 2009-2010 season. Church Street Theater, located in the Dupont Circle neighborhood of Washington, DC, has been a partial home to Keegan for many years. In recent seasons, Keegan has also produced out of Arlington’s Theater on the Run, and Church Street Theater has also seen shows produced by other local companies, including Journeymen and Ganymede.
Starting this fall, Keegan will assume sole residency, producing year-round in the space. “This is obviously a tremendously exciting move for Keegan,” says the company’s founder and producing artistic director Mark A. Rhea. “To finally have a permanent home and to be able to produce year-round for our audiences not only means we’ve achieved a very meaningful milestone, but also means a new set of exciting artistic opportunities – and challenges – for us. But we’re ready for it – in many ways, Keegan has been gearing up to this decision for the last few years, in terms of internal growth. On top of that, the box office numbers and the increasing enthusiasm of Keegan’s DC audience base over the 2008-2009 season really confirmed in our minds that it was time to make the move here full-time.”
Keegan will open its season with Of Mice and Men, the company’s 2009 Ireland tour production. See below for Keegan’s 2009-2010 season, the company’s twelfth, which will include three world premieres, a U.S. premiere, and two musicals -- Jonathan Larson’s RENT and A Man of No Importance (book by Terence McNally).
“Arlington will always hold a significant and special place in Keegan’s history,” says Rhea. “But, ultimately, there are too many theater companies producing in Arlington and not enough theater space to go around. The number of companies that have sprung up since Keegan was founded 12 years ago is astounding and fantastic; the downside of that reality, though, is that there just aren’t the facilities available for Keegan to produce the amount of the theater that we want in the way that we want to produce it. We’re deeply grateful to Arlington County’s Commission for the Arts for all they have done for Keegan over the years, and we will always be honored to have begun our journey there.”
One of the most charming theatrical spaces in Washington, the present-day Church Street Theater is housed in a mid-19th-century brick building that originally served as the gymnasium for the Holton Arms School. The exposed brick walls and lofty ceiling of the interior make for a warm, intimate performing space, which contains a few more than 115 seats. Church Street Theater is located at 1742 Church Street NW.
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