2020/21 season

It’s 1980s Cuba and the revolution has reached a crazed tipping point. Fueled by a stagnant economy, 10,000 citizens have fled to the Peruvian Embassy in Cuba seeking asylum. As Fidel Castro grapples between his desire to maintain power and do what is best for his country, he turns to his closest confidant and political partner, Celia Sanchez for answers. What kind of a leader is he? Merciful or mighty? Imbued with magical realism, Eduardo Machado’s Celia and Fidel — Arena Stage’s seventh Power Play — imagines a fight between Cuba’s most influential female revolutionary and its most notorious political leader.

The lives of seven friends are irrevocably changed when their old friend and blues singer Floyd Barton reappears with a chance of a lifetime. Infused with deep and soaring blues rhythms, this “rich and exceptionally vivid” (Variety) play pits the determination for a better future against the harsh realities ultimately leading to heartbreaking and inescapable circumstances. Director Tazewell Thompson returns to Arena Stage to direct August Wilson’s Seven Guitars — the fifth play in Wilson’s American Century Cycle and the second half of Arena Stage Giants Festival featuring August Wilson.

Charles Randolph-Wright (Arena's Born for This: The BeBe Winans Story, Broadway's Motown the Musical) returns to Arena Stage with a ground-breaking musical about Frederick Douglass, portrayed by Cornelius Smith Jr. (ABC's Scandal, All My Children). Douglass' own words power the soaring new melodies and original script from Grammy Award-winning songwriter Marcus Hummon and Randolph­Wright. This daring and heart-stirring new work presents Douglass as a fierce abolitionist and distinguished orator featuring interactions with key figures including, President Abraham Lincoln, activist John Brown and Douglass' wife, Anna Murray-Douglass, without whom his defiant escape from slavery would not have been possible. Filled with electrifying new songs including, "What Does Freedom Look Like," "We Need a Fire" and "A More Perfect Union," this world premiere celebrates the revolutionary legacy of one of history's first freedom fighters. 

Prime Sponsorship for American Prophet is generously provided by Exelon. Supporting Sponsorship for American Prophet is generously provided by Andrew R. Ammerman, Judith N. Batty, Dr. Donald Wallace Jones, Dr. Betty Jean Tolbert Jones and Tracey Tolbert Jones, PNC, R. Lucia Riddle and Tiffeny Sanchez and Reg Brown.

Humor, music and dance drive this rousing musical based on true events and a critically acclaimed film. See how a charming, young con man posed as an airline pilot, a lawyer and then escaped police custody all before he turned 22.  The Tony-nominated musical comedy is jam-packed with dynamic numbers such as “Don’t Break the Rules,” “Live in Living Color” and “Doctor’s Orders.” Catch Me If You Can is “a high-flying musical comedy” (The Hollywood Reporter) packed with glamour and delight for the entire family. Where else, but Washington, D.C., could a musical about con men and being conned be the perfect story we need right now?