Are you looking for fun, family-friendly, local theater productions set during the holidays?
Adventure Theatre stages “Winterfest” in Glen Echo, Maryland from Nov. 19 to Jan. 2.
“Winterfest started … as part of our Jingle in July Festival,” Artistic Director Chil Kong told WTOP. “Around 30 different playwrights submitted to us. Our philosophy for these festivals is: ‘You write it, we will present it.’ … It’s allowed many writers their first opportunities to hear their work done. After that, the winning writers got to be selected for this Winterfest.”
The first play is called “Uri & Ora Light the Menorah” by Robyn Shrater-Seemann.
“It’s about stories of the menorah and how they’re created,” Kong said. “It’s really a beautiful tale about magic, how families come together, how people come together around this time of lighting, and why you need this time, because magic is everywhere, and how you connect to the past is through these candles and what these candle represent.”
The second play is called “Connection” by Diego Maramba and Michelle Bowen.
“One person gets a gift of these beautiful toys that represent her Filipino culture, and they travel to the United States,” Kong said. “This kid grows up and decides to do something else with these toys, but it’s all done through the eyes of these toys. … It’s very much like Pixar’s ‘Toy Story’ meets Filipino heritage meets theater for the very young.”
Finally, the third play is called “Cranky Penguin” by Keegan Patterson.
“It is a perfect sendoff,” Kong said. “It’s about a penguin who just happens to be cranky and you don’t understand why until you learn about this penguin and how all these friends connect to this cranky penguin and find joy and celebration in the middle of winter.”
All three plays are directed by Cara Gabriel.
“Cara is inventive in the way she connects the physical aspects with all of this amazing dialogue,” Kong said. “What you’ll get is this combination of really fun jokes and dialogue mixed in with all of this physical comedy and humor, while grounding it in stuff that also has touching moments. You have to be able to both laugh and have your heart felt.”
Listen to our full conversation here.
