Edgar and Annabel are living a lie, a lie that could save their country. From “one of Britain’s most promising young playwrights” (The Independent) and directed by Studio favorite Holly Twyford, this dark and cheeky look at what the future might hold features undercover agents, surveillance algorithms, and explosive karaoke.
2ndStage is Studio’s playground for emerging artists, offering innovative and thrillingly eclectic programming with shorter rehearsal periods and smaller budgets than our other productions, with a spirit of exuberance and experiment.
Part of Studio Theatre's New British Invasion festival, showcasing the work of some of the most accomplished and innovative plays by British writers under 40.
Part of Studio Theatre's
New British Invasion Festival.
The 2013-2014 2ndStage Season is underwritten
by A. Fenner Milton.
Click on artist headshot to see bio
Sam Holcroft is currently Writer-In-Residence at the National Theatre Studio. In 2009-10, she was the Pearson Playwright-in-Residence at the Traverse Theatre and in 2009 she won the Tom Erhardt Award for up-and-coming writers. Theatre plays include Edgar & Annabel, part of Double Feature 1 for the National Theatre; Dancing Bears, part of the Charged season for Clean Break at Soho Theatre and Latitude Festival; While You Lie at the Traverse Theatre; Pink, part of the Women, Power, and Politics Season at the Tricycle Theatre; Vanya, adapted from Chekhov, at The Gate; and Cockroach, co-produced by the National Theatre of Scotland and the Traverse Theatre (nominated for Best New Play 2008, by the Critics’ Awards for Theatre in Scotland and shortlisted for the John Whiting Award, 2009). Ms. Holcroft is currently under commission from the National Theatre, the National Theatre of Scotland, the Traverse Theatre and Paines Plough, and she is writing libretto for the Festival d’Aix en Provence.
Holly Twyford returns to Studio Theatre for Cloud 9. She most recently directed both Mary Kate Olsen is in Love and Edgar and Annabel for Studio 2ndStage, and was last seen on stage at Studio Theatre in the Lab production of Dirt. Other favorite roles at Studio include Evelyn in The Shape of Things, Elsa in Road to Mecca, and Bunny in Desk Set. She has appeared in over 50 productions with many of the area’s theaters including Ford’s Theatre, Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, Folger Theatre, Shakespeare Theatre, and Arena Stage. She has performed regionally in New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Santa Cruz, Red Bank, NJ and Milwaukee. Ms. Twyford has been nominated twenty times for a Helen Hayes Award and is a four-time recipient. She received the Shakespeare Theatre Company’s Emery Battis Award for Acting Excellence for her portrayal of Anna in Old Times and she is a Lunt-Fontanne Fellow. She is proud to be a charter member of the Studio Cabinet, Studio Theatre’s new affiliated artist program. She has appeared in several independent films, including John Waters’ Pecker. Television credits include Homicide: Life on the Street and House of Cards. Her credits also include numerous commercials, voiceovers, and educational and training films.
(As of August 2016)
Emily Kester last appeared at Studio in Edgar & Annabel. She was most recently seen in The Last Schwartz at Theater J and Eurydice at NextStop Theatre Company. Other DC and regional credits include Equus at Constellation Theatre Company; The Little Mermaid, 101 Dalmatians, and Double Trouble at Imagination Stage; The BFG with Imagination Stage & The National Children's Theatre (Helen Hayes Award nomination for Best Ensemble); She Kills Monsters and A Softer World at Rorschach Theatre; A Christmas Carol at Triad Stage; The Tempest with The North Carolina Shakespeare Festival; and The Ugly Duckling with Bright Star Touring Theatre. Ms. Kester earned her BFA in Acting from The University of North Carolina at Greensboro.
(As of December 2016)
Maboud Ebrahimzadeh returns to Studio, where he was most recently seen in the 2ndStage production of Edgar & Annabel. His DC-area credits include A Few Good Men at Keegan Theatre; Love's Labour's Lost with Taffety Punk Theatre Company; A Man, His Wife, and His Hat at Hub Theatre; Boged at Theater J; Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo at Round House Theatre; Side Man with 1st Stage; After the Quake with Rorschach Theatre; and Scorched and Bobrauschenbergamerica with Forum Theatre, where he is an Ensemble member and will perform in the upcoming production The Last Days of Judas Iscariot. Regionally, he performed in The Container at Center Stage in Baltimore.
(As of March 2014)
LOCAL: Black Comedy, Peter Pan: The Boy Who Hated Mothers, Touch, Some Girls, No Rules Theatre Company (company member); Measure For Measure (understudy), All’s Well That Ends Well (understudy), Shakespeare Theatre Company; A Magnificent Waste, The Saint Plays, 4.48 Psychosis, Factory 449 (Company Member); Suite Surrender, 1st Stage; Taming of the Shrew (understudy), Folger Theatre; A Moon for the Misbegotten, Heritage O’Neill Theatre Company; Well, Theater Hopkins. FILM: Kosmopolites, Buffurducken, A Million Dollars and No Sense. EDUCATION: University of Virginia, BA.
(As of December 2013)
REGIONAL: The Container, Center Stage. LOCAL: North, Forum Theatre; Thoughts of a Colored Man, GALA Hispanic Theatre. INTERNATIONAL: One Voice, Nairobi, Kenya; Seussical the Musical, Sydney, Australia. FILM: Karla Evans (2012), The Unattainable Piece (2012), Safe House: A Christian Story (2010). TEACHING: Camp Director/Acting Instructor at Camp Usanii: Art Enrichment Camp in Durham, North Carolina. EDUCATION: Howard University, BFA.
(As of December 2013)
Jacob Yeh (Playwright and Ensemble) was last seen at Studio in Chimerica. His other credits include Rodney in Yellow Face (Theater J); Momotaro in Anime Momotaro and Machine Master in P.Nokio (Imagination Stage); and Confucius in Back to Methuselah, Kawabata in Take Me Out, Kenny in Fuddy Meers, and Dorante in Game of Love and Chance (1st Stage Tysons). He has appeared in productions at Ford’s Theatre, Shakespeare Theatre Company, Folger Theatre, Rorschach Theatre, the Hub Theatre, Adventure Theatre MTC, The Welders, Pinky Swear Productions, Spooky Action Theater, and the Source Festival. Recently, he was seen in 410 [GONE] at Rorschach Theatre, The Farnsworth Invention at 1st Stage Tysons, and will be seen in The Wizard of Oz at Synetic Theatre.
(As of April 2018)
Shravan Amin returns to Studio Theatre after appearing in Edgar & Annabel. He also appeared in The Hard Problem at the Wilma Theater in Philadelphia. In the DC area, his credits include Romeo and Juliet at Shakespeare Theatre Company, When January Feels Like Summer at Mosaic Theater, If All The Sky Were Paper at The Kennedy Center, Very Still and Hard to See at Rorschach Theatre, and The Jungle Book at Adventure Theatre. Mr. Amin also performs improv comedy at regionals shows and festivals. He has trained at the Studio Theatre Acting Conservatory and Washington Improv Theater.
(As of December 2016)
Maggie Wilder appeared in both the 2014-2015 and 2015-2016 productions of Bad Jews at Studio Theatre. Ms. Wilder was recently seen in When She Had Wings at Imagination Stage. Her other DC credits include Rapture, Blister, Burn at Round House Theatre, The BFG with National Children’s Theatre, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz at Adventure Theatre-MTC, Abominable and Failure: A Love Story (2015 Helen Hayes Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Play — Helen Production) at The HUB Theatre, and Edgar & Annabel at Studio 2ndStage. Ms. Wilder will be seen later this season in An Octoroon at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company. She is a recipient of Boston University’s Award for Theatrical Collaboration and interned with the Australian Theatre for Young People in Sydney, Australia. Ms. Wilder is a graduate of Boston University and holds a BFA in Acting/Theatre Arts.
(As of December 2015)
Debra Booth has a long history with Studio, where she has designed White Pearl, Translations, The Wolves, The Father, The Hard Problem, Constellations, The Apple Family Cycle, Jumpers for Goalposts, Belleville, Cock, Edgar & Annabel, Bachelorette, Moonlight, Blackbird, My Children! My Africa!, The Pillowman, and many others. Her international work includes premiere opera Marco Polo (Tan Dun/Martha Clarke) in Munich, Hong Kong, and New York. Regionally, her credits include Sooner/Later and Vicuna at Mosaic Theater Company; Small Mouth Sounds at Round House Theatre; Richard III, The Collection, and The Lover at the Shakespeare Theatre Company; Marisol at Hartford Stage and The Public Theater; Trying, The Illusion, and Happy Days at Portland Stage; the New York premiere of Angels in America at The Juilliard School; Broken Glass at Philadelphia Theatre Company (Barrymore Award nomination); and A Moon for the Misbegotten at Yale Rep. Debra is the recipient of a DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities Artist Fellowship and a National Endowment for the Arts design grant. She is a graduate of the Yale School of Drama.
(As of February 2020)
STUDIO 2NDSTAGE: Terminus, Edgar & Annabel, Mary-Kate Olsen is in Love (lighting design). STUDIO THEATRE: Torch Song Trilogy (projection design), The Motherfucker with the Hat (projection design), Sucker Punch (projection design). DC AREA: Truth the Musical, THEARC Theater (lighting design); Discovery on the High Seas: Austin Clark and the Expedition Albatross and Q?rius at the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of Natural History. REGIONAL: Celebration of Flight, IBEX Puppetry at RISD; Miss Richfield: 1981 at Philadelphia’s Society Hill Playhouse; Last Rites at The South Camden Theatre Company.
(As of May 2015)
Kelsey Hunt is a costume designer based in the DC area. Previous Studio Theatre credits include Bad Jews, Carrie: The Musical, Edgar & Annabel, and Skin Tight. Other credits include Cherokee at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company; Life Sucks and Body Awareness at Theater J; Slow Falling Bird and In the Red and Brown Water at Georgetown University; As You Like It and Pride & Prejudice at the Chesapeake Shakespeare Company; Die Fledermaus at the Maryland Opera Studio; and One Flea Spare at Elsewhere Artist’s Collaborative. Ms. Hunt previously served as Resident Costume Designer for Triad Stage and is co-author of Elizabethan Costume Design, Focal Press. Upcoming projects include The Nether at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, Stage Kiss at Round House Theatre, and The Sisters Rosensweig at Theater J.
(As of December 2015)
Palmer Hefferan returns to Studio Theatre after previously designing Moment, Sorry, Regular Singing, Bad Jews, and Edgar & Annabel. Other select DC credits include Baby Screams Miracle (Helen Hayes nomination), Guards at the Taj (Helen Hayes nomination), Women Laughing Alone With Salad, and Cherokee at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company; Urinetown, Equus (Helen Hayes nomination), Absolutely! {Perhaps}, and 36 Views at Constellation Theatre Company; and Everything Is Illuminated, The Call, and Yentl at Theater J. Select Off Broadway credits include Charm and School Girls at MCC; Orange Julius (Henry Hewes nomination) at Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre; The Death of the Last Black Man… at Signature Theatre; Friend Art at Second Stage; Samara and Revolt. She Said. Revolt Again (Henry Hewes nomination) at Soho Rep; and Important Hats of the Twentieth Century at Manhattan Theatre Club. Select regional credits include Henry V and Henry IV, Part One at Oregon Shakespeare Festival; Romance Novels for Dummies at Williamstown Theatre Festival, Tiger Style! at Alliance Theatre and Huntington Theatre, peerless at Marin Theatre Company, Twelfth Night at Baltimore Center Stage. She has her MFA from Yale School of Drama.
(As of March 2018)
Adrien-Alice Hansel is the Literary Director at Studio, where she has dramaturged the world premieres of Queen of Basel, The Remains, No Sisters, I Wanna Fucking Tear You Apart, Animal, Laugh, Red Speedo, Dirt, Lungs, and The History of Kisses as well as productions of Cry It Out,Translations, Curve of Departure, The Effect, Wig Out!, Straight White Men, Cloud 9, Hedda Gabler, Constellations, Jumpers for Goalposts, Bad Jews (twice), The Apple Family Plays, Invisible Man, Sucker Punch, The Golden Dragon, and The New Electric Ballroom, among others. Prior to joining Studio, she spent eight seasons at the Actors Theatre of Louisville, where she headed the literary department and coordinated project scouting, selection, and development for the Humana Festival of New American Plays. She also served as production dramaturg on roughly 50 new, contemporary, and classic plays there, including premieres by Naomi Wallace, Gina Gionfriddo, Kirk Lynn and Rude Mechs, Rinne Groff, The Civilians, Anne Bogart and SITI Company, Jordan Harrison, and John Belluso. She is the co-editor of eight anthologies of plays from Actors Theatre and editor of eight editions of plays through Studio. Adrien-Alice holds an MFA from the Yale School of Drama.
(As of April 2019)
STUDIO 2NDSTAGE: The Rocky Horror Show, Contractions, Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson (Stage Manager). STUDIO THEATRE: Dirt (Assistant Stage Manager), Bust (Stage Manager). DC AREA: Three years as Resident Assistant Stage Manager at the Folger Theatre (Taming of the Shrew, The Gaming Table, Othello, Cyrano, Comedy of Errors, Henry VIII, Hamlet, Orestes: A Tragic Romp, Much Ado About Nothing), Birds of a Feather (The Hub, Stage Manager), Stop Kiss (No Rules Theatre, Stage Manager), We’re Proud to Present… (Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, 2nd Assist. Stage Manager, February 2014). EDUCATION: BFA Stage Management, Virginia Commonwealth University.
(As of December 2013)
