Monday Night
at the National Spring '98

FREE!! FREE!! FREE!!FREE!! FREE!!FREE!!
This weekly showcase in the Fall, Winter and Spring, features local performers, and provides free quality live entertainment to the Greater Washington Area community. Original plays, singers, musical ensembles, dance, drama and comedy are on the bill.

The programs are supported by the Mary & Daniel Loughran Foundation and the Max and Victoria Dreyfus Foundation. The National Theatre is deeply appreciated of this valued assistance.

The series was inaugurated in 1980 and directed for 14 years by Kathleen M. Barry, and is now produced by Donn B. Murphy. Melvin Andrews is host.

Performances are on Monday evenings at 6:00 pm and 7:30 pm, in the Helen Hayes Gallery at the National. Admission is free, on a first-come, first-seated basis.

Schedules can be secured by sending a Self-Addressed, Stamped Envelope to "Monday Night," National Theatre, 1321 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Washington, D.C. 20004. Recorded program information is also available at 202-783-3372.

WINTER & SPRING 1998

JANUARY 26


MOTHER'S DAY brings a drug-addicted son to the doorstep of his devout Baptist mother on a cold winter evening. The play, by Jamal, ignites smouldering memories and blazing anger in this script-in-hand reading. Mother and son move from icy deception to daring incendiary honesty.

FEBRUARY 2
HELD IN TRUST: The Life and Times of Henry Ossian Flipper, is the moving and sometimes warmly humorous story of the first black officer in the U.S. Army. Robert Snead stars as a man born into slavery who graduates from West Point, suffers unjust disgrace, and fights to retrieve his good name.

FEBRUARY 9
I OF THE STORM with an exuberant young cast from City at Peace, is a vivid and arresting story of the challenges faced by youth in an urban chaos. A a whirlwind of movement and music, assault, frustration and rage emerge, but the kids find their own clear sky as clouds open and the storm ends.

FEBRUARY 23
THE OLD LANDMARK! Written by Charisma, is a presentation of gospel and dancing. Featured artists are Alpha Omega Alpha Step Ministry, Obsidian Dance Company, Mikki Briscoe, Dr. Carolyn Shuttelsworth, Images of Unity, and Evangelist Helen MacAbee and Robert Allen.

MARCH 2

DELICIOUS HUNGER, HUNGER DELICIOUS performed by VASHTI is an eclectic Funk Rock Opera, created by Li'l Monstar and accomplices. Fusing original music and choreography with elements of rock concerts, film, circus and magic, it mesmerizes with ear-candy, then jolts you with outrageous visual invention.

MARCH 9
VOCAL EXPRESS trips mesmerizingly through Broadway hits, pop, rock 'n' roll, country, calypso and jazz, with lush harmonies and an ambiance of high energy showmanship. Specialties range from Route 66, Teddy Bear and Desperado through Teddy Bear and Under the Sea to Bring Him Home from Les Miz.

MARCH 16
VALLABANATYA is the unique performance of Indian Classical Dance on Roller Skates! Vallaban Sabapathy is surely the only performer in the whole world who combines the 2000-year-old Bharathnatyam style of dance with wizardry on wheels in a breathtaking combination of the aesthetic and the athletic.

MARCH 23
BROADWAY SINGS! features showstoppers by Sondheim, Rodgers & Hart, Cole Porter and other Broadway and Tin Pan Alley luminaries, as Robert Pullen presents cabaret artists from California to New York, singing, dancing and acting, with a live band. An uptown, up-tempo jazzin' evening not to miss.

MARCH 30
KOTOBUKI KAI JAPANESE DANCE COMPANY, led by Yoko Haruda King, presents a performance in which both the dancer and the audience are immersed in a lovely and startling moment. Culture, History and philosophy merge with dance, drama and music in this ancient and elegant Nihon Buyo.

APRIL 6
AMERICAN DREAMER is a stirring dramatic portrait of democracy's greatest poet, WALT WHITMAN, whose visionary views on love, sex, and death are controversial even today. The staged reading is directed by writer and Emmy-Award-winning filmmaker, Steve Jimenez. Michael Hartford is Whitman.