Arlington Friends of the Drama

Bradley Boutcher brings a boatload of bravado and charisma to his portrayal of that wacky Danish Prince Hamlet... The stage lights up when he rushes to play with the crazy Rosencrantz & Guildenstern... and then darkens as he spurns the lovely Ophelia, and generally mucks around in his ambiguity. We love him anyway. Come check him out!

Bending gender, defying expectations, running rampant, and rollicking madly, our Leading Player brings a saucy edge to "Rosencrantz." (Opens November 30! Get your tickets now!) Sara Kerr struts and frets her hour upon the stage - and it's a sight to behold. The director, Ingrid Oslund, notes, “The Lead Player is still the ultimate actor, so we haven’t changed the pronouns in any way,” she notes. “This person can play any role to perfection." "It costs little to watch, and lit

Every time they burst onto the stage in this production of "Rosencrantz," one marvels at the astonishing round-up of faces, bodies, energy. From the beginning, the director, Ingrid Oslund, brought a radical spirit of fun to the enterprise, looking to play with gender, size, movement. "I needed a troupe of weirdos to come out of the woodwork and have fun," she says. At the auditions, she put actors in groups and tried “image theater” game where they were given words and struck

The chemistry crackles between the loopy everymen at the center of "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead" -- or is it Guildenstern and Rosencrantz? Ingrid Oslund, the director, made sure to cast two people who would work well together. "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are two little pawns getting moved around different worlds that all have different rules. What are the rules? What are they allowed to do? what are they supposed to be doing? These two actors are so good, and so g

For a while. Then he's Alfred. And then... well, it's a long story. And a damn good one.

Since the first rehearsal, Ingrid Oslund, the director of "Rosencrantz," has led the actors through a series of games - and to this day, every rehearsal starts with a series of energetic exercises. The spirit of FUN -- of clowning above all -- lights up the stage. Especially while the players are frolicking.

Linda Burtt gets excited as she heads into the dressing room at the theater, and starts pulling out the costumes that she’s building for the upcoming production of “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead”—hats, doublets, shirts with enormously puffy sleeves, balloon pants. The items are outlandish, colorful, and inspired. “Since it’s Stoppard, you can have a lot of fun, and take all sorts of liberties. If it were straight Elizabethan, I could pull it from here or from Salem St

Who has the best set building crew in community theater? THAT's RIGHT - WE do. It’s Saturday morning, and the theater is alive with banging and knocking and the occasional loud crash. It smells like sawdust and donuts and coffee and cigarettes. It’s three weeks to opening night --and the air is humming with anticipation of a great show in the making. The set building crew has been here for hours already, pounding, sawing, and climbing impossibly tall ladders – all in the effo

"It's a giant game of clowning," says Ingrid Olsund in describing the production of "Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead" currently in rehearsals at AFD. "You can look to the philosophical wordplay, and put a lot of things on it, but it simply works best as a comedy - as a series of games." Olsund has cast a delightfully odd and zany bunch of actors to bring physical play, emotional weight, tremendous chemistry - and joy -- to the stage. "I needed a troupe of weirdos to come

Watching the production take shape is a joy - taking part in the actual process is a LOT of work. Director Ingrid Oslund is bringing a fresh, vital approach to Tom Stoppard's original work that galvanized the stage 50 years ago when it won the Tony Award for Best Play. Working with a dynamic cast, the production is physical, funny, irreverent, and, as always, a revelation. Join us when it opens at the end of November. Seriously.