Arts & Culture in Potomac

Founded in 1951, Adventure Theatre MTC has been the longest-running children’s theater in the Washington area and has earned a mantel-overloading amount of awards throughout the decades. Alongside professional and student productions, the theatrical powerhouse hosts camps and workshops to expand the performance arts, instill the love of the stage in children, and help teens to act like they care about the SATs.

When it was founded in 1970, the theatre company Street ’70 didn’t have a home, instead serving as a nomadic outreach program for schools and community spaces. It would be seven years before they’d find their own space in the Round House Theatre, which would eventually become the company’s moniker. Since those early days, the ensemble has produced more than 200 performances per year out of their home theater in Bethesda and a black box theater in Silver Springs. Round House Theatre also spreads the drama bug through classes, workshops, and not washing their hands after handling freshly penned manuscripts.

At Montgomery Royal Theater, six screens beam larger-than-life stars into the eyes of moviegoers during showings of recently released flicks and Hollywood blockbusters. Viewers can sink into the theater's plush, cushioned seats to absorb action-packed reels that showcase the twists of budding romance or the dire consequences of resurrecting an extinct flower’s DNA. The theater’s concession stand outfits viewers with buckets of popcorn and cups brimming with soda, providing the appropriate rations to accompany treks into the fantastical worlds of first-run films.

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The Shakespeare Theatre Company is devoted to both reinterpreting and staging traditional renditions of plays from the Bard and those who were influenced by him. Since its first production of Romeo and Juliet in 1986, the company has blossomed into a diverse, highly practiced proponent and preservationist of the playwright’s works.

Last year on Broadway, The Normal Heart won three Tony Awards for its honest, moving revival of playwright Larry Kramer's 1985 onstage wake-up call that alerted America to the urgency of the AIDS epidemic. Even with more than 25 years of history padded onto its premiere, the production still "blasts you like an open, overstoked furnace," the New York Times declares, aided by performances from The Good Wife's Patrick Breen, Brothers and Sisters' Luke MacFarlane, and thirtysomething's Patricia Wettig. The human consequences of the crisis unfold onstage as a doctor seeks answers for the growing number of sick gay men on her patients' list; a writer looks to warn the community about the epidemic; and a mayor's aide aims to deflect the political consequences of the disease. George C. Wolfe, a two-time Tony Award winner for Angels in America and Bring in da Noise, directs the drama, brewing up a stirring performance that shouts of anger, love, and hope.