Round House Theatre Bethesda

Mission Statement:
Round House Theatre produces literary adaptations and contemporary works for the stage, conducts community-based education programs, and provides a home to diverse artists and arts organizations. Our work is expansive: we make art to explore big ideas, broaden minds, move hearts, exercise imaginations, and ultimately to build community through the shared experience of live theatre.

Our Values:
There is sheer joy to be found in making and sharing theatre.

We commit ourselves to the unrelenting pursuit of excellence in both process and product.

We place art at the center of our organization. Art unites our program initiatives, guides our community engagement, and ensures our continued success.

The best theatre experiences are graphic and eloquent, visceral and articulate, provocative and celebratory. We embrace these qualities in our work and endeavor to share them with our audience.

Live theatre is a unique catalyst for nurturing and strengthening community bonds. Watch, listen, think, feel, question, challenge, empathize, and change. These activities unite us as a community.

There is a transformative power of theatre for all participants. As soon as audience and artist engage in a collective act of imagining, lives are changed the world is changed.

We strive to share the artistic experience with our entire community by providing multiple points of entry to the Round House experience. In this way, we make our work accessible to all ages, cultural backgrounds, and economic groups.

We are a family of artists. From the stage, to the office, to the shops and the board room we embrace a collaborative and creative environment.

Individual commitment and a generosity of spirit are essential ingredients to good artistic, management, and business practices.

About Us:
One of the largest and most acclaimed professional theatre companies in the metro Washington, DC area, Round House Theatre is led by Producing Artistic Director Blake Robison, who joined the company in June 2005. Based in Montgomery County, Maryland, Round House Theatre produces nearly 200 theatrical performances each season at its 400-seat Bethesda theatre and 150-seat black box theatre in Silver Spring. The company operates an education center in Silver Spring and annually reaches over 40,000 patrons there and across the region with strong educational programs.

Round House Theatre's productions have received 23 Helen Hayes Awards including "Outstanding Resident Production" for The Drawer Boy (2004), Home (2002), The Glass Menagerie (2001) and the "Charles MacArthur Award for Outstanding New Play" in 2003 for Shakespeare, Moses, and Joe Papp. The company's 2004 production of The Diary of Anne Frank received three Helen Hayes Awards, prompting The Washington Post to deem the show "a technical powerhouse." Most recently the company received thirteen 2006 Helen Hayes Award nominations in thirteen separate categories for its productions of columbinus, Once on This Island, Camille, and A Year with Frog and Toad. Martin Desjardins received the 2006 Helen Hayes Award for "Outstanding Sound Design" for his work on columbinus.

Round House Theatre is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit corporation. The theatre receives major support from Montgomery County, the Maryland State Arts Council (an agency funded by the State of Maryland and the National Endowment for the Arts), and the Arts and Humanities Council of Montgomery County.