"Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater, under the leadership of Artistic Director Molly Smith and Executive Producer Edgar Dobie, is a national center dedicated to American voices and artists. Arena Stage produces plays of all that is passionate, profound, deep and dangerous in the American spirit, and presents diverse and groundbreaking work from some of the best artists around the country. Arena Stage is committed to commissioning and developing new plays and impacts the lives of over 10,000 students annually through its work in community engagement. Now in its seventh decade, Arena Stage serves a diverse annual audience of more than 300,000.
PERFORMANCE SPACES:
The Kreeger Theater, a 514-seat, fan-shaped space with a modified thrust stage, is updated with current technology and amenities, while retaining the qualities that make it one of the most artist- and audience-friendly spaces in the country: extraordinary flexibility, excellent acoustics, flawless sightlines and remarkably intimate interaction between actor and audience.
The Arlene and Robert Kogod Cradle is a unique, oval-shaped 200-seat theater with flexible seating and the latest technical capabilities. This theater is designed to cradle the risk and innovation required of first, second and third productions of new and developing plays.
The Fichandler Stage stands as the iconic, original theater space, with its epic, in-the-round auditorium and steeply raked seating tiers. The spirit of the Fichandler is celebrated in this 683-seat venue where patrons are never more than eight rows away from the stage, allowing the entire audience to be closer to the stage than ever before.