Washington Shakespeare Company of Arlington County, Inc.

Avant Bard Theatre began as an Arlington County Arts Incubator project in 1990. Founded as The Washington Shakespeare Company of Arlington County, Inc., Avant Bard has developed a positive reputation for high-quality and accessible art that promotes audience engagement, advances equity throughout the theater industry, and celebrates multidisciplinary forms of expression.

Avant Bard is led by a collaborative leadership team of three Producing Partners, who believe in democratizing decision-making within the theatre industry by sharing responsibilities for artistic direction and combining their professional expertise to maximize service delivery. Avant Bards Producing Partner team features three visionaries committed to fostering a culture of creativity throughout the D.C. region. This team presently includes Kathleen Akerley, Sara Barker, and Alyssa Sanders.

Avant Bard annually serves between 3,000 and 4,000 patrons from across the D.C. region through its plays, script readings and workshops, concert readings, and digital productions. Past accolades include eight Helen Hayes Awards and 38 nominations. The majority of Avant Bards productions receive the Helen Hayes Award Recommended status, a testament to Avant Bards distinguished programming and innovative approach to theater.

Avant Bard primarily performs at Gunston Arts Center, Theatre Two, a 160-seat county-managed black box theater. Performances at Gunston Arts Center provide audiences with an unparalleled opportunity to intimately engage with the arts and witness groundbreaking and thought-provoking stories immediately adjacent to the stage.

Avant Bard fosters a home for local, emerging artists seeking to nurture their craft on the professional stage. Through the organizations annual Scripts in Play festival, rising playwrights are invited to workshop a new script with the company. Many of these plays become mainstage productions in subsequent seasons. Furthermore, these workshop readings allow younger, more diverse actors, directors, and dramaturges to materially engage with Avant Bards programming and enter a competitive, but rewarding, industry.

Theater must move beyond legacy approaches to programming to attract new audiences and improve accessibility to the arts. Avant Bard expresses this commitment to transformative and radical industry change by preserving free and low-cost programming throughout the season. Community events and workshops, such as the annual play reading series and digital presentations, are always free. For each mainstage production, Avant Bard designates at least 600 tickets as Pay What You Can, which means a patron can name their ticket price, with no set minimum and no maximum on the number of tickets purchased. Starting 2024, Avant Bard provides free tickets to all Arlington County middle and high school students, and 50 percent discounts remain in place for students, veterans and service members, and their families and caregivers.

Objective 1) To offer Arlington and the D.C. region challenging, innovative productions and programming of the highest quality.

Over 30 years, Avant Bard has served as the premiere theatre for groundbreaking, thought-provoking, contemporary interpretations of the classics. Avant Bard's 8 Helen Hayes Awards (including two awarded in 2020) and 38 nominations serve as a testament to Avant Bard's artistic prowess.

Objective 2) To make theatre accessible to everyone and ensure that low- and middle-income patrons, as well as younger patrons, can afford to attend performances.

Avant Bard believes that all of Arlington and the D.C. region should have access to affordable and engaging theatre. The Theatre sets aside 10 percent of tickets as Pay What You Will (PWYW), for each performance, which means patrons are encouraged to name-their-ticket price, the only theatre in Arlington to do so. 100 percent of tickets for preview performances are also PWYW. PWYW is an unwavering promise that price will never be a barrier to attending and enjoying an Avant Bard performance. Avant Bard also offers many other community programs and performances free-of-charge or PWYW, this includes the signature Bard's Action Corner conversations and outdoor productions at Lubber Run Amphitheatre.

Objective 3) To empower citizens of all ages to effect change in their communities by exploring and telling their stories through the dynamic resources of theatre and related arts.

In alignment with numerous analyses by the National Endowment for the Arts, Americans for the Arts, and Virginia Commission for the Arts, Avant Bard prioritizes programs that engage youth and children in theatre. In recent years, Avant Bard has established several partnerships with Arlington Public Schools that engage youth in the classroom and instill in them early on an appreciation for artmaking. These partnerships typically involve an Avant Bard affiliated teaching artist providing instruction to small groups of students that cultivates their talents and nurtures the next generation of theatre-goers.

Objective 4) To foster Arlington County’s diversity and uplift representational casting that empowers historically marginalized voices and storytellers in theatre.

The Theatre’s Producing Partners, Board, and artist affiliates are committed to infusing diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) principles into Avant Bard’s productions and programming. This begins with building a mainstage season and other programs that center the voices of BIPOC playwrights, women playwrights, and queer playwrights, so that their stories are heard and appreciated. This work then continues with casting and hiring artists, directors, and designers who are a part of the communities represented in these stories and are familiar with any cultural nuances that are necessary to tell the story effectively.

Avant Bard’s unique niche lies in the intimate, edgy, and affordable work that it produces. Avant Bard’s artists perform in spaces with a maximum capacity of 125, meaning that audience members are always close to the action on stage.

Avant Bard’s 8 Helen Hayes Awards, 38 Helen Hayes nominations, and numerous Helen Hayes Recommended productions, as well as the company’s two-time inclusion in the Catalogue for Philanthropy as one of the best small nonprofits in the region, provide ample evidence that Avant Bard has earned a singular position in the theatrical community of the Washington region.

Like most theatre companies, the pandemic hit us hard. We also lost our beloved artistic director, Tom Prewitt, during the pandemic (in November 2020). Instead of takingwhat seemed to bethe logical step of closing our doors, a few committed and passionate Avant Bardians drew up a business plan to keep the theatre going under an innovative shared leadership model. Under this new model, Avant Bard was able to raise enough to continue on. Our shared leadership model has sustained us as we have been able to bring in new leaders when needed. What's next? As we state in our current strategy, Avant Bard is keenly interested in collaborations with other small professional theatres in the region. At least one production per year will be a co-production. We are also intent on fostering the new generation of theatre makers and goers. To support that goal, we will provide all Arlington County middle and high school students free admission to our productions. We will also continue and expand our high school and college internship opportunities.