Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!americast.com!americast.com!americast-post Newsgroups: americast.twt.life From: americast-post@AmeriCast.Com Organization: American Cybercasting Approved: americast-post@AmeriCast.com Subject: Arena duo feted for staging a coup Date: Tue, 27 Oct 92 13:27:07 EST Message-ID: \SE E;LIFE;ABOUT TOWN \HD Arena duo feted for staging a coup \BY Siobhan McDonough \CR THE WASHINGTON TIMES Forty-two years ago, Zelda and Thomas Fichandler wholeheartedly embarked on a lifelong commitment to develop theater in Washington. They began their journey at the Hippodrome at Ninth Street and New York Avenue NW, scraping gum off 247 seats before opening the doors of the old movie palace to the public and rechristening it the Arena Stage. A few years later, they would moved to the former Heurich Brewery - which could accommodate 500 people - in Foggy Bottom. But the community's growing interest in the performing arts soon prompted the Fichandlers to take more serious strides when they decided to build their own theater-in-the-round on a plot of land on Maine Avenue in Southwest. "We lived moment to moment," Mrs. Fichandler recalls of the proliferating playhouse - it now has three stages - she and her former husband started in 1960. "I kept thinking all of my life, 'What is your duty? It is today's demands.' And the rest grew from there." On Thursday, exactly 32 years after Arena's groundbreaking ceremony, about 800 guests celebrated the official dedication of the Fichandler Stage in honor of founding director Zelda Fichandler and executive director emeritus Thomas Fichandler. Before joining other guests for the opening night of William Congreve's "The Way of the World," a crowd of 220 diplomats, theater patrons, politicos and arts community leaders attended a reception at Norwegian Ambassador and Mrs. Kjeld Vibe's stately Massachusetts Avenue residence. The occasion highlighted the Fichandlers' decades-long efforts to transform a formerly segregated and artistically limited enclave into a "world-class" theater scene. "Zelda and Tom revolutionized theater in Washington and around the country," said former theater critic Richard Coe, who witnessed the dramatic changes. "They took chances and really paved the way for professional theaters like the Kennedy Center that came later. They proved that theater could thrive in Washington." And thrive it certainly did, with a long list of accomplishments for the Arena to brag about along the way. Among them, one would certainly have to mention it's being the first local theater to admit blacks to the audience, the first American company to tour the Soviet Union and the first outside New York to receive a Tony Award. Describing the presence of 22 local theaters as providing plenty of "healthy competition" and making the city more "culturally alive," Arena Stage Artistic Director Douglas Wager joked, "You don't have to go all the way to New York to see good theater. You can stay here and still not see it all." When asked if Washington and New York theater scenes could even be compared, Mrs. Fichandler, who is now artistic director of the New York-based Acting Company, proved her local loyalty. "It's all here. Plus there are trees!" Among the guests were Swedish Ambassador Anders Thunborg and wife Ingalill, Arena Stage trustee Richard Snowdon, Cultural Alliance Executive Director Leila Smith, Washington Performing Arts founder Patrick Hayes, Ford's Theatre Managing Director Zack Manna, Shakespeare Theatre Artistic Director Michael Kahn, C&P Telephone Co. President Delano Lewis, Cafritz Foundation President Martin Atlas, United Arts Organization President Aldus Chapin and Arena Stage Associate Director Kyle Donnelly. This article is copyright 1992 The Washington Times. Redistribution to other sites is not permitted except by arrangement with American Cybercasting Corporation. For more information, send-email to usa@AmeriCast.COM