Signature Theatre (Arlington, Virginia)

Founded in 1989,[1] Signature Theatre is known for its productions of contemporary musicals and plays, reinventions of classic musicals, and development of new work. Under the leadership of Co-Founder and former Artistic Director Eric D. Schaeffer and Managing Director Maggie Boland, the company has staged 59 world premiere productions, including 19 new musical commissions. Signature is home to the single largest musical theater commissioning project in the United States, The American Musical Voices Project.

Cameron Mackintosh, Terrence McNally, James Lapine, John Kander, and Fred Ebb are among those that have presented works here. Since 1991, Signature has had a long relationship with Stephen Sondheim, producing 30 of his musicals, revues and concerts—more than any other professional theater in the country.[2]

The theatre established a Sondheim Award "as a tribute to America's most influential contemporary musical theatre composer". The first award, to Stephen Sondheim, was presented at an April 27, 2009 benefit with performances by Bernadette Peters, Michael Cerveris, Will Gartshore and Eleasha Gamble.[3][4][5] The 2020 awardee is Carol Burnett. Recent awardees include Cameron Mackintosh (2017), John Kander (2018), and Audra McDonald (2019).[6]

In 1989, in response to DC's theater scene that was dominated by large venues that presented mostly traditional plays and the desire to create a “signature” brand of provocative works, graphic designer and performer Eric Schaeffer founded Signature Theatre with actor Donna Migliaccio. Signature first began in Arlington county's Gunston Middle School auditorium, and in 1991 Signature presented their first production of a musical, Sweeney Todd, a stand-out hit, that put Signature on the map, earned four Helen Hayes Awards and solidified Signature's (and Eric Schaeffer's) reputation as an intrepid producer of Stephen Sondheim's work.

In 1993, Signature Theatre converted a defunct auto garage into a blackbox theater, and remained there for the following thirteen years. While in the “garage,” Signature grew into one of the Washington area's leading producers of musical theater.

In January 2007, Signature completed a $16 million capital campaign for a dramatic new two-theater facility that tripled its former garage space and now serves as the cultural anchor of Arlington's Village at Shirlington.

On June 7, 2009, Signature received theater's highest artistic honor – the 2009 Regional Theatre Tony Award® – in recognition of artistic excellence.

Today, attracting talent from the DC metropolitan region and New York, Signature has grown to reach more than 100,000 people annually from the Washington, DC region and beyond and garners praise from local and national press including The Washington Post, The New York Times, Entertainment Weekly, The Wall Street Journal, BroadwayWorld.com, Playbill, Time, Variety, USA Today and American Theatre. Signature has won 107 Helen Hayes Awards for excellence in the Washington, DC region's professional theater and has been honored with 431 nominations.

Eric Schaeffer resigned on June 23, 2020, amidst multiple allegations of sexual harassment and assault.[7]

Exterior of Signature Theatre above the Shirlington Library. The doors to the library are on the right, the theater entrance on the left. The lobby is behind the 14' high by 140' long second floor glass wall

In 1989 Signature Theatre began production in the Arlington County Gunston Arts Center.[8]^{: 12, 122} This original home was in the library of a former middle school which had been converted to a black box theater. They rapidly outgrew this facility and in 1993 acquired a defunct Auto Bumper Plating shop, AKA "The Garage", which they converted into a 136-seat black box.[8]^: 32–40 In 2007, however, in partnership with Arlington County, Virginia, Signature moved into a new $16 million theater complex built in The Village at Shirlington.[2][9] The first floor of the building houses the Shirlington Branch of the Arlington County Public Library.[10] The upper three floors house the theater. The complex has an industrial decor, with exposed particle board, pipes and metal sheeting. It includes two state-of-the-art black box theaters. The larger, christened "Max" in honor of Maxine Isaacs, seats 275 and can expand to accommodate 350 patrons. The smaller "Ark", named in honor of Arlene and Robert Kogod, can hold 99. The theaters are built as "square box within a square box, floating on hockey pucks. At $30 a puck. It is built like a soundstage" In addition to the two performance spaces, the complex contains a lobby, meeting rooms, three rehearsal spaces, four individual dressing rooms, three shared dressing rooms, three showers, a cast greenroom, a separate orchestra greenroom, three kitchen areas, scene, prop, and costume shops.[2][11] The large lobby was named by donors Gilbert and Jaylee Mead in honor Gilbert's late son Rob Mead.[2]

• Sweeney Todd By Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler; August 27 – September 21, 1991.
• Assassins By Stephen Sondheim and John Weidman; August 20 – October 3, 1992.
• The Fix by John Dempsey and Dana P. Rowe; March 17 – May 10, 1998. This production was significant because it began a long-term relationship between the theatre and Cameron Mackintosh
• Grand Hotel, By Luther Davis, Robert Wright, George Forrest, Maury Yeston; August 21 – October 7, 2001.
• Signature's 2007–2008 Kander and Ebb Celebration, featuring Kiss of the Spider Woman starring Natascia Diaz, Will Chase, and Hunter Foster, then The Happy Time, and finally The Visit which starred Chita Rivera and George Hearn.[12]
• Les Misérables by Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schönberg. Based on a novel by Victor Hugo; December 2, 2008 – February 22, 2009.
• Glory Days by James Gardiner and Nick Blaemire; January 15 – February 17, 2008
• Giant by Michael John LaChuisa and Sybille Pearson; April 28 – May 31, 2009
• First You Dream- The Music of Kander & Ebb; September 10 – 27, 2009
• Chess by Benny Andersson, Björn Ulvaeus, Tim Rice; Aug. 10 – October 3, 2010
• Really Really, Paul Downs Colaizzo; January 31 – March 25, 2012
• Sunday In The Park With George, by Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine; August. 5 – September 21, 2014
• Diner by Sheryl Crow and Barry Levinson; December 9 – January 25, 2015
• West Side Story, by Stephen Sondheim, Arthur Laurents, Leonard Bernstein; December 8 – Jan. 24, 2016
• Jelly's Last Jam, by George C. Wolfe, Susan Birkenhead, Jelly Roll Morton, Luther Henderson August 2 – September 11, 2016
• Freaky Friday, by Tom Kitt, Brian Yorkey, Bridget Carpenter, October 4 – November 20, 2016
• Titanic, by Maury Yeston and Peter Stone December 13 – January 29, 2017
• A Little Night Music, by Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler August 15 – October 8, 2017

• 2009 – Regional Theatre Tony Award[13]

431 Helen Hayes Nominations with 107 Awards (as of 2019) including the following

• 2015 Outstanding Resident Musical – Sunday in the Park With George
• 2014 Outstanding Resident Musical – Hello, Dolly!
• 2013 Outstanding Resident Musical – Dreamgirls
• 2013 Charles MacArthur Award – Paul Downs Colaizzo for Really Really
• 2011 Outstanding Resident Musical – Hairspray
• 2009 Outstanding Resident Musical – Les Misérables.[14]
• 2006 Outstanding Resident Musical – Urinetown.[14]
• 2005 Outstanding Resident Musical – Allegro.[14]
• 2001 Outstanding Resident Musical – Side Show.[14]
• 1999 Outstanding Resident Play – Nijinsky's Last Dance.[14]
• 1997 Outstanding Resident Musical – Passion.[14]
• 1995 Outstanding Resident Musical – Into the Woods.[14]
• 1993 Outstanding Resident Musical – Assassins.[14]
• 1992 Outstanding Resident Musical – Sweeney Todd.[14]

The Signature Theatre offers a number of programs to both writers and performing artists, and to the community..

• Signature in the Schools is a program designed for Arlington County high school students, culminating in an annual all-student production.
• Overtures, a two-week musical theater intensive course for performers age 18 and older, is held to encourage young musical theatre performers in the area. A separate, 'pre-Overtures' program (for ages 14–17) exists for younger students, called "Stage One".
• "Signature Conservatory," an innovative program for advanced high school actors, began in fall 2018.
• The Cabaret series features professional cabaret singers from Washington and New York City.

Signature Theatre is a member of League of Resident Theatres (LORT) using the League administered collective bargaining agreements with Actors' Equity Association (AEA), the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society (SDC), and United Scenic Artists (USA).[15]

Signature Theatre is a member of the League of Washington Theaters (LOWT).[16]

• Helen Hayes Award
• Theater in Washington, D.C.

• Official website
• arlingtonunwired article, date unknown