What role can Avant Bard play in resisting the nihilism, intolerance, and authoritarianism plaguing the world? As part of Season 36, we offer The Resistance Readings, staged readings and other acts at 2:00 p.m. every 3rd Sunday of the month at The Filling Station in Arlington, VA. Select “Buy Tickets” to reserve your seat!
Sunday, Feb. 22, 2026, 5:00 p.m.
Avant Bard Theatre, in partnership with the DC Bushwick Book Club, presents new works of resistance inspired by Shakespeare’s Two Gentlemen of Verona, including a sneak peek of songs from Avant Bard’s March production of The Two Gentlemen of Killarney.
Food & drink will be available for purchase.
Past Resistance Readings
JANUARY 2026
Ionesco’s Rhinoceros
Adapted by Tyler Herman
Rhinoceros follows an ordinary person watching, one by one, as everyone around them transforms into rhinoceroses—a comic and unsettling metaphor rooted in the rise of fascism in 1930s Romania. This adaptation stages the many forms of ideological conformity that continue to threaten democracy and the rule of law.
DECEMBER 2025
The Deplorable
By Séamus Miller
The Deplorable is a history play for the present. Episodes (both real and imagined) from the American Revolution and Civil War collide with actual congressional testimony from four police officers in the aftermath of the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.