History & Mission

OUR MISSION

Round House Theatre produces literary and contemporary works for the stage, conducts community-based education programs, and provides a home to diverse artists and arts organizations.  Our work is expansive: we make art to explore big ideas, broaden minds, move hearts, exercise imaginations, and – ultimately – to build community through the shared experience of live theatre.

OUR HISTORY

 Round House Theatre, now in its 34th season, is one of the leading professional theatre companies in the Washington, DC metropolitan area. The Montgomery County-based company stages over 200 performances each season at its main stage theatre in Bethesda and its black box space in Silver Spring. Blake Robison joined the company in June 2005 as Producing Artistic Director, succeeding Jerry Whiddon, who held that position for more than 20 years.

The company began life as Street ’70, a program of the Montgomery County, Maryland Department of Recreation.  Formed in 1970, it functioned without a permanent home of any kind ‑ doing outreach in the schools and community and performances in a number of spaces.

In 1977, Street ‘70 was offered a home by Montgomery County in what used to be the Bushey Drive Elementary School in Silver Spring. The building was, indeed, round ‑ and so the theatre space which would become the company’s first real home was called Round House Theatre.  Soon after the company would drop the name Street ‘70 and simply become known as Round House Theatre. The company remained part of the Montgomery County Department of Recreation until 1993 when it became a separate and independent professional theatre organization.

In 2002, Round House left its home on Bushey Drive and moved into a new 400-seat theatre in the heart of Bethesda, launching the space with a production of Thornton Wilder’s Our Town directed by Jerry Whiddon and featuring Pat Carroll as the Stage Manager. The Bethesda theatre is home to six Round House productions each season as well as performances by other arts organizations and community events and meetings.

In 2003, the company opened a second performance space, a 150-seat black box theatre on Colesville Road in downtown Silver Spring. In 2004, Round House’s new Education Center opened on Wayne Avenue in Silver Spring. The 125-seat black box performance space and the six-classroom education and outreach facility are home to a wide range of programming, serving as an artistic incubator for alternative programming, play development, world premieres, family and youth oriented professional productions, student performances, classes for children and adults, workshops for amateurs and professionals, and community-wide theatre events.

Beginning in August 2010, at the invitation of the Montgomery County Government, Round House occupied and programed new spaces in the Silver Spring Civic Building at Veteran’s Plaza, comprised of basement-level administrative offices and rehearsal facility.  These spaces allow Round House to center its operations in Silver Spring, to serve its artistic and educational mission through expanded programming, and to work with Montgomery County as the steward of public facilities that offer a creative home to diverse artists and arts organizations, and to support the continued economic development of Silver Spring.

OUR VALUES

• There is sheer joy to be found in making and sharing theatre.

• We commit ourselves to the unrelenting pursuit of excellence in both process and product.

• We place art at the center of our organization. Art unites our program initiatives, guides our community engagement, and ensures our continued success.

• The best theatre experiences are graphic and eloquent, visceral and articulate, provocative and celebratory. We embrace these qualities in our work and endeavor to share them with our audience.

• Live theatre is a unique catalyst for nurturing and strengthening community bonds. Watch, listen, think, feel, question, challenge, empathize, and change. These activities unite us as a community.

• There is a transformative power of theatre for all participants. As soon as audience and artist engage in a collective act of imagining, lives are changed—the world is changed.
• We strive to share the artistic experience with our entire community by providing multiple points of entry to the Round House experience. In this way, we make our work accessible to all ages, cultural backgrounds, and economic groups.

• We are a family of artists. From the stage, to the office, to the shops and the board room—we embrace a collaborative and creative environment.

•  Individual commitment and a generosity of spirit are essential ingredients to good artistic, management, and business practices.