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Forum Theatre

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Charter Theatre


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Source Theatre

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The Canterville Ghost




The Little Princess




Miracle on 34th Street


MORE INFO





      1.  Directing


      2.  New Works

      3.  Theatre for Young Audiences

      4.  Educational Programs

      5.  Television


      6.  References and Education

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Currently Running at Theatre J, DCThe Seagull on 16th Street
The Seagull
on 16th Street
Youth is envied, challenged and mortally wounded in this classic by the great Russian master. Inspired by Louis Malle's Vanya on 42nd Street, our own 16th Street provides the stage for a journey back to the Russian countryside in this
tale of love and loss, with laughs and heartbreak.   MORE  -  PRESS / PHOTOS

What emerges under the confident direction of John Vreeke (who helmed Forum’s much-loved Last Days of Judas Iscariot last year) is crisp, funny, and ably performed. It’s also inflected with an extra shtikl of comic energy by artistic director Ari Roth’s adaptation.  - Washington CIty Paper

John Vreeke’s direction is crisp with a speedy sense of time even with a stage clock in the audience’s view stuck at 8 PM. He has blocked this work so that the stage is filled not just with objects but with life.
- Potomac Stages

Director John Vreeke astutely goes with a more contemporary vibe by unleashing the cast like a spirited team of horses to provide a more lively interpretation than usually seen, and the actors take full advantage of the opportunity.  - DC Theatre Scene

Playwright Roth's rejigging of the script, is helped along immensely by director John Vreeke, who understands that while Chekhov deliberately labeled this work a comedy, tragedy is never distant. 
- Washington Jewish Week

Director John Vreeke has assembled a cast of solid actors, some of whom...strike a winning connection with Chekhov.  - Washington Post

The Seagull on 16th Street The Seagull on 16th Street The Seagull on 16th Street
Scenes from "The Seagull on 16th Street"


Recently Staged Productions

Cast of Heroes at MetroStageHEROES at MetroStage

Written by
Gerald Sibleyras

Translated by Tom Stoppard
Directed by John Vreeke

Three soldiers in a Parisian veterans' home pass the time with tales that are at once achingly funny and piercingly sad.  Tom Stoppard offers a brilliant new translation mixing comic curmudgeonry, camaraderie and nostalgia.  MORE ON HEROES - PRESS / PHOTOS

"Heroes" -- confidently directed by John Vreeke -- hooks you more surely than many a play that has a taut, flashy story line."
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The Washington Post

"Vreeke takes the cast through the play with the grace of classical musicians performing an etude."
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The Washington Times

"Vreeke...had a recent MetroStage audience shouting with laughter when they weren’t literally poised on the edge of their seats..."
- Washington Examiner

"John Vreeke directs the production and imbues it with his eerie sense of timing" - DC Theatre Scene

"Four-time Helen Hayes Award nominee John Vreeke returns to MetroStage to direct Heroes"
- Alexandria Times

Cast of Heroes at MetroStage Heroes at MetroStageHeroes at MetroStage










BOOMNominated for 5 Helen Hayes Awards:
BOOM
Outstanding Director, Set Design, Sound Design, Supporting Actress and Supporting Actor Nominees
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Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company must have fun sorting through the latest batch of weird, because they've unearthed a grandly wacked-out apocalypse fantasy in Peter Sinn Nachtrieb's "Boom". This is boy-meets-girl stuff that's not just twisted, but gleefully torqued.
Gilbert-Deeker   Jules is a lonely marine biology grad student who's just placed a racy personal ad online; Jo is the randy journalism major who's answered the call. Yet Jules is oddly reluctant, and the offbeat, high-strung Jo keeps passing out as she tries to leave his strange biology lab-cum-dorm room.
Sarah Marshall      Oh, and there's a crazy lady on a balcony, who's overhead pulling levers and occasionally talking to us like a "Twilight Zone" version of the Stage Manager in "Our Town."

"That is enough to send director John Vreeke and his inspired team heavenward..." 
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City Paper Year In Review
"It seems right, somehow, that the most dazzling play of the year was about a titanic battle with despair":

Helen Hayes Awards 2009 Nominee for
Outstanding Ensemble

.The Last
Days of Judas Iscariot

Stephen Adly Guirgis's play placed in a courtroom in present-day purgatory, the Bible's greatest and most unexplained villain is on trial.  Both comedic and touching, Guirgis' play asks us if we are capable of true forgiveness and real compassion.  MORE

"Director John Vreeke is a master at restraining and astutely illuminating verbose plays, and this is perhaps his most satisfying effort, a production that probes the intellect, prickles the conscience and ignites the soul."  - Washington Times

"It should not astonish you to discover that John Vreeke directs this production. Whenever a play delivers a powerful emotional message - be it
The K of D at Woolly Mammoth, or Bal Masque at Theater J,  - we seem to find Vreeke’s hand at the helm. He has done his customary excellent work here."   - DC Theatre Scene

"...John Vreeke’s superb ensemble: I saw you in that thrillingly written, urgently performed, crassly funny, somehow heartbreaking play last week, and damn if you didn’t actually make a critic cry."       - Washington City Paper


"John Vreeke seems at his best when directing plays with strong intellectual questions at their core..."  "Clearly, he's no stranger to intellectual theater." - Potomac Stages

"Forum Theatre's exhilarating production of "The Last Days of Judas Isacariot", a preposterously entertaining play..."  - Washington Post

Staged for the young companies at Forum and Alliance.
Played to Sold Out Performances - Re-Opened at H Street Playhouse in December


JOHN - E-MAIL



Nominated for FOUR  Helen Hayes Awards:

Outstanding Director
Boom
Chinese Elvis

Lady Chatterley's Lover

Born Guilty


UPCOMING PROJECTS:

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The Caretaker

by Harold Pinter

The Caretaker at The Salt Lake Acting Company
Opens September 16, 2009

"Directing a Pinter play is like working with the top language expert in the English language… no one knows how to put together sentences and pauses better than Pinter. The experience of The Caretaker is not a comfortable, romantic one. It pulls the audience into an emotional roller coaster as it depicts the realities of human nature and presents a not so pretty picture of times gone by and our times. The complexity of the play, Pinter’s masterful use of dialogue, and the depth and perception shown in Pinter’s themes all contribute to The Caretaker’s consideration as a modern masterpiece. How often do you get to do a ‘modern masterpiece’?”
 -John Vreeke




Kennedy Center

National Tour of
Chasing George Washington
Tour Begins October 10th
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Chasing George Washington
Chasing George Washington
Click For More



Dying City
Seattle Public Theatre at the BathHouse
Opens March 19, 2010

March off to an apartment in urban America for an affecting and gripping look at the fallout of war on our most intimate relationships with the Northwest premiere of Dying City by Christopher Shinn.   This gripping, psychological drama was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, and is a tour-de-force for two actors.  When a young man goes off to war, his death thousands of miles away has rippling effects on those he leaves behind.  Kelly, his widow, is a therapist who watches Law and Order because “the mystery of a death is solved and therefore symbolically reversed.” But when her dead husband’s twin brother shows up unexpectedly, what she believes to be true is called violently into question. Is the “closure” we seek after a death just an American myth?



Woolly Mammoth TheatreGruesome
Playground
Injuries


May 17th -
June 13th, 2010

Two eight-year-olds’ lives collide in the nurse’s office: Doug rode his bike off the roof and Kayleen can’t stop throwing up. As they mature from accident-prone kids to self-destructive adults, their broken hearts and broken Bones draw them ever closer.  These two rebels may only be fit for one another. But how far can one person go to heal another’s wounds?




RECENT PROJECTS

Conducted on-going Acting for Camera Workshops and Scene Study Workshops for "The Workshop" at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company
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Resident Director for ART with the National Conservatory of Dramatic Arts. 
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Manager of the Washington Theatre Legacy Project - the  education outreach program for the Helen Hayes Awards Society.



2008 ALSO INCLUDED:

In August 2008, directed the student ensemble at the National Conservatory of Dramatic Art  in:
Escape From Happiness
August 8th - 17th, 2008




2007 ALSO INCLUDED:

Directed World Premiere of:

 "Ariel Sharon Hovers Between Life and Death and Dreams of Theodore Herzl" at Theatre J. Capital Fringe Festival. 7/07
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Directed the annual benefit gala for the Imagination Stage.  10/13/07
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Wrote and produced a video tribute for Francis Sternhagen at the annual Helen Hayes Awards ceremony. 4/16/07
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Stage Director for "Jazz in Our Time" in the Concert Hall at the Kennedy Center, a gala and ceremony to honor 40 of the country's greatest Jazz Musicians and Artists. 3/3/07.
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Directed "Shakespeare's Will", a new play, at the Canadian Embassy for the 2007 Shakespeare in Washington Festival.



* * * * * *     SHOWS  DIRECTED - In Order of Most Recent     * * * * * *
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The Seagull On 16th Street at Theatre J The Seagull
On 16th
Street


This classic provides the stage for a journey back to the Russian countryside in this tale of love and loss, with laughs and  heartbreak.


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The Last Days of Judas Iscariot

Stephen Adly Guirgis's play is placed in a courtroom in present-day purgatory, the Bible's most unexplained villain is put on trial.  [TWO RUNS]


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Chasing George Washington

Dee Dee, Jose, and Annie accidentally knock George Washington out of his portrait and into real life--turning their tour into an  adventure.


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Martha, Josie & The Chinese Elvis

A British dominatrix and her unconventional family and friends realize the meaning of the Feast of Epiphany.

 
Bal Masque

Three unusual couples survive Truman Capote’s infamous Black and White Ball and are forced to face reality.

 
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Heroes at MetroStage HEROES



Three soldiers in a Parisian veterans' home pass the time with tales that are at once achingly funny and piercingly sad.


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Drunk Enough To Say
I Love You

The intriguing dissection of a dysfunctional relationship, while also an incisive look at U.S. foreign policy and the seduction of power.


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The K of D



After a car accident kills her twin brother, young Charlotte becomes a fascination to others when it appears she has received an eerie power.


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Opus

A world famous String Quartet deals with the loss of a member as they prepare an all important performance for the White House.

 
Death & The King's Horseman  

Part Shakespearean, part Greek Tragedy, a folk tale of ritual suicide in British Colonial Nigeria.
 
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BOOM



A wacked-out apocalypse fantasy featuring a racy online ad, a lonely marine biology grad, a journalism major and
a crazy lady on a balcony.


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This
Perfect
World

A powerful new play by Chris Stezin, examining the free- floating anxiety that has characterized America since the 9/11 events.


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Fiddler On The Roof


The story about a struggle of a people to survive, to live, and to be at home, and how a belief system creates and also destroys life.


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The Monument

A grieving mother of a daughter raped & murdered by a young soldier convicted of multiple war crimes are brought together.

 
For The Pleasure of Seeing Her Again
The loving memoir of a gay son’s mother, as they help each other through formative life events.
 

The Tattooed Girl

Joyce Carol Oates’s story of the relationship between an anti-semetic coke-head street girl and her growing love for an ailing Jewish professor.

 
Homebody/ Kabul

Kushner’s epic drama of Afghanistan as seen through the eyes of a troubled British family in search of a mother who has mysteriously vanished in the country.


 
Death & The Maiden

Ariel Dorfman’s statement of world wide oppression seen through the eyes of three people intimately involved in the Chilean dictatorship and the resulting reign of terror.

 
Medea, The Musical

A satirical musical fantasy about a gay man mysteriously falling in love with his leading lady in a musical production of Medea.

Our Lady of 121st Street

The 15 year reunion of an extraordinary mix of Spanish Harlem school friends as they grieve the death & disappearance of the Sister who raised and taught them.

 
Lady Chatterley's Lover

DH Lawrence’s most popular story of the privileged Lady Chatterley’s love affair with the Games Keeper and the affect on her marriage to the wheelchair bound Clifford Chatterley.
  Born Guilty

Second and third generation children of Nazi’s and how they deal with their guilt as seen through the eyes of Jewish author, Peter Sichrovsky, from his novel of the same name.

 
Helen Hayes
Awards Show

Directed the 19th Annual Helen Hayes Awards show at the Concert Hall in the Kenedy Center for the Performing Arts.

One Good Marriage

A couple returning from their honeymoon are shocked to find that all of the guests at their wedding are missing.


 
Red Herring

A McCarthy era satire about how three couples, including Joseph McCarthey’s daughter, a young Jewish scientist, a Russian defector and a detective all find each other. 

  Tiny Alice

Edward Albee’s epic surreal, mind-bending story of a priest and his descent into the difficult, mysterious and even tantalizing failure of his faith.


  Gala Event:
"Jazz In Our Time"


Stage Director for “Jazz in Our Time” in the Concert Hall at the Kennedy Center…a gala extravaganza and ceremony to honor 40 of this countrys greatest Jazz Musicians.
Directing Resume       New Works       Theatre for Young Audiences
Educational Programs        Television        Adapted Plays on Audio Books