Eight DC actors will leave for the Prague Fringe Festival on Thursday to perform a play by Vaclav Havel, former president of the Czech Republic. The group is from the Alliance for New Music-Theatre, a nonprofit theatre group that was asked by the Czech Embassy last year to do Havel's Unveiling. Artistic director Susan Galbraith, above, also wrote Vanek Unleased, which is part of the nonprofit’s Vaclav Havel project. She says at first it felt awkward for an American theatre group to present such an important Czech figure to Czech audiences, but it’s been well-received by US audiences.

The Alliance for New Music-Theatre was launched in the '90s to create new collaborations between music and theatre. It now partners with DC organizations (like the Czech Embassy) to get audiences to look at compelling issues. One project brought eight artists from Burma to tell the story of contemporary Myanmar through music and dance. The alliance's Live & About program also takes small groups of people to six to eight live performances and moderates a discussion. Susan says DC used to play third or fourth fiddle to New York and Chicago for performing arts but now it's No. 2 for number of theaters and production houses. (We'll really make it when people come to DC to see Chicago.)