Jordan Wright
December 6, 2010
 Kevin Harr (Jacob Marley’s Ghost), Steve Izant (Ebenezer Scrooge), and Kathleen Lovain (Young Jacob Marley’s Ghost) Far be it from me to play the Grinch with Charles Dickens’ classic Christmas tale. But it’s clear from the opening scenes of “Mrs. Bob Cratchit’s Wild Christmas Binge” at The Little Theatre of Alexandria that there is no binge coming, unless you count Gladys Cratchit’s suicide attempts by leaping into the Thames River as holiday fancy. And there is nothing wild that will ever unfold, unless your idea of that notion is twenty children locked in a cellar with a single raw fish as nourishment.
 Steve Izant (Ebenezer Scrooge) and Maria Simpkins (The Ghost of Christmas Past) What you have here is a mess from the get-go that has no business being on a legitimate stage. Off-key singing, stilted acting, a slog-of-a-script largely untouched by actual humor. The barbs are countless and dated. Scrooge in partnership with Enron’s Kenneth Lay, handicapped children (Ghost to Tiny Tim: “He’s so cute and small and gimpy.” Mrs. Cratchit to Tiny Tim: “Are you blind as well as cripple?”) Tourette’s Syndrome jokes, miscasting, lack of sound effects or musical transitions during dark set changes and mumbling children (Unquotable due to inability to decipher the muffled code.). Add to that awkward choreography, afterthought set design and costumes that had a better life at the Goodwill.
 Maria Simpkins (The Ghost of Christmas Past), Steve Izant (Ebenezer Scrooge), Kathleen Lovain (Cratchit Child 1), Aimee Meher-Homji (Gladys Cratchit), Julian Worth (Cratchit Child 2) (Front) James Senavitis (Bob Cratchit) and Peter Johnson (Tiny Tim) Dear Theatregoers, it is only through my commitment to you to witness every shard of any play I review to its glorious, or in this case most inglorious, denouement that stopped me from the pleasure I would have had if I’d been able to exit after the opening ten minutes. But I stayed glued to my seat till the end with the dysfunctional Cratchits (The children, who Mrs. Cratchit refuses to give names to, get a certain fast food chain’s Happy Meals for Christmas dinner while she goes off to become Leona Helmsley. Does anyone even remember her?)
 Aimee Meher-Homji (Gladys Cratchit), Gary Stephans (Bartender), Kevin Harr (Gentleman in Bar), and Geoff Baskir (Gentleman in Bar) The only redeeming social value from this dreary production is a death-defying rescue by actress, Maria Simpkins, playing the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future. Sign me up to be the first in line wherever she pops up next as long as she’s not singing. Simpkins’ lightening fast delivery, coupled with her ace comedic timing and talent, should be featured in a solo show without the ghostly shackles of such a dismal play and cast.
For tickets call 703 683-0496 or visit www.TheLittleTheatre.com.
“Mrs. Bob Cratchit’s Wild Christmas Binge” runs from November 26th till December 18th.
A Christmas Carol
The Little Theatre of Alexandria
Jordan Wright
December 6, 2010
 (L to R) Maya Brettell, Natalie Turkevich, Aaron Lewis, and Shawn Perry As interpreted by Donna Ferragut “A Christmas Carol” currently playing at The Little Theatre of Alexandria is an American love letter to Charles Dickens’ treasured story of the haunting and self-redemption of the miserly moneylender Ebenezer Scrooge. Adapted for the stage by Ferragut and drawn from the original text, it gives us a portrait of mid-century nineteenth England.
Set in London Town during the Christmas season this charmingly mounted production evokes Harper’s Weekly lithographs of elegant skating parties and Victorian parlors filled with ladies in rustling silks and gentlemen in their cravats. It opens with a picture postcard of a chorus in period finery singing “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” and the tone is set for an intelligent rendition of the iconic novella filled with songs of the day.
 (L to R) Clare Baker (Juliet Wilkins), Holden Brettell (Boy Scrooge), Melissa Ledesma-Leese (Christmas Past), and Philip Baedecker (Scrooge) Straight away you are alerted to the superb acting and direction with a captivating cast led by Phillip Baedecker as Scrooge…his dark and grisly delivery of “Bah Humbug” sets your spine on edge from the start. In a warning the townspeople refer to the curmudgeon-on-a-mission as “solitary as an oyster” and warn all “to keep their distance”.
Larry Grey’s portrayal of the humble, obsequious clerk, Bob Cratchit, is a study in restraint and we are lulled with posed vignettes of his adoring wife, cheerful beribboned daughters and the crippled Tiny Tim, played by the adorable Benjamin Leese.
 (L to R) Philip Baedecker (Scrooge), Larry Grey (Bob Cratchit), and Benjamin Leese (Tiny Tim) In this world of wassailing Ebenezer’s nephew, Fred, played by another local top-notch actor Brandon DeGroat who plays six other roles here, gathers with his wife and friends around the Christmas tree. It was during these times that the tree, as the symbol of Christmas, had just been introduced by Queen Victoria’s consort Prince Albert as a new holiday tradition. With mistletoe kissing games and caroling the young couples portray our ideal picture of the season.
Yet the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future arrive to interrupt the proceedings with supernatural aplomb as they haunt the dreams of old Ebenezer. Melissa Ledsma-Leese, Dru Hodges and Shawn Perry bring a credible spookiness and gravitas to their roles and the lighting and eerie miasma set the unearthly tone for their visitations.
When Scrooge realizes his failings, “Why did I walk through crowds of my fellow human being with eyes downcast?” we embrace the true spirit of Christmas along with him. Enjoy this nostalgic tale with a top-drawer cast.
For tickets call 703 683-0496 or visit www.TheLittleTheatre.com.
“A Christmas Carol” runs from December 3rd till December 12th.
Special to the Alexandria Times
Jordan Wright
November 22, 2010
 Donna as Baby Fan On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me. 31 well-known Broadway show tunes, 23 wig changes, 20 separate costume changes and 4 sprightly cast members in a theatre where there are no bad seats in one 90-minute show.
In “A Broadway Christmas Carol”, lyricist Kathy Feininger’s version of “A Christmas Carol”, spirits, ghosts, an orphan, and a Class A tightwad go classical burlesque to the max. The production, which played to sold-out audiences at Round House Theatre in Silver Spring for seven consecutive years, has at last returned to our area after a six-year absence.
From the get-go you’re on to the spoof when “The Woman Who Isn’t Scrooge” (as she’s referred to in the program) played by Donna Migliaccio, belts out “deck the halls with lots of show tunes” to the familiar strains of “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum”. The very versatile Migliaccio does a mean Ethel Merman impression and a slinky hip-grinding Mae West…or is it Sophie Tucker…character. In “Turn Back Old Man”, a take-off from “Godspell”, she urges Scrooge to “Repent! and forswear his greedy ways”. It’s a Vaudevillian Christmas tale from Merry Olde England, mined gleefully from Charles Dickens. We know what’s going to happen but we don’t know how in hell we’ll get there as the parodies come at you fast and furious in this topsy-turvy version with all the holiday trimmings.
 Matt Anderson as Ghost of Christmas Past and Peter Boyer as Scrooge -Photo Credit Colin Hovde Peter Boyer gives us Ebenezer Scrooge as a man in full played with delicious aplomb when he intros with “I’m In the Money” cadged from Broadway’s “42nd Street”. His natty Scrooge is a petty tyrant who enjoys wielding his power over the local peasantry, in particular his employee, the kindly and impoverished, Bob Cratchit, referred to in the program as “The Man Who Isn’t Scrooge”. Cratchit’s character, along with a host of other incarnations, are played handily here by Matthew Anderson. Watch for Anderson’s offbeat Tiny Tim and Migliacci’s vamping to shatter your funny bone.
The Cratchits know “It’s a Hard Knock Life” (yes, Annie, you’re not the only downtrodden Brit). And, in a campy ensemble version of “Phantom of the Opera”, called “The Phantom of the Future” that includes the piano player and the production’s musical director, Aaron Broderick, Scrooge comes to his senses. Throughout the antics Anderson and Migliaccio shape-shift into umpteen roles with plenty of old-fashioned hoofing, including two-steps, tangos and even the Charleston thrown in for good measure.
With so many numbers, characters, and countless surprise entrances and exits, the timing had better be tight and it is, thanks to the clever choreography of Nancy Harry and the myriad costume changes engineered by Costume Designer Janine Gulisano. A tip-top cast with slick direction from Larry Kaye and reams of comic ditties-with-a-twist add up to a holly jolly Christmas musical.
MetroStage is located at 1201 North Royal Street in Alexandria. To order tickets online call 1-800-494-8497 or visit www.MetroStage.org. “A Broadway Christmas Carol” runs through December 19th.
Special to the Alexandria Times
Jordan Wright
November 14, 2010
 Nancy Robinette and Sherri L. Edelen in Walter Cronkite is Dead.Photo credit Scott Suchman. Maggy and Patty don’t like each other very much. They are cut from different cloth. Maggy, played by two-time Helen Hayes award-winner Nancy Robinette, is a tight-lipped, broad-hipped disdainful pedant, whose society roots provide fodder for Patty’s rural Christian-based Tennessee-bred political notions. The setting is the stained glass windows and soft yellow color of the Cesar Pelli-designed National Airport in Washington DC, where our disparate travelers meet when their respective flights have been weather delayed. They share a table and gut-spilling conversation. Patty is hostile to Maggy’s elitism and Maggy to Patty’s boorishness, until they let down their hair after some mutual tippling. Patty bashes the actress, Maggie Smith as being too high-falutin’. Maggy could be Maggie Smith herself.
The wine-swilling Maggy mourns the end of pre-Walter Cronkite days when people dressed properly for dinner and the theatre in gloves and gowns, while the feisty motormouth Patty, played with rat-a-tat timing by Sherri Edelen, bemoans her daughter’s alienation. Country wise Patty is an over-explainer…too much information for the staid Maggy…until they swap the anxieties, failures and neuroses that construct their personal lives and discover that they are not all that dissimilar. Scratch beneath the surface of a middle-aged woman, playwright Joe Calarco seems to say, and you’ll find a lonely, frightened, frustrated widow… in this case two of them.
”Walter Cronkite is Dead” made me nostalgic for the brilliant writing and acting in the old TV sitcom “The Golden Girls”, with its weekly life lessons in men, children, politics, and sex-after-50 as seen through the eyes of Bea Arthur, Betty White, Rue McLanahan and Estelle Getty. And though there are no more seasoned actors than Edelen and Robinette, the comedy here feels strained, as their characters in turn point out each other’s faults and pat each other on the back in dizzying fashion.
Calarco uses a quote from Walter Cronkite to explore the political landscape in his play, “In seeking truth you have to get both sides,” Cronkite sagely said. Yet Calarco pokes and probes our oversimplified media-defined profiles of Red and Blue States and comes up empty-handed. He seems to ask, “Are they really opposites or merely frustrated voters with a different message?” In this play the lines become blurred as the cold hard assumptions Patty and Maggy make about each other are merely glossed over through sympathy or pity.
There is self-examination, as when Maggy’s long-repressed spirit emerges, “I want some chaos in my life,” she pleads. “My borders need to change!” And Patty shows self-determination as she travels without her grown daughter for the first time. But the comedic relief comes with a bittersweet price in this existential exercise being promoted as a comedy.
You may note as I did that Calarco has managed to get his play written, produced, cast, directed, staged, slotted for an opening, and promoted in a major venue in a little over a year since Walter Cronkite passed away. Was he prescient or is it that easy to write and mount these days? Very encouraging for up and coming playwrights! In any case the production is a tribute to his ability and notoriety and that of the two cast members for whom he specifically wrote this piece.
Jordan Wright
November 15, 2010
 Chris Matthews (MSNBC) and Kevin Spacey protraying Jack Abramoff in Casino Jack. Photo credit to Yulia Mikhalchuk. Cage rattler, fire breather, access-peddler and former restaurant owner Jack Abramoff, is the subject of the new film “Casino Jack”. It’s a slick, taut, expose of his rise and crash career in the political arena and should be compulsive viewing for the freshmen, and women, congress who have just arrived in town for their orientation and swearing-in.
If anyone was ever hoist by his own egotistical petard it was this uber-lobbyist to the slick, powerful and unknowing patsies, who has been serving his five-year plus sentence in Cumberland Federal Prison. Abramoff who believed, “The influence we wield is more important than the air you breathe.” has probably been hearing that from his current jailers.
The recent DC screening, attended by celeb Kevin Spacey, Chris Matthews, Joan Harmon, Elizabeth Bagley, Vicki Kennedy and Lani Hay, was hosted by The Creative Coalition and Lanmark Technologies. Matthews, who cautioned incoming pols, “You’ve got to come here with a moral compass.”, held a Q and A with Spacey who portrays Abramoff.
Spacey defined the role of Casino Jack as having, “ some myths, some truths and some red herrings.” He clones Abramoff with brio and sleaze.
The film proved to have sound advice for local political wives when Abramoff wife, Pam played by Kelly Preston, tells Jack, “We have no friends, we only have people you do business with.”
 Robin Bronk of The Creative Coalition and Lani Hay of Lanmark Technology, Inc. Photo credit to Yulia Mikhalchuk. Rachelle Lefevre does a fine job portraying DC journalist and public affairs consultant, Emily Miller, who single-handedly brings down their House of Cards. And Jon Lovitz as Adam Kidan, their smarmy cohort, is delicious.
But perhaps the most revealing line of the evening came when Matthews quipped, “Self-deprecation is one of my ruses.” So that’s how he catches his interviewees off guard!
Abramoff has been working at Baltimore’s Tov Pizzeria since June. He’ll be released from a local halfway house next month. Last known employment for partner-in-crime, Mike Scanlon, brilliantly played by Barry Pepper, was as a lifeguard in Rehoboth Beach. Could it be he’s looking out for sharks circling the waters? (Can you put the words “sun” and “cruise” in a sentence?) Seems it pays to be vigilant.
Jordan Wright
November 2010
 Sylver Logan Sharp - photo credit to Roy Cox Photography  Lori Williams at her CD launch of Healing Within at MetroStage- photo by Phelan Marc Three separate CD launches this month took me from Alexandria, VA’s MetroStage to Easton, MD’s Avalon Theatre.
Lori Williams has performed with the greats – Keter Betts, Jerry Butler, Jazzmaster Slide Hampton and Ben E. King to cull but a few from a long list of collaborations. In this recent concert she performed the numbers from her debut CD, “Lori Williams, Healing Within” at MetroStage earlier last month to a hugely receptive audience.
William’s sensually sophisticated style is nuanced with her gospel roots. Watching her slink across the stage you just have to lean back and wonder how such tremendously complex and rhythmic vocals can come from her tiny frame.
In a twofer Sylver Logan Sharp, a flaming redheaded minx formerly of the disco band Chic, opened for longtime friend Williams. The sizzling Sharp performs Tuesday nights throughout November at the Bohemian Taverns. She will make you jump out of your seat and root for every impossible note she hits.
 Erin Dickins at the Easton's Avalon Theatre Break out the martinis and the silver cocktail shaker for song stylist Erin Dickins who thrilled the packed house at the art deco Avalon Theatre in Easton with songs from her newest CD, “Nice Girls”. Dickins sophisticated scat, swing and ballads remind the listener that she was one of the founding members of Manhattan Transfer. With a nine-piece backup band that has more industry awards than an evening’s worth of Grammies, Dickins tore the place up, tossing her signature pearls to the crowd. She has performed with the likes of James Taylor, Linda Ronstadt, Bette Midler, James Brown, Randy Neuman, Roberta Flack, Peabo Bryson, Barry Manilow, Leonard Cohen, Dr. John, Paul Butterfield and Levon Helm.
Special to the Alexandria Times
Jordan Wright
November 6, 2010
 Oklahoma! Illustration by Douglas Fraser Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater’s choice of Oklahoma! as its inaugural show for its glamorous new theatre complex has been questioned around town for weeks. I’ve heard comments ranging from, “I can’t imagine why they would do that old show for their first big spectacle!” to “It’s been staged in every high school in America!” Well, all that is true and irrelevant too.
Oklahoma! set on the Great Plains of the Midwest, is certainly one of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s quintessential American musicals and it is only fitting that Arena Stage would choose such a theme to reflect their American Theater nomenclature. With its sweeping score and themes of land rushes and pioneer settlements (who doesn’t know its theme song “where the wind comes sweepin’ down the plains”), this production seeks to reflect those times with a multi-racial cast that is, as the playbill instructs us, more in keeping with early frontier demographics.
At the Fichandler Stage, a theatre-in-the-round built to accommodate 683 seats, there is no waiting for the curtain to rise. The view to the stage is both immediate and intimate. This is both good and bad for the performers, sets, and props, as every glitch is magnified. As well actors must execute four turns during their lines and numbers in order to play to the 360 degree audience, and there is much east, west, south and north-ing in order to achieve this style of presentation. But as no seat is more than eight feet from the stage the audience’s response is visceral.
The incomparable and multi-award-winning performer E. Faye Butler brings her soaring voice and powerful stage presence to the character of the country-wise, no-nonsense Aunt Eller who’s both gentle as a mother lamb and mean as a snake when crossed. Though we meet her on the steps of her porch churning butter, believe me, you would not want to be in her sights when she’s toting a gun.
 The company of the Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater production of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Oklahoma! October 22-December 26, 2010. Photo by Carol Rosegg. And while there is no doubt in anyone’s mind that Eleasha Gamble has one of the most tender and beautiful voices around, a perfectly modulated honey-toned sound that could challenge a nightingale, I found her portrayal of Laurey to be one-dimensional and without subtlety. She lacks the coy factor necessary for us to believe she gives a hoot about Curly. (In all fairness she jumped into this role with two day’s notice.) Yet her voice shines in the duets “Surrey with the Fringe On Top” and “People Will Say We’re in Love”.
But much of the strength of this production’s success comes from the supporting cast. Nicholas Rodriguez as Curly was vocally outshone by secondary cast members, Aaron Ramey as Jud Fry and Cody Williams as Will Parker, whose voice was resonant and expressive. Williams, slim as a minute, ripped up the stage with back flips, leaps, high kicks and soft shoe along with the cast’s other crack dancers. This reviewer thought he and local high school junior June Schreiner, who plays Ado Annie like a fierce and adorable little minx, were captivating together.
Aaron Ramey’s Jud, the dark and brooding farmhand, showed both depth of emotion and breadth of vocal range. Another standout was Nehal Joshi’s comic relief as Ali Hakim, the Persian peddler and ladies’ man.
There are no sets in this version of Oklahoma! leaving it to the audience’s imagination, a tall order for the seasoned theatergoer who has seen spectacular sets designed “as high as an elephant’s eye”. Yet gratefully, this production embodies vitality and high energy, including breathtaking choreography, thanks to Parker Esse and David Leong’s brilliantly executed fight scene.
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