Jordan Wright September 15, 2017 Special to The Alexandria Times
For one night only, some of Broadway’s leading lights will captivate audiences with the iconic American composer’s greatest hits. Bernstein on Broadway launches the year-long international centennial celebration of Leonard Bernstein with the opening weekend of Leonard Bernstein at 100, a celebration of the Leonard Bernstein’s musical contributions to American theatre.
(l-r) Mikaela Bennett – Santino Fontana – Matthew Hydzik – Photo credit Kennedy Center
Three-time Tony Award-winning Director Kathleen Marshall and Music Director Musical Rob Fisher, will lead Mikaela Bennett (The Golden Apple at Encores!), Santino Fontana (Cinderella, Act One), Matthew Hydzik (the Kennedy Center production of Side Show), Norm Lewis (Porgy and Bess), Beth Malone (Fun Home), and Laura Osnes (Bandstand, Cinderella) in an extraordinary evening of Bernstein’s music for the theater. Joining them will be an ensemble of Broadway triple-threats including Max Clayton, Kim Fauré, Keven Quillon, Shina Ann Morris, Brandon Rubendall, Samantha Sturm, Erica Sweany, and Anthony Wayne.
(l-r) Norm Lewis – Beth Malone – Laura Osnes – Photo Credit Kennedy Center
The sensational production will feature a lush 40-piece orchestra and the acclaimed Choral Arts Society of Washington as more than 75 performers fill the Eisenhower Theater with the unforgettable music of West Side Story, Wonderful Town, and Candide. The performance will also include the irresistibly tuneful score and dancing from On the Town, as well as selections from Bernstein’s Mass, originally commissioned by Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis for the opening of the Kennedy Center in 1971.
Don’t miss it!
This Friday, September 22, 2017 at 8:00pm in the Eisenhower Theater at 2700 F St., NW, Washington, DC. For tickets and information call 202 467-4600 or visit www.Kennedy-Center.org.
Jordan Wright September 12, 2017
Special to The Alexandria Times
Boolie (Joel Durgavich), Daisy (Patricia Kratzer) and Hoke (Kevin Sockwell) ~ Photographer: Matt Liptak
A talented, tightly knit cast of three deliver on Alfred Uhry’s heartwarming tale of Daisy Werthan, a well-heeled elderly Southern lady, Boolie Werthan, her successful son, and Hoke Colburn, her dutiful chauffeur. The Pulitzer Prize-winning drama, made into a film with Jessica Tandy and Morgan Freeman, gave Tandy and the picture Academy Awards in 1989 and has been beloved by audiences ever since.
Daisy (Patricia Kratzer) and Hoke (Kevin Sockwell) ~ Photographer: Matt Liptak
Daisy (Patricia Kratzer) is the paragon of Southern respectability in the Jim Crow South. Adhering to all its social restraints and mindful of her position as an upstanding member of her Jewish temple, she has both a girlish vulnerability and, alternatively, a stern demeanor from her days as a schoolteacher that could set your hair on fire. Daisy hails from the bygone era of Southern ladies who ruled their households with an iron fist in a velvet glove and kept guard dog-like vigilance in fear their servants would steal behind their backs. It is the true story of Uhry’s grandmother and the chauffeur she employed for over 25 years.
Set in Atlanta, Georgia in 1948 when ladies of means had drivers and fancy cars to shuttle them from their hairdressers to their places of worship – including the Piggly Wiggly, the legendary supermarket of the South – it opens to a scene with her concerned son Boolie (Joel Durgavich) after she has crashed her Packard due to her failing eyesight. (Written in the late 80’s, Daisy at 72 is over the hill. Hmm.) Boolie, standing firm against her protestations, has decided her driving days are kaput and Hoke (Kevin Sockwell) is hired on as her chauffeur.
Daisy (Patricia Kratzer) and Hoke (Kevin Sockwell) ~Photographer: Matt Liptak
Director Jim Howard takes us seamlessly through a series of some twenty-eight tricky scene changes with the help of Lighting Designer Marzanne Claiborne who focuses attention on the evolving vignettes from 1948, a time when Jews and Blacks were second class citizens in the South, to 1973 Mobile, Alabama where, decades after they have formed an indestructible bond, Daisy invites Hoke to a dinner for Martin Luther King, Jr. Setting the tone, vintage photos of the period and Daisy’s fading furniture are featured along with a “car” of sorts where the two converse on life’s puzzlements and injustices. Shades of the Ku Klux Klan and their fiery reign of terror hover menacingly over both Daisy and Hoke’s life. When Hoke relates a gruesome tale of lynching, Daisy is faced with the harsh reality that her life shares the same pain and uncertainty as Hoke’s.
But it is the humor and wisdom they impart that strengthens the bonds of their unusual friendship as well as the tender mercies they offer one another that make this tale so heartwarming while affording us a glimpse into the uneasy relationship between mistress and servant, Black and Jew, with charm, humor and poignancy. Nuanced performances by Kratzer and Sockwell are indelible.
Recommended for its relevance to today’s struggles against the re-emerging political climate of hate and prejudice. Lest we forget.
Through October 15th at The Little Theatre of Alexandria, 600 Wolfe Street. For tickets and information call the box office at 703 683-0496 or visit www.thelittletheatre.com
Holly Twyford (Desiree Armfeldt) and Bobby Smith (Fredrik Egerman) . Photo by Christopher Mueller
The most difficult reviews to write are the ones in which there is nothing to critique – where the music washes over you like a waterfall, the Noel Cowardesque repartee is both witty and snarky, the voices luscious and the costumes, sheer Victorian elegance. How do you argue perfection? That’s the quandary I find myself in with Director Eric Schaeffer’s production of A Little Night Music. Schaeffer has kicked off the new season with an eye-popping, ear-swooning production that will knock your socks off. Not only is the cast superlative but the 13-piece orchestra led by Jon Kalbfleisch soars.
Bobby Smith (Fredrik Egerman) and Will Gartshore (Carl-Magnus Malcolm) . Photo by Christopher Mueller
Four-time Helen Hayes award-winning actress Holly Twyford stars as the glamorous femme fatale Desiree Armfeldt, a Swedish actress who is both feisty and vulnerable and comes armed with a rapier wit. Twyford, who has never done a musical before, proves she can sell a song purely through tenderness and raw emotion. Neither sharp, nor flat, nor off-key, her delivery of the iconic number “Send in the Clowns” is poignant, wry and edge-of-your-seat at the same time. The entire show is, but for different reasons.
Maria Rizzo, Kevin McAllister, Tracy Lynn Olivera, Nicki Elledge, Sam Ludwig, Holly Twyford, Will Gartshore, and Florence Lacey. Photo by Paul Tate DePoo III
Pulling from some of the finest singers in our area the range of voices from baritone to tenor and alto to soprano is breathtaking – their harmonies flawless. It’s every singer’s dream to perform in this show, and Schaeffer has cast the best of the best. There’s Bobby Smith as Fredrik Egerman, a well-heeled attorney in the throes of a mid-life crisis and married to the virginal Anne, played by the adorable Nicki Elledge, and Sam Ludwig, just coming off of Jesus Christ Superstar, who garnered a well-earned Helen Hayes nomination for last year’s lollapalooza Titanic, here playing the angst-ridden cellist Henrik Egerman.
Florence Lacey, who lays claim to a string of Broadway hits, plays the curmudgeonly sentimentalist, Madame Leonora Armfeldt. Lacey was also in Signature’s Titanic – as well as another alum from the show, Tracy Lynn Olivera, here as the beleaguered, but shrewd, Countess Charlotte Malcolm.
Maria Rizzo (Petra). Photo by Christopher Mueller.
The sheer schadenfreude deliciousness between the characters creates the necessary tension behind some of the comic encounters, such as Petra’s tempestuous seduction of Henrik in “Soon”. (Petra played by the voluptuous Maria Rizzo) and Fredrik’s suggestion to his old flame Desiree, “You must meet my wife.” To which she sarcastically replies, “Let me get my hat and my knife!”
Holly Twyford (Desiree Armfeldt) . Photo by Christopher Mueller.
Scenic Designer Paul Tate dePoo III gives us a stately banquet table that lowers from the rafters and a massive bed that features prominently as seducers and the seduced frolic with abandon in merry games of chase all choreographed by Karma Camp. Lighting by the brilliant Colin K. Bills and the dreamy costumes by legendary designer Robert Perdziola.
Highly recommended. Five stars, if I gave out stars, which I don’t. Just go.
Through October 8th at Signature Theatre (Shirlington Village), 4200 Campbell Avenue, Arlington, VA 22206. For tickets and information call 703 820-9771 or visit www.sigtheatre.org.
Getting schooled by Thomas W. Jones II, aka “Afro Joe”, is a lesson in growing up Black, Catholic, and urban hip – “sticky leg” and all. Jones is a poet with a fusillade style of comedic delivery that gets under your skin with its beat-bopping rhythms and déjà vu tales of adolescence. It’s a story about being Black in modern culture that transcends Blackness and goes to the heart of teen angst and family dynamics. Jones is already cool. At 60+ he’s still got all the moves including a dip in the hip (he assures us it’s not about hip replacement), when he’s demonstrating the art of getting the girl. Or, at least, trying to get the girl, which doesn’t go well for Jones as a teenager until he realizes that making a well-rehearsed, slow-rolling, wordless entrance into a dance club isn’t at all the kind of approach that his target has in mind. “You enter on an angle,’ he advises, twisting his agile frame into a slow-walking, undulating gait. After a few rookie moves in which the women rebuff his advances, he switches gears and tries a little tenderness. Cue the adoring girl.
Jones and his two, talented singer/actor sidekicks, Jasmine Eileen Coles as Lady Doo Wop 1 and Kanysha Williams as Lady Doo Wop 2, blast out street-funky, free-style, free-verse poetry filled with the pain and glory of growing up and growing cool in Queens, New York. They dance, slide and do the funky chicken to James Brown, Sidney Poitier and other Black towers of power from the 1950’s rock n’ roll era as archival photos of the period, including Dr. J and Willie Mays, are projected behind them.
The Wizard of Hip – Photo credit Chris Banks
Filling the black box stage, the indefatigable Jones peels off in warp speed with riffs on his youth. One episodic piece delves into the sanctity of mamas and papas, as in “don’t talk about my mama”, a multi-character piece in which he is pitted against street toughs while defending his mother’s honor. In it he goes from getting beat up (he’s a genius at morphing into two or more characters at once) to slip sliding off in dishonor with a panoply of excuses to go home – homework, dinner, mow the lawn.
In fact, “mow the lawn” becomes a particularly notable euphemism in the troubles he has with his father (whom Jones also plays). The father figure is seen as a model of ineptitude and intransigence – forever diverting punitive decisions back onto mama while urging his son to step up his game and be a man. This impossible balance of constantly maintaining peer-pressure hipsterness while trying to score with the ladies, is what keeps our hero rocked back on his heels as he deciphers what everyone wants and where he fits in. Because in the gospel of Cool with a capital ‘C’, “You gotta be John Wayne in a Shirley Temple world.”
The Wizard of Hip – Photo credit Chris Banks
Jones is familiar to MetroStage as writer, director and choreographer on Three Sistahs, Ladies Swing the Blues and many other original productions that had their premieres here. He’s also known for his performances at Studio Theatre and more recently at Woolly Mammoth Theatre.
Two veteran musicians keep pace with Jones high energy. On keyboards is William Knowles, known to MetroStage aficionados as Music Director for his work on the Helen Hayes’ award-winning Cool Papa’s Party as well as Three Sistahs, Blues in the Night, Ella Fitzgerald: First Lady of Song, Blackberry Daze and more. Knowles also provides original music to syncopate Jones’ kinetic style. Keeping the backbeat is Greg Holloway on drums – a staple of many of MetroStage’s original productions.
See it, if you want to keep your cool.
Through September 17th at MetroStage, 1201 North Royal Street, Alexandria, VA 22314.
For tickets and information call 703 548-9044 or visit www.metrostage.org.
Ryan Sellers (Cain), Philip Fletcher (God) ~ Photographer: Johnny Shryock
In his apocalyptic vision of the end of the world Georgian-born Director and Adaptor Paata Tsikurishvili offers up a slo-mo intro to the birth of Evil. In it he provides God (Philip Fletcher) with a large mobile Modernist statue with serpentine arms from whence to rule his kingdom. This Tree of Knowledge representation is where Adam (Scott Brown) and Eve (Tori Bertocci) meet their fate in the Garden of Eden.
Synetic has long been a theatrical vehicle for the interpretation of world politics and has consistently sought out ways to parallel their productions to the ills of modern society. Describing his inspiration for The Mark of Cain with Machiavelli’s immortal words, “Absolute power corrupts absolutely. We see this popping up everywhere,” he adds suggestively. Tsikurishvili’s latest fantasy after a five-year dry spell, reads like a graphic novel of the world’s ills.
In committing their original sin, the doomed couple bite into the shiny red apple symbolized by a balloon in a cage. We see God’s tears begin to fall from white balloon “eyes” encased in a pyramid – like the eyes on the U. S. dollar – and backlit by flashlights. There will be many more balloon symbols indicating sadness, death and destruction. It’s an awkward device at best, but you’ll get the drift.
Ryan Sellers (Cain), Dallas Tolentino (Abel) ~ Photographer: Johnny Shryock
Our jeans-clad lovers soon encounter the Dark Angel (Kathy Gordon) and her minions before running off to give birth to their twins, Cain (Ryan Sellers) and Abel (Dallas Tolentino). This colorless Garden of Eden may augur the evils to come, but it seems an unnecessarily grim setting for paradise. Abel is the sensitive one of the two, representing Culture and the Arts – playing stringed instruments woven from strips of white fabric. Cain is the penultimate destroyer, torturing the dancers that frolic to Abel’s music. More balloon eyes “cry” and a death is symbolized by the popping of a red balloon filled with red dust. We will come to see this again and again as it depicts Death symbolized by black balloons. After Cain kills off his entire family and appears to briefly mourn their loss, the use of dancers carrying helium filled black balloons is yet again employed while God marks Cain for life with red powder, a device used to symbolize blood, anger and/or defeat.
Kathy Gordon (Dark Angel), Ryan Sellers (Cain) ~ Photographer: Johnny Shryock
When the Dark Angel again returns she anoints Cain with a wreath of golden laurel leaves. As his conquests mount ever more elaborate “crowns” serve to describe the level of power that Cain has achieved. In a banquet scene in which all the guests wear crowns, they kill each other off in a dramatic fight scene. Some inexplicably return to march to Music Director Irakli Kavsadze’s choice of Ravel’s “Bolero” as Cain becomes power mad and the wars increasingly militaristic. The music is perfectly timed to mirror the staccato sounds of machine guns. At this point we have transitioned into modern day warfare and thankfully there are no balloons to distract from this electrifying scene.
Tori Bertocci (Ensemble), Ryan Sellers (Cain), Megan Khaziran (Ensemble) Photographer: Johnny Shryock
I don’t want to be the spoiler, but let’s just say Cain appears as Trump in elongated red tie and aviator sunglasses spewing executive orders and looking noticeably smug. You don’t want to know what miseries he has in mind to wreak upon the world at large. As with Synetic’s famous “Silent Shakespeare” series, this play is wordless which is hardly noticeable for the wealth of dance expression choreographed by Irina Tsikurishvili, the fierce battle scenes by Vato Tsikurishvili, and the use of electronica composed by Konstantine Lortkipanidze. Trust me. You’ll get the picture.
Through August 13th at Synetic Theater, 1800 South Bell Street, Arlington in Crystal City. For tickets and information call 1 800 494-8497 or visit www.synetictheater.org.
(l-r); Carlie Smith as Delta Nu, Ashley Kaplan as Delta Nu, Benita Adams as Pilar, Halle Kaufax as Serena, Rachel Cahoon as Margot, Courtney Caliendo as Delta Nu, Rebecca Weiss as Delta Nu, Heather Gifford as Brooke. Photo courtesy of LTA.
The Laurence O’Keefe/Nell Benjamin frothy musical comedy of the airhead blonde with smarts who goes to Harvard and makes good, is an inspiring tale for young women who sublimate their dreams to snag a man. Elle Woods (the effervescent Morgan Arrivillaga) is the adorably peppy sorority president who gets dumped by her rich beau, Warner Huntington III before he goes off to college. Warner, whose old-line family have chosen a Kennedy-style future for him that doesn’t include Elle, is played convincingly by Brendan Quinn. No stretch for the suavely handsome Quinn, who is a Harvard Law student offstage too.
Unfortunately for Malibu-bred Elle she’s not in his league, (NOCD – Not our class, dear, as the upper crust say), or so he tells her, “My future’s all planned out. Time for me to get serious.” Elle, believing she can win him back, tells her parents she will follow him to Harvard Law, and with a razzle-dazzle in-person dance routine assisted by her Delta Nu sorority sisters, she convinces the Approval Committee to grant the Fashion Merchandising major acceptance to the ivied halls. “Pink is my signature color,” she perkily pronounces.
(l-r); Brendan Quinn as Warner and Morgan Arrivillaga as Elle Woods Photo credit LTA.
The 25-person cast is impressive giving us a slew of Elle’s high-energy sorority sisters (all of who look like they are out of Central Casting for cheerleaders) as well as her fellow Harvard students most of whom snub the party princess. There’s Enid Hoops, the Brainiac activist (Karen Kelleher), Vivienne Kensington, Warner’s snooty new girlfriend (Elizabeth Gillespie) and Emmett Forrest (the silken-voiced Kaylen Morgan) the handsome African American student on scholarship who helps Elle get serious about studying rather than man-chasing.
(l-r); Row 1 Morgan Arrivillaga as Elle Woods, Shawn Cox as Callahan, Marcelo Guzman as Ensemble; Row 2 Ryan Walker as Ensemble, Rebecca Weiss as Delta Nu, Carlie Smith as Delta Nu, Maria Ciarriocchi as Mom Track. Photo credit LTA.
The gritty Elle soon realizes that there is more to life than pom-poms and Warner’s affections and shows her supporter and love interest Emmett she’ll get down to business while planning to nab a prestigious law internship with the crusty Professor Callahan (Sean Cox). Meanwhile she meets Paulette (played hilariously by the very talented Katherine Lipovsky), owner of the Hair Affair who commiserates with Elle over their lost loves. Elle teaches Paulette how to get a man with the “Bend and Snap”, a bend-at-the waist-stick-out-your-fanny move that’s one of over 23 lively musical numbers. One of the funnier moments is when Paulette falls for the UPS guy (the hunky Sean Garcia) and she puts her new-found skill to good use.
(l-r); Katherine Lipovsky as Paulette and Sean Garcia as “UPS Guy” Kyle. Photo credit LTA
Director Hans Bachmann (who doubles as Elle’s Dad) has assembled a fine cast of actors/singer/dancers to pull off this stage-filled romp and Stefan Sittig delights with complex choreography, managing lively dance and cheerleading routines that often demand the entire cast to be on LTA’s challengingly-small stage at the same time. Numerous set changes are smoothly accomplished thanks to Set Designer Dan Remmers and crew, while Orchestra Director Christopher A. Tomasino’s 14-piece band keeps the party rocking.
A fun and frothy musical comedy that aims to beat the summer heat.
Through August 12th at The Little Theatre of Alexandria, 600 Wolfe Street. For tickets and information call the box office at 703 683-0496 or visit www.thelittletheatre.com
