Jordan Wright
December 3, 2012
Special to The Alexandria Times
Riddle me this. Do goose bumps get goose bumps? And can you hear a pin drop in the theater? Well, yes, to both – especially if Nova Peyton is singing her pipes out!
 A proud moment for Effie White (Nova Y. Payton) in the musical “Dreamgirls” Photo: Christopher Mueller Peyton plays Effie White in Signature Theatre’s current production of Dreamgirls – a career-establishing role made famous by Jennifer Hudson in both the Broadway and film version. So there’s a lot on the line. Peyton not only nails it but carves out her own definition of the role in songs like the poignant “I Am Changing” and the earthshaking “I’m Not Going”. I promise you won’t be disappointed by the powerful vocals, the muscular hep cat and cool kitty dancing, or the lavish costumes. In fact there is so much to like that it’s hard to pinpoint why some moments seem flat. Here’s a show with a theatrical pedigree evidenced by six Tony Awards, a cast brimming with talent and a tear-drenching plot to melt the hardest heart. So what’s wrong with it? Not much but we’ll get to that.
The story centers on an African-American girl group from Chicago and their meteoric rise to fame and fortune. You’ll immediately recognize them as The Supremes and, though the story is legally defined as “loosely based on” them, there are innumerable parallels.
 Deena Jones (Shayla Simmons) leads the new incarnation of The Dreams, with Michelle Morris (Kara-Tameika Watkins, back left) and Lorrell Robinson (Crystal Joy, back right) in the musical “Dreamgirls” Photo credit: Christopher Mueller. The trio known as the ‘Dreamettes’ starts out as runners up in a rigged talent show at the Apollo Theatre, but are soon urged to tour as backup singers for the velvet-voiced, slick dancing, ego-centric singer Jimmy Early, brilliantly played by Cedric Neal. “I don’t do oohs and aahs,” Effie complains, though she’s quickly overruled by partners Deena Jones (Shayla Simmons) and Lorrell Robinson (Crystal Joy), and they hit the road. As the women rocket to superstardom they go through a series of business challenges, jealousies, diva meltdowns and heartbreaks. Costume designer Frank Labovitz chronicles the trio’s ascent with gorgeous electric-hued gowns that increase in fabulousness with miles of chiffon and lurex stitched up with tons of ostrich feathers, spangles and sequins. As for the menswear, shiny sharkskin suits neatly define the times.
 Jimmy “James Thunder” Early (Cedric Neal) makes a grand entrance in “Dreamgirls.” Photo: Christopher Mueller. The show is set in the early ‘60’s when the pop music biz was controlled by big record labels and disc jockeys were known to take payola to play and promote certain records and artists. Soul and black R&B was a hard sell, and radio stations played “white” music, aka black music done by white performers. Has anything changed? It was a hard road for all black musicians until the Motown sound began to dominate the airwaves. Dreamgirls captures the essence of that Berry Gordy/Phil Spector period thanks to Krieger’s music whose twenty-five glorious numbers are dead center of that unforgettable sound.
Set Designer Adam Koch created the painted black set and mechanical stage that is so cavernous that at times it seems to swallow the cast. It is only when the women sashay onto center stage with increasingly spectacular wigs, jewels and gowns that it becomes a frame for their glamour.
Thankfully it’s all about the music and dancing since actor Sydney James Harcourt’s portrayal of the Dreamettes’ impresario,Curtis, is not convincing either as a Svengali or a Lothario. The role calls for Taylor, their agent and Deena’s boyfriend, to be a self-centered, slimy, backroom double-dealing manipulator and Harcourt lacks the smarminess to pull it off.
Matthew Gardiner does double duty as both director and choreographer, and you can’t find fault there. The dancing is stellar particularly for Neal’s character Jimmy who shakes, rattles and rolls till the cows come home in the number “Baby-Baby”.
See it, love it and spend some time backstage with the Dreamettes back when Motown was the pinnacle of the music world.
Through January 13th 2013 at Signature Theatre (Shirlington Village), 4200 Campbell Avenue, Arlington, VA 22206. For tickets and information call 703 820-9771 or visit www.signature-theatre.org.
Jordan Wright
November 26, 2012
Special to The Alexandria Times
What merriment is in store for us this holiday season? Well some are naughty (R-Rated) and some are nice (G-Rated) but check my quirky ratings for special notations. Here’s all the holiday drama you’ll need in a host of scintillating Christmas shows nearby.
 Broadway Christmas Carol – Michael Sharp,Tracey Stephens and Jacob Kidder. Photo courtesy of MetroStage. It’s getting to be a habit at MetroStage with the third annual mad hilarious A Broadway Christmas Carol. The tidy three-person cast of Michael Sharp, Jacob Kidder and Tracey Stephens trills harmonious whilst decking the halls with lots of show tunes and dizzying costume changes in this delicious dose of Christmas spoof. Under the musical direction of Howard Breitbart, this screamingly funny pastiche is rated SGIFB for “Sophisticated Grownups with Intact Funny Bone”.
From November 15th through December 23rd; Thursdays and Fridays at 8pm; Saturdays at 3pm and 8pm; Sundays at 3 and 7pm. For tickets and information call 800 494-8497 or visit www.metrostage.org. 1201 North Royal Street, Alexandria, VA
 A Christmas Carol – Photo courtesy of LTA The Little Theatre of Alexandria revives their time-tested production of A Christmas Carol. Directed and adapted by Rachael Hubbard, this Charles Dickens’ classic will warm the cockles of everyone’s heart. Replete with elegant Victorian costumes, the accursed curmudgeon Ebenezer Scrooge, and the adorable Tiny Tim, you can almost smell the chestnuts roasting as ghostly guides transport you through Christmas past, present and future. Settle in beside a crackling fireplace along with wassailing couples to relive this Currier & Ives picture postcard depicting the true meaning of Christmas. Rated RCV for “Required Christmas Viewing”.
From November 30th through December 16th, Thursdays and Fridays at 8pm; Saturdays and Sundays at 3pm and 5pm. For tickets and information call 703 683-0496 or visit www.TheLittleTheatre.com. 600 Wolfe Street, Alexandria, VA 22314
After a day of shopping and dining Signature Theatre, located in the heart of Shirlington Village, will be the perfect spot to jolly up with glass of wine and a Christmas-inspired cabaret.
 “Holiday Guys” – Marc Kudisch (left) and Jeffry Denman. Photo courtesy of Signature Theatre Three-time Tony Award nominee, Mark Kudisch and Astaire Award nominee, Jeffry Denman pair up in Holiday Guys – a limited run holiday show complete with song, dance, and silliness. Special performance schedule: December 11th at 7:30pm; December 12th at 7:30pm; December 13th at 8:00pm; December 14th at 8:00pm; December 15th at 2:00pm and 8:00pm; December 16th at 2:00pm and 7:00pm.
Also at Signature and back again, by popular demand, is the festive series Holiday Follies. Featuring a wonderful wintry line-up of special guest performers, along with a host of Signature’s closest friends and artists, there’s never been a better way to keep company on a cold night. Special performance schedule: December 18th at 7:30pm; December 19th at 7:30pm; December 20th at 8:00pm; December 21st at 8:00pm; December 22nd at 2:00pm and 8:00pm; December 23rd at 2:00pm and 7:00pm.
Both shows are rated HXS for “Hip Xmas Special”. Tickets for Holiday Guys and Holiday Follies are on sale online at www.signature-theatre.orgor through the Signature Box Office at 703 573-SEAT. 4200 Campbell Avenue, Arlington, VA 22206
 Best Christmas Pageant – Photo from Synetic This holiday season Synetic Theater will present The Best Christmas Pageant Ever starring the Synetic Teen Ensemble. In this irreverent comedy about an annual Christmas pageant the usually festive celebration by the Sunday school children has gone awry. The Herdman family, a bunch of rotten, misbehaving, swearing, bullying kids take part in the Christmas Pageant and all chaos breaks loose. Can the church learn to love even its most wayward children? It could be a total disaster, or it just might be The Best Christmas Pageant Ever!
The show is rated GKCI for “Gives Kids Cool Ideas”. Special performance schedule: December 15th at 2pm; December 16th at 11am; December 21st at 10am and December 22nd through the 27th at 11am. Family friendly indeed! For tickets and information call 800 494-8497 or visit www.synetictheater.org. 1800 South Bell Street, Arlington, VA 22202
Jordan Wright
August 27, 2012
Special to The Alexandria Times
 Sherri L. Edelen (as Miss Mona, center) leads the cast of “The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas” in the production’s toe-tapping finale. . Photo: Scott Suchman. Miss Mona Stangley is running a respectable house of ill repute in 1972 Gilbert, Texas and the century-old business is doing jes’ fine. Fine is a three-syllable word you understand. She has “A Lil’ Ole Bitty Pissant Country Place” as she describes it. At the Chicken Ranch Miss Mona lays down the law with some “no-no rules” for her girls. “Call ‘em guests”, she drawls, and “no smokin’, drinkin’ or wavin’ to men in town.” Summing it up for new hires, “We go in for mass volume and repeat business. Just like Coca-Cola!”
Miss Mona’s got friends in high places including Sheriff Ed Earl Dodd, Mayor Rufus Poindexter, Senator Wingwoah and the Texas Governor himself, but all that doesn’t amount to a hill of beans when Melvin P. Thorpe climbs on his soapbox. Thorpe is the local KTEX-TV’s crusading television reporter whose Watchdog group of bible-thumpin’ do-gooders, known as ‘The Dogettes’, are determined to rid Landville County of Miss Mona’s sinful activities, “Texas Has a Whorehouse In It”, is their rallying cry.
In Signature Theatre’s current production of The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, the popular musical inspired by a real life story with book by Texas author Larry L. King and Peter Masterson, Director Eric Schaeffer has stuffed so much talent into this show it’s hard to know when to start the music. Highlights are DC favorite, Sherri L. Edelen as the saucy Miss Mona; Sheriff Ed Earl played by Thomas Adrian Simpson who tenderly sings the classic “Good Old Girl” in his gravelly baritone; Matt Conner as both Mayor Poindexter and Senator Wingwoah; Christopher Bloch as Melvin Thorpe who lights up the stage with fire and brimstone; and the riveting scene stealing of Dan Manning as The Governor who tears the house down in Act Two.
 Dan Manning dances “The Sidestep” as the Texan governor in “The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas” Photo: Scott Suchman Costumes by Kathleen Geldard favor the men – and the men favor the costumes. And how! Tight cowboy shirts and sexy jeans on hot ripped bodies had audience members whooping, hollering and drooling to the hard driving, boot-stomping dancing and R-Rated stripping. The female side of the equation seemed to have a distinct disadvantage as to both pulchritude and costumes. The women, on whom you might reasonably expect some spangles, corsets, frilly garters and perhaps diaphanous peignoirs, were dressed in tame black and red lingerie, daisy dukes, prairie dresses and dime store cowboy boots. The dreary clothing and bad wigs made the women pale in comparison. Even Miss Mona’s outfits were more appropriate for a 1970’s office manager. But eight-time Helen Hayes Award nominee Karma Camp has created choreography to outshine any anomalies combining vaudevillian burlesque with high-kicking chorus lines to ratchet up the wow factor.
 The Aggie Boys (from left to right: Davis Hasty, Benjamin Horen, Vincent Kempski, Stephen Gregory Smith) celebrate their football victory before they leave for a night at the Chicken Ranch. Photo: Scott Suchman Collin Ranney has designed a stunning barn red two-tiered set hotter than a Colt 45 after a shootout at the O.K. Corral. Punctuated with mounted steer horns and featuring rows of louvered bedroom doors that fling open to reveal steamy recreation, the stage evokes the Wild West on steroids. Overhead chandelier fans swirl lazy shadows on the stage and a circular red velvet banquette provides a cozy setting for Miss Mona and Jewel in the number “No Lies”.
 Welcome to the Chicken Ranch. Photo: Scott Suchman. All in all the show is a sizzling, knee-slapping, kick ass, belly-laughing breath of fresh Lone Star air. Chockfull of high-steppin’ hoofers, country-spun one-liners, tearjerker ballads, and enough eye candy to raise your blood sugar to precipitous levels.
 The girls of Miss Mona’s whorehouse. From left to right, back row: Amy McWilliams, Nadia Harika, Maria Rizzo, Brianne Camp; from left to right, middle row: Nora Palka, Tamara Young; bottom row: Jamie Eacker. Photo: Scott Suchman. Through October 7th at Signature Theatre (Shirlington Village), 4200 Campbell Avenue, Arlington, VA 22206. For tickets and information call 703 820-9771 or visit www.signature-theatre.org.
Jordan Wright
May 21, 2012
Special to The Alexandria Times
 Sonny (Charlie Brady, center) goes 1980’s glam rock. Mark Chandler (left) and Nickolas Vaughan. "Xanadu" Virginia’s Signature Theatre. Photo: Scott Suchman Dial back to the ‘80’s and Venice Beach, Cali. It’s the days before auto-tuned singers and earbuds, a simpler time when listening to music meant cassette tapes and a boombox the size of carry-on luggage. Scrunch a pair of leg warmers over your roller skates (in-lines had yet to be invented) and channel your inner Olivia Newton-John or John Travolta. Remember that now much maligned era of disco fever and mirrored balls – when dancing to Donna Summer fast tracked your life? Well, it’s back with the pop musical Xanadu to the tune of fourteen huge hits like I’m Alive, Evil Woman, Strange Magic, Suddenly and Have You Never Been Mellow.
 Erin Weaver (center, as Kira) with her Greek Muses (from left to right) Nickolas Vaughan, Kellee Knighten Hough, Nova Y. Payton, Sherri L. Edelen, Mark Chandler, and Jamie Eacker. The musical comedy "Xanadu". Photo: Scott Suchman In a mix and match of muses, roller disco and a World War II female quartet, Sonny and Kira fall in love. That’s the easy part. Plot-wise the musical tosses in everything but the kitchen sink and throws out more wacky punch lines than Laugh-In. But it’s the electrifying, feel-good musical score by composers Jeff Lynne and John Farrar that provides the Krazy Glue that holds it all together when mythical gods and goddesses conspire and partyers in silver Lurex and platform heels camp it up on a stage designed to send skaters sailing straight through the aisles. In Misha Kachman’sset, complete with soaring catwalk and palm trees silhouetted against an amber sunset, there’s a bigger-than-life backdrop to this eponymously titled send-up of the 1980 cult classic film.
 Kira (Erin Weaver) goes weak in the knees in the arms of Sonny Malone (Charlie Brady). Photo: Scott Suchman Sonny is an untalented sidewalk chalk artist who can’t even conjure a compelling suicide note. In the midst of his desperation he meets Kira, a Grecian muse, aka Clio, on the Santa Monica Pier. She vows to help the disconsolate Sonny become successful. But following her father Zeus’s edict to all muses, she must not fall in love with a mortal. Bummer, right? In all of the great Greek tragedies the infighting muses have an axe to grind – and this one’s got Kira’s name written all over it.
 Harry A. Winter (as Danny Maguire) and Erin Weaver (as Kira) sing “Whenever You’re Away From Me”. Photo: Scott Suchman 
As in the original Broadway production a cast of nine handles, what by quick count appears to be, an astonishing 25 different roles. Are they up to it? “True dat!” as the slang-prone muses say. Credit Costume Designer Kathleen Geldard and a wardrobe mistress as speedy as Mercury who manage some lightning quick wardrobe changes as the cast goes from diaphanous togas to skintight spandex and back again.
Hunky actor Charlie Brady plays the hapless Sonny Malone to adorable Erin Weaver’s Kira. Weaver is utterly winsome and creates a force field all her own, breathing mega-energy into the familiar show.
The script has plenty of audience-conscious lines. When Kira asks her former boyfriend, now real estate tycoon Danny Maguire (played by Harry A. Winter), to let them turn his old theater into a roller disco, he agrees telling her, “Nothing turns around a crappy neighborhood like the Arts.” Knowing laughs from the Shirlington audience who remember when the theater was in an auto shop. But the line of the night goes to Hermes, played with perfect comedic timing by Nickolas Vaughan who when Kira asks him, “Why does Zeus accuse me?” – he cracks, “Bitch, I don’t know your life!”
Sherri Edelen (Calliope/Aphrodite) who recently appeared in Signature’s multi-awarded Hairspray is a riot as is Nova Y. Payton (Melpomene/Medusa) whose rich voice and sass put the show in the “Memorable Evening” category.
Through July 1st at Signature Theatre (Shirlington Village), 4200 Campbell Avenue, Arlington, VA 22206. For tickets and information call 703 820-9771 or visit www.signature-theatre.org.
Jordan Wright
April 23, 2012
Special to The Alexandria Times
 Michael (Andy Brownstein, far right) makes a stand as Alan (Paul Morella), Veronica (Naomi Jacobson) and Annette (Vanessa Lock) look on. "God of Carnage" plays at Virginia’s Signature Theatre through June 24, 2012. www.signature-theatre.org. In the 2009 Tony award-winning play God of Carnage, French playwright and social satirist Yasmina Reza introduces us to two upwardly mobile New York couples whose rowdy sons have gotten into a scrap in the neighborhood park. At a meeting in the bourgeois book-filled apartment of the victim’s parents to discuss the incident, the couples seem to present a united front while exchanging pleasantries over coffee and Veronica’s home made pear clafouti.
 Andy Brownstein (Michael Novak) and Naomi Jacobson (Veronica Novak) make a strong alliance.  Veronica Novak (Naomi Jacobson) laughs as she may have had one too many, as Alan Raleigh (Paul Morella) looks on. Initially the well-mannered grownups appear to take responsibility for their children’s actions resolving to discipline the boys and urge them to make up. Veronica, a writer on atrocities in African culture, has high-minded principles and futilely attempts to steer her husband Michael into laying the blame on Annette and Alan’s son. “It could have been the other way around,” admits Michael, “Our son is a savage,” he adds trumping Veronica’s well-orchestrated plans.
Annette on the other hand is a straight-laced suit working in wealth management and married to Alan an attorney/spinmeister who’s more wedded to his business than his wife. Between persistent cell phone calls he tries to keep pace with the mounting diatribes. “People struggle until they are dead,” Alan philosophizes.
Initially Annette tries to stay above the fray, pleading with her husband to back off, but as she sits on the sofa leafing through some well-placed coffee table books she picks up a book on existentialist painter Francis Bacon, “Cruelty, majesty, chaos and balance,” she offers and with that small remark the play’s tone is set.
Soon all decorum is tossed aside as the confab turns into a verbal slugfest with the couples pushing each other’s emotional buttons and the parents quickly devolving from respectable middle class professionals into screaming, name-calling kids on a playground. “You can’t control the things that control you,” Michael offers.
 Michael (Andy Brownstein, left) and Alan (Paul Morella) happily finding some common ground in "God of Carnage".  Vanessa Lock (left, as Annette) and Naomi Jacobson (as Veronica) share a laugh and a drink. After Michael confesses to tossing his daughter’s hamster out into the street, his credibility as the nice guy flies out the window and the women bond in their anger against him. Soothing his bruised ego he shares a bottle of his “well-aged Antiguan rum” and with that all the white gloves come off. Soon allegiances shift and the women gang up against their husbands as the men proudly profess to be Neanderthals. “Is alcohol bad for you?” Annette ponders.
Reza wields humor with a surgeon’s scalpel. Her observations of couples’ conflicts, and their ability to emotionally destroy each another, are just as incisive. And our laughter at their infantile antics is a universal response to the belief that we are all born into a culture of violence. “The God of Carnage has ruled since the beginning of time,” Alan reminds them.
 The Raleighs and the Novaks in a heated war of words in "God of Carnage". From left to right: Vanessa Lock, Paul Morella, Naomi Jacobson, Andy Brownstein. Award-winning director Joe Calarco does a yeoman’s job of molding actors Andy Brownstein (Michael), Naomi Jacobson (Veronica), Vanessa Lock (Annette) and Paul Morella (Alan) into a cohesive unit of controlled stage mayhem.
Through June 24th at Signature Theatre (Shirlington Village), 4200 Campbell Avenue, Arlington, VA 22206. For tickets and information call 703 820-9771 or visit www.signature-theatre.org.
March 19th, 2012
Jordan Wright
Special to The Alexandria Times
 John Lescault as the enthusiastically delirious “Brother Russia”. Brother Russia is a great big full-out rock opera – of that there is no quibbling. With music by Dana Rowe and book and lyrics by John Dempsey – collaborators on the Witches of Eastwick and The Fix – its world premiere at Signature Theatre presents twenty-seven full-throated emotional numbers sung by eleven cast members – most doing double duty in multiple roles – in a tightly directed show with lots of romance, razzle-dazzle, a dash of gender bending and a soupcon of Slavic philosophy. But the play-within-a-play has me conflicted.
It opens with a ragtag group of touring actors, whose impresario translates as more Svengali than the purported mystic Rasputin the playwright would like you to believe. “Tonight’s story is the most Russian of all stories. It is my story!” he declares. And so the wheelchair-bound modern-day megalomaniac who calls himself Brother Russia rewrites history to suit his vanity and his second-rate cast.
 Natascia Diaz, as Anastasia, the Tsar’s daughter, sings "Crush Me" in the world premiere of "Brother Russia".  Rachel Zampelli (as the Witch) discovers young Grigori (Doug Kreeger), a “Child of the Wood” in "Brother Russia". John Lescault is tremendous in his portrayal of Brother Russia. He is the glue that holds the overly wrought piece together. Doug Kreeger plays his alter egos, both Sasha and Grigori. Kreeger is vocally and emotionally commanding, in a role that keeps him onstage through his rise from a lowly Siberian village to the luxurious Winter Palace in St. Petersburg and the massacres of the Russian Revolution. I hate to be a spoiler but he dies three times, twice by poisoning, but also stabbed, shot and other niceties to please the Brother Russia’s whimsical story telling. It is dizzying the amount of times he is brought back to life. “Compare an hour of life to death’s eternity,” he oddly proclaims.
In a tale of love and war, the show takes elements from the days of Czar Nicholas as well as classic Russian folk tales and convolutes them into total fiction. Is that good or bad? In any case it’s got plenty of the required murder, mayhem and sex wrapped up in royalty and peasants. If only it were told straight.
My issue with the show is that it swings in and out of quasi-history and into sheer fiction, batting about the audience’s emotions like a tennis ball in perpetual motion. No sooner are you invested in the characters and cozily enjoying a sweeping period piece, than they are lobbed back at you with sarcastic asides provided by the blustery and capricious Brother Russia and his disgruntled cast members including Nicholas played by the captivating Russell Sunday who is fierce in red patent leather platform heels.
 Grigori (Doug Kreeger, holding basket) is happily greeted by a group of strangers for his healing powers. Pictured left to right: Stephen Gregory Smith, Erin Driscoll, Russell Sunday, Rachel Zampelli. But don’t toss the baby out with the bathwater yet. The music is terrific and memorable, especially “The Spirit and the Truth”, “Elsewhere”, “I Belong to You” sung by Anastasia and Grigori and the show stopping “I Serve No Man” sung by Grigori.
Just don’t expect it to follow any semblance of Russian textbook history. This musical comes across as a mash-up of Mel Brooks Springtime for Hitler, Dale Wasserman’s Man of La Mancha and the Broadway version of Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables. And if you like those shows – and who doesn’t? – that’s not all bad. It’s certainly got all the boxes-checked requirements of a hit Broadway show, yet one that is suffering from an identity complex. One can only hope for some editing of this meandering two and a half hour show before it is considered a fait accompli.
Through April 15th at Signature Theatre (Shirlington Village), 4200 Campbell Avenue, Arlington, VA 22206. For tickets and information call 703 820-9771 or visit www.signature-theatre.org.
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