Jordan Wright
November 7, 2011
Special to The Alexandria Times
 Rachael Hubbard as Belinda and Lars Klores as Frederick - Photos by Shane Canfield From the classic genre of dry-as-a-martini British sex farces (think BBC’s To the Manor Born, Benny Hill or Are You Being Served?) British playwright Michael Frayn’s classic Noises Off comes to The Little Theatre of Alexandria. Devised as a play-within-a-play-within-a-play, the audience is in on the joke…and an adorably risqué joke it is…filled with snappy repartee, double entendres and a constant stream of ludicrous misinterpretations.
As the curtain rises we are treated to a seemingly serene drawing room in the English countryside. The manor’s newly wedded couple Phillip and Flavia Brent are honeymooning in Spain. But we are actually viewing the stage at the Grand Theatre in Weston-super-Mare where Lloyd Dallas, the director of a motley troupe of British actors, is staging his final dress rehearsal and it is most assuredly not going according to script with six neurotic actors, one frustrated director and two overworked stagehands threatening to undermine a smooth opening.
 John Crowley as Timothy and Bruce Alan Rauscher as Lloyd - Photos by Shane Canfield Actress-as-housekeeper Dotty Otley aka Mrs. Clackett cannot keep her props in order – ditto for her timing. The proper sequence of picking up a plate of sardines, replacing a phone receiver or a taking a folded newspaper off set are far too vexing for her and the paternalistic director tries to soothe the perpetually flummoxed actress. However being flummoxed is the order of the day for this hapless group of has-beens who are all sweetly sensitive to each other’s foibles. When Belinda Blair, playing newlywed Flavia Brent and thinking the rehearsal is just a technical run through, declares, “I just love ‘technicals’. Everyone’s so nice to everyone!” it’s a swell insider’s joke.
Enter yet more flummoxed actors to this madcap romp in the form of family solicitor Roger Tramplemain aka actor Adam Downs and his frothy little minx Vicki aka actress Brooke Ashton both hell-bent on an illicit out-of-the-office tryst. The duo explain their unannounced arrival by telling Mrs. Clackett, aka the more aptly named Dotty Otley, that the owners are selling the house and Vicki is there to explore the posh digs. But their coitus is ‘interruptus’ when the stage becomes a high-speed wacky whirlwind of slammed doors and miscues as they try to hide from the unexpectedly early return of the home’s honeymooning owners and an opportunistic burglar played by an actor whose booze-fueled missed entrances require a trio of understudies.
 Kat Sanchez as Brooke, Gayle Nichols-Grimes as Dotty, Ron Bianchi as Selsdon, John Crowley as Timothy, and Rachael Hubbard as Belinda - Photos by Shane Canfield There is plenty of opportunity for things to go horribly wrong and they do in spades with sloppy timing, muffed lines and faulty scenery as the order of the day. When Freddie as Actor-in-Perpetual-Crisis-Mode flubs his lines for the umpteenth time, Dallas suggests, “I think this show is beyond the help of the director himself!”
By Act III the play is in its third month and the cast’s backstage romantic high jinks have reached a feverish pitch. In a clever reverse the set becomes the theatre’s backstage and the audience, yes, that’s still us, is treated to a behind-the-scenes look at the complexities of stagecraft and the everything-that-can-be-misconstrued-and-is nature of the cast’s amorous adventures. The beleaguered Dallas tries vainly to keep all his actor-ducks in a row while carrying on simultaneous affairs with both Poppy the Prop Girl (Elizabeth Heir) and Brooke the deliciously corseted and gartered Minx. That the action takes place in stage whispers and arm-flailing pantomime while the show goes on out of view, is screwball comedy at its finest.
 Adam Downs as Garry and Kat Sanchez as Brooke - Photos by Shane Canfield In real life the seasoned cast of this zany production is more than up to the task. In particular, Bruce Alan Rauscher who provides anchor with his superciliously solicitous portrayal of Dallas; Kat Sanchez, a thoroughly engaging morsel of ingénue eye candy; and Adam Downs as Lejeune, her floundering Venus flytrap. Gayle Nichols-Grimes sets the Mrs. Malaprop tone with true aplomb as the put-upon housekeeper, Rachel Hubbard rocks the eternally sympatico Belinda Blair, and Lars Klores does some mighty scene-stealing as husband Freddie.
Thank ‘real life’ director and LTA veteran, C. Evans Kirk, for bringing us this frothy bowl of sexy Brit wit.
At The Little Theatre of Alexandria 600 Wolfe Street through November 26th. For tickets and information call 703 683-0496 or visit www.thelittletheatre.com.
Jordan Wright
Special to The Alexandria Times
June 9th, 2011
 James Raby (Philip Markham), Suzanne Behsudi (Miss Wilkinson), and Charles Boyington (Henry Lodge). Photo Credit Shane Canfield If you want to know how a little white lie can turn into full-blown sex-charged mayhem just ask the well-meaning Mrs. Markham. She’s the full-time referee in this flat-out crazy British farce. You might inquire of her children’s book publisher husband, Philip Markham, who is so squeamishly prim he has to spell out the word S-E-X, or their flashy playboy decorator, Alistair Spenlow, whose sexuality is in question, until cleared up to everyone’s satisfaction up by the remark, “He’s not gay. He plays golf!” Of course the audience has already seen him lusting after Sylvie, the Swedish sexpot housekeeper, who has her own liberated ideas of flirtation. “I do the goose quite well!” she attests imitating his antics.
If you want proof of how a petite prevarication, can morph into a series of whoppers witness the Markham’s friends, Henry and Linda Lodge, and their prospective paramours, Miss Wilkinson, the vixen telephone operator and Walter Pangbourne, the ambitious salesman, as they plan to cheat on each other in the same house on the same night. Oh what a tangled web we weave! In this case it’s a carousel of bed-hopping worthy of Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice.
Move Over, Mrs. Markham derives from the same genre as the screwball Britcoms, Keeping Up Appearances and Are you Being Served? You can count on the characters to be chockfull of malaprops, double entendres and skewed intentions. Thankfully the playbill comes with a glossary of British terms, because the innocent British expression “keep your pecker up” has a decidedly different spin to us than the translation to “keep your spirits up”. Who knew?
In this witty farce there’s a great deal of Marx Brothers’-style tearing around from room to room and peeping through the keyhole to spy on what is quite obvious to the audience by the use of a cutaway view of the Markham’s apartment where all the action takes place. Don’t you just love to be in on the joke while the characters squirm?
 Jennifer Finch (Linda Lodge) and Shelagh Roberts (Joanna Markham). Photo Credit Shane Canfield After assuming his wife has betrayed him by finding a piece of a love letter that he thinks is written to his wife, Philip Markham tries to catch her in the act. An uproarious scene evolves when Alastair, who has already begun to develop ideas of his own about his client’s sexuality, discovers Henry riding Philip horsie-style while they vie for a bedroom view of what they imagine to be Joana’s affair.
But Joana Markham is only hiding the fact that Linda is planning a tryst at her apartment while Philip is doing the same for his business partner, Henry, who plans to meet up with the telephone operator. Oh the lies! Oh the cheating! That the housekeeper and the decorator have secretly chosen to rendezvous in the apartment at the same time as the two other couples makes for a cleverly choreographed and wildly hysterical scenario.
Oddly the production gets off to a tentative start. The set-up of the characters and their complex roles takes a good bit of explaining in order to establish who’s pursuing whom and why. But it soon revs up to full throttle and the audience expectedly falls under the spell of the age-old slapstick.
Look for James Raby who is razor sharp as Philip and even surprises with a dollop of hoofing in his switcheroo role as the snide “May I be so bold?” family butler. Jennifer Finch is scintillating as Linda Lodge, played with a feather-light touch and Katie Zitz turns out a Sylvie reminiscent of Uma Thurman’s Swedish ingénue, Ulla, in the film, The Producers. Seamless performances all around in this summer winner!
At The Little Theatre of Alexandria 600 Wolfe Street through June 25th. For tickets and information call the box office at 703 683-0496.
Jordan Wright
Special to The Alexandria Times
April 25, 2011
 (L to R) Sharon Grant (Heidi), Josh Goldman (Hunter), Scott Harrison (Jeff), and Anne Marie Pinto (Susan)
The popular device of a play-within-a-play is taken to the third power in this cocky musical now debuting at The Little Theatre of Alexandria. [title of the show], no this is not my editor’s idea of a parenthetical joke, has as its theme two aspiring New York hopefuls, the author and the composer/lyricist who enter a writer’s competition at The New York Musical Theatre Festival. It is a play-within-a-play-within-a-play. Or should I say musical? That our heroes are gay is incidental to their theatrical travails, but it provides some humor and background. That they are young and inexperienced defines the complex, behind-the-scenes efforts of the post-modern playwright to bring a production to the stage. It is the consummate guide to backstage politics and insider showbiz jargon.
Our two hipsters Hunter (Josh Goldman) and Jeff (Scott Harrison) have three weeks to pull off the impossible by writing, composing, casting, scoring and mounting a new musical. They engage their aspiring actress/singer pals Susan (Anne Marie Pinto), gainfully but unhappily employed as a part-time receptionist, and Heidi (Sharon Grant), who has a bit part on Broadway in The Little Mermaid, in a madcap challenge to take their musical from writing to final production in three weeks.
In reality (a tricky concept to toss around in this review since there are surface realities and underlying realities) Hunter Bell and Jeff Bowen are really the names of the writers of this show. And Heidi Blickenstaff and Susan Blackwell are really the names of their actress friends. Got it?
The idea was that their four-way conversations were a great deal more inspiring than their attempts at writing. “We could get important points across,” suggests Hunter who literally becomes a costumed blank page. “Writing should be easy, like a monkey driving a speedboat,” he conjures. When he struggles to put words on a page Hunter tells Jeff, “My writing is like a drag queen…fabulous at night…in the daytime…not so much!” In fact Heidi and Hunter play a little game of making up and texting amusing drag queen names to each other…Lady Foot Locker and Dorothy Chandler Pavilion oddly spring to mind.
There are 18 terrific musical numbers in this non-stop one act that the boys hope will “get them on Ellen”, and hosts of celebrity names are bandied about as they imagine Joan Rivers, Bernadette Peters and iconic gay author John Cameron Mitchell will drop backstage to celebrate their triumph. In a local nod they include the WATCH Awards (our local community theatre awards) in “The Tony Award Song”.
While Jeff plays the straight man to Hunter in this comedic one-liner extravaganza, (Henny Youngman where are you?), the girls alternate between insecurities and mutual mistrust in the number “What Kind of Girl is She? ”. Look for Anne Marie Pinto with her powerful voice and wild gesticulations to rip up the stage in the rock number “Die Vampire Die”, Susan’s solution to ridding the show of second-guessing and energy-robbing self-doubt.
While they wait for the financial backing to get their play to Broadway, Hunter considers looking for a day job. “I’m down to tropical plant cleaner or donating eggs,” he mopes. But in a mathematical calculation contrived to insure success, they determine they would rather be “Nine People’s Favorite Thing” than one hundred peoples’ ninth favorite thing.
The winsome cast sings their faces off in a host of great numbers. Sit back and let them charm you. And don’t bother counting the f-bombs, Hunter does it for you, they are integral to the script.
At The Little Theatre of Alexandria 600 Wolfe Street through May 14th. For tickets and information call the box office at 703 683-0496.
Jordan Wright
March 7th, 2011
Special to The Alexandria Times
 Emily Woods (Constance), Lars Klores (Mr. English), Elizabeth A. Keith (Mrs. English), and Elise Kolle (Felicity) Photo by Shane Canfield
When a Welsh family of four vanishes into thin air from their cozy country manse, leaving no other clue save a slip of paper handwritten with the word “widdershins”, we find two detectives hot on the trail to solve the mystery. In a complex and fascinatingly convoluted Victorian plot replete with Druids, faerie legends, French Impressionists and the occult, “Widdershins”, currently at The Little Theatre of Alexandria, connects these seemingly disparate elements with cohesive aplomb.
Underneath the quaint façade of this turn of the century upper crust family there are darker sides to each member that Inspector Ruffing, and his tippling cohort, McGonigle, aim to uncover. Between pours of the family’s finest scotch, McGonigle attempts to wrest the truth from a series of interviews with the family’s only remaining daughter, Annie, their lame servant girl, Jenny, and Betty, the village sorceress.
Mr. English, as the patriarch of the family, is a man in full who fancies himself a painter, writer and intellectual. Yet he is a dilettante holding his family firmly in his thrall. In a self-absorbed metaphysical quest – “To find the truth one must travel deeper and deeper into the abyss,” he declares – he dabbles dangerously in superstitions and Pagan legends. With the aid of a daft local seer and herbalist with a penchant for young boys, he is lured into the places where the “lost ones” dwell, as she goads him on to visit the spirits that have haunted him in his hallucinations.
“The sacred and the damned are the same,” English declares in a delusional dualist attempt to define God. With such a cavalier philosophy it should come as no surprise that he absolves himself of any responsibility towards his family, and we soon discover that everyone including his wife and children, Constance, Felicity, and their adopted daughter, Ann, has dark secrets and their own private demons. When English describes the world as a turf labyrinth or “mizmaze”, with the boundaries of a chessboard as its metaphor, we see his children, Constance and Felicity, toying with the pieces, in a symbolic reference to God toying with our destinies.
 Lars Klores (Mr. English), Rebecca Fischler (Jenny) Photo by Shane Canfield If you’re sensing a dash of Alice in Wonderland and The Wizard of Oz meets the Addams Family, in a story written by Immanuel Kant and Edgar Allen Poe and directed by Fellini, then you’re on to something. Just remember to stage the fantasy in a comfortable Victorian drawing room with a fireplace.
In this carefully crafted whodunit, playwright Don Nigro reaches beyond a simple missing persons crime scene to explore intricate themes of religion, morality and sexuality in a mystery with cosmic mysteries. “God swims in a mysterious soup,” English divines.
To express that the characters’ reappearances are but visits from another realm as they waft in and out of the misty scenes in a time continuum, their visages are cleverly illuminated, by lighting and special effects designers, Ken and Patti Crowley.
The acting is smooth as a bolt of silk with Mike Baker, Jr. playing the bereaved McGonigle, J. Andrew Simmons as Ruffing the lead detective, Elizabeth A. Keith as the aggrieved Mrs. English, Kat Sanchez as the adopted daughter Ann, and Lars Klores as Mr. English. Gayle Nichols-Grimes plays the combo seer/witch in hoary and hilarious fashion (did I neglect to mention there was comedy here too?), while Elise Kolle and Emily Woods as the younger children exceed our expectations as the playful and mischievous foils whose innocence creates chaos.
Flawlessly directed by C. Evans Kirk, this production is highly recommended.
Through March 29th at The Little Theatre of Alexandria, 600 Wolfe Street, Alexandria, VA 22314. For tickets and information call 703 683-0496 or visit www.thelittletheatre.com.
WATCH Awards Reach Out and Touch
Alexandria’s Little Theatre
Jordan Wright
March 6, 2011
Sunday night and the crowd at the Birchmere was explosive. The WATCH Awards, which are to Washington area community theatres what the Tonys are to Broadway, were being presented and it was a pretty amped up crowd. Covering as far East as Annapolis, and south as Prince William County it included Alexandria’s own Little Theatre of Alexandria, which raked in four awards for Outstanding Achievement in Choreography for Amy Carson for her work on “Chicago”; Outstanding Achievement in Hair Design for Paul Morton for “Lady Windermere’s Fan”; Outstanding Achievement in Music Direction for Paul Nash for “Chicago; and Outstanding Achievement in Direction of a Musical for Susan Devine for “Chicago”.
Jordan Wright
January 2011
Special to The Alexandria Times
 Mr. Bumble takes in Oliver - photo by Shane Canfield
That Lionel Bart’s “Oliver!” has huge universal appeal and relevancy today is not in question here. And though millions have seen this ubiquitously mounted musical on countless stages, in schools and community theatres around the world, millions more will. Since the spectacular score…sixteen memorable songs…plus a heart-strings pulling story, continues its reign as one of Britain’s most endearing theatre exports.
Our story opens with Oliver Twist, played by the adorable and fresh-faced James Woods as a homeless and penniless orphan wandering the mean streets of 19th Century London town. An orphan longing for a mother’s love, he lives amongst the thieves and scallywags that patrol the lawless warrens of the city. From this familiar Charles Dickens tale Bart crafted his iconic musical, drawing on themes of love, kindness, desperation and redemption to circumscribe the music.
To love Oliver is to have hope and it is well engendered on this stage by a captivating cast of workhouse urchins. These eleven fellow mop-topped orphans are precious to the max. Seeing so many cute children in tatters and newsboy caps swarming the stage and kicking up their heels is utterly irresistible. Quick! Where’s my runcible spoon? Never mind. We’re on meager rations here. In a memorable scene gruel-starved boys test the rules when Oliver boldly prevails upon Mr. Bumble for more slop in his bowl in the well-loved tune, “Food, Glorious Food”.
The young and talented James Woods (Oliver) carves out a convincing portrayal of the innocent child, whose life of imposed deception begins when he is tossed out of the workhouse and sold for a pittance to a couple of crafty undertakers, the dour Mr. and Mrs. Sowerberry. With approval from the greedy Mr. Bumble, they cast the piteous boy as a mute coffin-follower. In the lively ditty “That’s Your Funeral” they triumph their plans to have “mourners in all corners”, marking the start of poor Oliver’s downward spiral into crime.
In the duet, “I Shall Scream” we enjoy Jeffrey Clarke’s roguishly seductive Mr. Bumble who is well matched to Mary Ayala-Bush’s come-hither Widow Corney, oozing coyness and feigned elusiveness to his flowery flirtation.
Soon Oliver meets up with the Artful Dodger, played with swagger and fresh snap by Ben Cherington. He lures the innocent lad into the clutches of the master crook, Fagin, whose hot house of bad boys is a veritable den of iniquity. The smarmy Fagin teaches Oliver to do his dirty work in “Pick and Pocket or Two” and we’re off to a riotous life of crime.
The success of this particular production is a tribute to the skill and direction of Roland Branford Gomez, who coaxes crack performances from the large cast. Fine choreography from Heide Zufall manages to put this passel load of moppets through their paces.
All the little pint-sized poppers claimed my heart, but seven-year-old Joseph Machosky, as the smallest orphan of the lot, took cheek and charm to new heights with double time dancing and a fierce energy on the stage.
Only Maureen Rohn in the role of Nancy may have been miscast. Though she is a stunning actress with a pitch-perfect voice who portrays the sweet side of Nancy quite capably, it is the abused and broken Nancy that goes missing. In her ballad of despair “As Long as He Needs Me”, we are left without the passion, pride and fury needed to balance out this complex character.
The production features a 12-piece backstage-secreted orchestra and 33 cast members. Terrific performances by all the principals, especially Mike Baker Jr. as the nefarious and avaricious Fagin who brings a sinister dynamic to “Reviewing the Situation”, and Paul Caffrey as the misogynistic con artist Bill Sykes who cuts through the London fog with an interpretation of Sykes that drips with Mephistophelean evil.
All in all, this “Oliver!” deserves kudos as an engaging, energetic and splendiferous production.
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.
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