|
|
Jordan Wright
November 27, 2017
 Dan Hoyle ~ Photo credit Mosaic Press If you saw Vicuña and the American Experience (through December 3rd at Mosaic) and you’re still itching to understand Trump voters, then journey with award-winning impressionist and playwright Dan Hoyle throughout America’s Heartland where Hoyle met some of these mindless flag-wavers. Adopting the accents and gestures from mall rats and military vets to hipsters, techies and Christian fundamentalist right wingers, Hoyle is the man of a thousand voices. In his search for folksy wisdom under the woodpile of America, this talented physical comic dons their personas in a one-man whirlwind of impressions.
 Dan Hoyle ~ Photo credit Mosaic Press That Hoyle actually undertook his courageous, 100-day voyage in a van with the idealism of Dorothy from “The Wizard of Oz”, as opposed to say, hipster Jack Kerouac, is what sets it apart from your typical wise guy comedian. He conceived his plan with a deep need to make sense of the direction of our nation’s political landscape. His sincerity is palpable and raw.
 Dan Hoyle ~ Photo credit Mosaic Press Traveling through bayous and hollers and Midwestern farms to urban outposts, Hoyle comes across redneck pride, thick with ignorance and anger. He interviews wacky conspiracy theorists and tries to make sense of Ramon, the street-wise Dominican. These “real Americans” are also ordinary Americans whose isolationism circumscribes their views. Logic, reason and science are frighteningly absent in their approach to politics and their choice of candidates. Hoyle suggests the formation of an “anti-ignorance task force” requiring citizens to read at least three books per year.
 Dan Hoyle ~ Photo credit Mosaic Press He actualizes his experiences through on-the-road phoners and meetups with his liberal, latte-drinking New York City peers who have an equally zero-tolerant, isolated view of the world beyond city limits. Directed by and developed with Charlie Varon and performed in black box format, it was first produced in 2015. Since then Doyle has updated the piece to reflect our post-presidential election malaise, touching on the opioid addiction crisis and the effects of Trump world.
 Dan Hoyle ~ Photo credit Mosaic Press Funny and poignant. Recommended.
Through December 22nd, 2017 in Lab II at the Atlas Center for the Performing Arts, 1333 H Street, NE, Washington, DC 20002. For tickets, info on post show discussions, special rates and discounts visit www.MosaicTheater.org or call the box office at 202.399.7993 ext. 2.
Jordan Wright
November 22, 2017
 Antoinette Robinson as Viola – Photo credit Scott Suchman The last words you’d expect to hear while settling into your seat for Twelfth Night, are an airline boarding announcement. “Thank you for choosing Shakespeare,” the disembodied voice offers up to the audience. But this is the unorthodox journey you are about to embark on in Director Ethan McSweeney’s fantastic in-flight interpretation of Shakespeare’s text (okay, it’s a tad over-emphasized) and his modern-day application. In Feste’s own words, “Nothing that is so, is so.” Count on it.
McSweeny, along with Set Designer Lee Savage, gives us one of the company’s most exciting openings to date. STC’s soon-to-retire Artistic Director Michael Kahn long ago mentored McSweeny who was told by Kahn to come back in 20 years. He has. And it’s paid off handsomely.
 Hannah Yelland as Olivia and Antoinette Robinson as Viola. Photo credit Scott Suchman Set in an international departure lounge our characters line up for airport security checkpoints only to soon be tossed about like ragdolls when a freak snowstorm throws their plane off-course. Viola (Antoinette Robinson) surrounded by the plane’s lost baggage, regains consciousness amid the blowing snow. If at this point you aren’t sitting straight up in your seat with your jaw hanging open, go home. If you are, then you’re in for a wild ride worthy of “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” meets Fellini.
McSweeney has chosen a modernist stage setting never before utilized in Sidney Harman Hall. Side walls are stripped away to reveal the theater’s original configuration when it was once expected to double as a concert venue. It is surprisingly beautiful with dark wood paneling, high walls, viewable side walkways, and elevated catwalk.
 Andrew Weems as Sir Toby Belch, Derek Smith as Malvolio and Hearth Saunders as Feste. ~ Photo credit Scott Suchman Though you are undoubtedly familiar with the play’s plot of unattainable love – the Countess Olivia of Illyria (Hannah Yelland) loves Malvolio (Derek Smith) who becomes imprisoned in a dog carrier while sporting full Scottish regalia (he misinterpreted the memo), and Viola loves Sebastian (Paul Deo, Jr.) who thinks she’s his male page, Cesario, etcetera, etcetera. Here, Fabian (Koral Kent alternates with Tyler Bowman) is imagined as a wanton child, expected to do Sir Toby’s bidding. There is enough mistaken identity to keep us intently intrigued and plenty of cleverly conceived costuming by Jennifer Moeller to bedazzle and amuse.
 Jim Lichtschedl as Sir Andrew Aguecheek. Photo credit Scott Suchman Cowardly Sir Andrew Aguecheek (Jim Lichtscheidl) is portrayed as a wannabe rock star and sports-minded dilettante – think polo, tennis, fencing – who along with Sir Toby Belch (Andrew Weems), a slovenly, bathrobe-clad, karaoke-singing drunkard in love with Maria (Emily Townley), manage to provide enough comic relief for two plays. Together they lean heavily on cocktails from the on-board beverage cart and lines of cocaine to fuel their madcap revels while Orsino (Bhavesh Patel) and Curio (Matthew Deitchman) whirl about on scooters, entering and exiting the scene in flashy, slim-cut, brocade suits. To remind us this was written in 1602 with a holiday theme, a Christmas tree figures into a hide-and-seek skit of insanely hilarious proportions.
But it is Feste played brilliantly by Heath Saunders who grounds the goings-on with original music by composer Lindsay Jones. Saunders, who in real life plays twelve different musical instruments, plays bass and guitar here. His dulcet voice both anchors and ameliorates the lunacy.
Highly recommended.
At the Shakespeare Theatre Company’s Sidney Harman Hall through December 20th at 610 F Street, NW, Washington, DC 20004. For tickets and information call 202 547-1122 or visit www.ShakespeareTheatre.org.
Jordan Wright
November 18, 2017
Special to The Alexandria Times
 Harriett D. Foy (Nina Simone) in Nina Simone: Four Women, Photo by C. Stanley Photography. There’s no getting around one of the darkest moments in American history, when four African-American girls were murdered by white supremacists in the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing of 1963. There’s also no getting around that it continues unabated in present day America. Playwright Christina Ham’s deeply emotional and highly relevant play, Nina Simone: Four Women, directed by Timothy Douglas, gets to the heart of this tragedy by focusing on Nina Simone, the jazz singer whose bluesy songs made her popular in in both white and black America. For Simone (Harriett D. Foy), this horrific event in Birmingham, Alabama and the murder of Medgar Evers in Mississippi, galvanized her into speaking out through her music. Inspired, Simone sets about writing “Mississippi Goddam”, her iconic civil rights anthem about the slaughter of the little girls. “I want that song to cut folks like a razor,” Simone proclaims.
 (L to R) Toni L. Martin (Sephronia), Harriett D. Foy (Nina Simone), Felicia Curry (Sweet Thing) and Theresa Cunningham (Sarah) in Nina Simone: Four Women. Photo by C. Stanley Photography. While she works on her composition, she encounters three women also hiding within the confines of the church. Each speak of this devastating tragedy through different eyes. Auntie Sarah (Theresa Cunningham), a longtime church member, is a matronly, black woman (she would say ‘colored’), who has lived her life respectably – dutiful to her white employers and a strong believer in the power of religion. Sephronia (Toni L. Martin), is an activist, a girl of mixed race (she would say ‘high yellow’). She takes inspiration from Martin Luther King, Jr. and the protest movement. Lastly, Sweet Thing (Felicia Curry) is a street hooker, a rough-and-ready ghetto girl with a switchblade and a heap of anger. Each woman brings a unique perspective to what it means to be black in America. Each one has her own truth.
We see Simone as the consummate artist, a woman of conscience who has been radicalized by the inequality and injustice she has faced throughout her career. She tells the others, despite her success she has doubts and self-loathing, “Every day I have to conjure myself into a queen.”
 (L to R) Toni L. Martin (Sephronia), Felicia Curry (Sweet Thing) and Theresa Cunningham (Sarah) in Nina Simone: Four Women. Photo by C. Stanley Photography. With music directed and arranged by Darius Smith, who also accompanies the women on piano, their lush harmonies and deliberate delivery ensure that no one will miss hearing the lyrics nor their fierce intent as this fine cast scrolls through gospel hymns, jazz tunes and protest songs including Simone’s “Sinnerman”, Oscar Brown, Jr.’s “Brown Baby”, Simone’s co-written anthem, “Young, Gifted and Black”, and of course its eponymous song, “Four Women”. Choreography by Lady Dane Figueroa Edidi captures the spirit of African dance and old-time church revivals.
A powerful, brilliantly crafted, musical tribute to a woman and a movement.
Recommended.
Through December 24th at Arena Stage, 1101 Sixth St., SE, Washington, DC 20024. For tickets and information call 202 488-3300 or visit www.ArenaStage.org.
Jordan Wright
September 25, 2012
Special to The Alexandria Times
 David Cassidy, pictured in 2009, rocketed to stardom as Keith Partridge on the ABC series ‘The Partridge Family’. (AP Photo/Dan Steinberg) In the six decades David Cassidy has been in the limelight, he has worked in television, theater and live concerts as a musician, actor, songwriter, singer, director and producer. That’s a lot of crossover. But when you’re the son of theatrical and TV royalty Jack Cassidy and Evelyn Ward you could say, “Well, kids, that’s showbiz!”
From the tender age of eight Cassidy started touring and performing in summer stock productions along with his parents, landing his first Broadway role before he was a teenager. Many of his fans literally grew up with him in the ‘70’s as the adorable heartthrob Keith from the long-running, now syndicated sitcom, The Partridge Family, where he and stepmother Shirley Jones were the only two cast members to actually sing on the show’s ten albums. With over 30 million records sold worldwide his career has taken him back to Broadway and on to Vegas, transcending his pop star status. Currently concerts take him on the road nearly 200 days a year, though he admits he’ll be cutting back on lengthy tours in future.
Cassidy and his five-piece band’s October 6th appearance at The Birchmere in Alexandria will be the last stop in the States on his eight-month tour before traveling to England where he will perform for over ten thousand people a night. I spoke to him by phone this week from his base in upstate New York.
Jordan Wright – How has the U.S. leg of your tour been?
David Cassidy – I’ve had the greatest summer I can remember. I’m with my band of eight years. The audiences have been great. I can’t explain it. I’ve never enjoyed playing as much and the momentum keeps growing.
JW – Are you looking forward to playing The Birchmere?
DC – The wonderful thing about The Birchmere is it is one of the most legendary places in the U.S. to play. It’s genuine and earthy. Some of the greats have played there. It reminds me of the Bottom Line in New York. There are virtually no other venues I play that are so intimate. The management and the backstage crew and the vibe are so great. It has that true blues, rock and roll sort of authenticity. My band [including guitarist Dave Robicheau of the The Monkees] said, “Let’s go back there!”
JW – How much of the show is new music?
DC – Virtually none. But I do songs that are a part of my journey. My fans come to hear the songs they love. I don’t do the same show every night. That’s not me. I like to interact with the audience and keep it spontaneous.
JW – Who are your musical influences now?
DC – The same that have been my influences before. I like John Mayer and Sting, as an incredible writer, bass player and singer. My earlier influences were Rogers and Hammerstein, Gershwin, Cole Porter, Bobby Darin. But when I became a teenager it was the Beatles. I remember the night I turned twelve was when I first heard them. The next day I bought an electric guitar. I knew from the time I was three I wanted to become an actor. I was in acting school in New York and my first professional job was on Broadway. I played blues in garage bands when I was younger and I loved B. B. King and Buffalo Springfield, who played at my high school. The Beach Boys were another favorite and I became good friends with Carl Wilson. Later Brian [Wilson] and I wrote a song together. I got to play with my musical heroes and became good friends with John Lennon and Yoko Ono. I played with him a few times when he was making the Rock ‘n’ Roll album in the 70’s. I think John and Paul were the greatest songwriting team ever. And Yoko has such an amazing soul.
JW – Your son, Beau, and daughter, Katie, are in show business. Do you support their showbiz careers?
DC – I do now. I didn’t support them earlier when her mom wanted her to be Brittany Spears. Now she’s done five TV series, Gossip Girl was one, and some films. I’m very proud of the work she’s done. My son has been studying at Michigan State, Boston University and NYU. He’s a very talented musician and songwriter in a band called The Fates. I heard their first few songs and the stuff is remarkable.
JW – Are you excited about your upcoming Lifetime Achievement Award at the Film, Recording & Entertainment Council’s Star Gala in November?
DC – I say this humorously and somewhat sarcastically. If you do enough work and stick around long enough and don’t give up, you pick yourself up a few times and then someone says, “What about this guy?” I’m very flattered by it. And because I’ve been accused of being a workaholic, I’ve finally backed off from working 52 weeks a year. I tell my kids and in talks at colleges and schools, it’s never been about the money, and I appreciate working so much more now. Because if you’re going to write and produce and direct with a lot of people with a lot of talent, it makes a difference if they have a strong investment in it.
JW – What’s next for you?
DC – I plan to do at least one more album. I have a concept that I have never fully explored that I’d like to work on. It’s not about the multi-platinum records anymore. Before I only focused on the end result – now I like to take my time.
This interview was conducted, condensed and edited by Jordan Wright.
David Cassidy performs one night only at The Birchmere on October 6th. For tickets visit www.ticketmaster.com. For venue information visit www.birchmere.com. The Birchmere is located at 3701 Mount Vernon Avenue, Alexandria VA 22305
Jordan Wright
November 17, 2017
Special to The Alexandria Times
Is there such a thing as a ‘tapa-palooza’? If no one’s yet invented this neologism, I offer it up as a descriptor for Signature’s shiny, splashy production of Ken Ludwig and Mike Ockrent’s musical comedy, Crazy for You. It’s the only way to explain the sensational tap extravaganza you’ll see from Director Matthew Gardiner and Choreographer Denis Jones.
 Ashley Spencer as Polly Baker, Danny Gardner as Bobby Child ~ Photo Credit – C. Stanley Photography Danny Gardner and Ashley Spencer play lead characters and love interests, Bobby and Polly, and they make the dance routines in LaLa Land look amateur. Think Fred Astaire and Eleanor Powell. Spencer is light as a feather and Gardner, who is equally as nimble, mirrors her moves with dazzling athleticism.
The storyline is basic. Banking scion Bobby Child wants to be on the stage, but his well-heeled mother, played to perfection by Sherri Edelen (who later appears as travel book author Patricia Fodor) wants none of it. The ever-versatile Natascia Diaz as Bobby’s demanding girlfriend, Irene, wants marriage – and pronto. But Bobby, ignoring their pleas, spends his time at the theater and its bevy of flashy, feathered, Follies girls presided over by Russian impresario Bela Zangler (Bobby Smith). There are too many funny bits to mention, but key in on Smith’s hilarious bottle opening bit played in tandem with Polly, and hayseed Pete’s erudite interpretation of famous playwrights. The silly one-liners and sight gags are sure to catch you off guard. They did me.
 Danny Gardner as Bobby Child, Sherri Edelen as Fodor Ashley Spencer as Polly Baker (these are the three people in the center), and the ensemble ~ Photo Credit – C. Stanley Photography Scenic Designer, Paul Tate dePoo III, gives us the look of New York’s Broadway by night – glamourous and glitzy, that is until Bobby’s mother sends him to Deadrock, Nevada to foreclose on an old family investment – a bankrupt theater where dePoo’s backdrop switches to Lank Hawkins’ (Cole Burden) saloon in a one-jalopy ghost town. There, way before Vegas was a thing, Bobby falls for the feisty postmistress Polly who keeps company with a motley crew of miners and cowboys. His plans to revive the theater and resurrect the town involve getting these drunken malingerers to dance and sing. No mean feat, but with Polly’s help, and the arrival of eight sexy chorines from New York, they do whip the Deadrock deadbeats into shape.
I found myself utterly rapt while mentally singing along to all eighteen Gershwin tunes – like “Bidin’ My Time”, “Someone To Watch Over Me”, “Slap That Bass”, “Embraceable You”, and “Nice Work If You Can Get It” conducted flawlessly by Jon Kalbfleisch’s 14-piece orchestra. But just watching these über-amazing performers dance their brains out whilst singing their lungs out was epic, especially in numbers that required complex props – farm tools and kitchen utensils to keep the beat – as in the mind-blowing number “I Got Rhythm” and the chain-rattling, floor-quaking, “Chin Up”, performed partly tabletop.
 Cole Burden as Lank Hawkins and Natascia Diaz as Irene Roth ~ Photo Credit – C. Stanley Photography Costumes by Tristan Raines run the gamut from 1930’s sparkly glam gowns, elegant black tie and frothy chorus girl costumes to dusty Western wear.
Highly recommended.
Through January 14, 2018 at Signature Theatre (Shirlington Village), 4200 Campbell Avenue, Arlington, VA 22206. For tickets and information call 703 820-9771 or visit www.sigtheatre.org.
Jordan Wright
November 16, 2017
Special to The Alexandria Times
 (L-R) Tim Rogan (Sid Sorokin) and Britney Coleman (Babe Williams) in The Pajama Game. Photo by Margot Schulman. A freshly minted production of Richard Adler and Jerry Ross’s musical, The Pajama Game, now on the Fichandler Stage, lightens the country’s mood considerably. This is not your grandmother’s version of the original 1954 classic. Director Alan Paul has condensed it for modern day audiences, but it is as fresh and applicable today as it was then. The story centers on two main characters, Babe Williams (the beautiful and talented Britney Coleman) and Sid Sorokin (Tim Rogan, a matinee idol-caliber, leading man if ever there was one). Their aims are different, their love story is not. Babe heads up the Union Grievance Committee at the Sleep-Tite Pajama Factory and Sid is the new superintendent in charge of maintaining order at the factory. Though they are operating at cross purposes under a curmudgeonly boss, Fred Hasler (played by the inimitable Ed Gero), that doesn’t put a stop to their love connection. Well, maybe a few near insurmountable crimps.
 (L-R) Paul Scanlan (Salesman), Edward Gero (Hasler) and Eddie Korbich (Hines) in The Pajama Game. Photo by Margot Schulman. In two sensational hours featuring some of the most memorable show tunes, Choreographer Parker Esse packs in a ton of dance on this reconfigured theater-in-the-round stage. It begins with an electrifying opening number, “Hurry Up”, that reflects the seamstresses’ battle for a seven-and-a-half cents’ raise and the pressure they’re under to stitch up pajamas at breakneck speed. Set Designer James Noone’s use of vintage sewing machine stations on wheels is an effective opening. Later his use of an old Coke machine, 50’s typewriters, avocado green office phones, a classic juke box and a sunshine yellow dinette set, contribute mightily to a sense of time and place.
 (L-R) Bridget Riley (Doris), Casey Wenger-Schulman (Carmen), Alexandra Frohlinger (Sandra), Nancy Anderson (Gladys), Gabi Stapula (Mae) and Heidi Kershaw Quick (Virginia) in The Pajama Game. Photo by Margot Schulman. Expect to hear favorite tunes like “There Once Was a Man”, “Slow Down” – a dance that alternates between slow motion and fast forward, cleverly performed with flying bolts of cloth and tape measures, “Hey There” – sung by Sid using an office playback machine, and “Hernando’s Hideaway” – a castanets plus jitterbug dance between Sid and the hilariously drunken Gladys (Nancy Anderson). Notable too is a duet with skirt chaser Prez (the captivatingly comic Blakely Slaybaugh) and the company’s bookkeeper Mae (the delicious Gabi Stapula) in a reprise of “Her Is”, and the factory timekeeper, Vernon Hines’ (Eddie Korbich) tap dance in “Think of the Time I Save” performed with the factory girls’ ensemble.
 (L-R) Eddie Korbich (Hines) and Donna McKechnie (Mabel) in The Pajama Game. Photo by Margot Schulman The outstanding 21-member cast includes Tony Award-winning actress, Donna McKechnie as Mabel, the boss’ secretary. Musical Director and Conductor, James Cunningham’s 12-piece orchestra, hidden beneath the stage, doubles and triples on a total of 24 instruments to give this memorable production the full complement of sound it deserves.
 Blakely Slaybaugh (Prez), Britney Coleman (Babe Williams) and cast of The Pajama Game. Photo by Margot Schulman. A big, fat, all-American hit! Highly recommended.
Through December 24th at Arena Stage, 1101 Sixth St., SE, Washington, DC 20024. For tickets and information call 202 488-3300 or visit www.ArenaStage.org.
|