LuPone, Patinkin, Cole Porter and ‘Moby Dick’

When you have a large performing arts
community, as we are fortunate to have
in Washington, diversity—and connections—
make themselves felt during the course of
a season.

To begin with, there’s “Moby-Dick,” Captain
Ahab’s hunt for the great white whale, Herman
Melville’s great American novel that has often
seemed almost operatic in its themes and symbolism.
And so it is as the Washington National Opera
brings us Jake Heggie’s opera “Moby-Dick.” With
Carl Tanner as Captain Ahab, evocative, powerful
sets by Robert Brill and directed by Leonard Foglia,
it’s the East Coast premiere of a production commissioned
by the Dallas Opera Company. Evan
Rogister conducts. At the Kennedy Center’s Opera
House, February 22, 25, 28, and March 2, 5 and 8.
American theater and music legends Mandy
Patinkin and Patti LuPone—aka Che Guevera
and Evita Peron—reunite since their spectacular
co-starring stint in Andrew Lloyd Weber’s 1980
rock opera, Evita. Both Patinkin and LuPone have
had spectacular Broadway careers buttressed by
appearances in television and films. Patinkin has
had three hit television series, including “Chicago
Hope” (doctor), “Criminal Minds” (FBI profiler)
and “Homeland” (CIA spy). “An Evening with Patti
Lapone and Mandy Patinkin” is at the Kennedy
Center’s Eisenhower Theater, February 18-23.
The theatrical and musical programing company,
In Series, presents “The Cole Porter Project: It’s All
Right With Me,” at the Source Theatre. The revue
celebrates the words and music of the American
master, February 22-March 9.

And there’s rock and roll on the horizon. The
national tour of “American Idiot,” featuring the
music of Green Day, with music and lyrics by lead
singer Billie Joe Armstrong and Michael Mayer,
comes to town next week. The show—a musical
about the search for meaning in a post 9/11 world by
three boyhood friends—runs at the National Theatre,
February 18-23.

And, as they say, now for something entirely
different….but then we’re talking about Woolly
Mammoth Theatre, where different is a matter
of course. This time it’s a play called, “We are
Proud to Present…” (Full title: “We are Pround to
Present a Presentation About the Herero of Namibia,
Formerly Known as South West Africa, From the
GermanSudwestAfrika, Between the Years 1884-
1915).

The play by Jackie Sibblies Drury is about a
company of idealistic actors, three black and three
white—who try to tell the story of a centuries-old
conflict in South West Africa, the extinction of the
small Herero tribe at the hands of German colonizers.
The story follows the actors and how their
own feelings about race in contemporary times
affects their work and the play they’re producing.
Directed by Michael John Garcés (who helmed
“The Convert” at the Woolly Mammoth last year).
“We are Proud….” runs through March 9