Mariupol in Dupont Underground: ‘The Trumpeter’
By • January 22, 2026 0 403
Starting tonight, Thursday, Jan. 22, a drama about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine will be staged in the 200-seat theater of Dupont Underground, the 10-year-old arts venue in the abandoned streetcar station beneath Dupont Circle.
Through Sunday, Feb. 1, Alliance for New Music-Theatre is presenting 11 performances of Ukrainian playwright Inna Goncharova’s “The Trumpeter,” directed by János Szász. Michael Kevin Darnall plays the title character, a musician whose call sign is Trumpeter, with Lise Bruneau — director of Taffety Punk’s recent “Cyrano” — in several other roles.
Lasting about an hour and a quarter, shows are at 8 p.m. on the two Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays and the one Monday, Jan. 26. There are also two Saturday matinees at 2 p.m. and two Sunday matinees at 3 p.m. Tickets, available at dupontunderground.org and newmusictheatre.org, are $40.
Dupont Underground’s stark subterranean space is made to order for “The Trumpeter,” which centers on “the last surviving member of a military band sheltering from Russian bombardment below the steelworks of Mariupol in 2022.” The play’s text, translated by British writer John Farndon, also includes poems by Peter Mironov. Music is provided by trumpeter Kevin McKee and a camouflage-clad vocal ensemble of Ukrainian men.
“We did not want to be just like tourists but [instead] bring the audience into an immersive experience of being in a war zone,” explains Szász. “We find ourselves in the dark and it is cold and a little uncomfortable. We hear rockets and sirens above, mixing with the sirens around Dupont Circle.
“But there are also moments of human connection and humor, and poetry. We have four Ukrainian male vocalists joining us on this journey, and their sound is very beautiful in this underground space.”
Last April, Dupont Underground hosted two staged readings of “The Trumpeter.” John Stoltenberg wrote in DC Theater Arts: “Together, Darnall and Bruneau startled with their vocalizing sound effects of combat and simmered with resilience and a shared soulfulness as the trumpeter’s tale unfolded.”
The play’s initial spark was “a message on social networks” that caught Goncharova’s eye: “everyone is fighting, including the musicians of the orchestra.” While the specific events that inspired the plot took place during the siege of Mariopol’s Azovstal Iron and Steel Works in eastern Ukraine, “similar events took place in Ukraine during the war on different parts of the front,” notes Goncharova.
“The performance is focused on the inner experiences of a person during the war, on the relationships of people who got into the war from different fields of activity (musician, lawyer, military), are of different nationalities (Ukrainians, Crimean Tatars, Poles, Jews), but they do one thing: protect homeland and their people.”
Also through Feb. 1 at Dupont Underground, with entrance stairs at 19 Dupont Circle NW, is “The Ukrainian Exhibition,” a display of photographs from United Help Ukraine and Ukraine House. Hours are Friday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., Saturday from 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Admission is $5.
Led by Artistic Director Susan Galbraith, Alliance for New Music-Theatre got its start in 1994, when five composers, five writers and five performers took part in a National Endowment for the Arts-funded workshop at Signature Theatre “to explore new collaborations and directions possible for music-theatre.” The D.C.-based group also presents a cabaret series at the Arts Club of Washington, 2017 I St. NW, next on Tuesday, Feb. 3, when Chilean-born bel canto baritone Javier Arrey will perform.
Szász, an accomplished director of Hungarian plays and films, directed a production of Tennessee Williams’s “A Streetcar Named Desire” at Arena Stage in 2001. In 2023, the year after he left Hungary to settle in the U.S., Szász joined the Georgetown Day School faculty and returned to Arena to direct “Millennium Approaches,” part one of Tony Kushner’s “Angels in America.” In that production, Darnall appeared as Louis (in some ways a stand-in for Kushner).
Under the banner “Drama in Your Face,” Dupont Underground’s spring theater series will continue with In Series’ “Passion Plays” festival of three world premieres (March 6 to 8, 13 to 15 and 20 to 22), the Streetcar Project’s bare-bones touring version of “A Streetcar Named Desire” (April 20 to May 4) and the Theatre Lab’s production of “Cabaret” (dates to be announced).
